Variety (March 1956)

hajho-tei.evisiox PfatlETY Wcdriesday, March’ 21, 1956 20 D.C. Probers Sifting Charges That FCC Personnel Intimidated’ By Major Networks; Subpoenas Issued Washington, March 20. Sensational charges ^ that FCC personnel are “intimidated” by major networks and that the agen¬ cy wants to withhold identification o l certain staffers with specific memoranda for fear of reprisal were contained in a statement last week by Rep. Joe L. levins (D- Tenn.), chairman of a House sub¬ committee on small business which is investigating regulatory agen¬ cies. The subcommittee is scheduled to start hearings today (Tues.) to look into charges that RCA, NBC and CBS are “controlling policies” of the Commission. Evins said that subpoenas for records of these companies have been issued and will be the subject of testimony. Evins said that the complaints were made at a recent conference Fishing Expedition? Washington, March 20. Charges of politics broke out as the House Subcommittee on Small Business today (Tues.) started an investigation to de¬ termine whether the networks are controlling policies of the FCC. Republican member of sub¬ committee, William M. McCul¬ loch of Ohio, blasted the con¬ duct of proceedings and sug¬ gested the inquiry may become a bi-partisan fishing expedi¬ tion. McCulloch was particularly critical of subpoenas issued for records of RCA, NBC and CBS bearing on FCC matters. Scope of correspondence called for, he said, is “wide beyond compare, wide beyond belief.” with FCC Chairman George C. Mc- Connaughey, Robert Larue, as¬ sistant to McConnaughey, and FCC general counsel Warren E. Baker. At this conference, according to the statement, “those officials of the FCC lent their voices to in¬ formation previously received by the House Small Business Commit¬ tee relating to control over the Staff of the FQC.” Evins account of what was said at this conference was far differ¬ ent from that given to report¬ ers by McConnaughey’s assistant, whose name is L’Heureux, a for¬ mer chief counsel to the Senate Interstate Commerce Committee. According to L’Heureux, the Evins account was a mistatement of what took place. Evins said that McConnaughey told his committee “he was per¬ haps the ‘weakest’ chairman of any of the regulatory agencies with re¬ spect to his powers over personnel and the establishment of policy” and that “he did not have even (Continued on page 38) Hazel Bishop’s Got Bigger TV Yen After taking a powder on its longtime identification with “This Is Your Life” on NBC-TV, nixing the summertime kine versions, Hazel Bishop will be more active in tv than ever before. • Cosmetic house is pouring “millions” into the medium and, as indicated pre¬ viously, is latching on as rotator with Toni to "Athur Murray Par¬ ty.” That show goes in for the can¬ celled Johnny Carson on CBS-TV Thursdays at 10 starting April 5 . and rides until next September. This marks first time for Bishop representation in nighttime tv on the web, though repped daytime via Crosby and Garry Moore, and on CBS Radio with “Wendy War¬ ren.” Raymond Spector, the ad agency head who also runs Bishop, is nego¬ tiating with both networks for time slots on a pair or audience partic- .. Ration packages out of his house. They'll be hot weather shows, one " for,- each network if-the talks on right riots jell. . Ted Mack Hits Road Kansas City, March 20. Ted Mack and “Original Ama¬ teur Hour” are set to do a special show from the. Municipal Auditor¬ ium here April 29 for the benefit of the Order of DeMolay. Mack and troupe are to do a two-and-a- half hour show, an hour of which will be the regular weekly portion over ABC-TV, originating via KMBC-TV Channel 9 here. This is the second time within recent years that Mack has ap¬ peared here for DeMolay. About two years ago he made a personal appearance at a $10-per-plate din¬ ner held at Eddy’s Restaurant. ‘Extracurriculars’ Up Steve Allen Biz To $3,290,000 Gross Steve Allen's “extracurriculars” are believed responsible in part for the NBC-TV “Tonight” show’s upsurge on billings. Gross take last year was $3,290,000. Already on. the ledgers for 1956 is $2,983,- 000 in billings, giving tha network visions of a total of $5,300,000 wrapped up for the calendar year, with near-SRO Thursday-Friday. Allen’s been getting crosscoun¬ try plugging on his* pic, “Benny Goodman Story”; his books, “Fourteen for Tonight,” “Bop Fables” and upcoming “The Funny Men.” Then there are his record albums, “Let's Dance,” “Steve Allen All-Star Jazz Concert,” "Steve Allen at the Piano,” “To¬ night at Midnight,” “Music for To¬ night” and “Jazz for Tonight.” Advertisers participating in ex¬ tensive skeds include Miller Brew¬ ing, 120 spots at a gross outlay of $900,000; Minnesota Mining, 11 spots; Calif. Packing (Del Monte), 26; Gruen Watch, 19; Seiberling Rubber, 19; Polaroid Land Camera, 26, and Gem Razor, with a pact running from April 9 to May 25 and Aug. 1 to Sept. 12. BarenBregge Exiting WABD; Kieran Hired Two key executive changes have taken place at WABD, N. Y. Du¬ Mont owned-operated tv’er this week. George BarenBregge is ank- ling the sales chieftancy for the management of WIRI, the ABC- TV affiliate in Plattsburg, N. Y., and WABD boss Ted Cott is im¬ porting John Kieran Jr. from NBC’s “Monitor,” on which he has been sports editor, to oversee pro¬ motion, publicity and special events. BarenBregge came to WABD over a year ago from WDTV, the Pittsburgh outlet which DuMont later sold to Westinghouse. He started as station manager and when Paramount, which has a sub¬ stantial interest in DuMont, brought in Ted Cott as boss, BarenBregge became WABD sales manager. Kieran, son of the columnized sports scribe and radio pesonality, began at WABD on Monday (19). Werner Michel to B & B Werner Michel has joined Benton & Bowles agency in Manhattan to produce the new half-hour day¬ time serial which rolls April 2 for Procter & Gamble. Tab will be di¬ vided between Tide, Crest and Fluffo. Michel will report to the agency tv-radio veep, Tom McDermott. Pro¬ gram, title not yet definite, will be something of an innovator in tv serialization with 22 minutes of daily playing time. This is expect- : ed to give tv strip a chance to de¬ velop characterization, largely im¬ possible in the quarter-hour serials tried to date. It was Benton & Bowles and P&G which pioneered television soap opera via “The First 100 Years.” Michel’s most recent credit was as senior producer at DuMont. Previously he had worked as a pro¬ ducer at CBS, was a co-director some years ago at Kenyon & Eck- .hardt ■ , . . . . A REFLECTION ON BROADCASTERS ** More than once Variety has inveighed against the fast-buck independents, in and out New York (frequently New Jersey, orig- - inations), accepting spurious advertisers just because it’s easy money. It’s a sorry note that Edward S. Silver, Kings County (Brooklyn) District Attorney, has had to install a 24-hour, round-the-clock, monitoring system of all metropolitan N.' Y. radio and tv stations “to protect the public against fraudulent and misleading advertising on television and radio.” A squad of young N. Y. City policemen monitor “suspicious” programs ’ on a ‘ seven-day-a-week schedule and District Attorney Silver has installed six tape-recorders to pick up the sales talks under suspicion. The d.a. takes the FCC to ta$k “for failure to protect the pub¬ lic.” He observes, “I regret to say that the FCC is of 'little or no help in the matter. The tv and radio stations are licensed by the Government through the agency of the FCC. They have a . real responsibility to the people not to permit the airwaves to be used to the citizens’ detriment. Their machinery is slow and cumbersome. In my opinion, they are not doing their job.” Silvers is incensed against the radio-tv pitchmen and the “smooth-talking advertisers.” His staff has obtained six convic¬ tions for misleading and fraudulent advertising since Jan. 1. . As Variety has pointed out, the machinery of the FCC may be slow but when it catches up it will be a headache of sizeable proportions for the greedy local stations which care more for the fast^buck revenue than their responsibilities to the commu¬ nity they serve and should, theoretically, service. The “food clubs”; the “loan” organizations which are made to sound like big brother benevolent societies, but whose operations have more than a touch of the usury about them; and the “wall¬ paper” stock brokers (anything from uranium to gold mines, but apparently gold bricks basically) have already been curbed. Not to mention the other “bait and switch” pitchmen that run the gamut from Home appliances to> sundry “services,” gyp tv repair charges included. The local stations which go for this sort of quick-dollar take are chumps. It’s inevitable that, when the weight of evidence is correlated, that they'll face a big problem that is as fundamental as losing their licenses. It’s as simple as that, and if it takes such a severe penalty—which is another way of saying the station is put out of business—Brooklyn district attorney Silver will have done‘a good service. Maybe the FCC, per se, can’t be as omni¬ potent as to police every locality, but when public spirited offi¬ cials like Silver go about this with scientific technique of pre¬ paring the evidence, the mills of the FCC machinery will un¬ doubtedly grind exceedingly hard. And it can’t be too soon. Some of the “ad copy” spouted in and around the metropolitan New York area makes a carnival pitchman sound like a Sunday schoolteacher. Abel. McConnaughey to Broadcasters: ‘Go Easy On Those Commercials’ -:-f Jean Hagen Exiting Danny Thomas Show Hollywood, March 20. Jean Hagen, who created the role ,of Danny Thomas’ wife in “Make Room for Daddy” is ankling the series this week after three years to concentrate . on feature films and tv dramatics. Miss Hagen found it “impossible to devote only three months each year to motion pictures with any degree of success? Rarely has the right role come along during my free time either in motion pictures or tv- wise.” Last ye,ar she did “Big Knife,” her first film role in two years. Zenith and CBS Are at It Again Prolonged hassle between Ze¬ nith and CBS, stemming originally from the fight over Channel 2 in Chicago and resuming, on the mat¬ ter of subscription tv, has flared up again, this time in N. Y. fed¬ eral district court. Zenith last week filed a $213,749 breach of contract suit against the network, washing up all the dirty linen over the channel and toll-tv matters. Zenith’s suit asks two separate causes of action, both relating to its sponsorship of “Omnibus” on CBS-TV. As a result of the com¬ promise that saw CBS get Channel 2 and buy $575,000 worth of equip¬ ment from Zenith, the set manufac¬ turing company came in as a spon¬ sor of “Omnibus” under a rebate arrangement whereby CB& as¬ sumed half the cost of the sponsor¬ ship. Suit charges that CBS failed to rebate its portion of the coin for the four shows during March, 1955, and asks for $75,932 in the first cause of action. Second cause of action relates to the toll-tv hassle, wherein Zenith asked to telecast as its commercial a two-minute documentary on its Phonevision method of toll-rtv on either one of its last two shows, and was turned down by CBS. Complaint charges that under the contract, a sponsor could air‘a doc¬ umentary-type commercial on any phase of its 'operations, and also states that the commercial was okayed by the Ford Foundation, producers of the show, butnixed by CBS. Reason, says Zenith, is the network’s w.k. opposition to toll-tv, and this constitutes a con¬ tract breach. Zenith is asking $100,000 for the breach of contract plus an additional $37,817 for the rebate on the last two shows which it alleges CBS has not paid, bring¬ ing the total to $213,749. Newest Harbinger Of Spring: TV Parties’ All Over Gotham Scene With onset of spring, “TV Par¬ ties” are springing up all over the place. NBC-TV started the ball rolling in New York last Wednes¬ day (14) with a shindig at the Holland House’s Netherlands Club to mark the emergence of John Cameron- Swayze’s “News Caravan” show into its ninth year. Next day, Guy Lombardo took over the private Theodore Club of the Roosevelt Hotel for a cocktailery calling attention to his “Diamond Jubilee” program launched last night (Tues.) on CBS-TV as replacement for “Meet Millie.” Monday’s (19) command per¬ formance at the Pierre Hotel’s roof gard'&n was to have centered on Katharine Cornell, with NBC hosting a fete re her teledebut in “Barretts of Wimpole St.” on the April 2 “Producers Showcase,” but the storm caused a last-minute can¬ cellation. Meanwhile, Dodge Corp. is do¬ ing the invite honors on ABC- TV’s Lawrence Welk, who with his orch and other Dodge talent, including Daijny .Thomas and Bert Parks, will appear at Madi¬ son Square Garden next Monday (26) for Dodge Dealers. On the tv-Hollywood front, writer’s rep Blanche Gaines will “pour” for client Rod Serling at her 57th St. home-office Tuesday (27) to mark •opening . of • film version, of his “Patterns” at Mayfair Theatre. Prexy Defends NARTB | Stance on Elimination Of ’Bait & Switch’ Ads Washington, March 20. National Assn, of Radio and TV Broadcasters agrees with Federal Trade Commissioner Lowell B. Mason that bait and switch adver¬ tising should be eliminated from the air, organization prexy Harold E. Fellows said last week. However, said Fellows, the Com¬ missioner was wrong in saying (in his speech at Harvard March’ 12) that the Television Code Review Board “works at an extremely low point of visibility.” The Code Board, Fellows pointed out, “anti¬ cipated the Commissioner’s own in¬ dignation about this matter by in¬ corporating in the Code within the past • year specific language adjuring against such advertising which the Association considers is fraudulent.” Fellows said he would not debate Mason’s views as to the effective¬ ness of the Code “except to ob¬ serve that I honestly don’t believe he is as well informed on this subject as he is on the major burden of his statement. The im¬ plication that the practice of bait and switch is limited to the broadcasting industry is not sup¬ portable either.” Nevertheless, Fellows said, most broadcasters will “applaud” Ma¬ son’s analyses of the problem and any “progressive and thoughtful” operator would not object to the exercise of “any sanction that exists under the law.” . Nancy to ’Dream,’ Too Another capsule show with Nan¬ cy Berg, tagged “Dream,” is being assembled by Lester Lewis Asso¬ ciates. Latter is packager of the “Count Sheep” quickie in which Miss Berg has been soloing on WRCA-TV, N. Y. Aim is to follow “Sheep” with “Dream” if a spon¬ sor comes along. “Sheep,” inoidentally, has been renewed by Englander Beds; Cleveland, March 20. A stem warning that if the broadcasting industry doesn’t do something about overcommerciali¬ zation Congress will, with the pro¬ grams coming under Government surveillance, was delivered here last week by FCC Chairma'n George C. McConnaughey. ✓ In a frankly “preaching” ad¬ dress to the Ohio Assn, of Radio and TV Broadcasters, McConnau¬ ghey said that the fact that legis¬ lation is before Congress to pro¬ hibit overcommercialization "should be sufficient notice to broadcast¬ ers that affirmative action on their part to correct this abuse is long past due.” If the bill proposed becomes law, he said, it will be mandatory for the Commission to enforce it and it will be necessary to set up some “program criteria” to be applied to all broadcasts, which will re¬ quire monitoring. “When we get to this point,” the FCC chairman asserted, “your child is already in juvenile court and sentence has been passed. From then on he will be under surveillance and his life will be government supervised. I do not (Continued on page 38) Pabst, Mennen In Again (or Bouts Chicago, March 20. Pabst Brewing and Mennen have reinked another year-around pact with the International Boxing Club for the Wednesday night pug card aired on ABC (AM & tv). Spon¬ sorship duo is paying the IBC $18,- 500 per show for the' regularly skedded midweek bouts vyith the boxers getting $4,000 each. Top events, such as last week's Johnny Saxton-Carmen Basilo tiff for • the welterweight bauble, are separately negotiated at a consider¬ ably higher scale. Radio-tv rights for that fight, carried on the Pabst- Mennen Wednesday night sched¬ ules are- listed 'it $60,000.'