Variety (November 1958)

Wednesday, November 12, 1958 RADIO-TELEVISION 35 Pfo$IETY Marc Daniels’ Closed-Circuit Biz ; Continued from page 18 ; and consequently there is a crea-, tive satisfaction to be derived from a situation in which the client dumps acproblem in his lap and says: “This is what we want to say and you tell us how.” Daniels has been reportedly scoring hits because he’s been of¬ fered several executive jobs with big companies as a Result of his directorial missions. Reducing complex company policy to effec¬ tive showbiz terms has brought him these job offers, he said “Anyone who can straighten out this mess,” he’s been told by cor¬ poration chieftains, “can work for us.” Daniels’ toughest assignment to- da e vus the lucent maiuen ciosed- circuit telecast of the General Motors Motorama, which gave GM dealers throughout the country, a chance to preview the mammoth exhibit at the Waldorf-Astoria, a day before it opened to the public, i It also gave the dealers a chance to scan GM’s new chief execs, Frederic G. Donner, chairman, and . John F. Gordon, prexy. IBM’s 80-City Hookup Another recent closed-circuit spectacular for big biz was the IBM Fall Kickoff sales meeting featuring nearly 40 top execs ad¬ dressing a vast assemblage of co¬ workers gathered in 80 cities. It was the largest business network ever assembled for such a con¬ clave. Also, of recent origin, was the Pontiac national closed-circuit sales meeting under Daniels’ di¬ rection. Daniels works closely w r ith writer Irve Tunick in the preparation of the closed-circuit productions. Tu¬ nick, senior writer for TNT Pro¬ ductions, and Daniels first “soak x up the background of the company and the people” and then propose the format of the show. This could be anything from a single speaker to a musical comedy stanza of epic proportions. For a General Electric meeting dealing with new electrical appliances they created a comedy routine using Orson Bean in a Rube Goldbergish setup that scored instantly with dealers. In this in¬ stance mild spoofing paid off hand¬ somely, Daniels said. Other writers, employed on occasion have been Louis Heyward and Nat Wilkes. Applying the word “show” to a business meeting may be a mis¬ nomer, Daniels noted. “They are basically meetings and as such the audience must have a feeling oi participation,” Daniels said. “In home tv the audience is looking through a keyhole. In closed-circuit tv most of what happens is ad¬ dressed directly to the viewer. One of our major problems is to hold the viewers’ attention through a more or less continuous commer¬ cial. Business sessions are in a way tougher to create than home tv because you have to be more con¬ servative in the use of time. The audience doesn’t want to be just entertained. You can’t waste their time. Everything must be inte¬ grated into the plot. Even ‘a dance number of song must be woven into the company’s message. The only time we didn’t adhere to this rule was during a telecast with Giselle MacKenzie. We knew they’d be sore if she did not do a song, so we let her.” Daniels pointed out that closed- circuit sessions costs run anywhere from, $10,000 to as high as $350,- 000. Small screens for the tele¬ session measure 9 by 12 feet and the largest screens (for prize fights) measure 50 by 65 feet, at drive-ins. Closed-circuit for overflow audi¬ ences has also proved effective, Daniels said. Todate it has been used for everything from a dinner talk by the Queen of England to a major championship fight. TNT has provided its equipment for over¬ flow audiences at gatherings pre¬ sided over by President Eisen¬ hower, Adlai Stevenson and Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt. It has been cited as a strong factor in many fund-raising endeavors. More re¬ cently, big business has been using closed-circuit for overflow groups of stockholders at annual meetings. To the question how dops a big business man shape up as an actor, Daniels said remarkably well. “Some have an outgoing quality, some rare quiet,” he said. “But all are involved in the drama of what they are doing—which is the first rule of any good actor.” Perhaps the ironic and ignomini- S Continued from page 23 ARB, although it is still, fourth in the period. Show went up 1.4 points since the Paar stanza was lengthened in Chi. WBBM-TV’s news-weathercast still leads with an October average of 26.6. Most¬ ly it has been the feature films that have lost points to the line¬ up change at WNBQ. Yoder's other "atrocity,” the ax¬ ing of kidshow “Commander 5” at noon and “BingOrAt-Home” at 12:30 p.m., likewise proved can¬ ny, although the rating gain is not ous moment in Daniels’ intensive daily life comes at nightfall. Dur¬ ing the day he gives orders to the nation’s foremost industrialists, the upper crust of corporate manage¬ ment. He directs their every move in front of the video cameras. as impressive as in the nighttime maneuver. The two live shows were replaced by old celluloid, re¬ runs of an anthology series at 12:30 and of "It’s a Great Life” in the slot preceding. Latter got a 3.7 ARB last month against a 2.5,| for the swan song of “Commander ; 5,” and the anthology vidfilms perked the “Bingo” ratings from 1.1 to 2.6. Yoder’s office hastens to point out too that the October ARB sur¬ vey was made during the first Radio-TV-Newspaper Monopoly Issue Projected Into Limelight With the setting of the sun, j -w ***— Daniels’ wife orders him into the I week of the change, so chances are the audience has built since" then. WNBQ is now third in both halves kitchen to wash the dinner dishes. It is enough to produce a trauma, he said. Yoder of the noon hour; previously it was fourth. With the changes, WNBQ’s over¬ all share of audience from signon to signoff is now only one point behind that of WBBM-TV, the CBS station, which leads. WBBM- TV’s overall share is 32.6; WNBQ’s is 31.6. It’s the closest the NBC station has come to Windy City lead since April 1955. Houston — Formal transfer of KPRC-FM from the Houston Post to Taft Broadcasting Co., was ap¬ proved by FCC. Sales price was reported to be $20,000. Paul E. Taft, head of the new company, also has a minority interests in KGUL-TV, Houston and KJIM, Fort, Worth. Washington. Nov. II. The highly charged issue posed by newspapers branching out into broadcasting is again being tossed at the Federal Communications Commission. There’s an outside chance that as a result sturdier guidelines may be drawn across the slippery area. Two cases currently in the peti¬ tioning stage before FCC bear directly on the question of news and advertising media control. The Mansfield, O., Journal is making another bid for a radio outlet through purchase of station WCLW. Only daily for the 50,000- populalion, Journal’s application for a new station was spurned by FCC in a classic controversy near¬ ly 10 years ago. And in Fort Smith, Ark., broad¬ casting-publishing magnate Don¬ ald W. Reynolds seeks to take'over the city’s only tv outlet, KNAC- TV. Reynolds has the only daily in Fort Smith and one of the four radio stations^ In the Mansfield case, Richland, Inc., operating radio station WMAN, is petitioning for FCC hearings to decide whether Jour¬ nal is fit to go into broadcasting. In its previous effort. Journal was mauled by FCC and the courts on grounds it was trying to stifle com¬ petition and monopolize advertis¬ ing in Mansfield to the de’riment of WMAN. It’s now under fed¬ eral court injunction to refrain, among other activities,*"closing the door on advertiser who use WMAN. WMAN claims the Jour¬ nal is still up to some of its old ways and giving it a radio voice would “aid and abet” the alleged “monopoly” practices. Challenging Reynolds in the Fort Smith ruckus is George T. Hern- reich, who operates radio station KFPW. He claims that with KNAC-TV in his hands, Reynolds would have “such an absolute control of media ip the market that any competition offered by the other radio stations would be of little or no effect.” Hernreich draws a parallel with (Continued on page 40) THE FIRST NEW YORK NIELSEN REPORT ON FALL ’58 TELEVISION PROGRAMMING* REVEALS WOR-TV channel 9 IS NEW YORK’S LEADING NIGHTTIME INDEPENDENT TV STATION ... delivering a greater share-of-audience than any other independent outlet (Sunday thru Saturday nights, 6:00 PM till Midnight). A Division of RIK RKQ Teleradio Pictures, Inc. •Nielsen Special Advance 2-Week TV Report, covering the period October 5-18, 1958,