Variety (May 1956)

60 TV-FBLMS tf&RIETr Wednesday, May 23 , I955 WGA Okays Strike Against Webs Unless They Meet Telefilm Demands Hollywood, May 22. 4 The major nets will be struck by June 4 unless a telepix agreement satisfactory to the Writers Guild of America West has been reached. Unanimous authorization was voted by the WGAW membership at last Thursday’s meet, at the .same time WGA East was approv¬ ing a similar move in N. Y. Negotiations < with the nets are expected to resume shortly, in which the Guild will ask. the same terms for net writers as in pacts with the major film studios and With the Alliance of TV Film Pro¬ ducers. In these pacts is a “sep¬ aration of rights” clause for week- to-week or term writers, granting them continuing ownership .over material for use in other media; and a “non-exclusivity” clause for ! >er-script writers, allowing scrip- ers working on a series or a pro- onged story assignment to accept outside assignments. These are ex¬ pected to be central points of dis¬ cussion with nets. WGAW also held annual elec¬ tions last Thursday, voted to com¬ bine the tv and radio branches, and tipped the entrance requirements for active membership. As a re¬ sult of the unification of tv and fadio groups, riot all 34 branch offi¬ cers and council members elected Will have a place’ to sit. However, E supplementary mail election will e held to settle the various con¬ flicts. " But Edmund H. North will as¬ sume post of prexy of the Screen Writers Branch, unchanged in the reorganization, .as will Jesse L. Uasky jr., v.p., and Ken Englund, secretary-treasurer. In complicated j uggling, Gene Wang, elected >rexy of the Radio Writers Branch, tecomes v.p. of the new combined AM-TV group, with David Dortort, re-elected prexy of the tv-ites, re¬ taining that post in the new setup. A1 Martin retains secretary-treas¬ urer post. Other Radio Branch winners, Adrian Gendot, John Meston and Martin Wark, will not take office, „nor will Aleen Leslie, elected tv V.p., the post assigned to Wang. None of the successful council Or branch board officers will as¬ sume various chores, this to be decided in the mail balloting. These include Robert Carson, Mary C. McCall Jr., Wells Roots, Harry Essex, Isobel Lennart, Sloan Nib- ley, William Roberts, Ted Sherde- man, Daniel Taradish, James Al- lardice, Lee Berg, Dorothy Coop¬ er, Howard J. Green, Hal Kanter, Samuel Newman, Arthur Alsberg, Hy Freedman, David Friedkin, Dwight Hauser, John Meston, Frances van Hartesveldt, Richard C. Chandlee, Les Farber, Daniel Fuchs and Richard Collins. In the new setup, SWB and com¬ biner AM-TV branch will each have three officers and eight board members. All become ex post fact6 members of the WGA coun¬ cil, plus five members elected at large. Total number of elected Officers will be reduced to 27 in the two-headed organization. SELF SEES SLUMP IN VIDPIX RERUN VALUES Hollywood, May 22. With thousands of vidpix being dumped on the rerun market the past year, vidpix rerun values have dropped, arid there is little chance the situation will improve, avers Meridian producer William Self, “I believe something like 2,500 telepix went into the rerun market this past year, and that’s the prin¬ cipal reason for the drop in val¬ ues,” said Self. Producer of “Schlitz Playhouse Of Stars” further declared that With the major film studios unload¬ ing their backlogs to ty, the situ¬ ation will probably decline still further. “When those pictures go into circulation on tv, they’ll ab¬ sorb time now taken by the half- hour telepix, and it’s bound to af¬ fect our situation,” he commented. WPIX'S 'STRYKER' BUY WPIX, N. Y. Daily News tv-er, has added another vidpix item to its fall stockpile by buying “Stry¬ ker of Scotland Yard” from Holly¬ wood Television Service. No time has been chosen for airing the half-hour adventures. There are 13 films in the pack¬ age Ginsburg to NBC-TV Films Norman A. Ginsburg has joined NBC Television Films as manager of advertising and promotion, Ginsberg, former ad-promotion manager at the DuMont web, suc¬ ceeds Jay Smolin, who moved over to Associated Artists Produc¬ tions recently to head up AAP’s ad-promo operation. Ginsburg has been in the tele¬ pix field for the past two years via Studio Films, where he moved af¬ ter four years at DuMont.' Prior to his DuMont stint, he was with Mutual. Telepix Residual Coin for Thesps Totals $1,232,197 Hollywood, May 22. Accelerated tempo of residual payments for actors in vidpix has resulted in thesps receiving 1 $307,- 360 since Jan. 1, to make a grand total of $1,232,197 since Screen Actors Guild members first began collecting on the vidpix bonanza in December of 1953. Upped tempo is due to new pact SAG inked with vidpixers last July 21, with its effect really being felt only around the first of ,this year. Under new pact terms, actors get 35% of minimum on second runs, and proportionately higher hikes all along the line. SAG tv administrator Kenneth Thomson asserted “with the con¬ tinuing acceleration in receipt of residual payments, the guild fully expects they will total $1,000,000 for this year.” Thus the 1956 pay-' ments would exceed the cumula¬ tive total of rerun coin collected by the guild for the period from 1944 to Jan. 1 of this year. 7 Jelethesps are receiving an aver¬ age of $70,000 a month this year. At the end of 1955, the total residual figure for actors was $924,831.75, this repping total -of coin collected since rerun payments began in De¬ cember of 1944. New pact, how¬ ever, has accented rate of • pay¬ ments considerably for the actors. Figures don’t include $80,364 ac¬ tors have received from post-1948 pix sold to tv. Storer Stations Buy SG’s ‘Movie Parade’ Four Storer tv stations have inked for Screen Gems’ '‘Holly- wood Movie Parade,” bringing the recent batch of 104 Columbia fea¬ tures to 38 markets to date. Storer will put the pix in Cleveland, De¬ troit, Toledo and Birmingham, with Storer veep Stanton Kettler and SG sales director for SG closing the deal. Thirteen other stations have pur¬ chased the 104 since it was re¬ ported some weeks ago that sales had reached 21 markets. Philly, Las Vegas, Fresno, Spokane, Wich¬ ita, New Orleans, Harlingen, Nash¬ ville, Columbus, Pittsburgh, San Diego, Midland, Louisville, were the 13, N. Y., L. A., Frisco, K. C., Denver, Houston and Minneapolis were among the first 21 sales. ‘Movie-a-Day’ Plan Association Films, one of the top distributors of sustaining pub- service and informational films, is regularizing its service to stations with a new “Movie-a-Day” plan that will provide 11 weeks of daily half-hour film programming. Pack¬ age will consist of a weekly group of seven half-hour films, ranging in scope from travel to sports, from do-it-yourself to community benefit. Under the plan, stations have the option of ordering as many pack¬ ages or daily programs per week as it deems necessary. Film is free of charge, except for postage. ‘Riley’ Yanked From Roach Hollywood, May 22. From the Production Centres Producer Tom McKnight moves his “Life of Riley” telepix series frpm the Hal Roach studios to Cali¬ fornia studios, where NBC has rented space, in June. William Bendix stars in the se¬ ries which is an NBC package. Abbe Berlin is director. Plans are to finish the current batch of “Ri¬ ley” vidpix at the Roach lot May 29, and resume with a new crop at California studios June 11. Sound Masters Sets First International Production Service First international production service offering consultation and actual production facilities any¬ where overseas has been- formed by Sound Masters Inc., veteran non-theatrical and television pro¬ duction house. Its new Interna¬ tional Production Service (IPS) will be headed up by Wallace Wors- ley Jr., longtime Metro staffer and more recently out on his own in indie production and particularly ; Continued from page 30 ; the U. S, from 13 foreign countries under sponsorship of the State Department, visiting the WEEI studios this frame. Aweidah is con¬ nected with the International Seminar for Radio and TV at Boston U. . . * John P. Kelly, member of WEEI’s engineering staff for the past 16 years, ankles May 31 to join the research staff of Lincoln Laboratory, M. I. T. . . . Bill Hanson relieves Howard Nelson as an* nouncer-producer of “Carl Moore Remembers” on WEEI Monday through Friday from 6:30 to 6:45 p.m. this frame. New assignment puts him in charge of program contest awarding a portable radio to listener writing a 50-word statement telling why one of Moore’s tunes is a favorite. t IN WASHINGTON ... Roger Mudd, former news * director for WRNL, Richmond, Va., and a three-time winner of the Virginia AP award for newscasting, has joined news and jublic affairs staff on WTOP-CBS . . . Radio station WWDC tees off a new “Traffic- Bulletins” show at month's end as aid to vacationers and motorists, with General Motors Acceptance Corp. sponsoring . . . Inga Rungvold and Patty Cavin, both WRC-NBC femmecasters, and Beryl Denzer, CBS “Face the Nation” assistant pro-» ducer, played roles in Women’s National Press Club show, “Equal - Time,” for brasshat audience headed by President and Mrs. Eisenhower . . . Paul Arnold, ex of NBC’s “America Song,” is singing host of WRC's “Footlight Theatre” . . . Robert J. Enders, local telepix producer, inked contract for a color film for Civil Air Patrol and Lear, Inc., makers of electronic devices for light planes . . Ted Koop, director of CBS news in Washington, principal speaker at this week’s Atlantic City convention of Triple Industrial Supply gr6up. IN SAN FRANCISCO ... in projects overseas. IPS will offer a number of serv¬ ices, including a production ad¬ visory service under which it will furnish detailed production advice, cost analysis and rough budgets on foreign projects; a production service, under which it will pre¬ pare final budgets, breakdowns and shooting schedules and also will administer any budget submitted and underwrite any budget admin¬ istered; a sponsored and documen¬ tary film production service by which it will provide full produc¬ tion units in various areas and will handle aR foreign customs, legal and tax matters. IPS will provide (these services for program films, documentaries and spot commer¬ cial and industrial films, both for sponsors and networks or indie pro¬ ducers. According to Sourid Masters, the new setup would produce savings for Its users from the very start by giving them an accurate basis for a decision on whether te proceed with a project. It also saves the client scouting trips to the foreign location, which means time and money. The underwriting phase of the service gives the client an idea of true costs before he even starts production. Manpower provided the client Is above-scale, for the areas used, and would be the best available; furthermore, the client works with an American company and eliminates language and cus¬ toms problems. In essence, IPS is selling experi¬ ence in foreign production, with the pitch “being that it would take the client years of triaL and error to build such knowledge, while here It’s available for a fee. Such knowledge would include customs- legal matters, manpower matters, studio locations and facilities, all- over budgetary matters, etc. Aussie Telepix Continued from pace 57 hold a price line the next time around, after there are tangible figures on which to base a price. Also, there’s another hidden factor. Under Australian import regula¬ tions, only the stations themselves can import film, whicli means only they can do the acutal filmbuying. This leaves Australian advertisers and agencies at the mercy of the stations as regards program selec¬ tion and price. There are already indications, even before television hits the air, that the clients and agencies are preparing to fight this regulation so they can. do their own program buying asnd merely place it on the stations, American style. This mould be welcomed by the American distribs, since v it would widen the prospective mar¬ ket and consequently tend to make prices higher. The four TP A shows sold this week were “Susie,” “Count of Monte Cristo,” “Ramar of the Jun¬ gle” and “Fury.” “Count” was sold to Television Corp. of Syndey, oth¬ ers to Amalgamated Television Service of Sydney and General Television Corp. of. Melbourne, Previously TPA sold “Lassie” and “Ellejy Queen” to ABC. KSAN’s S. H. Patterson confirms- that he’s moving his radio station and UHF outlet “within 90 days,” but denies he’s under any pressure to do so. Says simply that KSAN’s' present lOth-floor quarters in the Merchandise Mart are “inaccessible,” that he wants to “consolidate” KSAN-TV next to the radio station, or perhaps right in the radio sta¬ tion. He wants “ground floor space, so that autos and heavy vehicles can come right in, allow more local production.”: Patterson claims the UHF outlet is “gradually increasing business a little bit,” adds that business on the radio station is “25% above last year” . . . Reason for KOVR’s move back to Stockton, according to General Manager Terry Lee, is simply “economy”—elimination of Frisco studio and administra¬ tion will save 25% of Channel 13’s operating cost, it’s estimated. All KOVR officials deny that mbve resulted from FCC pressure, point out sales department will remain in Frisco, that only kiddie show and a 15-minute sports show will be affected and that only .five staffers will switch to Stockton office . . , AFTRA’s local exec secretary, Charlotte Cohelan, and Frisco president, Wanda Ramey, headed up cocktail bash thrown at Trader Vic’s for national secretary Donald Conaway. Party brought together most of Frisco’s top radio-tv labor leaders and station managers. IN CLEVELAND ... Bert Downing left WLW for KYW merchandising manager of radio¬ tv .. . Wal Kay radio-tv’s “Kousin Kay” joined Edgewater Chevrolet ... 36 food brokers doing WGAR’s James Taylor’s programs while he is on vacation . . . Mayor Anthony Celebrezze started weekly 15-minute radio stint on KYW . . . Jo Portaro now doing three-a-week tv sting on WJW . . . Lawson Deming rounded out sixth year as “One O’clock Playhouse” host on KYW . . . Flo Roth Semon, ex-WJW, now with Esquire promotion and in town for visit . . . Indian hurler Herb_Score signed baseball series on WERE . . . Franklin C. Snyder, former veep and general manager for WXEL, named vice-president and account service director for McCann-Erickson . . . Bill Gordon signed for his sixth year as WHF disker . . . Pete and Anita Lee leave (29) for 18- week tour of European army bases with their WJW-TV Nanigans , . . Arnold Brown leaves KYW-TV directorship for New York agency. IN MINNEAPOLIS Peter Lind Hayes and Mary Healy have been inked by WCCO Radio to top its annual stage show before an audience of„payees and over the air in conjunction with the local Aquatennial, Summer mardi gras, July 21, and also has lined up the Toppers as one of the Acts. Previous headliners have included Bob Hope, Arthur Godfrey, Victor Borge, Eddie Cantor, George Jessel and Bob Crosby . . . WDGY. under its new Storz ownership boasting many cash giveaways, now is;announc¬ ing a forthcoming contest with a single cash prize of $105,000, but de¬ clines to reveal any of the details yet . . . “Cactus Slim,” one of KSTP- TV’s “Sunset Valley Dance” stars, hospitalized . v . Second annual labor relations conference at U. qf Minnesota included a closed circuit to broadcast an actual contract bargaining session * . . KSTP Radio broadcast the U. of Minnesota annual spring practice windup football game with the alumni play by play. Remington-Rand Univac was the bankroller . . . Herb Oscar Anderson, WDGY disk jockey, passing the cigars. It’s a boy . . . Many video programs rescheduled because of eastern daylight saving and none here . . . Stars of Metropolitan Opera and “Teahouse of August Moon” appeared on'same Arle Haeberle WCCO-TV “Around the Town” show, both attractions being here last week. IN PITTSBURGH ... Mead Mulvihill, Jr., who worked as parttime announcer at KQV while studying for his legal degree, has joined the law firm of Mulvi¬ hill, Gollmer & Grier . . . C. Grep Van Camp, promotion director of WSTR-TV, has been elected president of the Wheeling, W. Va„ Junior Chamber of Commerce » . . Roger Wolfe, assistant program director of KDKA-TV, lost the tip of the index finger on his left hand when it came in contact with a power saw at home . .. Otto Krenn has returned to KQV again as the summer replacement for station’s vacationing an¬ nouncers . . . Shirley Colker, ex-production assistant at KDKA-TV, now private secretary to George Claire in the new MCA office here . . • Jean Connolly, of Wayne Griffin’s daily tv show, has a date with the stork ip September . . . Bill Babcock, program head of WJAS, emceed the Armed Forces Day program on WQED, the educational channel. CBS Newsfilm to B.A. CBS Television Film Sales added another foreign market to the growing list now taking the five-a- week CBS Newsfilm service. Radio Belgrano in Buenos Aires has signed for the service, marking still a further loosening ^ of the post-Peron Argentine film* import situation. Newsfilm was also set in three domestic markets — KQOL - TV, Phoenix; WBTV in Charlotte and WBTW in Florence, S. C. Guild’s ‘Goldbergs’ Into Third Canadian Market Guild has pacted “The Gold- bergs” in its third Canadian mar¬ ket. Gattuso Italian foods ha* taken the half-hour telefilm series in Winnipeg, Manitoba, ove CBWT. le sponsor has show in Mon- and Toronto, with sta Lide Berg doing a special set ommercials. produced w