Variety (June 1958)

S9 1 yre dnesday^ Jung 18, 1958 i ‘Gotta Know YonrTime Slot, Bid)’ I Chicago, June 17. I It’s the educated theory of a Chi adman that advertising. gets ' its sell across better at certain times of day than at. others. Alvin ^Eicoff^ exec yeep. of Mohr & Eicoff, .a New York-Chicagb agency, bases his postulation on past studies he has made in direct mail and door-to^oor sales techniques and results. Iii television, he gays, the idea gets some credence from the fact that. certain shows of high ratings fail to sell products as well as others that have smaller audiences. Eicoff admits his r^earch has not been thoroughgoing or its results conclusive, but should the theory be verified it could cue a wholesale revision of rate card structures and might play havoc wth afternoon editions of newspapers. The theory holds that there are points in the human day of highest and Idwest resistances, the apogee being at midday and the lowest points at either extreme. Tn the periods of least re¬ sistance, the blurb makes a deeper, more provocative impression than , at the high resistance points. As fiicoff figures it; a persbn . reaches a peak of efficiency in all respects in the afternoon. His: mind is working wellv hiS thinking is logical and broad, and he is going to be hardest to sell at that time, least likely to take an imaginative blurb seriously. A day, of xvorki. however, breaks those resistances down; Eicoff says that in some of his television buys, where the shows were of similar, kind but the timeslots different, there was no correlation between size of ratings and results. But where the timeslots were the same, he says, there was a clear Correla- iation with results. “A cowboy show in the morning”, he points out, “may deliver a lower rating than one in the afternoon, but the morning show might get better results per capita:” Eicoff says he has invited university studies of. the theory. . Robt. Sarnoff’s Industry Defense Contlniieil from pare 21 ters from stations, in reports from field reps, in comments from com¬ peting networks and many broad¬ casters have asked themselves why they shotild not “perhaps use their own facilities to carry their story to the pepple.”' . On Three Counts Three sections, of the American ; daily were criticized by Sarnoff. I First to come under his scrutiny ■ and complaint was the main news I section .‘Vhich,: carries reports of i alleged improper conduct In Wash¬ ington," . , .■“The bidadcaster says he does not object in the slightest to tVash-r: ington investigations of any aspect of broadcasting or government administration^for such is the essence of the democratic processes by wWch he lives,” Sarnoff said. “But he has begun to ask whether any leaked stOry from Washington concerning tv is not a surer avenue to page one for a reporter than a trunk mnrder.”^ He cited the N.Yi Times’ front¬ page story Of June 1 dealing with the Justice Dept:’s insistence that ■ the FCC eliminate three basic ele¬ ments of networking for abti-trust reasons. Apart from the fact that the government had sounded off on this aspect of network broad¬ casting two years ago, “the point the broadcaster questioned was the play given the story.” Sarnoff noted that it was the lead domestic news story; “Only the agony of France overshadowed it,” he said, “Not even the staggering fatalities of Memorial Day could equal it” From the news section, Sarnoff turned to the tv reviewing dept. “The broadcaster says he under- : stands the panning of an individual western or quiz show,” NBC’s . prexy said, “The moVies and the thpatre get that too. But why, he asks, must the pann^ be coupledi with a characterization of the en¬ tire; television service as degraded and with the incorrect claim that we are losing millions of disen¬ chanted viewers? Why must the fact that the tv chainnels carried this past season the greatest num¬ ber of informational, cultural and educational special programs in television’s history be submerged In the backwash of things wrong?” liis third and final beef at the “gentlemen-of-the-press” ,\yas . di¬ rected .toward the business section, notably the advertising news col¬ umns. “Here he reads that tv costs are: soaring, that advertisers are switching from ty to the print media who contend they.are more efficient, more economical buys,” Sarnoff. said. “Why should the annual meeting of newspaper ad¬ vertising executives be covered like a summit conference? Why should one major paper, taken at random, give more than 1,500 aglate lines to the last New'spaper Ad¬ vertising Executives Convention, yet not one agate line to the an¬ nual TV Bureau of Advertising Gonyention?” • In the. past, broadcasters tended to shrug off this treatment accord¬ ing to Sarnoff, because business was good^ But this has . Changed as the economy has changed, he said. There are boom. times ahead,. however,.for. both newspapers.and. broadcasting, if they follow the formula of selling their way out of the depressipn. “Nothing tight¬ ens a purse string, like fear, nothing loosens it like hope,” he said. Newspapers; magazines and broad- casti^ are doing an effective job' fighting the depression, he said. “At NBC . we are: donating more than a million dollars in spot an¬ nouncements to the campaign this summer and we expect to register a billion different viewer, impres¬ sions,” he said. : . Sarnoff praised .Curly Vadebon- coeur and his staff at WSYR and WSYR-ry for their achievements in radio and tv. He said the Syra¬ cuse operation repiesented. a fusion of broadcasting and newspaper in¬ terests as .well .as a powerful “testament to the vigor of a free, advertising-supported communicaT tions system.” American Federation of Televi¬ sion & Ra.dib Artists ordered its announcers to strike ag^ainst WINS bn Monday’ (16)-mimniiig, after the Gotham radio outlet and the ac¬ tors’ union failed to agree on a new contract. A meeting with Fed¬ eral Mediator J. R. Mabdelbaum and. the disputants wiu scheduled for yesterday Crues.) afternoon, in an effort to reach a settlement of the disai^eement over the hew pact that was due to have begun last April i: Strike pf the 10 gabbers began at 0 a m- Monday, and station ex¬ ecutives took over airtime an¬ nouncing,. . with; boss Jock Fern- head handling the regular five- minute / newscasts. Fifteen engi¬ neers from Local 1212 of the In¬ ternational Brotherhood of Elec*; tricar workers refused to ciross the AFTRA picket line, and manage¬ ment also took over, technical du¬ ties in order to stay on the air. AFTRA said there were four main areas of dispute in the dick¬ ers. They were jpb security (^ar- anteeing announcers severance pay, “adequate notice^ etc.”), sfa- tion’s attempts to lower commer¬ cial fees, the refusal of “standard’’ pension & welfare benefits and al¬ so the attempt to increase the amount of Staff; duties. Station said it was willing to guarantee an income of $16,000 a year, thereby giving gabbers $3,000 increases,,.. ■ At the time Mandelbaum was meeting With both sides, deejay Alan Freed was amOng those to join the AFTRA picket lines. Freed quit the station Some weeks ago after alleging WINS failed to support him in a hassle he was having with Boston .police. He has since signed With WABD, a Gothr am tv’er. ; BAMO-'TM.EVlSlby rk viu 1 uuii IV Sejiiei CooTident Of Qiuck Upbirn On TV-Rndio Set Sales Hollywood, June 17.. Quick upturn in television and radio receiver sales was. forecast here last week by Robert A. Sei¬ del; RCA exec v.p. in charge of the consumer product division. Sei¬ del, here for a meeting of .500 RCA distributors who saw the new RCA tv-radio-hi-fi line, said that “we look for some kind of turn¬ around real fast, at Ibast in our line.” . Pointing out that hi-fi and tram’ sistor radio sales are booming and that record sales are at an “alltime high,” Seidel Was optimistic', about a business upturn. While b-w set sales are down, color set purchase are mounting and. tint sales are becoming “an increasin^y impor¬ tant part of our volume,” he added. Meeting, similar to those in New York and GhicagO during, the past couple of weeks, unveiled RCA’s hew seven-function remote control tuning unit, developed exclusive¬ ly for the RCA color . setSi Unit remote-contrOls all color . tuning controls. RCA also demonstrated second remote-control unit for monochrome sets. Washington, June 17. Radio networks got a genuine, but rather startbng boost, as Rep. James Roosevelt <D., Calif.) all but demanded that the FCC force in¬ dependent stations to affiliate: In a letter to FCC chairinan John C. Doerfer,, inserted in the Congress sional Record by Roosevelt, the Cmifornian wrote that ’’the FCC can and Should point out.: that (radio stations) may make the same kind of arrangements as are for independent newspapers fOr. the use of topflight and expensive talent at minimum cost.” The only, purveyors of this sOrt of service in radio are networks. Roosevelt based his. letter on the Atlanta situation, where, four net¬ work affiliated radio stations had their licenses renewed and six. in-; dependent stations had their rcr hewals held up pending an FCG probe into the ‘.‘balance” of their programming. RooseVelt said a probe would probably show a like, percentage of the nation’s 3,000 radio stations remiss in providing the sort of balanced and public service programming t h e y. prom¬ ised when they got their original licenses. The California Democrat de-. manured that the : Fee make suclr a probe, said perhaps it is more ex¬ pensive to program stations prop¬ erly than it is to provide 24 hours of records per day, “but the costs are not insurmountable for those who make economic use of the spe^ cial seiWices today available to broadcasters.’* CBS-TV l.end-Ua$es' Oean From Connie Gay CBS-TV. pacted: Jiimny P^an to a longterm contract. Until now Dean, who’s on GBS-TV Saturdays with the “Jiinmy. Dean Show,” was under contract to Connie b: Gay; “Jimmy Dean Show,” howeVer, remains Gay’s property and hasn’t been sold to CBS. With Dean now pacted by CBS-TV, Hubbell Robinr son Jr., executive veepee in charge of network programs, plans to make greater use of Dean's talents. It’s understood that Dean will get a midafternoon 30-minute cross-, the-board show within the near future.. Dean will leave 'Saturday day¬ time show before Sept. 1 and the new emcee- will most likely; be George Hamilton ly who under- studied Dean on numerous occa¬ sions. 4- An impressive array of tv tal¬ ents has banded together in form¬ ing the Television Action Oommit- tee^Nevv York, to fight on several fionts;' for a return of live televi¬ sion to New York. Longi'a'hge ob¬ jective is to get aticfiuate video production > facilities . for New York, and even; though the nel works have ignored or rejected blueprints for a local Television Cit3v'i'AC aims to throw the prob¬ lem right back in their laps. “We are starting at a peculiarly appropriate time,” said Dnvid .Suss- kind, the producer of several Gotham tv shows and the apparent sparkplug of the new movement. He and his cohorts equate good tv with New York, and refer to the current state of tv as “miass productionitis” and “western flu.’’ Siisskind declared that; the tv medium is suffering financially, as well as in m^ny other Avay.s, from its present, mediocrity, and he said that tv network executives are scared by sponsor disinterest, wfiich he feels is not .brou'Zht on entirely by a recession, . He said that former network ^onsors are thrbwnng coin into print instead of tv... ■■■ ■ ' - ■ TAG noted several factors which make the moment ausoiciOus for a drive returning tv to. New York,” Susskind combined the reces‘?ion, “fTeneral advertiser dissatisfaction” with current video fare, the near¬ ness of local pblitical elections, the advent Of tape (permitting live television tO earn residuals for the first time) and the “lacklustere, smaller and more predictable oro- graroming”—chiefly from Holly- woodr-rwhich confronts the viewer. Siisskind warned that“tv. which has reached the absolute bottom, cannot iriterpret sheer niunbers of viewers watching into purchasing power.” He deplored the plethora of quizzes, westerns and unimag¬ inative telefilm: and said that Ne\y York’s entertainment Imagination can be video's salvation. ; MuUi-Point Program Erwin Feldinan joined Susskind in explaining the multi-point pro¬ gram. Feldman, a tv labor lawyer, warned that the Federal govern¬ ment (the “official front”) Would be notified of “the destruction of the-. talent they created” through the FCC. ‘He said, he was aware the FCC was principally in’^^erested in station allocations, but that the goyernmeht might take ah interest in programming that is “not in the public intereri” just a$ Con¬ gress is lipw interested in an in¬ vestigation of video ratings and their bearinig oh talent. Siisskind said that members of the organization were scheduled to approach the various state and lo¬ cal candidates, *‘as they announce themselves,” and express the im¬ portance of a tv centre in New Yofk. TAG noted that the loss of tv- production has created a mass unemployment. The ty networks, because of their alleged fright dver present cohditions, wriir Also be ripe for a resh approach, .according to Suss¬ kind, who also mentioned that ad ageiicies and sponsors Would be approached. Concomitaht part of the plan will be to get some meas- bre of tax relief and improvement of production conditions froin local officials. Research and promotion plans to stress thp economic losses to both the . industry and New York at large are also underway. The move was begun primarily within the ranks of the Academy of TV Arts & Sciences, an organs ization embracing Hollywood. Be¬ cause “at least 50% of the mem¬ bership was in the enemy camp” the proponents of the putsch went idle and are financing TAC with small donations , of their own. \ There was a notable lack of top network brass in TAC’s ranks. Feldman put It on the line, saying “network officials on the (ATAS) hoard were: on. the spot” as the result of the movement; the na¬ ture of their corporate duties made it hard ior them to become in¬ volved in ah. antiGoast movement.. Listed as members of TAG were- Steve Allen, Ralph Bellamy, Her¬ bert Brodkin, Fred Coe, .Paddy Chayefsl^,.. John Crosby,. Fred Friendly, Kjen Grobt, Elia Kazan, Sam Levinson, Sidney Lumety Tex McCrary, (one of the movement’s other originators), Doretta Mdr- A# f row, Chester Morris, Reginald' Rose, N. Richard Nash, George Schaeffer. Peter Ustinov, Harriet Van Horne, Jo Mielziner, and least 50 to 60 others, most of them workers prominent in tv. A TAG statement read: “The continuing loss to tv of quality pro¬ grams, traditionally presented from New York, constitutes a seri¬ ous threat to the efficacy and pres¬ tige of the country’s most import¬ ant medium of communication and entertainment, and that it repre¬ sents a breach of responribility on the part of the tv industry and its leaders to the millions in the viewing audience who are hungry for quality . , . and to the millions more whose appetite for this kind of program, might be whetted. “The networks, acting as pur- vei'ors of filmed mediocrity, are committing suicide . . . eliminat¬ ing thdir very reason for exist¬ ence.” Susskind said that in 1954 there were 56 live New Y'ork emanations in prime time and. only 31 this past season, and. that of the 19 programs that have been formally announced for next season six are from New York, 13 from Hol¬ lywood and; that the seven live shows they included for the most part promised to be “mediocre” entertainment. NTA ON PROWL FOR STUDIO SPACE IN N Y. National Telefilm Associates has been shopping around Manhattan for:a studio site. It’s understood that the principal reason the com¬ pany, which owns a small chain of stations (including WNTA-and-tv in Newark) and runs a filin'network and syndication biz, is searching to make room for the production of programs on tape for use on the NTA Network and for syndication. Another factor involved in the sb-far unsuccessful search for live production studio space is that the [ outfit can utilize it for some of WNTA’s -local programs. However, in thi$ instance, a station spokes¬ man said, it will be some time be¬ fore the station does shows in New [York instead of Newairk.. At best, if a $tudio is obtained on the Man¬ hattan side of the river, only “occa¬ sional”. station emanations wi'l be produced from within it. NTA has nearly two years to run on a ebnr tract with the Newark station’s former owners for use of studio space in Jersey. Where Does Storz Boy Lraye IHntnal in PhiOy? Philadelphia, June 17. Major conjecture on the sale of Benedict Gimhel Jr.’s WIP to Todd Storz for $2,600,000 (subject, bf course, to FCC approval), centers on the station’s future status as one of the mainstays in the Mu¬ tual affiliate family. Gimhel, of course, basf been one of the MBS directorate sparks for years with ‘ a track record of allegiance to Mu¬ tual networking. I The Stroz razzmatazz type of op¬ eration is something else again, coihpletely divorced from the Mu¬ tual concept. It’s regarded as in¬ evitable that WIF will shift 100% to the Stroz prograrntning pattern. Incidentally, the typesetting grem¬ lins had themselves a field day. last week when Variety eirottined that “reported purchaser is Todd chain Of discount stores.” Art Ford’s Jazz Legiter Art Ford, host on WNTA’s New- ark-N.Y., "Jazz Party,” has con¬ cluded negotiations with David Roffman, prez of the American Theatre Society, for a legit play- date, of his jazz show in September. Theatrical offering is slated to draw on roster of guests appearing on Ford's tv show, including Don Elliot, Billie Holiday, Anita O’Day.,. Stan Rubin and Cy Coleman. Regarding his tv show, Eleanor Graf, formerly assistant director on Donald O’Connor’s tv shows, has been named Rsi^iAte producer of Ford’s “Jazz Partyv-