Variety (April 1956)

26 _ Sfl'flWMMlMifMiflT _ PfifiilSTf _ Wednesday, April 18, 19g6 . ♦ ♦+ 4 ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦■»» ♦+♦ ♦♦♦»♦♦♦♦♦♦ M M 0 M » * ♦ ♦ ♦ 4 4 4 4 4 . 4 4 4 4 ♦ 4-4 4-4 44444444 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 M M 4 4 4 Citations: %>5-*50 Showmanagement Review ♦ ♦ ♦ 4 4 44 4 4 44444 44 4 4 44444-4++>+-4»44 44 , 4 444 4 444444444*4 444444444444444444 »♦♦ , ♦♦♦♦♦ » 44444444444444 4 4 :: Rebirth of Radio :: Showmanship 4-444 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4’ KLZ, Denver Hugh Terry is proud of his sta¬ tion’s record of accomplishments during the past year—and well he might be. He and his staff have an exciting story to tell, one that stands out like a beacon light in radio, with the kind of a spark that will help light the fires of a great new enthusiasm and vigor and honest efforts to give the re¬ birth to radio showmanship. Radio has suffered more than it deserved. It has had severe pains in its economic groin, and.it has encountered stiff competition—not only from tv—but from more and more new radio stations going on the air. The networks have been sliding downhill. The critics have been waiting around for rigor mortis to set in. But there’s noth¬ ing wrong with radio that, a re¬ birth of showmanship wouldn’t do much to cure. KLZ went a long way- to prove the point. As one of the significant years in KLZ’s his¬ tory, the Terry-prexied Time Inc., operation devoted attention to re¬ vitalizing its program structure, adopting fresh ideas and tech¬ niques, developing programs which utilized more public partici¬ pation, bringing out a bright new “listen” in radio broadcasting. Perhaps the most important of *55 was the nighttime “Denver Calling” series, a new concept in radio programming that has at¬ tracted national attention. Broad¬ cast several periods each week- night from 6:30 to midnight, it-is best described by a Denver news¬ paper radio editor who writes:”... the KLZ nighttime microphone is a Nomad, roaming Denver’s by¬ ways to find the sights and sounds that make up some of the high¬ lights of the daily life.” The pro¬ gram, staffed by four experienced reporters, makes ample use of a specially equipped mobile unit, as well as the telephone, to bring to KLZ listeners the voices of the people who make the news. KLZ meanwhile maintained ex¬ ceptional fluidity in programming to keep pace with the changing habits of listeners. “Starr Yel- land’s Party Line” ^became firmly established as the region’s No. 1 “public forum for controversial ex¬ pression.” This unique nighttime program, allowing listeners to ex¬ press an opinion on the air relative to almost any subject, has steadily increased in popularity and sta¬ ture. In the public interest the pro¬ gram department produced and broadcast an hour-long spectacular featuring Ethel Merman (in per¬ son) as mistress of ceremonies with personal or transcribed ap¬ pearances of Vaughn Monroe, Ar¬ thur Godfrey, Amos ’n’ Andy, Mary Healy, Peter Lind Hayes and others; aired the weekly “Your Voice In Congress” (specially pre¬ pared in Washington); launched the Denver Easter Seal campaign; in cooperation with the Denver Chamber of Commerce put .on a lively discussion program dealing with Denver’s growth and future. Its news operation was com¬ mandeered as the virtual hub of the entire CBS Radio network when President Eisenhower’s ill¬ ness in September held the atten¬ tion of the entire world. Then there, was the “Graham Murder Case.” as it is now known —which brought on the sudden ban against microphones and cam¬ eras inside Colorado courtrooms and which led to KLZ taking an editorial stand on the air against the restrictions. Within a matter of hours, the Colorado Supreme Court ordered a hearing on the entire matter of the judicial canon as it pertained to press, radio and television, resulting in .the favor¬ able decision handed down only a few weeks ago. And, oh yes, dur¬ ing the final months of ’’55 KLZ broke all national sales records. CKVL, Verduiix.lfontrea! Jack Tietolman’s 10,000-watter in suburban Montreal delivers a brand of showmanship-in-radio, en¬ compassing commercial and public ^etVice programs, that is' the envy of Canada. The bilingual indie, alert to the fact that transcribed shows in French are virtually un¬ heard of, goes allout in producing scores of live shows weekly and in spending some $4,000 per week on live dramatic strips aimed at en¬ hancing ratings already the high¬ est of any indie in Quebec’s larg¬ est industrial and economical me¬ tropolis—Montreal. Only the CBC French network station can lay claim to larger audiences, and many is the time that CKVL tops that outlet too. Since January, CKVL has been slotting seven 13-minute dramatic shows daily scattered through day¬ time and early evening. The cost is out of reach of the average Canadian advertiser, despite sta¬ tion’s offer to accept half the pro¬ duction and talent charges to en¬ courage more sponsorship. But spot announcement on adjacencies are SRO. CKVL operates around the clock —from 5:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. in French (except for 2 to 3 o’clock in English) and all night in Eng¬ lish. It lures the top stars of French-Canadian legit, films, tv and radio to spin records or emcee show's. It carries a half-hour dramatization of the Bible on Sun¬ days that’s fed to a network of Quebec provincial stations, the first such program ever permitted by the Roman Catholic Church. With Marcel Provost bossing pro¬ grams and Marcel Beauregard heading up new's coverage, it’s a heads-up parlay. Station takes big things in stride, such as sending manager Corey Thomson, who is blingual ahd equally at ease with engineering as with announcing, across Canada on the Royal Train when Queen Elizabeth visited the country; or to Germany under NATO sponsorship; or sending crews to tape events in Quebec City, the provincial capital 225 miles away; to Nova ScoUa, 1.100 miles, to Toronto's Canadian Na¬ tional Exhibition, 400 mile# dis¬ tant. CKVL mikes pop up in pic¬ tures taken all over the country, once even on a CBC Television air¬ ing to the exclusion of the latter’s own mike. Social editor, the very svelte and dynamic Pierette Champoux, reg¬ ularly lights out for Paris or New York to report on the latest in couture. In fact, the station main¬ tains a Paris office to tape inter¬ views with celebrities and to ex¬ pedite the flow of the latest French recordings to CKVL by plane each week. Station has a strong hold on children’s shows under Kellogg’s, Campbell Soups, General Mills, etc., sponsorship—shows that for a long time rode as sustainers and that are now fed to a network of French-language stations by line or tape or both. Staffers say of Tietolman (who incidentally speaks English, French and Hebrew with equal fluency) that >'We’re sold out every day when he gets off the phone.” But he combines. commercial savvy with the nose of an entrepreneur hot on scent of the big and the ex¬ citing in programming. 444444444444444444444444 | Editorial Influence i+++■♦ ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ # ♦♦ ♦ 4 ♦ ♦ ♦ WAVZ, New Haven New Haven is a one-newspaper town, comprising a morning and evening paper owned by the same family. This situation isn’t unique to New Haven—consolidation of the powers of the press has been a source of concern over the past 30 years, and a rapidly increasing one. What is unique to New Haven, however, is that,'..dcspite its one- newspaper s&tti$y there are two separate distinct-- communications ■- ~Vis,»• and editorial media, the second being .WAVZ, a tiny 1,000-watt day- timer whose achievements belie its littleness. WAVZ, founded in t949 by two former newspapermen, Victor W. Knauth and Daniel W. Kops, went on the air with the express pur¬ pose of becoming an editorial me¬ dium. Knauth & Kops felt not only that New Haven should have the benefit oi two opposing points of view in communications, but that radio itself could find a more useful and exciting niche with the expression pf. editorial opinions on local issues. The Knauth-Kops idea worked—worked to the extent that the station is doing fine commer¬ cially, but more important, has as¬ sumed a status in its community that has seen its point of view in¬ creasingly victorious in local issues and elections. New Haven has been plagued by a parking problem, and WAVZ has fought for municipal facilities and new regulations. One of these, a bill -to license parking operators because of unscrupulous “all the traffic will bear” price raising by some, is in final stages of passage. WAVZ helped form a Citizen’s Ac¬ tion Committee to draw up a mas¬ ter rebuilding plan for New Haven, including slum clearance. The sta¬ tion campaigned for the reelection of Mayor Richard C. Lee against the opposition of the newspaper, and Lee won with the highest vote in New Haven history. The station editorialized against a- political at¬ tack on Yale U.; it has demanded a change in the city charter to ex¬ tend the term of the mayor from two to four years; it has waged a fight for new schools; station-in¬ spired United Fund raised $1,379,- 000, highest in the'city’s history, in 1955, after the Community Chest which it replaced had made its quota only once during the previous 19 years. Last August, the famous New England floods swept down on New Showmanager Award ROBERT E. KINTNER Little more than three years ago, Robert E. Kintner was in the position of a captain going down with his sinking ship in an ocean of calm. The ship was the ABC network, and the sea was a peaceful ocean of expanding pros¬ perity for television. Nobody should have been sinking, but the network was like a steamer that needed repairs but couldn't afford to have them made. Things had gone from bad to impossible. In February of 1953, the FCC approved the merger of ABC and United Paramount Theatres. In the past year, the regeneration of ABC has become a fact. Its television billings rose to $50,000,000; radio held its own as much as the other net¬ works. It was nudging the. powerfully entrenched NBC and CBS in traditionally tough time periods; it was actually pushing them in others and it was well out in front and on its own in a selected few. If anyone had dreamed three years ago that ABC programming would be the cause of cancellations on NBC and CBS, or that brand-new after¬ noon programming on ABC would be giving years-old CBS and NBC shows a run for their money, he wouldn't have admitted it to his psychiatrist. But that's the picture today, and with a base to work from, ABC can go nowhere but up. With ever-increasing resources at its command, with a black-ink operation on its hands, with a pioneer relationship with Hollywood's holdouts to its advantage, and with dozens of attractive adjacencies for ex¬ posure-hungry sponsors, the network's future seems assured. - It's relevant to note .that for better or for worse, ABC is fundamentally a one-man operation. In spite of the Paramount Theatres relationship, in spite of an expanding staff and work load, Kjntner is still running the show and running it himself. When there are mistakes to be made, they are usually Kinfner's mistakes. When there are bows to be taken, they belong to Bob Kintner. That the mistakes are rarities and the bows are frequent is a tribute to Kintner's astuteness as an all-round broadcaster—as Kinther the programmer, the salesman, the administrator, the planner (and, incidentally, this year's NAJRTB keynoter). It is difficult to visualize ABC's remarkable progress as the work of one man, but essentially it is. The bold step into contracts with Disney, Warner Bros, and Metro, the 7:30 cross-the-board kidstripping, the emphasis on feature films, and particularly the b.o.-poison British pictures-— all may have been suggested and put into work by his aides, but the respon¬ sibilities, the risks and the final payoffs all belong to Kintner. For accomplishing the Herculean task of building a hard r pressed net¬ work—in a literal sense as well as in the figurative areas of programming, affiliates and sales—into a powerful competitive force with all that such com- " petition means for viewers, advertisers and stations. Bob Kintner is the out¬ standing choice as Showmanager of the Year. Robt. Kintner | Haven, and the station was on- the-spot from the start with news coverage and editorials pleading for volunteers and equiment. The tapes of those broad¬ casts, incidentally, were made into a recording and sold nationally under the Jubilee label, with pro¬ ceeds going to flood relief. But the station’s role didn’t stop there. Three months later, after the muck was cleared away and the job of rebuilding started, a move was made to divert monies scheduled for a vital traffic artery that would link New jlaven to key state high¬ ways and at the same time clear a blighted area—to divert these monies to flood rebuilding. WAVZ fought the proposal—and won, get¬ ting the hearty thanks of the Gov- pernor and key civic headers. The editorials—one or two a week, depending on the issues— are short, direct and to the point. Same editorial is aired three times a day, at 7:30 and 8:30 a.m. and at 12:30 p.m. They are written and delivered by Kops, and they are kept clear and distinct of the news programs themselves and are clearly identified as editorials. WAVZ has set a new pattern in broadcasting, as evidenced" by the interest expressed by other sta¬ tions all over the country. But be¬ yond that, and far more important, it has fought for an informed pub¬ lic and the age-old right to present another side to the story. There’s no question but that Knauth & Kops rate among this year’s top showmanagers. Responsibility To Community + ♦♦♦44444444 44444444444- WHAS-TV, Louisville WHAS Television has been mak¬ ing an indelible impression in the Louisville area with its "Crusade for Children,” by all odds one of the great public service features by a regional station keenly aware of its community responsibility. Its works on behalf of handicapped youngsters in Kentucky and south¬ ern Indiana ate almost legendary, notably a $15,000 kindergarten building for blind kids built with “Crusade” funds; an $8,000, two- room, prefab school to be built and equipped for the mentally retarded through '55 funds; a $2,965 treat¬ ment roorrf for the emotionally dis¬ turbed; and the hearing of 92,000 school age children to be tested in a $10,000 project. But these were only the begin¬ ning. There are manifold other benefits, performed by marshalling the potential, calling on competent volunteers and placing allocations of huge amounts of money, way above “normal”.for that size mar¬ ket, in the hands of able adminis¬ trators. The money is allocated by a group of five clergymen forming the WHAS Radio panel, “The Moral Side of the News,” embrac¬ ing a Catholic, a Jew, a Baptist, a Presbyterian and a Unitarian. Fa¬ vorable response to the first “Cru¬ sade” caused WHAS to stage a sec¬ ond drive last fall when even greater acceptance resulted, insur¬ ing another “Crusade” this year. Everybody in the area is hopping on the bandwagon—churches of all faiths, organizations and individu¬ als. This fact alone has made for a “richer ’ community” now more proud of itself for having joined wholeheartedly for the welfare of the citizens of tomorrow. No one in Louisville is more proud than Victor A. Sholis, vice president and director of WHAS Inc., who said: “We feel that we have converted the unique fund¬ raising abilities of radio and tv to a great public cause. Not only do we dramatize the entire problem of handicapped children, but we raise mqney that is improving and expanding their care and treat¬ ment.” WMCT TV, Memphis Local television has been carry¬ ing forth public service on a vari¬ ety of fronts, but Henry Slavick’s WMCT-TV in Memphis stands out with its “Your Future Unlimited” series, a Sunday half-hour which •has provided career guidance to thousands of youngsters in the (Continued on page 31)