Variety (December 1956)

24 RADIO-TELEVISION P&RIETY Wednesday, December 19,1956 ABC Radio Preps Flock of Changes In Morning & Evening Schedule ABC Radio plans changes in-f both part of the ayem and evening program blocks as well as in the network news lineup. Suggestions have been made to the network’s eight-man affiliates advisory com¬ mittee along with a revised plan for co-operative sales. These are the first efforts to effect major ABC Radio changes since the advent of the Leonard Goldenson regime several weeks ago. Plans lay particular stress on making co-op sales more appetizing to affiliated stations by reportedly fixing the network’s share in co-op shows at 7 1 /6% of the revenue from local sale of such shows. Until now, revenue has occasionally been as low as 7%, but more often closer to 10% for the web, it’s reported. Martin Agronsky, who does an 8 ayem network news strip, is also going to do the quarter-hour night¬ time dommentary at 7:15, the time now held by Quincy Howe. Howe will be retained, but no new time period has been yet found for him. Move will take place in early Feb¬ ruary. Also at night, network program¬ ming staff has blueprinted a res¬ taurant interview sesh fronted by Louis Sobel, Hearst syndicated columnist. Time picked for show, described a “hard-hitting news in¬ terview from the Eden Roc Res¬ taurant in New Yopk,” is scheduled for 9:30 to 9:55 Monday through Friday. “Best Bands of the Land” will be moved into the 9 to 9:30 slot, as a result. Meantime. ABC Radio is nego¬ tiating with Art Henley, producer of “Make Up Your Mind,” to put the former CBS Radio paneler in as a quarter-hour cross-boarder at 11:15 ayem. Jack Paar, now at 11:15, will definitely be moved for¬ ward to 11, with some, resulting changes in his format. Paar, now heard in a studio one-man show, will move to his Westchester home, for a regular remote. With Paar in the new format will be his wife and daughter, plus musician-come¬ dian Jose Melis, who appeared with the star on his former CBS-TV air¬ ings. “Make Up Your Mind,” will probably be emceed bp George Skinner, who now does a local show for WABC, tfie ABC New York flag. ABC advised the affiliate advis¬ ory committee, it’s said, that co¬ opping “entertainment” programs has been little more than a head¬ ache, Very few non-news shows remain on any of the networks as (Continued on page 50) ABC-TV’s ‘Hey, Look* CBS-TV* is still top Trendex network by far, but the latest December Trendex tally shows the marked advances ABC-TV is making. In directly competitive Trendex markets, ABC-TV leads CBS-TV by 11 half-hours and NBC-TV by 14. The ABC shows which lead both net¬ works are the two Lawrence Welk shows, “Cheyenne,” “Wy¬ att Earp,” “Broken Arrow,” “pisneyland,” “Jim Bowie,” and “Rin Tin Tin,” Bulova Cutback On Gleason Show; $2,500,00(1 Trim Jackie Gleason, who’s been tak¬ ing it on the chin in his rating I battle with Perry Como since re¬ turning to an hour live format this season, received his first sponsor¬ ship blow this week when Bulova notified CBS-TV that it would cut back to alternate weeks after the first of the year. Bu-lova currently has a half-hour every week, but will cut back to one-fourth spon¬ sorship, with Old Gold - retaining its every-week exposure. Effect of the -move is to cut Bulova’s annual outlay on the show by $2,500,d00, shaving it from $6,000,000 to $3,500,000. Purpose of the move is to preserve intact the Bulova station break schedule, on which the watch company spends $4,500,000 annually. Under Bulova’s deal on the Gleason show, it had the privilege of withdrawing after the first 13 weeks, in spite of the 39-week duration of the con¬ tract. Rather than give up the show entirely, Bulova and McCann- Erickson decided to cut to the skip-week status. Meanwhile, McCann-Erickson is trying to line up an advertiser who would absorb the alternate week which Bulova will surrender. Agency is working with CBS on prospective clients, but hasn’t come up with any yet. Quick-as-a-Flash ABC-AM $4,600,008 ABC Radio has raked in approxi¬ mately $4,600,000 in the last three weeks, adding substantially to the overall rise in network radio bill¬ ings. Within a week after piling up a gross of $2,500,000 in new and renewed business, the network accumulated another $2,100,000 in pacts. ABC’s a.m. lineup drew $1,100,- 000 in the past seven days. During the same period, AFL-CIO okayed a year’s renewal on two nighttime news strips. Union is paying $1,- 000,000 in 1957' for the quarter- hour Edward P. Morgan and five- minute John W. Vandercook stanzas. Bristol-Myers, Ex-Lax and Life Savers-Beach Nut bought into the ABC Radio morning block. All were renewals, but Grant Co. of Chicago (formerly d-Con) is taking 10 five- minute segments a week in a com¬ bination of “My True Story,” “When a Girl Marries” and “Whis¬ pering Streets” in February; Sterl¬ ing Drug has Monday-Wednesday- Friday five-minute segs on “True Story”; Dromedary is taking the same show Tuesdays and Thursdays for five minutes, plus “Girl Mar¬ ries” and “Whispering Streets” twice weekly. (This is a revision of Dromedary’s 1956 contract, al¬ though no coin increase has been made by the sponsor.) More renewals are Atlantis Sales of Rochester, two segs of “My True Story,” add Drackett Co., four segs of “Don McNeill’s Breakfast Club.” WPIX IN THREE-YEAR PACT WITH YANKEES WPIX, N. Y., has inked a new three-year contract with the New York Yankees, providing for the telecasting of all home games and some selected road games. Picking up the tab for the Yank games will be R, J. Reynolds and Ballantine. The New York Daily News indie also will be telecasting all the home games of the Giants, under its four year pact with that, ball club, making WPIX the heaviest scheduled baseball station, in the New York market. Sports casting for the Yank games will be Phil Rizzuto, Mel Allen and Red Barber. Hal March Bows Out Of Geo. M. Cohan Spec Role Hal March withdrew from the role of George M. Cohan in the May 11 NBC-TV musical spectacu¬ lar based on Cohan’s life and spon¬ sored as the first of three such specs by Swift. March, in explain¬ ing his withdrawal, said he’d never danced professionally and that to learn Cohan’s style would require more time than March can give. Jose Ferrer was originally set for the role but he was obliged to bow out because of a picture commit¬ ment. Probably a factor in March’s de¬ cision, though he didn’t say so, was his stint in “High Button Shoes” recently, where he took something of a beating from the critics be¬ cause of the dancing involved. Showcase Productions, which will produce the show for Swift, hasn’t set a replacement yet. j ‘Can Do’Out,‘21’In As‘Lucy’Competition; Revlon Gets a Release NBC-TV's changing Monday at 9 opppsite-“Lucy” picture under¬ goes another change Jan. 14 when the web moves its Wednesday, night “Twenty-One” quizzer into the slot as a replacement for the current but shortlived “Can Do,” which Revlon is cancelling after* a six-week run. NBC, it’s under¬ stood, will let Revlon out of the remainder of its 13-week cycle and will also pay off Joe Cates, the show’s creator, for the remainder of his 13-week commitment. In moving “Twenty-One” to the Monday time slot from its Wednes¬ day 10:30 post. Pharmaceuticals Inc. will stay with the show as sponsor. Drug outfit is willing to brave the “Lucy” competition in •favor of its current Wednesday post because of the improved sta¬ tion lineup it would get as com¬ pared with its current station op¬ tion time slotting. Quizzer has been moving up rapidly in the rat¬ ing department (see this week’s Trendex scores). Cates, incidentally, got back from a Bermuda vacation last week (his first in three years) only to get the news of the cancellation. He said he had a firm 13-week deal and had lined up such remote guest stunts as Willy Mays from Yankee Stadium trying to pole five out of 10 pitched balls into the Stands, a Bob Hope putting stunt from The Coast, Rory Calhoun and Debbie Reynolds & Eddie Fisher in vari¬ ous stunts. ABC Sound & Sight In Year-End Recap ABC Radio and ABC-TV will each do a special year-old round¬ up of news highlights on Sunday (30). Both shows are titled “News- year—1956.” John Daly, ABC veep and the network’s ’ chief newscaster, will narrate the tv version, from 5:30 to 6 p.m. Radio edition will be car¬ ried from 7:05 to 8. The two shows will be produced in collaboration with Newsweek mag. Highlights will be the same but each program will be separately produced. 60% of Farms Now Hare TV Washington, Dec. 18. The speed with which tv came to the farm was reflected in a Census Bureau report last week which showed that one-third of the nation’s farmers acquired receivers during the four-year period from 1950 to 1954. The report, based on The 1'954 Census of Agriculture, showed that the number of sets on farms rose from 154,000 in 1950 to 1,698,000 in 1954 or from less than 3% to 35.5%. Measured in terms of farms with electricity, the ratio increased from 3.2% to 38.2%. ' - (Probably about 60% of farm families now' have television. A sample survey by the Census Bureau last February showed 53% of rural-farm households with receivers, compared to 42% in June of 1955). Television registered the largest gain in equipment installation on farms during the period, according to the report which in¬ cludes such items as tractors, trucks, home freezers, running water, telephones and electricity. Highest tv-saturation on farms in 1954 was in New Jersey with 83.7%, followed by Rhode Inland with 79.1%, Massachusetts with 70.4%, Ohio with 67.2% and Maryland with 66.6%. Lowest saturation was in Wyoming with 8.5%, followed by Montana with 10.2% and Nevada with 10.8%. The 1954 Census of Agriculture was the first farm census to ob¬ tain data on tv. Comparable data for 1950 were taken in a Census of Housing. ^ The 1954 census di‘d not include radio. The last farm census in which radios were counted was in 1945. CindereDa a $50,1)1)0 Shoe-In Dallas Couple, Heavily in Debt, Find KLIF’s Moola Before Midnight MBS Veepee HERBERT C. RICE in his special article cautions Don’t Go Away — There’s More * * * another editorial feature in the upcoming 51st Anniversary Number of P'S'RIETY Here's a Warning Recently proposed (but not yet effective) new taxcollector interpretation on star-domi¬ nated corporations, and their proper tax rates, has caused widespread alarm in the film industry. ~ Further study suggests that television, and other amuse¬ ment media, may have setups which are facing big unex¬ pected tax liabilities. For a detailed story on the situation see streamer story this issue, Page 3. Simon Siegel As ABCs Chanceflor Of the Exchequer Simon B. Siegel, a key man'in the Paramount Theatres picture and a behind-the-scenes power at ABC, is taking an active role in the network. He’s going to be top financial man on the network side of American Broadcasting-Para¬ mount Theatres, it’s understood. Siegel replaces ABC veep and controller Harold Morgan, who left last week for a top spot at Mc¬ Cann-Erickson. Siegel bears the title of AB-PT treasurer and has theoretically been over Morgan since the merger of Paramount T satres and ABC in 1953. Morgan did the actual financial work, while Siegel remained chiefly as a close adviser to Leonard Goldenson, AB-PT prexy. Siegel won’t take Morgan’s title, but he is now be¬ ing listed.in network documents as “ABC treasurer.” Accompanying the {ictivitation of Siegel at ABC are two moves in keeping with bossman Goldenson’s plan to build “in-depth” depart¬ ments throughout the network. Michael Boland $nd J. Russell Gavin have been named assistant treasurers of ABC. With these men, plus Jay Rabinovitz, who hals no title but is acting as the tv net- work’s business manager, and Stephen Riddleberger,. the ABC radio -business boss, there will be a four-man executive group under Siegel. Boland has been with the ABC cost control group since 1955. Gavin has been icMef accountant at ABC since 1954, before which he was an NBC accountant. Olds’ Sugar Bowl Buy Oldsmobile signed this week for the New Year's Day entire cover¬ age of the Sugar Bowl football game in New Orleans over both ABC-TV and ABC-Radio. Overall cost of 'the one-shot package is approximated at $200,000. Game will be Tennessee versus Baylor, D. P. Brother- negotiated the pact Dallas, Dec. 18. The jackpot in radio giveaways was struck by a Dallas lathe oper¬ ator who fpund a $50,000 check hidden by KLIF, the treasure be¬ ing the prize in the station’s con¬ test. To add to the suspense, the loot, for which clues were broad¬ cast daily, was found on the last day the check was valued at $50,- 000. One of the contest rules was that at midnight, Dec. 9, the value of the check' would drop from $50,- 000 to $500. The lucky man was Ben Spawn of Dallas, a former Air Force pilot. This is the way it happened. Mrs. Spawn had been listening all week to twice-daily clues given by KLIF. Seven hours before the mid¬ night deadline, Mrs. Spawn sug¬ gested to her husband, “Let’s go find that check. I know where it is.” Humoring her whim, the for¬ mer pilot, accompanied by his spouse, began looking for the largesse. During the search, Mrs. Spawn lost a pair of shoes in the sand of a vacant lot/ Just as the light or day was fading, Spawn spotted a slip of paper in a soft- drink bottle at the base of a tree on a vacant lot. Holding it up to the light of an approaching auto¬ mobile, he could read a “five” and lots of “zeroes.” It was enough. With less than seven* hours left before the check would have been worth only $500, he hailed a police escort of two squad cars and sped to the radio station where KLIF (Continued on page 50) WB Dickers TV HeDinger Series Hollywood, Dec. 18. Deal is being negotiated for Warner Bros, tv to acquire the Mark Hellinger teleseries based on collection of ; Hellinger stories. If deal jells, series will go into pro¬ duction the'first week in January. Charles Weintraub and Jack En* tratter own the Hellinger tv rights, and are negotiating the deal with Jack' Warner Jr. and William T. Orr of WB. Rod Amateau, director of the Burns & Allen show, would direct some of the Hellinger vidpix dur¬ ing the B&A production .hiatus, and would receive a participation. CBS-TV’S ‘BIG TOP’ STAYS AS SUSTAINER CBS-TV will continue to carry “Big Top” as a sustainer after Seal- test bows out of its longterm spon¬ sorship pact with the Jan. 12 show. The web still hasn’t been able to find a replacement for Sealtest but is proceeding on the assumption it can round one up. Show continues in its Saturday noon-to-l-^slot out of Philadelphia* with Jack Sterling as emcee.