Variety (February 1955)

80 RADIO-TELEVISION ^ edn«Mlay, February 2, 1955 "Third of a Nation Adopted by Radio In New Power Play on FDR Concept When Franklin D. Roosevelt de-4 veloped his “third of a nation” theme, he intended it to convey the downbeat economic status of that segment of the U. S. population. Updated to read approximately 56.000,000 persons, the figure can bo stretched to mean several dif- ferent things as far as network radio listenership is concerned. Ac- cording to the NBC-Starch survey announced last week, roughly that many persons listened to radio “last night” (meaning almost any night in the prime hours). But this isn't FDR's piece of pie, since NBC observes in its “Validation” section of the survey that "evening radio listeners are not simply paupers, ‘white trash,’ shut-ins or people who have no more wants.” Coincidentally, John Karol’s lec- ture stances around the country in- clude the 56,000.000 figure, but it has no direct relationship to the NBC theme. Karol, network sales v.p. of CBS Radio, makes this pitch: “On a Monday-to-Friday daytime or evening basis, network radio delivers enormous audiences each week. For example, a run-of-the- mill five-a-week daytime program on a nationwide network (wonder which one? i reaches 6.123,000 dif- ferent listeners, and a total of about 14,000,000 listeners during the week. During a four-week span, this same program reaches over 10.000.000 different listeners and over 56,000,000 total listeners.” Under this pitch, Karol wonders why radio hasn’t been getting the share of billing that its qualifica- tions indicate and attempts to give the answer. It’s this: “This is partly due to a feeling on the part of some advertisers and agencies that radio just isn’t so- cially correct since television came on the scene. This is a frame of mind or fear that time is correct- ing. A far more dangerous point of view about radio has to do not with the facts but rather with the way some agencies and clients are reporting the facts.” Karol’s example of “unreason- able” reporting of facts: “If I tell you I know a man who just lost $25,000,000, you would think that here is a fellow who has .indeed lost his shirt. But if I tell you that I know a man whose for- 1 tune has . been reduced from $100,000,000 to $75,000,000, your thought—and rightly so—is on the fact that he still has the $75,000,- 000. Now it’s perfectly true that in the past six years radio has lost_ audience. But it is just as true* that radio still has an enormous audience.” AM-TV Dialing Among Teenagers Sid Ascher’s Teenage Survey Service has come up with some in- teresting figures on radio-tv dial- ing among 17.792 highschool teen- agers. Radio summary: 17.763 have radios: 8.651 have more than one set: 563 listen less than an hour a day; 3,412 dial in from one to two hours; 11.300 from two to three hours, and 2,847 more than three hours daily. Television synopsis: Of 17,763 questioned. 6,970 have telesets; 186 rarely tune in; 816 tune in up to an hour a day; 4.735 from one to two hours; 1,084 from two to three hours, and 149 more than three hours daily. Many expressed a desire for pro- grams slanted to them. They re- sent “brain wash” programs sup- posedly for teenagers (with ex- amples given*. They don’t want programs "written down” to them, but by the same token they want shows devised for them. Survey covered about 30 of the largest cities. TV Stars Push Coast Auto Show to Top Gross Hollywood, Feb. 1. Appearance of telestars brought in the highest paid admish in his- tory of the L. A. Auto Show here, when 32,317 persons paid $1 plus tax one night at the Pan Pacific, crowing in to see a show toplined by Lawrence Welk and his orch, Danny Thomas. WTliam Lundigan, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, James Dunne and Bill Bishop. They are sponsored on video by Chrysler, and it was Chrysler night at the show. Figure is three times higher than that recorded for any single night last year. John Gaunt produced the 45-minute show. Toy CouncO’s AM-TV Campaign The Toy Guidance Council has made plans for a radio-tv cam- paign this year that looks to ex- ceed the $509,000 spent by the or- ganization for pre-Xmas ’54. Last year the org bought into estab- lished half-hour juve shows in over 40 video markets through agency Friend-Reiss, but plans have been changed drastically for ’55: for the upcoming Xmas selling season, TGC will shoot a series of 13-min- ute vidfilm shows plus tape a 15- minute completely separate radio skein. Coin for the intense radio-tv campaign comes from the overall advertising - promotion - publicity budget of $1,500,000. an increase of $200,000 over '54. Distribution on both the vidfilm and audio pack- ages will be handled through the agency. Several toy manufacturers and several hundred merchandisers would not disclose the specific dis- tribution plans on the two series but said that greater coverage (based on the number of subscribing merchandisers) is expected (and therefore the budget for radio-tv “would increase proportionately"). ABC-TV’s Closed-CircTIIr Dept, as a Sales Hypo ABC-TV last week pointed up the jguickly-mushroomirfg field 0 f closed-circuit television for busi- ness clients by setting up a closed- circuit department of its own. New' setup, which will handle sales of closed-circuit shows, production, programming and every facet of the business but booking theatres and auditoriums for the sessions, will be headed by Bill Balaban. who moves over from the wwb’s New York flag. WABC-TV, where he was assistant program director. CBS Names Eliasberg For Research Projects CBS-TV has created the post of research projects supervisor under research director Oscar Katz and brought Jay Eliasberg back to the web to head it. He will serve as overall coordinator and supervisor of major surveys and analyses. Eliasberg left CBS six years ago to engage in research and related spheres in the ad agency field, in- cluding posts with Kenyon & Eck- hardt and Foote, Cone & Belding, and latterly with ABC Radio, his most recent position. Flynn’s ‘March or Die’ As 1st CBS Film Series To Be Produced Abroad CBS Television Film Sales goes into its first foreign production deal, an “adult" Foreign Legion series starring Errol Flynn titled “March or Die.” Film Sales is financing and will distribute the series, to be produced in Britain and French Morocco by the Jersey Corp., a new corporation headed by telepix producer Tony Bartley and his wife, Deborah Kerr. Bartley leaves for London tomor- row (Thurs.) to set up production with Aubrey Baring, a British film- maker who’s in on the deal, with the first 26 to roll about Feb. 14. Series stars Flynn as narrator, tell- ing stories of why men joined the Legion, etc. First teleplay in the series was scripted by Paul Mo- nash. 30-Year Zenith Stripes For Robertson, Kaplan Chicago. Feb. 1. Zenith RadiS prexy Eugene F. McDonald Jr., presented special 30-year service awards to exec veepee Hugh Robertson and vee- pee-treasurer Sam Kaplan, both up-through-the-r a n k s executives. Robertson joined Zenith as office manager in 1924 and worked up to the exec v.p. post 10 years later. Kaplan started working in the company’s mail room right after graduating from high school in 1923. While working in the ac- counting department, he earned his degree from the Northwestern U. night school. He was made a v.p. in 1948 and became treasurer in 1952. HAPPY CHIRPING FOR 'BIRDS' r j Dallas^ Feb. 1. WFAA’s “Early Birds,” world’s oldest live breakfast airer, doubled its air time yesterday (Mon.) and now' has a 120-minute showcasing six ayems weekly, 6-8:30 a. m. Show debuted in March, 1930, and has run continuously Monday through Saturday, on WFAA-820, 7:15-8:30 a. m., with a quarter- hour news break. For the past 18 months there has been a Sunday 45-minute transcribed “Birds” air- ing, which continues. This week, in advance of its soon due 25th anni, live show added the extra hour, 6-7 a. m., on WFAA-570, com- panion station here. WXIX’s 'Little Germany » Milwaukee, Feb. 1. Milwaukee Isn’t “the best beer town In the country” by coin- cidence. It’s the German-born and Germap extraction popula- tion that rides the lager graphs way up to the stratosphere, not to mention the addition of the homegrown non-Teutonic Americans who are not averse to quaffing the stuff^to the point where one suds outfit (Schlitz, of course) made national capital out of “the beer that made Milwaukee famous.” When CBS-TV bought WOKY-TV (changing the letters to WXIX to dovetail with the Roman numerals for channel 19), it began stocking the station with staffers from New York, Los Angeles elsewhere, with a good many of them bearing “Fritz” names. The web sent in such last-namers as John Lathrop Viemeister, newly ordained business manager; Arthur F. Schoenfuss, direc- tor of operations; By Colvig (when he writes a feature piece, it goes under the Gertrude Stein-ish byline of By By Colvig), who’s the new promotion and publicity chieftain; and, as the latest appointment, Robert Heuberger, the chief engineer (he’s been supervisor of technical operations) in Gotham. Others tapped by Columbia for Milwaukee (with or without German connotations) are Leon Drew, program director, from KNXT, Hollywood, and Theodore Shaker, general sales manager, from CBS-TV spot sales in N. Y. The new general manager js Edmund C. Bunker. State Laws—Plus Television—Cloud ’56 Looks Like Atlantic City Is Under-Equipped for Republicans, Democrats ARF Survey on Ratings Up for Chi Discussion Chicago, Feb. 1. Dr. E. L. Deckinger, Biow agency’s research veepee, has been set as the featured speaker at the initial luncheon meeting Feb. 23 of the Broadcast Advertising Club. Deckinger's topic will be the first public exposition of the contro- versial Advertising Research Foun- dation report on radio-tv rating services. Newly organized club, comprised of Windy City radio-tv and adver- tising execs, was formed through the merger of the Television Coun- cil and the Radio Management Club. Television ? s Empire Builders Kansas City—Edith Sacco has a pp o‘ n (cd chief at Station £ 11 * succeeds Florence tyhel, who joins continuity de- partment of the R. J Potts-Calkins ii Holden, Inc., ad agency. Washington, Feb. 1. The age of the broadcasting em- pire builder is at hand. Television has given him the impetus to spread out. More and more oper- ators are shooting for the limit on station ownership. Despite the high investment needed for getting into the field, the proportion of multi- ple owners in tv is far greater than in radio. A study of FCC records reveals that more than one-third of the tv stations on the air are owned or controlled by multiple license hold- ers. There is, in addition, a sizable number of companies or individuals with minority interests in two or more stations. The trend toward group owner- ship in television has been stepped up in recent months by expansion of such stalwarts as Westinghouse, Storer and Hearst. These three have laid out over $20,000,000 to increase their holdings. This group alone 'assuming FCC okay of the Hearst channel 12 purchase in Mil- waukee) has a total of 13 stations worth perhaps $65,000,000. There are other tv empires, es- tablished or in process, among them Crosley with four valuable properties. General Teleradio with five, Meredith Publishing with four, Time-Life with two and a half, Scripps-Howard with three, the Gannett newspapers with three, Donald W. Reynolds newspapers with three, the Samuel I. New’house newspapers with two and a half, the John T. Griffin group with three, and the Steinman newspapers with three (including WDEL-TV in Wil- mington, Del., just sold). Nor do these include the net- works with their 16 owned and operated stations. Only DuMont, among the webs, has reduced its holdings 'through sale of its Pitts- burgh outlet to Westinghouse). NBC and CBS are in the process of expanding to reach the “five plus two” limit and ABC may do likewise. DuMont’s only indication of going after more stations is its participation in the contest for channel 5 in Boston. The multiple owners are most- ly in the two-station class and quite a few of them are newspapers. They include John E. Fetzer, Cen- tral Broadcasting Co., the Cox newspapers, the Washington Post, CBS Rolls Pilot On ‘Navy Log Pix Pilot film of “Navy Log.” which CBS Television Film Sales will finance and distribute, goes into production Feb. 15 with location shooting by the Navy at Key West. Pilot" w illTfe'produced OTTThe coast by Joel Malone, who turns out “The Whistler” for Film Sales, with package-owner Sam Gallu as exec- producer and Bud Andrews as director. Initialler in the series is about the Navy frogmen, and the Navy is sending a five-man camera team, along with a Snorkel submarine, to Key West to shoot underwater se- quences. Other location and studio shooting will be done on the Coast. Only permanent mem- ber of the cast, the narrator, hasn’t been set yet. but Film Sales v.p. is talking to Arthur Godfrey about doing it. Washington, Feb. 1. The Republican National Com- mittee meets Feb. 17 to select a city for the 1956 G.O.P. Qonven- tion, with the choice expected to be made between Chicago and Philadelphia. Although Atlantic City is also in the runnning, its lack of facili- ties for the networks to pipe out television coverage of the sessions appears to eliminate the seashore resort town which, otherwise, would be ideally suited as a con- vention site. The broadcasters have made clear they would be unable to provide proper video coverage from Atlantic City. The Democratic National Con- vention is expected, as usual, to be set in the same city as the Re- publican conclave. The broadcast- ers pointed out that the cost would be prohibitive, if they had to set up radio and television fa- cilities in two different cities. However, there is considerable of a problem in the Democratic ( announcement that its convention w ould be at the end of August, with the Republicans following in mid- September. This would require a change in the election laws of some states which now provide that names of candidates must be certified at least 60 days before date of election. It will also.pose a headache for the networks, both radio and tv. The old custom of having the conventions at the end of June and early in July med’ns that, gener- ally speaking, mostly summer re- placement shows must be knocked off the air. However, a mid-Sep- tember convention means the web* will have to pre-empt the more ex- pensive, sponsored fall shows. R i d d e r Publications, Jefferson Standard Life Insurance Co., the Chicago Tribune and New York Daily News < McCormick), the San Francisco Chronicle, Cincinnati Times-Star (Taft family), the Harry M. Bitner family, the John J. Louis family. Jamestown Broadcasting Co. 'John Boler*, and R. H. Drewry and associates. On the whole, the empires in tv have been built by those with broadcasting knowhow, as witness Storer, Westinghouse and Crosley. In the early post-freeze days, many newcomers planned to enter the field, some with the full limit of stations. Multiple applications were filed by wealthy oil men, theatre operators, manufacturers, actors (Including Bing Crosby and Mary Pickford*, labor unions, and engi- neers. Most of those who filed for VHF channels dropped out when they found they’d have to go throi^h hearings. A few merged their ap- plications with competing appli- cants. Some of the applicants for ; UHF channels got permits but only a few went through with construc- tion. TvB Taps Nelson As Natl Spot Chief The new Television Advertising Bureau pencilled Raymond E. Nel- son, ex-ad agency chieftain, as it* director of national spot sales. Si- multaneously, the sales promotion org for video announced that Blair TV had become the first station rep outfit to join. * Appointment of Nelson, who sus- pended his Keystone Advertising Agency as well as Nelson Produc- tions, to take up the TvB post, was in part at least an effort to satisfy members of the Station Represen- tatives Assn., who drumbeated last summer for the original- tv industry sales promotion group, which was to be without network ties. (The “no network” agency was intended to avoid what SRAers then felt was a weakness in TvB’s radio counter- part, Broadcast Advertising Bu- reau, in not paying special atten- tion to the needs of spot.) How- ever, NARTB stepped in. and TvB was finally conceived as an “all-in- dustry” group, with a stipulation in the original org precepts allowing for station rep membership. Ollie Treyzs, TvB prexy, pointed out that national spot tv was only 4 % of the national ad dollar. He said Nelson’s job w ill be'to “lift the tv national spot expenditures above the $190,000,000 1954 level.”