Variety (December 1954)

Wednesday* December 22, 1954 HAMH-TELE VISION 27 INDIES’ ‘FINE & DANDY’ STATUS M & L Vs. Toast’ Bally Martin & Lewis, making their first appearance of the 1954-55 reason on Colgate’s “Comedy Hour” on Sunday (19), were ex- pected to but did not deliver a Trendex drubbing to Ed Sullivan’s ••Toa^t of the Town” on CBS. The comedy duo Tacked up a 32.4, less than three pegs ahead of the 29.9 for “Toast.’’ In the past, m&L have usually run roughshod over the Sullivan stanza, and since this was their season’s preem, an accent overwhelmingly in favor had been freely predicted in the trade. What happened was the dynamic “Toast” ballyhoo, some of it that passes for “showmanship” only if accuracy is overlooked. The week before, as a trailer for last Sunday’s program, "Toast” plugged high on the number of stars coming up—about 40— although when it came to a rundown of the names, it could identify less than a dozen that would fit in that lofty marquee class. On last Sunday’s paid advertising, there was a listing of the talent, top- billing those in a filmed comedy sequence (meaning the stars of “Not As a Stranger” as a sidebar with Sullivan celluloided on the Coast). The "film” value received very much of a play down in the ads, and what burned the opposition was that plus the fact that most of the program logs in newspapers failed to indicate that Hollywood names would be on film. The only live appearance on “Toast” were by Patti Page, Julius LaRosa, Mata and Hari and the Chordettes, femme four- some. Johnnie Ray was introduced as an audience spectator. The film figures were Olivia De Havilland, Robert Mitchum, Frank Sinatra, Gloria Grahame and Charles Bickford. Counting everyone, live and film, this added up to nine stars, inclusive of the grouped troupes such as the Chordettes. Also on film, however, was James Mason, presenting his Nativity production with an all-children’s cast. Onward & Upward With T to P’ Murrow Demonstrates How to Beat the 10:30 P.M. Time Rap Crashing of the Trendex Top 10 by CBS-TV’s “Person to Person" during the first week in December is attributable to a number of fac- tors of varying weight, but of spe- cial significance on the time and competitive facets. It marked the initial foray into the Trendex win- ning circle by the Ed Murrow-ring- mastered and Murrow-John Aaron- Jesse Zousmer-masterminded Fri- day nighter, which for the mea- sured period on Dec. 3 scored a 29.9 to emerge ninth, ahead of Rob Hope’s Tuesday show on NBC which brought up the Top 10 rear. That “P to P” managed to coup in its fringe, station option 10:30 time was a feat all by itself with incidentally, eight of Trendex’s 10- city spread covered in the report, excluded being Detroit and Cleve- land. (This wafc the week in which Jackie Gleason came out on No. 1 with 41.8; Columbia shows also drew the fifth through ninth posi- tions to make it six out of 10 over its NBC rival.) The NBC Gillette boxing bouts, long anchored at 10 o’clock, will normally show its heels to the Mur- low stanza when the fights spill over into the 10:30 niche, but (Continued on page 28) V«f Radio-TV Stripter Milt Josefsberg • humorously discourses on why bo's a Frustrated Author * * * an amusing bylint pitet in the forthcoming 491h Anniversary Number of IsfiniEfr DUE SOON GOTHAM STATIONS Buicks 2-Year $11,000,000 Deal Blanchard Stirs A Frisco Rumpus San Francisco. Dec. 21. Rod Blanchard, whose unpredic- table show geared to the younger set of space cadets grabbed him spreads in Time and Life and w hich was dropped two weeks ago by KCBS, kicked up a storm last 'veek in a joint letter to Frisco radio columnists which resulted in his being lopped off the KCBS payroll by veepee Arthur Hull Hayes for “rank insubordination.” Blanchard, f<Vlowing Variety’s original story of the dropping of his nightly KCBS show because 1 failed to make money, wrote f a( ’h of the local columnists ask- ing them not to print anything jin ther about him unless it came irom him directly as he was nego- tiating with NBC in Hollywood ‘V. u - tv , show - a kinescope of ' , h ha(1 already been shot and NBC r dea? UWiCity might queer the tft B J anch «r d asked the columnists Kruc P w hls letter confidential but a innir b ? SS Hayes apparently got evmna c °Py and the stove xploded. Blanchard was taken allhnnohPayroii as of right then, •‘though he was on his day off. iContinued on page 28) Axe Sammy Kaye In Brillo Buildup Of Rising Thesps Come what may, Thursday is J. Walter Thompson's night, and especially on ABC-TV. For the sec- ond time in as many weeks, the agency kept its billings at the web by filling in a new' program or sponsor when the old cancelled. Last week it was Ponds taking over the Kraft hour dramatics from 9:30 to 10:30. This week, Brillo is axing Sammy Kaye’s “So You Want to Lead a Band” at 9 o’clock but is holding onto the time and merely bringing in a new show. New segment is a half-hour live dramatic series titled “Star To- night,” and it starts in place of Kaye on Feb. 3. Series will build up young acting talent by using unknowns in the leads and back- ing them with established stars in lesser roles. Agency will produce the show', as it does the Kraft and Ponds segments. Kaye will have finished a 26-week stint for Brillo when he winds his series. ‘Sherlock’ Radio Series Sherlock Holmes will break out as a star-cast radio series on NBC beginning Jan. 2 in the 9 p.m. slot. Sunday series, limited to 16 stanzas, is via London's Harry Alan Towers, one of the top pro- ducers in Great Britain. Heading “Adventures of Sher- lock Holmes” will be John Gielgud as the sleuth, Sir Ralph Richard- son as Dr. Watson and Orson Welles as Professor Morlarty. HAPPY WITH BIZ Most of New York City’s inde- pendent radio stations appear to have made peace of some kind with video-engendered economic tensions and are now preparing to live comfortably but far less la- vishly than In the past. Though not many of the audio outlets in the world’s greatest tv market are run- ning at a profit yet, there was not a single one reporting in at year end which was not ahead in gross billings from 1953. Reason the ad- vances don’t necessarily mean money in the bank is because 1953 was a low year for the stations. The attitude of national adver- tisers to N. Y. radio seems at least equally responsible for the 1954 biz volume among indie operators as the latter’s intensified selling tactics. National spot coin has fallen off in radio throughout most of the rest of the country, but the swelling metropolitan area’s over- all 15,000,000 people shape, it seems, as sufficient incentive to have drawn the national bankroll- er’s dollar in heavier amounts than last year. Moreover, the large minority population of N. Y. is not rich enough at present to be counted as a strong factor in video so the specialized indies hold sway among the Madison Ave. numbers who wish to reach these foreign language audiences. As was noted earlier this year, the radio stations have been shav- ing operating costs as quietly as possible. Some of them, it would seem, are still looking to keep costs dow’n—even the stations rec- ognized as being better coin catchers. In past months, WMGM. the Loew station, lost high-priced managerial factotum Bert Lebhar. Under the new' management some of the more expensive program talent has been checked off also. However, th.it outlet, being ahead in gross billings, can with less ex- penses, account for a larger profit than in ’53. WNEW 24% Ahead Within this fortnight, the lead- ing indie WNEW lost two top dee- jays, one to a network o&io for more money and the other gabber just because better contract nego- tiations couldn’t be reached. Prior to the internal shifts—for the first 11 months of this semester—that station pulled 24% ahead qf the same preceding period. WNEW and WINS, incidentally, were the two N. Y. audio independents to change ownership hands during ’54. WINS’ spot biz is 37% over last year, with local up 15%, and it’s probably the only one to make any additional outlay in program- ming over the previous year and the previous ownership. Bob & Ray and Allen (Moondog) Freed were added. To show the impor- tance of nalional spot in jacking revenue at those three stations, WNEW does virtually all its bill- ing among national bankrollers. WMGM and WINS do better than half their biz in national spot. WQXR . (which increased its rate card in ’54) had an overall increase of 712%, bringing it to a new annual high in gross billings, according to a station spokesman. That money doesn’t all belong in the profit column though, because the N. Y. Times station is build- ing a 50,000-watt transmitter in a recently okayed power increase by (Continued on page 40) WNEW’* Incentive $$ If there’s a “never had it so good” atmosphere pervad- ing WNEW, the N. Y. indie, at .year’s end. it’s attributable in part to the stock incentive plan instigated by station's new’ owner, Dick Buckley, to solidify the status of key per- sonnel. Chief beneficiaries of the share - the - station - wealth are Bud Brandt, publicity chieftain; Bill Kallam, pro- gram head, and John Jaeger, asst, manager who has been with the station since its in- ception. For Gleason as Comic Hits Jackpot Stork Club ■onifaco ' Sherman Billingsley admits ha's a# showman, aa actor, no m.c., bat ha thlahs thara's practical showmanship appeal in The Art of Being Yourself * * * one of tha many hyllno places In the epcoming 49th Anniversary Number of DUE SOON Can. Parliament In a Tizzy Over Telecast Bid Ottawa, Dec. 17. Request by the Canadian Broad- casting Corp. that it be permitted to air the Jan. 7 opening of par- liament on television has tossed tradition-bound Parliament Hill into a minor tizzy. With few and infrequent exceptions, the regula- tion that bans cameras of any kind from House of Commons and the Senate has never been relaxed and the suggestion that CBC move I lights and cameras into the Sen- ] ate chambber to give citizens a look at the rites has resulted in ; heavy mulling and some contro- versy. Prime Minister St. Laurent re- 1 fused to comment, claiming the Commons was his domain and it was up to the Senate, since it w'as there the opening ceremonies take place. Senate authorities have been unusually quiet since the re- quest which is actually expected to be granted. Last year CBC video was al- lowed to cover the part of the for- malities that take place in the cor- ridors, but coverage stopped there. Only once (1949) were picture cameras allowed to record the event. National Film Board made a 20-minute special edition of its Eyewitness newsreel series, at that time only in non-theatrical distri- bution. Only still cameras allowed to photograph the opening have been NFB photographers and only once were they permitted to use 1 flashbulbs. Deal for Buick to take over sponsorship of Jackie Gleason in a filmed version of “The Honey* mooners” was consummated over the weekend, and Buick, in one of the biggest talent splurges in video annals, will shell out nearly' $11,000,000 for the privilege of sponsoring the comic for a two- year period. Of that $11,000,000 over $6,000,000 will be spent on 78 half-hour films, making them easily the most expensive vidpix yet produced. Many-sided sponsorship twist will open up a half-hour of the most valuable CBS-TV time, in the 8 to 9 Saturday night period. And despite Buick’s defection from Milton Berle and NBC-TV, the lat- ter web may yet find the switch a blessing in that by picking up a half-hour Gleason program Buick may be the means of breaking the CBS stranglehold on the entire hour. Buick. which negotiated the deaj via the Kudner agency, will shell out $60,000 apiece for the 39 half- hour films the first year, plus half that for each of the 13 repeats, and $70,000 apiece for the second year’s 39 pix, again paying half the origi- nal fee for reruns. Its time costs will run about $40,000 a week. In light of the fact that Gleason can turn out the pix for as low as $25,000 each, he stands to make a small mint. Added to this are the facts that he retains residual rights to the pix, a capital gains consideration, and finally that Music Corp. of America is negoti- ating a new and better deal with CBS for him, ail of which adds up to plenty of corn entering the Glea- son menage via the Gleason Enter- prises Inc. strongbox. With the dropping of his present hour-long variety-revue format, three bankroilers will go by the wayside. They are Nescafe. Schaef- fer Pen and Schick Razor, and none of them are reported exactly iiappy over the prospect. At the same time, it’s likely that they’ll have first call on the half-hour which will open either before or following Gleason in the fall, which would prove no mean ad- jacency. “Honeymooners” will re- tain Audrey Meadows and Art Carney, and will have guests as well. It’ll be shot in New York. Phil Silvers Still Sans Slot; ‘Kingfish’ (A&A) Pix Vs. Berle The Phil Silvers telepix series currently being ground out under CBS auspices is still without a defi- nite slot and it may take a can- cellation or two to fit the Gl-slant- ed show (“You’ll Never Get Rich”) into a major berth. With Red Skel- j ton pushed out of Tuesday at 8 opposite Milton Berle-Bob Hopc- 1 Martha Raye, Silvers appeared headed for that “graveyard” spot as the one “most likely to succeed if you can” against the NBC rotat- ing threesome. CBS now seems to have other ideas about who to send in as an “expendable" after the axed “Life With Father" had been skedded to -play out its cycle commitment for three weeks in the 8 p.m. niche. In a change of heart, CBS appears more interested in another film se- ries for 8 o’clock, starting promptly on Jan. 4. It’s called “Adventures of the Kingfish,” meaning an exten- sion of the “Amos ’n’ Andy” show that was incepted a few seasons ago on CBS and is currently riding un- der CBS Films Sales syndication. CBS-Columbia, sponsor of the "A Sc A” Sunday night show', will pick up the tab on “Kingfish.’ Bayuk Buys WW, Kayoes TV Bouts ABC-TV this week counted out its Saturday night boxing show', with the last fight telecast slated for Jan. 15. Cancellation is a direct result of the switch of Bayuk Cigars to alternate-week sponsor- ship of Walter Winchell’s Sunday simulcast on the same web. Instead of the fights, the W'eb will air its first hillbilly tv’er, “Ozark Jubi- lee.” a full-hour stanza originating from Springfield, Mo. Bayuk will start as alternator to American Safety Razor on the Winchell segment Feb. 9. Switch in programs came coincidentally with the move of the cigar com- pany’s billings from Ellington to D’Arcy agency. Bayuk. of course, replaces Gruen on the Winchell segment, with the latter bowing out of its longtime sponsorship be- cause of a general advertising cut- back. With the heavv coin involved in the Winchell sponsorship, Bayuk decided to drop the fights. ABC, refusing to sustain the bouts; has dropped them alto- gether and will air the hillbilly segment, which has had exposure on the radio side. Web is running into a few engineerng difficulties on the remote, but expects to solve them in time for the Jan. 22 preem. Dropping of the bouts, incidental- ly, all but puts Ray Arcel out of business as a tv fight promoter. Arcel was the object of a slugging in Boston about a year ago which was attributed to his success in in- dependent fight promotion, but it hook a sponsor’s slash to get him oft the air.