Variety (December 1954)

34 RADIO-TELEVISION Wednesday, December 8, 1954 a Radio Reviews MARTHA WRIGHT SHOW W'ith Hal Hastings Director: Walter Cheetam 30 Mins.; Mon.-thru-Fri., 9:30 a.m. Participating WCBS. N. Y. Martha Wright, who’s about to close out on her Sunday night show for Packard on ABC-TV, has now moved into a WCBS slot as a replacement for the ailing Joan Edwards and should cut herse.f a solid niche as an early morning personality. Miss Wright is bright and personable and handles her lines with a flip but not-too-flip manner. This is basically a disk jockey stanza with Miss Wright up as gab- ber plus occasionally doing a song on her own with Hal Hastings ac- comping on the piano. On a show last week, the disks were of bestseller calibre, including tunes by Eddie Fisher. Kitty Kallen, Don Cornell and Leroy Anderson's | orch. Miss Wright contributed a i snappy version of "Mr. Sandman” ; and also handled the intros to the various plugs with an adept cueing into the transcriptions. Herm. \ TRANK SHARP SINGS 15 Mins.; Sun., 10:30 p.m. Sustaining WTRY, Troy * One of the few area radio pro- grams featuring live music, this Sunday nighter presents bass-bari- i tone Frank Sharp in standard numbers, with Mrs. Hilda Golden j as accompanist. He has a resonant, ! well trained voice, nicely handled, j Sharp might be personalized ] through brief chatter with the ' announcer, or via introduction of i a number. Present format is a j bit stiff. Mrs. Golden accompanies competently. Paul Flanagan announced one origination alert in sure fashion. Jaco. BILL RANDLE SHOW Producer: Randle Director: Ka-liy Revner 305 Mins, Sat., 2:05 p.m. WCBS. New York For the second time this season, j a New York station has brushed off i the homegrown deejay product for a Cleveland platter spinner. WINS, Gotham indie, reached into the Cleveland territory last September to woo Allan Freed (ex-“Moon- dog”) from WJW for a permanent slot in its deejay stable. Now WCBS, Columbia's key, has tapped WERE's Bill Handle for a weekly Saturday afternoon series. He’ll continue, however, with his regular WERE chores. Randle is a potent platter man in his own backyard but it’s doubt- ful if this oncc-a-weekcr will give him ample opportunity to make a similar dent. He's a hep disk- spieler and can stand up among New York's best, but the Block, Marshall, Lacy listening habit is a tough hurdle to beat. Some solid promotion by WCBS directed at the kidialers may do the trick. Randle has a long day ahead of him every Saturday. He’s on for a total of 205 minutes but manages to pace it nicely with expertly in- tegrated platter and chatter. He gets a little dogmatic over his “picks”; still, it’s the kind of en- thusiam that could help the disk on the retail level. He also supplies the kind of inside stuff about the music and disk biz that appeals to the fans. Stanza is broken up on the hour for a five-minute session with the WCBS newscaster. Gros. Code Board Continued from page 27 tions. Its statement has been sub- mitted to the Senate Subcommit- tee which attacked the violence in some of the films shown to juve audience on tv. Report said in part: ‘‘The Television Code Review Board acknowledges the serious- ness of the Subcommittee’s inquiry and commends the thoroughness and care with which it is being conducted. The board reiterates the determination of the nation's television broadcasters to give full cooperation to such Congressional investigations. “The Code Review Board has ! reached the following conclusions: “That despite the fact that some of the films (the five pictures viewed) were the subject of con- siderable editing by the stations, both for the purpose .of timing and deletion of objectionable content, the Television Code Board ex- presses doubt as to whether por- tions of certain of the films are j wholly within the spirit of the Code. "That some instances of exces- sive violence were noted. "That all of the films under re- , view were produced originally for theatre display, not for television presentation. “Four of the five films reviewed were approved for theatre presen- tation by the National Board of j Review of the Motion Picture In- j dustry. The fifth, a British im- ■ port, was approved by the motion picture review board of that coun- try. “Thus, it is felt that previous ! clearance by such theatre review j boards did not take into considera- tion the intimate viewing by fam- ily groups as provided by televi- sion. Such action does not neces- sarily provide proper clearaftee for television.” Crime Airers ‘Narcotics’? Hartford, Dec. 7. Louis A. Johnson, Secretary of j Defense during 1949 and 1950, last Friday (3) classed radio and tv j SUPER POWER NBC CBS' DUMON1 WGAITV LANCASTER, PENNSYLVANIA j - 316,000 WATTSJ Covers a vast, prosperous territory—a rich target for your advertising dollar Steinman Station Clair McCollough, President crime programs with narcotic drugs in a lecture before 600 in- surance and business leaders here. Now a lawyer in Washington, Johnson said the ‘‘crime programs undermine the true values of life and create, for the Impressionable child mind, a world of evil dreams where cruelty and violence reign supreme.” Johnson said the so-called “radio . and tv crime programs are not so ‘ base and degrading as the horror j books.” FGC Stay Continued from page 27 ____ away; and statiQn KTRM. Last of these has as a leading stockholder, W. P. Hobby, of Houston, former Governor of Texas, publisher of the Houston Post, owner of radio and television stations in Houston, and husband of Mrs. Oveta Culp Hobby, Secretary of Health, Education am* Welfare in the Eisenhower Cabinet. The hearing examiner recom- mended KTRM for the tv channel but the FCC, by a 4-3 decision last Aug. 6. ignored this recommenda- tion and selected Beaumont Broad- casting. It felt there was an over- lap of service between Houston and Beaumont and that the Hobby newspaper interests would help to provide too great a concentration of power. Applicants in Tampa included | the Tampa Times, which also has a ; radio station there: Orange Tele- vision Broadcasting Co., among whose stockholders are Mitchell Wolfson and Sidney Meyer, owners of a large theatre chain and broad- cast stations in Florida, and Tampa Television Co., which has a small radio station there, and whose president is Doyle E. Carlton, for- mer Governor of Florida. The Commission examiner rec- ommended that the grant go to the Tampa Times. On Sept. 3 last, the FCC. by a 4-0 decision, overturned 1 its examiner and gave the channer to Tampa TV in the interest of “diversification of the media of mass communication.” | ————■s —■—— | ‘Olive Branch' Continued from pane 26 not even the top Big 10 team or the hottest Coast club would have ! the national sponsorship appeal of ! a Notre Dame. And a Notre Dame j game piped into the home areas ! of practically any team in the coun- j try would have its impact on the | gale. Network Angle Aside from the NCAA’s own in- ter-family conflicts, there’s also the matter of the tv network’s rela- tionship with the traditional game of the week package. It goes with- out saying that ABC-TV, for ex- ample, has learned its lesson to the tune of a reported-$2,200,000 loss on the year’s schedule. And NBC- TV, which carried the college games the two years previous, won no friends among the NCAA’ers with its introduction of the com- peting Saturday afternoon Cana- dian pro games. Committee chairman Harvey Cassill took pains to point out that it was the networks and not the NCAA that set the price on the ! games, the inference being that ' if the package was overpriced it : was the’webs’ doing. This points to the possibility that if the college majordomos continue with the single national game policy next year, the potential advertisers and their agency reps may set the price, since it’s considered unlikely the networks can again be maneu- vered into competitive bidding. Libby’s ‘About Baby’ Buy Cues WABD Reshuffle Additional Thursday network buy of “All About Baby” by Libby Baby Foods forced WABD, N. Y., to revamp its 2 to 3 p.m. sked. The DuMont quarter-hour stanza, on Friday as well, would have cut too heavily into the commercially strong “Letter to Lee Graham,” so that show changed places with “Journey Through Life.’’ “Journey” shifts to 2 pm. on WABD, with “Baby” taking over the first 15-minute segment of that half hour program on Thursdays and Fridays. “Letter” is left in- tact as a half-hour strip at 230. Hartford—Norman L. Cloutier, radio-tv arranger, conductor and composer, has been named a fac- ulty member at Hartt College of Music here. 1 Inside Stuff—Radio-TV Canada’s annual football classic, the Grey Cup Game, got the widest tele and radio coverage in its history. Played in Toronto’s Varsity Stadium Nov. 27. game was carried on 92 video stations in Canada and the United States and 75 Canadian radio stations. Canadian Broad- casting Corp. handled both tv and radio, the video airing sponsored by Northern Electric. Commentary was handled by four CBC staffers from cities not represented on the field. CBC guessed that 80% of Canada’s 900,000 tv sets were tuned to the airing. In the United States, 70 tv stations carried the game from NBC against heavy opposition from the Army-Navy game airing. Windsor. Ont., and Vancouver. B.C., still to get on CBC’s web, took the NBC coverage which used CBC visuals and its own narration. Stations not on CBC’s microwave web got telefilmed coverage, stations in Edmonton and Winnipeg receiving the films by Royal Canadian Air Force Sabre jets. Three new video stations (Sault Ste. Marie. Ont.; Rimouski, Que.; Moncton. N.B.) not yet working fulltime, opened special schedules to carry the game. National Assn, for Better Radio & Television, the organization which stirred up a hornet’s nest over violence on tv, took time out from the critical aspects of its work to present the second annual Lee DeForest award to Harvey S. Firestone Jr. as the individual responsible for the most outstanding contribution to the cultural development of radio and television this year. Award was made for Firestone's personal interest and contributions toward the “Voice of Firestone” simulcast on NBC and latterly ABC. Award, presented at a luncheon at the Savoy Plaza in N.Y. by Prof. Charles A. Siepmann, a member of the NAFBRAT board and chairman of the department of communications at NYU, made special mention of Firestone’s effort to keep the show in its long-established Monday-at-8:30 time period despite the switch in networks. Mickey Ross is not the director of the Sid Caesar show on NBC-TV but is the editorial consultant. Direction remains in the hands of Clark Jones, with Leo Morgan the producer. Erratum apparently resulted from “mixed signals” attendant upon the program’s return to a revue format. According to a spokesman for the show, there are no technical changes in the lop spots. “Melody” (Mrs. Mildred B.) Miller, Cleveland-Miami Beach socialitc- artist-composer, paid off a secret but longstanding debt of personal gratitude when she played hostess to the entire cast of CBS Radio's “Romance of Helen Trent” soaper to honor its star. Julie Stevens, at a luncheon-musieale in her N.Y. apartment Friday (3>. In 1941—while hospitalized for eye treatments that failed to restore her sight— “Melody” was first attracted to the radio voice of Miss Stevens and became an avid fan of hers down through the years. “Background.” the NBC-TV “news-in-depth” segment, will devote next Sunday’s (12) show to a study of the John Paton Davies dismissal, thus demonstrating a rare bit of unanimity with its CBS confreres. Big Senate debate between Sen. Herbert H. Lehman (D., N.Y.) and Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R., Wis.) raged a couple of w r eeks ago when Sen. Lehman asked to have the text of a broadcast on the Davies dismissal inserted in the Congressional Record and Sen. McCarthy at first re- fused. then allowed it to be inserted. Broadcast was (hat of CBS Washington news topper Eric Sevareid, who attacked the dismissal. “Background” study, which will include a filmed interview with Davies and his wife, is also expected to shed new light on the ex-diplomat. CBS-TV programming veep Hubbell Robinson Jr., puts up a spirited defense of today's television in the January issue of Esquire. Piece, titled “Television Faces Life—Distilling Hope and Happiness into the Cathode Tube,” hits out at the "damners and deriders” of video and covers the gamut of production, programming, sponsorship aad criti- cism. and concludes with the observation that television has “done pretty well, but obviously, pretty well is not good enough.’’ He ex- presses the belief that the industry has the “resolution” to make American television “a sight to delight the American eye and heart and mind.” Couple of Interesting trade sidelights to the piece. For one thing, Robinson isn’t identified, either in the captions or in the story, as the programs overseer at CBS. For another, he gives due credit for NBC programs, though the larder of listings is slightly weighted toward the CBS side. » Mutual’s Nov. in Seesaw; Essocast Vice Manville, Kraft in for Johnson It’s been a seesaw November for Mutual, with three major clients ankling the radio web and two other big ones signing to come on shortly. It’s understood that the latest pactee Is Esso, to replace Johns-Manville on the 9 p.m. cap- sule strip. Plus losing J-M, Mutual had Johnson Wax slip away on a total of 25 five-minute news pro- grams weekly. However, Kraft, handled by the same agency, Need- ham, Louis & Brorby, has signed to replace the waxery. The only loss that hasn’t been recouped was the $1,250,000 annually that the AFL is shortly moving to ABC. With the Manville loss, com- mentator Bill Henry’s future is in question. It’s said he’s considering retiring from radio and tv entirely, in which case a new voice will have to be inked for the five-minute Essocast. Mutual has added other business in the past several weeks. First National Biscuit inked for “Rin Tin Tin” in a Sabbath half hour. On the religioso side, Billy Graham and “Herald of Healing” were pact- ed as weekly half-hour casings. American Home Products signed for three days of the Gabriel Heat- ter quarter-hour strip. Latter biz replaced some lost a few weeks earlier. Incidentally, Mutual's 14-man af- filiate committee will powow to- morrow iThurs.) and Friday with net execs at Boca Raton. TEXACO STAR THEATRE SATURDAY NIGHT—N.B.C. Mgt.i William Morris Agency TOMMY LYMAN HELD OVER at the Fashionable 5th flVE. HOTEL 24 Fifth Avenu* Special Material by MILT FRANCIS SPECIAL WEEKLY FROM $19.00 TRANSIENT ROOMS ALSO AVAILABLE HOTEL A KNOTT MOTEL Ralph Hamrick, Mgr. • New York City