Variety (December 1956)

RADIO-TELEVISION SI Wednesday, December. 19» 1956 vxmeFr TIME (INC.) MARCHES ON IN TV TV’s 60% Program Mortality Network television’s mortality rate is overwhelming, and along agency row the prediction for the current season is that the high rate of change will probably be increased because of the great number of mediocre shows to hit the three networks. In the 11 months until November of this year, according to agency figures, there has been a 60% turnover in programs. In 1955, there were 91 network stanzas, 74 at night and 17 day. Of that total, there were only 29 night and seven daytime shows which held over until last November. Three-year mortality rate (shows dating from the end of the 1952-'53 season) is 68%, with a total of only 26% shows, including five daytimers, remaining from the 81 then on the air. - - -■*- - ' _ __ ___ , - i , — Disk Jocks Austria-Bound Prep National Drive for Hungary Relief; Stations Throughout Country Rally to Cause - 1 _ 4 --=- Sponsors More & More in Favor Of Qnkkie Preemptions on TV -!--4 A group of eight American dee- jajhs from the National Council of Disk Jockeys for Public Service has left for Austria as a prelude to a national drive by the org's 1,500 members in "support of displaced juves from Hungary. Group, headed by Murray Kaufman of New York, and accompanied by Allan Wilson of The Advertising Council, returns Friday (21) after a five-day trip. Deejay on-the-air drive will be to enlist the support of U. S. teen¬ agers in sending CARE packages to displaced Hungarian children and in “helping Integrate Hun¬ garian teenagers in their own com¬ munities." Transportation for the eight gab¬ bers is being provided by the In¬ ternational Committee for Euro¬ pean Migration. Recorded inter¬ views, motion pictures and other broadcast material will be collected by the eight during the trip. It will be offered for distribution by the memebrship of the National Council of Disk Jockeys. Cleve. Hops Aboard Cleveland, Dec. 18. With Cleveland boasting the largest Hungarian community in the U. S., KYW and KYW-TV, the Westinghouse Broadcasting Co. outlets here, have hopped bn the Hungarian refugee situation from : every angle. The radio outlet has turned over all its facilities to serve as the communications arm of the Hungarian refugee resettle¬ ment program here, while the tv station scored a major coup with exclusive films from Vienna of the arrival there of a Cleveland-spon¬ sored “mercy flight." On the radio side, the station has worked out arrangements with (Continued on page 50) NABET Victor In KOBY Strike San Francisco* Dec. 18. E 1 e v e n-week NABET strike against pops radio station KOBY, formerly longhair KEAR, ended last Saturday (15) night with vic¬ tory for the union. Five announcers and engineers, who had been picketing the 10,000- watt station since before David M. Segal took over and changed call letters to KOBY, will be hired by Segal’s organization. Walkout originally had been against Stephen A. Cisler, who leased the independent outlet to Segal’s Mid-America Broadcasters, Inc. NABET international rep Robert Lenihan said five other Segal em¬ ployees at station would be taken into union shop and other workers would probably return to other Segal stati&ns in Denver and Greenville, Miss. Lenihan also said a KOBY dam¬ age suit against the union would be dropped “with prejudice’’— meaning it can’t be. reopened. Two-year contract sets wages at the “area rate,” $150 a week for announcers and engineers, with announcers also getting a fees scale. Cisler had been paying $125, and Segal had been paying about the same or a little less. You Can Be Sure . • . NBC Radio received a re¬ quest yesterday (Tues.) from an independent Boston radio station for a feed of Indian Prime Minister Nehru’s speech last night. Web normally grants such requests, and did so in this case but not with¬ out a gleam of triumph. Station waeTWBZ, the West¬ inghouse Broadcasting Co. outlet in Boston which disaf¬ filiated from NBC in August. You Can’t Picket Station m Advance Of Trouble: NLRB Washington, Dec. 18. Picketing of $ radio station un¬ der construction in order to farce an agreement with a union for fu¬ ture engineering employees was. held unfair labor practice in an intermediate report issued today (Tues.) by a trial examiner of the National Labor Relations Board. The report recommended that the IBEW “cease and desist" from interfering with construction of station WGEE in Indianapolis in order to require Rollins Broad¬ casting, Inc.,-owners, to recognize it as the bargaining representative of the engineers. Although the picketing was stopped last August, the examiner found that the union should not be exonerated “for the simple rea¬ son . . . that the original purpose of the picketing was to cause" the contractor “to cease rendering service to Rollins and by such tac¬ tics coerce and force Rollins, to sign a collective bargaining con¬ tract with it." Rollins, a subsidiary of John W. Rollins Associates of Wilmington, Del., operates stations WBEE in Harvey, Ill.; WPTZ (TV) in Platts- burg, N.Y.; WNJR in Newark, N.J.; WAMS in Wilmington, Del.; WRAP in Norfolk, Va.; and WJWL in Georgetown, Del. Parent company is engaged in other enterprises, including auto¬ mobile fleet leasing and cattle rais¬ ing. John W. Rollins is lieutenant governor of Delaware. Danny Kaye’s ‘Secret Life’ A BBC-TV Xmas Spread London, Dec. 18. Most Important spot of the year on BBC television is being reserved for “Secret Life of Danny Kaye," the 90-minute film the comedian m^de in collaboration with CBS in his world travels as a roving ambassador for the State Dept, in Washington. Film is being held back until Christmas day so it can be shown immediately following the Queen’s annual message to the Empire. Kaye has been invited by the Britfch' government t6 fly to Lon¬ don fot a personal appearance with DICKERS BITNER $17,000,000 DEAL \ Time, Inc., already the owner of three television stations, is seek¬ ing to build a midwest television empire through a deal being nego¬ tiated with Harry Bitner’s Con¬ solidated Television & Radio Broad¬ casters, Inc., to take over three of the Bitner properties for a re¬ ported $17,000*000. It’s virtually the same deal Crowell-Collier made With Bitner but subsequently backed out of because of financing problems '(reflected in the weekend announcement that C-C will discon¬ tinue publication of Collier’s and the Woman’s Home Companion next month). In negotiating for the Bitner properties, Time is seeking tp par- lay its dominance in the magazine field into a similar kingpin status in television, within the prescribed FCC limits on station ownership, of course. It’s a particular irony that a publishing competitor’s fi- | nancial problems, namely Crowell- i Collier’s, should provide Time with ] the opportunity to expand its di¬ versified interests. Should the deal go through, Time would have to drop one of its three stations, with the likelihood that KOB-TV in Albuquerque will be the choice. Time owns only 50% of the KOB stations, with for¬ mer FCC chairman Wayne Coy bolding the other half. Time owns KOA-TY (and AM) in Denver out¬ right and holds 80% of the stock of KTVT in Salt Lake City (with KLYD-AM), the other-20% owned by the prez Ben Larson. More- j Over, the Denver and Salt Lake City operations are highly profit¬ able, while Albuquerque is just be¬ ginning to pile up profits, though well in the black. The Bitner deal involves three of the four Consolidated proper¬ ties. They are WFBM-TV (& AM), Indianapolis; WTCN-TV (& AM), Minneapolis and WOOD-TV (& AM), Grand Rapids. One Bitner property is not involved, WFDF, Flint, Mich., which is a purely radio operation. -Time, while dickering for the sister radio stations involved in tv acquisitions, apparently isn’t interested in acquiring any solo radio operations. It was for all the Bitner properties, including WFpF, that Crowell-Collier had agreed to pay $17,000,000, but before the transfer could be effected, C-C prez Paul Smith called off the deal, claiming financing arrangements had fallen through. Bertha Brainard’s Name GremlinedOut of NBC Article by Johnstone New York. Editor, Variety: As a consistent “cover-to-cover" reader (and occasional contributor) rarely have I found typos in your efficiently edited weekly. Thus, only because of its nostalgic im¬ portance do I call your -attention and that of your readers - to a “dropped- line” in my by-lined piece on the early days at NBC in the last (Dec. 12) issue. In the third paragraph, in which is listed the* names of those NBC pioneers since passed on and t‘o whom the article is dedicated, my original copy read As follows: “. . . Charles (Pope) Poponoe, WJZ’s for¬ mer manager and NBC’s first treas¬ urer; Bertha Brainard, WJZ pro¬ gram charter, who soon became (Continued on, page 50) BAUER-BLACK’S 200G FOR 2 ABC-TV SLOTS Chicago, Dec. 18. Bauer & Black has staked out a $200,000 participation claim on ABC-TV’s “Afternoon Film Festi¬ val” and the Thursday night “Cir¬ cus Time” for next year. B&B ordered 29 insertions on the day¬ time filmer, starting April 1, and 10 spots on the’ circus show, start¬ ing Feb. 2. Agency is Leo Burnett. Variations on a Theme Television is saturated with Charles Dickens’ “A Christ¬ mas Carol" this week, with no less than two network-versions of the classic plus a widely: syndicated film version on the air. One network version is the “Cliinax’’ film starring Fredric March, shot three years ago and repeated each year since on the CBS-TV dramatic skein. That’s scheduled tomorrow (Thurs.). Another, brand new, is' the Theatrical Enterprises musical adaptation (Fred Soie 1 - man & Janice Torre, music & lvrics) titled “Stingiest Man in Town," scheduled to bow Sunday T23) on “Alcoa Hov v ” ! on NBC-TV. Stars Basil Ra*h- | -bone, Vic Damone, Patrice Munsel, Johnny Desmond and the Four Lads. The pic ver- s ; on is the British film star¬ ring Alistair Sim, which in N. Y. is playing an all-week ruii on WOR-TV and is on in other markets where Associ¬ ated Artists Productions, the distrib, has it sold. Butler Says Both Parties Used TV, Radio Too Much Washington, Deck 18. A Congressional Committee was told yesterday that there was too much campaigning via tv during the recent national elections. Testifying before a House Com¬ mittee to investigate campaign ex¬ penditures, Democratic National Committee Chairman Paul M. But¬ ler said both major parties used too mueft^tv and radio time in behalf of their candidates. The result, he said, was that the public got fed up with political broadcasts. Butler recommended that Con¬ gress put an overall ceiling of $10,000,000 on campaign spending by each party instead of the $3,000,000 limit on each national committee. James McDevitt, co-director of the AFL-CIO Committee on Politi¬ cal Education, suggested that Con¬ gress consider requiring broadcast stations to provide some free time to candidates. Rep. Richard Simpson (R.-Pa.), Chairman of the Republican Con¬ gressional Campaign Committee, advocated lowering the limit on in¬ dividual contributions to candi¬ dates for national office from $5,000 to $3,000. “The vastly Improved methods of mass communications, the pros¬ perous andw expanding population in America today," said Simpson, “have outmoded the,,legal restric¬ tions controlling our elections.” WCBS-TV’S NEW YEAR’S CHOCK FULL O’MONEY Chock Full O’Nuts, which spon¬ sored last year’s New Year’s Eve show on WCBS-TV, N. Y.. has re¬ turned to the CBS-TV flagship with an order for the final segment of this year’s show. Station is now SRO, with Clairol sponsoring- Guy Lombardo from the Roosevelt Ho¬ tel and Bob Trout in a Times Square pickup from 11:15 to 12:15, and Chock Full O’Nuts paying the tab on the Vincent Lopez remote from the Taft Grill at 12:15 to 1. Not on the slate this year, unlike last, is Jean Martin, singer who’s a^o the wife of Chock Full O’Nuts boss William Black. Until now, she had been featured in every lo¬ cal segment sponsored by the res¬ taurant chain-coffee manufacturer. Grey Advertising handled the busi¬ ness. Pattern of quickie “preemption” sponsorship deals in television is on the upgrade. Under the new pattern, shortterm advertisers buy in on established shows, taking over a specified period of weeks from the regular bankrcdlnr,.wlio-may re¬ linquish it for a variety of reasons but by and large to ease strained budgets. Latest to come in under the new pattern is J. B. Williams Co. for its shaving preparations. Williams will preempt Amana on three of the lat¬ ter’s alternate-week dates on’ the Phil Silvers show. Williams, via J. Walter Thompson, is taking over the Jan. 15 and 29 and Feb. 12, with R. J. Reynolds undisturbed as the regular alternate-week occu¬ pant. The Williams buy involves a cute twist, by the way—it’s ad¬ vertising its Electric Shave prep¬ aration and Aqua Velva prepara¬ tion, presumably to take advantage of the^ post-Christmas market of new electric shaver recipients. Similarly, Ford is taking over two of General Foods’ “I Love Lucy” dates during January under its new pattern of quickie inser¬ tions. Earlier, it had arranged for a similar pair of dates on GF’s “December Eride” setup. In this latter case, it’s a definite instance of budget relief for the yielding sponsor. General Foods has sought to get alternace sponsors on several of its shows, and in fact succeeded in bringing in Ford to share “Zane Grey Theatre’’ on a regular basis. With some other stanzas, however, it was less successful, and so the Ford quickies on “Lucy” and “Bride" turn out to be a breather for GF. The shortterm pattern isn’t en¬ tirely new— General Mills for the past few seasons has been preempt¬ ing B. F. Goodrich for an eight- week fall span on “Burns & Allen,” for example, and other similar ar¬ rangements have been made over the years. But in line with today’s increasing costs, the pattern ap¬ pears to have been accelerated. Storer to Crack Philly TV Market Philadelphia, Dec. 18. Paul F. Harron, president of WPFH, the Wilmington, Del. tv station which was moving in on the Philadelphia market* as Channel 12, has been sold to the Storer Broadcasting Co., of Miami Beach. Delivery of the stock has not been made pending approval of the FCC, but announcement of the sale made during the NBC meeting in Florida came as a shock to local broadcasting circles. Harron acquired the Delaware tv station in 1955. purchasing the stock of WDEL-TV, Wilmington, for a reported $3,712,500. He changed the call letters, using his own initials for the new setup. The Wilmington studios were trans¬ ferred just recently to midtown Philly, in the new City Center’s Suburban Station Bldg. Even more recent was an appli¬ cation made to set up the WPFH transmitter near Bridgeton, in South Jersey. , This move would permit the WPFH signal to blanket most of the Philadelphia area. It would also have left Delaware as the only state in the union without a tv station. Stqrer CoT’Owns seven tv stations and a similar number of radio sta¬ tions. It is the largest independent radio and tv owner and operator in the nation. Harron also operates radio stations WIBG and WIBG- FM, in Philadelphia. Wooley’s Gov’t Slot Washington, Dec. 18. Jack Wooley, CBS sales manager in Los Angeles, was named last week as Special Assistant for Pub¬ lic Affairs to the Secretary of the Navy. A native of Salina, Kan., Wooley is a lieutenant commander in the Naval Reserve.