Variety (July 1958)

Wednesday, July 16, 1958 P^IETT RADIO-TELE VISIOX 19 $145,000,000 PRIME BEEF What happens in the next 60 days in terms of program-time sales will be of major consequence to the three tv networks in determining the future of a three-rweb economy based on present- day, sales concepts. The network chieftains frankly concede that the outlook isn’t any too bright and that .ultimately there will have to be some wholesale reappraising in arriving at a more realistic modus operandi. At present the three networks are in . the neighborhood of $150.- 000,000 short of an SRO status (for time and programming) in prime evening time. That’s $60,000,000 more than the condition which prevailed just one year ago, when the sales climate was somewhat more favorable. The receptivity of potential clients in - the next two-month period will have tremendous import in spell¬ ing out whether the networks in their: present framework can sur¬ vive a $150,000,000-SMy economy, or in determining' Whether they will have to face up to a complete overhauling of sales patterns— and perhaps doing something, at long last, about high talent-pro-' gram costs.. ' on The most crucial affiliate meet¬ ing in ABC-TV’s recent history has been called by the network for this Friday (18) in Ne\v York.. The. en¬ tire lineup of basic affiliates—ap¬ proximately 85 ; stations—has been asked to attend to hear the network present its daytime program and sponsor plans.: Move is to. gain final okay on the much-discussed plan. For years, the ABC affils have • been crying for heavy daytime pro¬ gramming, and some prospective daytime affiliates - are known to have rejected ABC contracts be¬ cause only two-and-a-half hours of afternoon time were programmed by the network,: an hour-and-a-half of that coming only in the past year. Young & Rubicam has brought in six of its own clients to launch the daytime lineup on Oct. 6, and one of the most important items on the agenda will be an explanation of the contiguous daytime rate structure; Maximum discounts on time and talent for. a quarter-hour of the new setup are approximately $6,400, which is apparently within the daytime rate structure that was okayed nearly a year-and-a-half ago by affils, but which has hardly been tested until no"’. . Another job the network has to countenance Friday is getting its 80-odd basic affils/warmed up to the idea of even further daytime program¬ ming, once the stuff immediately (Continued on page 38). Hallmark's Hall of Fame Executive Producer Mildred Alberg takes the viewpoint A Good Show and a Gomd Time Period Always Sp£ll Out a Good Audience one of the Editorial Features in the upcoming TV RADIO REVIEW' & PREVIEW NUMBER The End>of Thi9 Month Hollywood, July 15. . Jess Oppenheinier, under a firm five-year NBC-TV pact as creative producer and head of program de¬ velopment, is ^reported overturing the net for a settlement of his contract None of the;shows Oppenheimer piloted or. developed have been gold or slated for next fall by the web. Recently it was disclosed his salary is $2,000 a week. Oppen- heimersi reason for wanting out is said to be for a more active status as producer. Contract has three years to run. Tape Key Factor ; CB$-TV affiliates were informed yesterday (Tues.) via closed circuit broadcast of significant changes in option time. Participating in the pclosed circuit discussions were prexy Lou Cowan; Bill Lodge, .en¬ gineering and affiliate relations veepee, and Bill Hylan, veepee of sales administration. Under present arrangements, evening option time each; day of the week covers the period from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m., N. Y. time, in Eastern and Central time zones, and 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. local time, in ■ Mountain and Pacific time zones. CBS-TV execs pointed on t to affili¬ ates that sales experience indicat¬ ed a marked preference by year- round network advertisers for \ different period of time in the sev¬ eral time zones. In - general, they prefer that option time period be one-half hour later in the . evening schedule, cross-the-board. CBS-TV is already programming commer¬ cially on four of the five half-hours (10:30 to 11 p.m. CNYT) periods involved, and has an order for the (Continued on page 38) . Piece on ...; London, July 15. Yank tv producer David Suss- kind appeared on the BBC’s “To¬ night” show and said that he did not; think that less moriey is being spent on tv advertising. - “But,” he said, “I think there is t growing disenchantment-with tv On the part of the advertiser. His earlier excitement is being, dimin¬ ished by mediocre, programming. The advertiser no longer believes that Is going to give him an excit¬ ing audience in terms of size or an excited response in. terins. of. buy¬ ing.” . By GEORGE ROSEN: If the amount of total. Unsold half-hours in prime evening time on the three tv networks were stacked. back-to-back, it would . al¬ most add up to a full week’s pro¬ gramming 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. on any given network. Which is prob¬ ably as dramatic. a downbeat, sum¬ mation as you can get in terms Of capsulizing the plight of the Webs on the ’58-'59 commercial picture. All told there are a total; of 36 unsold half-hour prime time seg¬ ments on the three webs (eight on CBS, 11 and a half on NBC and 16 and a half on ABC). (Actually it takes 42;. half-hour periods 7:30 to 10:30 to program a network | Sunday-to-Sunday). On the; basis j of - a 30-minute entry costing an | approximate $4,000 000 (time and !■ talent) per season,, those. 36 unsold. - half-hours sprll trouble to the tune ; of approximately; $145,000,000. Ac- . tually, it’s only $75,000,000 in terms . of unsold time (which is the net¬ works’ chief worry), but since, sus- •; tainirig; or sponsored, the . time < periods. must be slotted with the i webs shouldering production costs, j the rap on programming . costs loan not" be discounted. Where CBS is more fortunate ; than NBC is in the more promis-. i ing and lucrative outlook in such | areas as 10:30 to 11 p.m,, where ; Columbia has practically establish- ied an SRO whereas the NBC lag I (with time; recaptured by the sta- ! tions) more critical than in pre- ■ vious years. Similarly, CBS is more fortunate in disposing of some 7:30 to 8 p.m.. segments, where NBC is also left holding the bag too ' many nights. Also, the CBS Sunday picture from 5 p.m. on is far. more brighter than at NBC. These have contributed immeasur¬ ably toward alleviating the. prime; time distress, whereas NBC is not enjoying these fringe benefits. . All of which has contributed to¬ ward the virtual decimating of the more; lofty out-of-pocket program¬ ming. That’s why, unless there’s a far more favorable sponsor re¬ sponse at : NBC, there won’t be any NBC Operas next season (although the network would, under , more propitious circumstances, be; glad to settle for three productions); that’s why there won’t Tie any Project 20 kicking around next season (again, if things pick up; NBC would be happy to go ahead with six “Project”, installments): Because, General Motors’ institu¬ tional coin won’t be around next season (a $5,000,000 rap), “Wide Wide World” is headed for obli¬ vion. Ditto “See It Now” : (with CBS throwing a bone to Ed Mur- row & Co. and permitting perhaps (Continued on page 361 in ’58,’59 ’Night Beat’ Looks Safe ingate Is Ii “Night Beat” will most likely re¬ turn to WABD, but by J next fall it's quite possible that the latenight in¬ terview strip will have again been revamped by the Gotham tv out¬ let. Whether John Wingate, who succeeded Mike Wallace in the role of the local* inquisitor, will also be returning, the station did not say. Station was “fairly certain” of the return of the nightly hour show, but it was implied that should the program be reformatted, Wingate might not be back. A new format is being mulled now. ; Wingate and the show recently began & summer. hiatus.No return , date was set No matter what the recession and the tough-to-sell-shows era have done in the way of effecting economies, at NBC, there’s one area that won’t be tampered with —and that’s color tv. Although the program, schedules for next seasons have not been formalized as yet, it’s understood there will be no cutbacks on tint exposure, with at least the same number of shows to get the compatible black- and-white/color treatment. On the other hand, CBS will make like tint tv hardly exists, with its continuing policy of re¬ treating from the color program i sweepstakes. Understood that a bare minimum of specials will be tinted up next season' NBC’s continued push, of course, j is understandable, since there’s J something like S75.QOd,O0O of the j parent RCA company’s Coin riding !on an eventual prismatic tv era. The bottleneck on set sales has yet j to he broken and it's the considered [opinion of many that it won’t “un- ; til they get that price tag down ! to $299.95.” As for ABC’s dabbling in tint, , two years ago it- said ‘'maybe next ! year,” and last year it said the Chicago; July 15. ; same. Now it’s not even saying NBC’s current economy drive ; “ ma 5' be next year.” has-taken a toll so far of 31. per-1 ——— sonnel at the Chicago plant, with i L.A.’s Lag on Tint Sales an additional: nine or 10 expected ! . Los Angeles, July 15. to be deleted by October. The.; Seven-county Southern Califor- \ firings are mainly of administrative nia area now has a total of 12.394 ' employees and. technicians. [ color sets, out of a grand total of | The local o&o stations, WMAQ • 3.107,487 sets in circulation, ac- . arid WNBQ, have, been trying to cord ng ^o the Electric League of ^ temper the pain of the axings by; Los Angeles. Tint distribution dur- i relocating as many of the .white in 8 the month of May totaled 124 ^Collar Workers as possible, either ‘ s ^ts. out of 16,386 sold during, the ' month. Indicative of the soft market, the May figure is way below the 23.912 sets sold in May of last year; and slightly below the April total of 16,812. Milton Berle Gives His Side of the Story On Hollywood, July 15. Milton Berle says the exiting of Louis Prima-Keely Smith from his upcoming NBC-TV c<jmedy series for Kraft next season goes a lot deeper than the fact. that Prima objected to merely.fronting a band and wanted his own individuality expressed on the show. Berle contends that the format would have provided ample oppor¬ tunity for Prima to work with Berle on comedy sequences. More to the point, Berle maintains, was the fact that Prima, who along with.. Miss Smith (Mrs. Prima) would have collected a totalof $7,250 weekly, wanted a firm 26- week contract and tfie privilege of blowing the show after 13 weeks if he. didn’t think; the show was right for. him. Berle couldn’t see working out that kind of a deal. The Kbely Smith-Prima replace¬ ments have not been chosen as yet. Show will originate from the Coast, as originally planned, despite the cast changes- NBC: No Casting ’. The economic cutbacks at ,NBC. have also affected the hasting department; and Mar¬ tin Begley, who was its direc¬ tor nearly a decade, has been let go. During its more prosperous days, NBC’s Casting Depart¬ ment had as many as nine experts K on the staff. 1- Begley, who leaves July 31, hasn’t announced his future plans. Before joining NBC. he was personal manager for Ed Within the next 48 hours or so CBS-TV .will know whether it has Begley, his. brother, and also i managed to pull off probably the ' mUSi ' |"jW r ^ up >f the year-the sale ■ •- - ■■■ ■ -• -. j.Pf a new one-hour western series. . v £ : _ ■ i Negotiations are at the .decision in the company itself or with RCA ; point looking toward a Reynolds or local ad agencies. In the for-. Metals sponsorship of the Mondav mer case, employees of . under six night 7:30 to 8:30 “Rawhide” months tenure have been, let go to | series on CBS. make room for. displaced veterans ( Revno lds Metals would thus of the company. In every case of | tryin-to duplica ! ihe feat nf its transfer from one department to i comnetitor P Kaiser a Tnmfnnm another,■ the stations have main-; *ht -Maveriek^on 4BC tained the employees’ salary level, Tv , “J; 1 , v ? r . 0n ABC “ even where a P iower pey scele ^ * commanded. - T _,~ . ■ , The network programming de- i h ur Sterns “Cimmaron^ partment in Chi has been notified [ nd “Taiiaiia Clt >. that it will be disbanded. NBC, tn T oo ^f n ^f A ; Latter ma >’ b ® it’s understood, is trying to relo- cut to 30 nnnutes. cate Kirk Logie, who hezMs the [ department, possibly with NBC Imj inn TIP C V ternational. The deletion of the ■ AdL" 1 T S jHmmy I\3.y6 . (Continued on page 36) t — ’Sviiset Strip’ Looks Hot For Chicle, Whitehall ABC-TV has shifted “77 Sunset Strip” from Sundays at 9 to Fri¬ days at 9:30, a slot in which an¬ other Warner Bros.’ hourlong film, “Public Enemy,” was tentatively scheduled for fall. With the move to Friday* it is reported that the 60-minUte “Strip” has orders from two Ted Bates clients, American Chicle and Whitehall. Meantime, “Public Enemy”, was moved into “Strip’s” Sabbath slot, although there .are no takers for the former show as yet. Another third of “Strip* is still available. Vice SG’s ’Frankenstein’ Screen Gems’ “Frankenstein” has’been eliminated as the Satur¬ days t-10 entry by ABC-TV, and the network is reportedly close to a deal with bandleader Sammy Kaye to hold down the half-hour slot next season. He’s being sought to front the companion musical show to Lawrence Welk, who does a Saturday ABC stanza between 9 and 10 p.m. under Dodge auspices^ Web has been dickering Kaye’s services (with augmented orches¬ tra) through Joe Glaser at Associ¬ ated Booking. No sponsor has'yet been associated with the Kaye of¬ fering.