Variety (February 1956)

W^dneqday, February 8, 1956 J^SSmfr TV-FILMIS 31 ‘YARDSTICK’ FOR FILMBUYING Who Owns What? ..Questions of ownership of feature films and short subjects be¬ ing unloaded on the television market by Hollywood’s major studios is a- poser ^ that’s assuming mounting importance in the light of acquisitions.of major product by telefilm distribs. It’s re¬ ported that in many cases the studios don’t own all the rights to all the pix they're selling to tv; moreover, they are not indemni¬ fying the tv distribs. on the matter of rights ownership. There are said to be cases where the studios are turning over to video features and shorts to which they merely have theatrical distribution rights; they don’t own the negatives. These are cases where the film was made as an indie production or a coproduction with the major releasing the pix under a seven-year distribution deal or less, with ownership still residing with the producer. Fact that on two recent major deals, no indemnification as to rights was given the tv distrib by the studios involved point up the rati¬ fications of the problem. Nor is it producers alone who are in¬ volved: Variety recently received a letter from a playwright who claimed that he still owned television rights to a recently-released- to-ty feature which had been adapted from, his legiter of many years back. ■ Producer-Director Says Major Can Be As Powerful As They Want in TV Hollywood, Feb. 7. Major film studios that went into telepix production this season underestimated tv initially, .but they are revising their entire ap¬ proach to tv and “will be as pow¬ erful as they want to be in tv,” Herbert Bayard Swope Jr., vet tv director-producer said here. Swope, now under contract to 20th-Fox as • a producer-director, said he feels the majors have over¬ looked what may well be their forte in tv—the filming of hour- long, 90-minute and two-hour spex. “They can do many things in this field, far more than the indies, and it would be much easier for a major to make occasional so-called ‘super-spectacular,’ which approxi¬ mates the length of a feature film,” he said. “A half-way approach to tv is a mistake, but as the majors go more and more into tv, they will attain an enormously high stand¬ ard,” predicted Swope. The producer-director opined it might be wise for the majors to sign more creative talent from tv, saying “that’s just as logical as my signing Dick Carr, a tv writer, to screenplay ‘The Cheese Stands Alone,’ a story about television. He said, too, that the telefilm- eries have overlooked a wealth of acting talent in tv, particularly from the live tv field in N. Y. “There is a tendency in tv films to use semi-movie names instead of drawing on the pool of actors in live tv, when from which came such actors as Eva Marie Saint, for example,” said Swope, now producing “Hilda Crane,” starring Jean Simmons and Guy Madison. Brit. Skirmish On U.S. Telepix Import London, Feb. 7. The Chancellor of the Ex¬ chequer, Harold MacMillan, de¬ clined to become involved in a controversy over the import of American telepix during a skirmish at question time in the House of Commons last week. MacMillan had been asked by Laborite MP G. R. Chetwynd how much dollar expenditure had been incurred on the importation of American films on tv during the last six months, but had to tell the House that figures were not avilable. The Laborite then averred that both BBC and Independent Tele¬ vision Authority were showing “many rubbishy American films which are a complete waste of money,” He suggested the Chan¬ cellor should make it his business to find out just how many dollars were spent on these films, because they were needed for more impor¬ tant purposes. MacMillan made no comment on that observation but said he would see if the information on dollar expenditure could*be obtained. TPA’s Philly Bonanza Television Programs of America achieved a sellout status in the Philadelphia market last week with the sale of the “Susie” and “Count of Monte Cristo” series to WCAU- TV. Total business TP A has writ¬ ten in the market is now at the, $40Q,000 mark. Other shows previously set in Philly were “Ellery Queen,” “Your Star Showcase” and “Ramar of the Jungle.” Fox’s $18j Int i Latex Deal For‘Spot’ Salvo Matty Fox and C&C Television Corp. are reported to have an un¬ precedented $10,000,000 deal in the works with International Latex Co. under which Fox would supply the rubber company with a total of 18,000 spots per station for use over the next five years. Report comes from stations with which Fox has been dickering over the RKO library of 740 fea¬ tures, with payment for the pic¬ tures coming in the form of five- year commitments for payment in cash and “barter” spots to be traded off to Latex. Number of stations needed to wrap up the Latex deal is said to be 100. "In other words, for $10,- 000,000, Latex would get 10 spots per day in all time periods for five years in 100 markets. It’s further reported that Fox has six months in which "to deliver the guaranteed spots to Latex in order for the deal to be consummated. Fox started selling the library weekend before last, and while no sales have been announced yet, it’s known that negotiations are in the “serious” stage on deals with three of the Westinghouse stations, in Cleveland, San Francisco and Pittsburgh. Latex, incidentally, is (Continued on page 41) By BOB CHANDLER Cost is the governing factor in the evaluation by filmbuyers of a syndicated series, while in feature filmbuying, quality is the primary evaluation point. This is one of the findings of a survey of film- buyers covering nearly every sta¬ tion in the country conducted by the National Assn, of Television Film Directors. The NATFD Film Procurement Questionnaire, as re¬ leased this week by KDKA-TV’s (Pittsburgh) Richard C. Dreyfuss, chairman of the NATFD research committee, disclosed also: 1. A growing use of cross-the- board film programming, but a de¬ crease in the need, for quarter hour shows. 2. A growing increase in impor¬ tance t)f feature film program¬ ming. 3. Frowning on “percentage” or “barter” deals as methods of pay¬ ment for film. 4. A violent reaction to the few companies and individuals that employ “payoffs” in film selling and buying. 5. Almost half the stations op¬ posed to th6 use of reruns, with a majority indicating a desire for a one-year “clearance” period be¬ tween reruns. 6 . A widespread use of the Na¬ tional Television Film Council’s standard feature film contract form, plus suggestions by about half the stations for slight modifi¬ cations in the form. Survey found stations tending to use cost as the No. 1 yardstick in syndicated buying, with quality second. In features, however, quality was the primary concern, with cost fourth. In the feature category, it was quality, age or vintage, cast or star value, cost and the distribs’ reputation or re¬ liability in that order. Syndicated buying was based on cost, quality, cast, rating and type. Some 63% of stations declared that feature films were, increasing in importance in their markets; a little over 50% found that cross-the-board pro¬ gramming was on the upgrade; 68 % felt that the need for quarter- hour programs was decreasing, while 20% felt the need increasing and 12% saw no change. Two-thirds of the stations reply¬ ing to the survey were registered as against barter buying (trading time for film), while 80% were op¬ posed to percentage deals, in which the distributor shares a percentage of revenues derived from use of the film. As to methods of payment for film, a slight majority pre¬ ferred pay-as-you-play payments, just edging out those preferring a monthly payment system. Some (Continued on page 40) Features; Selznick Pix Are Hot; No Takers Yet on RKO Bundle Wise Guys Vs. Weis’ ‘Guy’ Hollywood, Feb. 7. Don Weis won the Screen Direc¬ tors Guild’s annual tv directorial award of the year for megging “The Little Guy,” for “Fireside Theatre,” and therein lies a story. When “Guy” was in the plan¬ ning stages at Lewman Produc¬ tions, the ad agencies, sponsor and others behind-the-scenes objected to it on grounds it was "too off¬ beat, too different.” Dane Clark starred in Bill Asher-produced vid- film. Piel’s ‘Bert & Harry’ Blurbs Hit Jackpot; Bob & Ray Big Secret There’;; lots more of those “Bert & Harry” spots for Piel’s Beer coming video’s way. United Pro¬ ductions of America, who turned out the first batch of the animated blurbs, reported last week the largest order for one client that it has ever scheduled. New series, ordered by Young & Rubicam, will comprise 20, 30 and 60-second spots. Strangely enough, the UP A pub¬ licity makes no mention of the fact that Bob & Ray are featured on the soundtracks of the blurbs.^ WABC-TV’s Late Night Feature Pix Repeats A “horizontal grind” feature film policy is being inaugurated next week by WABC-TV, the ABC flagship in New York. Station will darken at 1 a m. instead of 11:45 p.m. as in the past, filling in from 11:30-1 with “The Night Show,” Which will feature the same pic every night for five nights weekly. Pix being, used are General Tele- radio’s Bank of America package, which WABC-TV is second running on the same one-a-week pattern during the afternoons. Pix previ¬ ously ran on WOR-TV under the “Million Dollar Movie” tag. Open¬ er next week is the James Stewart- Jane Wyman “Magic Town.” fol¬ lowed the week of Feb. 20 by “Body & Soul.” • Slotting of the features adds 90 minutes to the station’s weekday schedule. George Hamilton Combs, previously in at 11:30-11:45 p.m. with a newscasts, now moves into the early morning with a 7:45-8 a.m. slot, leading into “Tinker’s Workshop.” Official Acquires 4-Star Assets In Stock Swap Deal In a complex stock exrhange deal, Official Films this week took over all the assets of Four Star Productions and Four Star Tele¬ vision Co., the companies owned by Dick Powell, Charles Rover, David Niven, Don Sharpe and Wil¬ liam A. Cruikshank Jr. Under the - deal, Four Star Films, l ie affiliated production company turn¬ ing out new properties remains in the hands of its present owners, with Official getting the assets of the. other two companies plus all rights to negatives and properties produced by them in the past. Official will trade off 695,000. shares of its common stock to the owners of the two companies in return for 100% of the stock of each of the companies. Included in the assets of the companies are 192 completed films, a participa¬ tion in still another series, plus tv rights to all W. Somerset Maugham properties. In a side deal, Official acquired syndication rights to all the duPont “Cavalcade of Amer¬ ica” films made prior to 1955, al¬ though not all these were filmed by Four Star. Negatives exchanging hands in¬ clude 129 “Four Star Playhouse” episodes (plus national and syndi¬ cation sales rights to all future “Playhouse” productions), 39 “Star and the Story” episodes and 24 “Stage Seven” shows. Also, Offi¬ cial gets a 25% participation in “Sheena, Queen of the Jungle,” which is not produced by Four Star but by Don Sharpe and the Nassour Bros, and is distributed by (Continued on page 41) Far from proving a market depressant thus far, the unloading of the RKO library and the prom¬ ises (fulfilled and threatened) of other product have proved a stim¬ ulant to the feature films-for-tv business. If there’s anyone suffer¬ ing over the pix-to-tv bandwagon at this point, it’s Matty Fox, who has yet to sign a station for his RKO library, and. the peddlers of mediocre film. But by way of contrast, other distributors who have acquired top packages since it became known that the RKO bundle would be available have been doing bustling business. The net effect of the RKO backlog’s availability has been to make stations features- conscious, and even more im¬ portant, conscious of quality fea¬ tures. According to the distribs, while the market seems to be holding up nicely for the mediocre type pictures, the more expensive and expansively-budgeted packages are enjoying a heretofore unprece¬ dented popularity and acceptance among station buyers. Example is the immediate reac¬ tion to the David O. Selznick pack¬ age just put on the market by National Telefilm Associates, which in the space of a couple of weeks is entrenched under longterm deals in 15 markets, including San Francisco, Kansas City, Salt Lake City, Providence, Rochester, In¬ dianapolis, Dallas, Ft. Worth and Minneapolis. Another case in point is Repub¬ lic’s release through its Hollywood Television Service of 24 of the studio’s top productions under the ‘‘Silver Group” tag, which is said to be doing better business than any other package which Republic has released over the past few years. George Shupert, ABC Syndi¬ cation prez, says his “Anniversary Package” of 15 top British films is booming, and Shupert points out that stations now seem to prefer quality and are willing to pay for it to a far greater extent than in the past. In this vein, NTA sales v.p. Harold Goldman notes following a four-week swing through the major markets that filmbuyers are dis¬ posed to agree with the NTA philosophy that stations will have to acclimate themselves to paying higher prices for quality product. Along with the willingness and ability to pay for top product, the stations are beginning to devote (Continued on page 40) More TV Film News On Page 34 Bronx Telefilm Studios Change Hands; Initial Project ‘N.Y. Confidential’ Bedford Park Studios in the Bronx, one of the most active tele¬ film production sites in New York, has changed hands in a lease-pur- chase deal and henceforth will be operated under the name of Mikaro Studios, this representing a con¬ solidation of the names of the three new operators, Gene Milford, Sid Katz and Ralph Rosenblum. Stu¬ dios, the old Edison stages, are owned by Mrs. Dolorita Wallace, a N. Y. realtor, and had been oper¬ ated over the past few years by producer Gil Boag. Milford, Katz and Rosenblum, who have been operating their own production company, MKR Films, over the past five months, will use I the studio as the plant for their | own physical production operation, ; but will also rent space if it’s avail- ■ able. First project due in is 26 half- hour “New York Confidential’* films, which Walter & Peg McGra\v I (Continued on page 38) NBC Film Setup Having failed to assimilate its NBC Film Division into the parent RCA corporate structure, NBC this week attached it to one of its own operating subsidiaries, the Kagran Corp. Thus, in a sense, the web cut its syndication arm loose via the status of operating within the structure of a separate operating subsidiary, but at the same time it did so by incorporating it into one of its own subsids, rather than one of the parent company. The move, long speculated, thus makes NBC the final network to “liberate” its syndication subsid. ABC Film Syndication is a separ¬ ate coroporation. no longer a divi¬ sion of the ABC network but op¬ erating as an independent and fully-owned subsid of American Broadcasting-Paramount Theatres. CBS Television Film Sales is a corporation, but a subsid of CBS Television Inc., the network oper¬ ation. “Independent” status of the syndication subsids has been a matter of growing importance in light of Congressional and FCC in¬ quiries on network operations in the “monopoly” sphere. Under the new Filin Division setup, Carl Stanton continues as (Continued on page 40) (