Variety (October 1958)

Wednesday October 8, 1958 ^Rsfr BAPIO-TCIJS VISION 0 $50,000,000 GOING THATAWAY Westerns Boon to Firearms Sales SAG Execs Explain Why a 1-Big Washington, Oct. 7. Westerns on tv not only sell soap, cereals, aluminum and the like, but they also sell the oldfashioned “equalizers.” Firearms Manufacturer Fred A. Roff Jr. revealed in a Mutual Broadcasting System interview on “Capital Assignment” here that tv oaters have greatly stepped up the demand for Western- type guns, now being produced at a modern record rate of 10,000 per month. “Westerns have had a decided affect on firearms production,” Roff, vice president of Colt’s Patent Firearms Manufacturing Co., told his interviewer, Ken Scheibel, on the program. Roff dismissed the contention that Westerns and their liberal use of gun play have a bad effect on children. ‘The use of guns has no basic effect on the development of our youth,” Roff contended. “Western tv shows, as Western movies, should be judged not on the fact that guns are employed, but on whether the basic plot is one that brings the Golden Rule out convincinjgly to the youngsters who are watching it.” Roff estimated the average male youngster, by the time he has reached teen age, has played with 15 or 20 toy gun replicas. He said that cave children probably played good men against bad men with their big cave men clubs. TV Exploitation Made 'Honorable Profession, With Big NBC Assist No longer is the word “exploita— tion” linked with the sundry ill- graced practices of promotion ma¬ nipulators, thanks largely to the code of ethics followed by A1 Ry- lander, now in his third ,year as' head of the NBC exploitation de¬ partment. Despite occasional downward glances from supermoralists in the fifth estate, NBC’s exploitation force has turned a once-murky voca¬ tion into a highly-regarded, nay, demanded procedure on the part of major national clients. It’s now standard routine for an' ad agency upon signing for a net¬ work show to place exploitation on par with publicity but NBC, how¬ ever, is the only network to date with a regularly constituted ex¬ ploitation . department. It’s true other network press departments engage in exploitation but are not organized on a scale as extensive as Rylander’s department The successful NBC “stay tuned” technique is a direct result of his exploitation department and the current campaign to increase the number of star walk-ons is begin¬ ning to pay off, Rylander asserts,: and before the season is over, NBC viewers , will be seeing far more promotional “marriages”—that is, tie-ins in which headliners appear as guests on adjacent shows. Also, the exploitation department is filming name talent in open- end interviews for use on local shows and thus getting far more name exposures than in the past. With name talent bobbing up in virtually every other media includ¬ ing the covers of record albums, school bulletin boards, supermar¬ ket displays, dustjackets of paper¬ backs —r everything, in fact, from Bat Masterson walking sticks to scholastic fact sheets for “Omni¬ bus"—the exploitation department has been as busy as a circus bill¬ poster but certainly nowhere near as blatant-in spreading NBC’s pef^ (Continued on page 42) Anglo-Russ TV Exchange Dead Westbrook Pegler Set For Ben Hecht’s TV’er Westbrook Pegler, Hearst colum¬ nist and seldom, if ever, seen on radio or tv, has agreed to ap¬ pear on Ben Hecht’s program over ABC-TY. He was originally set for Oct. 2 but sought a week’s ex¬ tension In order to prepare some¬ thing extra special for his powwow with Hecht Pegler reportedly will do some¬ thing of a “fairly antic” nature when he makes what could easily be described as his “maidep ap¬ pearance” tomorrow (9). NE Britain’s Indie TV Bows Jan. 15 With Theatre Coin Newcastle, Eng., Oct. 7- Indie tv in northeast England is set toteeoff here Jan. 15. George A Alfred Black, leading theatre impresarios, have a stake in the operation, which will serve a population of 2,600,000 in primary service area from Burnhope to Alnwick, and from Whitby south to Ripon. It's estimated that 180,000 homes will have tv before opening night, and that the operation will extend by some 25,000 homes per month. By April, 1959, it’s expected there will be 250,000 sets tuned to the new channel. Tyne-Tees Television will be headed hy Anthony Jelly as man- agipg-director. Bill Lyon-Shaw is executive producer. Programs skedded include a lunchtime show, a talent, show* “At the Golden Disk,” a comedy serial with Glenn Melvyn and Danny Ross, a sports desk program, and a Passing Week magazine. Local station will pro¬ vide eight-and-a-half hours per week, with remainder from nation¬ al network. London, Oct. 7. The deal between Associated- Rediffusion and Russian TV for a regular exchange of material has collapsed. The pact was to have provided for several minutes of filmed program each week from both sources, but after a couple of swaps the scheme petered out. John McMillan, A-R’s program controller, said he had no plans at the moment for trying to renew the arrangement. Idea originated when the programmers were grant-, permission to film a feature pro¬ gram in Russia entitled “USSR Now.” Michael Ingrams and a pro¬ duction team were allowed to move freely behind the Iron Cur¬ tain, and^a Russian TV team were granted similar facilities in Bri¬ tain. Coast TV Doing Giant Spec to Dram Up Nix On Right-to-Work Vote Hollywood, Oct. 7. A two-hour, eight-city telecast is to be held Sunday, Nov. 2—two days before California’s general election—with all elements of show biz involved in the show, whidi will be held for one purpose—to convince voters'to nix the so-called right-to-work measure. Proposition 18. Dote Schary will function as exec producer of the event, which will have talent and entertainment as well as.its pitch against the (Continued on page 44) ON TV OATERS Hollywood, Oct. 7. If television westerns have been a bane to the critics, they’ve been a $50,000,000 bonanza to Holly¬ wood's filmmakers. That’s the ex¬ tent of production spending that will go into this season’s thataway lineup, comprising 28 shows and some 570 hours of new footage over the seasonal span. That ac¬ cumulation of production, inci¬ dentally, Is equal to 450 western features—figuring the average run¬ ning time of a feature oater at 75 minutes—more annually than Hol¬ lywood ever produced in the hey¬ day of the “B” picture. Production costs on individual series range from $30,000 a show for the lower-budgeted half-hour syndicated entries all the way up to $100,000 or more for the big hourlong productions. Some of the hour series run to only 26 weeks, however; if they were contracted on a 39-show basis as are virtually all the half-hours, the ’ production bill would run considerably higher. Nor does the western production binge stop at straight-oaters series. Many - anthology shows Include westerns within their lineup. “Walt Disney Presents” will have at least a half-dozen oaters in its 26 hours this year; new “Desilu Playhouse” will have a few; “General Electric Theatre,” “Alcoa-Goodyear Thea¬ tre,” “Schlitz Playhouse” all turn out a sizeable' chunk of oater fare within their anthology frameworks. On a company-by-company basis, three outfits turn out the bulk of television sagers, Warner Bros., Revue Productions and Four Star Films. Together they will account for a total of 14 series, 305 hours of footage and $28,000,000 in pro¬ duction outlay. Warners and Re¬ vue are nearly even in terms qf ex¬ penditures and programming— each have five series, Warners will film about 117 hours. Revue 110, and Warners will spend about $11,- 000,000 to $10,000,000 for Revue, Four Star, with four half-hour se^ ries, will film about 78 hours at a cost of about $7,000,000. Italy’s Puzzler: Why Was 18G Drama Show Cancelled Off RAI-TV? Rome, Oct. 7. This week’s sudden last-minute; cancellation - of RAI-TV’s usual i Friday night dramatic telecast, and the substitution of an old Mne-; scope of a previously performed play, has Italian video observers— and set-owners—wondering as to the true- reason for the switch. Added to this are reports that_the cancelled show cost some $18,000 to stage, and that it was run off anyway for an invited theatre au¬ dience. Topper is that actors themselves didn’t know play was not being televised until after first act ended. Show was Luigi Chiarelli’s “La Maschera e il Volto,” (The Mask and the Face) considered by now somewhat of * classic in Italian Theatre, and 'previously televised in another staging some two years back. Thesps were Gianni San- tuccio. Flora Lillo, Sergio Tofano and Armando Francioli. Conjecture as to true sudden - shutoff of show (they notified di¬ rector by phone one-half hour he- fore curtain) centers aroundjtwo possibilities: (1) the recent Cath¬ olic blast at Italian television and its inappropriate content, with reference to the play’s treatment of an adulterous situation; or (2) a consequence of the long-standing rivalry between Rome and Milan’s tv setups. RAI-TV itself has refused com¬ ment other than ascribing can¬ cellation to “technical reasons.” Observers on the other hand point out that censor angle appears in¬ valid as play was previously tele¬ vised and had been pre-censored (with such dialog changes as “lover’’ becoming “friend,” etc.). Umbrella Pattern Won t Work Out Beeckmit Changes Mind On 2d Dick Clark Show Beechnut Gum has cooled off on the idea of taking a second Dickj Clark show. At the last minute the bankroller backed out of paneller “Take a Good Look,” which was to have been fronted by^Clark and I presented on ABC-TV. Young & Rubicam, agency fori Beechnut, is once again searching for a second show for the Pepper- J mint division. National Council Of SAG Holds Key To AFTRA Merger A resolution calling for a nation¬ al referendum of "Screen Actors Guild on the question of merger with American Federation of Tele¬ vision & Radio Artists could he blocked by the SAG national coun¬ cil, top SAG officials explained. - j Resolution, passed in a special membership meeting in N. Y. last week, must first go to the national j board in Hollywood. Although the j resolution accepted hy between 200 i and 300 SAG rank-and-file mem¬ ber e, many of them part of the j dissident Caucus of Performers in Television Commercials, says that if the board does not accept the concept of merger the issue must automatically go to the member-’ ship-at-large, SAG executives said that the union’s constitution per¬ mit a prevention of the national vote. v, William Berger, a lawyer for SAG, said that before a merger should be voted on, the member-! ship of SAG must be informed of the details of a proposed merger. It was admitted that a majority of the national membership could override a council veto and vote a merger with AFTRA, but that a second referendum would be re¬ quired once both sides worked out the mechanics of merger. Three resolutions were passed In N. Y.: To vote on the AFTRA merger, to get SAG’s N. Y. branch “proportional representation” to the national board of directors and to hold quarterly meetings of the N. Y. local. •The Caucus, formed last year to contest SAG negotiators on several points in the proposed codified code for tv film commercials, said that it is going to run its own slate in November local elections, dt will be the Caucus’ firsts ABC-TY Gets NABET Out of Its Hair On Hairstylists’ Pay Pact j Hollywood, Oct. 7. NABET’s Hollywood makeup and hairstylists union has approved ABC-TV*s latest wage proposal on a three-year pact retroactive to Feb. 1, 1958. New proposal avert¬ ed a strike by the group last week. Although agreement has been reached on new scales, unionists and network are still apart in the areas of seniority and scheduling,! according to NABET regional di¬ rector Syd Rose. Under the new agreement, en¬ tire unit receives a blanket 7% wage boost Feb. 1, 1959 for two years. In addition, makeup group wins a pay raise from $120 to $145 a week retroactive to Feb. 1, 1958, while hairstylists have been upped to $136.40 a week, also retroactive to last Feb. 1 and subject to the 7% boost come next Feb. 1. Make¬ up supervisors have been boosted $46 a week from $132 to $178. By ART WOODSTONE Screen Actors Guild leaders re¬ affirmed for Variety their refusal to merge with American Federa¬ tion of Television & Radio Artists, since video tape is the only area in which they saw any genuine mu¬ tuality of interest between the unions. They said, however, that they are willing to negotiate mutu¬ ally with AFTRA wages and work¬ ing conditions in tape, just so long as the two unions separately ad¬ ministered the contracts. To SAG’S prexy Leon i Ames, na¬ tional 1 executive secretary John Dales, a brace of its lawyers and to Florence Marsten of the guild’s N. Y. shop, tape is now only a rela¬ tively small part of each union's overall functiqn^and thisihey could not visualize making the basis of • permanent alliance with AFTRA, They were skeptical that tape would completely abolish the older technical processes, but Dales said that, it should become broad enough to undermine film and should likewise eliminate the many differences in techniques and at¬ mosphere he now finds between filmmaking and live tv, SAG would reconsider merger. At the moment, according to Dales and Ames, the “simple solu¬ tion” to the high-keyed squabble between SAG and AFTRA is to jointly negotiate a tape contract with employer groups in video. As for AFTRA’s counterproposal that joint negotiation should also in¬ clude joint administration of a tape code, Dales said: “That means only one thing—merger.” Ames said SAG “wants very much” to establish a joint negoti¬ ating committee. He explained that SAG has a “standing committee” to explore joint negotiations, and he pointed out that two members of AFTRA’s national board; Art Gilmore and Vern Smith, are on the committee. He said, however, that he cannot get any response from AFTRA officials since AFTRA will not accept the limita¬ tions SAG wishes to impose. AFTRA has maintained that merger of the unions would pre¬ vent employer groups from playing one of the warring groups against the other, thereby gaining for (Continued on page 44) NABET. NBC In New Tape Hassle , Hollywood, Oct. 7. NBC and NABET have become embroiled in a jurisdictional dis¬ pute over installation of modifica¬ tions on the web’s Ampex video-¬ tape equipment, with NABET claiming that under its pact with the network, ail such installation is required to be performed by its union technicians. Dispute arose when web notified the union that service would be provided free of charge by Ampex Corp. engineers, which met with stiff resistance from labor toppers, who are cur¬ rently discussing the issue with network heads in New York. Union toppers attending the Gotham sessions are NABET prexy George W. Smith, exec veepee G. Tyler Bryne, and local uniqn prexy Henry Ball. Immediate cause of the mush¬ rooming situation is the matter of installation and assembly of a new modification recently accomplished by Ampex engineers, a coupling measuring only an inch in diameter plus two small rods to be screwed into the unit. Although installa¬ tion would require only two or three hours, NABET, looking _ to major future modifications, claims the right of all such Installation under its new web pact NBC, ap¬ parently, feels that since the video¬ tape units and. all modifications are being engineered by° Ampex, the electronic outfit should also be permitted to instalL