Variety (January 1959)

BAMO-TELEVISIO^ Fifty-third J^SSlETY 'Anniversary January 7, 1959 The Hum Drum Song I 1 ■ uwiBy HUBBELL ROBINSON JR. 1 " * (Executive Vice President, Programs, CBS Television Network) The predictions of doom and disaster, accompanying the start of television’s 10th season last September were thunderous and unani¬ mous. “Hum Drum,” “Repetitive,” “Unimaginative,” “Undistinguished,” “In a Rut.” “The Mixture as Before,” “Dull,” “Dreary.” were some of the mellower tags the nation’s press men hung on the announce¬ ments of things to come. Subsequently, in as adroit a bit of thimble¬ rigging as allegedly responsible journalism has ever permitted itself, Newsweek and Fortune took up the chant with a couple of pieces distinguished chiefly for their monumental omissions. In view of the militant despair with which these assorted lambasters viewed television in general and the vast bulk of its ^programming progeny in particular it’s a wonder any producers, directors, writers or actors ever showed up for work. Fortunately they did. Because they did American television homes have been regaled these fall and early winter evenings with such worthy items as “The Fred Astaire Show,” “Wonderful Town” with Rosalind Russell, “The Plot To Kill Stalin,” “The Days Of Wine and Roses,” “The Old Man,” “Seven Against The Wall,” “The Winslow Boy,” “The Hasty Heart,” Bing Crosby’s show with Dean Martin and Patti Page, ’‘Twentieth Century’s” memorable two parter on drug addiction, a number of vivid half-hours when bright lively informed minds came together to make Murrow and Friendly’s new series indeed a “Small World”; Leonard Bernstein’s monumental dissection of Beethoven and Art Carney’s wonderful ro¬ mance with Peter and The Wolf. There are undoubtedly other produc¬ tions fully as entitled to inclusion in the catalog of televisions major accomplishments during the last 90 days. But this particular string of pearls shines with several common characteristics very much to the point as to what television’s creative executives, producers, directors writers and actors are about. [ _ And the Sponsors Were Happy _ 1 All of them reached substantial numbers of people. They communi¬ cated what they had to say with sufficient skill to do that. All of them were sponsored. According to the best intelligence I have been able to muster all of those sponsors were satisfied with the results they got from the dollars spent. All of these productions received almost universal hosannahs from the critics, large and small. The one thing uncommon to this Blue Book of achievement is the wide range of basic material which characterizes it. It ranges from melodramatic docu¬ mentary to classical music, from musical comedy to social drama; from informed factual conversation about the issues that may shape our des¬ tiny to imaginative, invented ways to tell a children’s fairy story with sight and sound. It doesn’t seem irrelevant to note, obliquely, that while television was scaling these plateaus, the record of the entertainment arts most comparable to it, the movies and the theatre were, to put it most kind¬ ly, sporadic in terms of success, financially and critically. Television tried and succeeded more often on a far wider front. And let it be said immediately that the critics who were so generous with their fore¬ casts of unrelieved mediocrity were equally forthright in their praise of the achievements which merited it. In part, at least they ate their prophecies with no apparent regurgitation even though in the process they lost their license as prophets. This being the shape of things, television, provided it can keep up the pace, would seem to have confounded the hatchet men. It can in¬ deed keep up the pace but it is only proper to acknowledge the pace is by no means fast enough. If its specials and spectaculars and some of its weekly series cast a bright glow, the bulk of its new weekly efforts are something else again; something else that is hardly a procession of milestones in the entertainment arts. The sturdiness of many hits of previous years which continue to attract and enchant audiences is sufficient to keep most Americans using their sets in continuing num¬ bers for increasingly longer hours per day but the season’s new en¬ tries have done little for the cause. And some of the oldtimers are evidencing fatigue, the need if not the desire to be put out to pasture. Among the yearlings, Garry Moore after a something less than aus¬ picious start seems well on the way toward brighter days. “Peter Gunn” despite frequent lacerations of the storyteller’s art, and “Naked City,” although its leads are right out of the book labelled cliche, have style and demonstrate an obvious effort on the part of their creators to pour new wine into old bottles. Among the westerns, “The Rifle¬ man” and “Wanted, Dead Or Alive” evidence the same yearnings. "Of the rest” as Dante said, little knowing to what practical purpose his* words would be put, “silence may best befall.” | _ The Web & the Rap _ _[ For many years the whipping boys for this malaise have been the networks. This was, in fact, the only genuine monopoly they had. And as counterpunchers they’ve been notorious sad sacks. More recently, however, the advertisers and their agencies have been getting their lumps as the architects of television’s failure to push its creative fron¬ tiers outward on a broad scale. Since the marriage of American business and American television certainly wasn’t made in heaven it’s scarcely astounding the programs which are the issue of these uneasy bedfellows are, more often than not, something short of miraculous. If this way of life is to be changed, it is the producers who must do it. There seems to be little cause for optimism that any sharp deviation from the status quo will originate with “the money.” The manufacturer rnd his agency are not in the television business. They are in the advertising and selling business. The driving urge to communicate stirring ideas about science, religion, human relations or tolerance through full employment of the dramatic form is not the primary side of the street they’re working. Even the creation of entertainment, simply for its own sake is only a means to an end for them. There should be nothing particularly astounding about this. And there is nothing vaguely sinister abroad, as implied by such muddled Minerva’s as Miss Marya Mannes. The advertisers re¬ sponsibility to his management and his stockholders is to expose his selling message to as many people as possible as economically as pos¬ sible. Obviously there ahe some exceptions to that generality — companies that use television in other ways for special purposes — but in the main that definition will stand up. Whatever may be said for this approach from the advertiser’s side of the desk, it is scarcely a stirring one for freshening the medium, raising its standards, sharpening its creative i challenge, increasing its rewards for the major entertainment skills of our times. Those values can be realized only by television’s own creative people working with profound conviction in the medium’s ; great potential and dedicated to seeing it achieved proudly and sue < cessfully. This is a philosophy that rejects the mere fact of a sale as : the be-all and end-all of achievement. It believes there is an enormous ; market of excellence. Fortunately its proponents are not barking their ; wares in a total wilderness. There would seem to positive proof that ; television sponsors and audiences will accept and nourish excellence, : reward those who provide it. Some of their investments were noted at i the start of this piece. It is up to television’s own creative legions to ; constantly seek ways to broaden that group, to put on the record again and again that fine television can be^oqd business. I, at least, < believe this is a goal entirely within our range. And, I believe, too, ] that as we increase our ability to achieve it the uneasy bedfellows can 1 lie down together with a considerable degree of comfort THE HEAD OF THE CREEK I— By OLIVER TREYZ (President, ABC Television Network) During the 1948 election coverage on ABC-TV, Elmer Davis, took over the microphone, after another correspondent had summarized the early vote count from the cities. Elmer, who had a deep understanding of national politics, was not swayed by the apparent Dewey victory. Holding a sheaf of tallies from the outlying districts, he introduced his report by saying, “Here are the returns from the head of the creek. where. In the last analysis, the results will be decided.” Davis had an accurate sense of political geography. He knew that the swells of opinion which begin as ripples at the head of the creek gain momentum as. they feed into the rivers of public preference. The big cities, concentrating their population at the crossroads of commerce are vitally important, of course, but it is the currents from inland, from the grass roots, from every corner of the country, which fuse into the groundswell of public opinion. In television, no less than in politics. It is a costly mistake to mea&UTT t nij ||yr . ure tbe river of popular choice without taking a depth sounding at x»lLiL« the headwaters where floods begin. Many a man has found himself out at sea after predicting low tides too quickly ... or was stranded mi 1 after sailing out full-steam-ahead, only to find the water too shallow. a ft _ Since America’s beginning, the families at the head of the creek ||||2|||fH IlllCf Q have made their voices heard, and their votes count. Whether the yUUHIlJ UUOIO . results are tabulated by the Electoral College or A. C. Nielsen, the _ _ _ . impact of their ballots on the national scene is greater than ever. In MaThamanniltTe fact> the increased participation of the families from “the outlying IVKUIIvlllutlUIvld districts” in television has reshaped the medium. a ■ ■■ ■ ■ ■■ _ Since 1955 . there has been a 40% growth of television homes in fin If IflniV t|*Ant markets classified as C and D in the Nielsen Television Index, as com wll V lUftllA I I (fill pared with a growth of only 24% in the more populous A and B counties— giving new importance to this valuable and voluble segment I— By EARL RETTIG of the audience. Television is fully democratic. It is the audience which selects the (Pres., California National programs that survive, and those which expire. The function of thex Productions ) networks is to provide balanced programming to satisfy both special • The next and fadeout year of ized and mass taste. Programs oriented toward a particular portion of the Frenetic Fifties marks the ; the total audience, such as “Omnibus” or: “Voice Of Firestone,” fill close of a decade which tv syndica a r(ral need* But so do the ‘Gunsmokes” and “The Real McCoys” with tion scribes will depict as a period their mess appeal. that -finally put the cart in its Today, mass appeal means something different than. it meant three proper place — behind the horse, .years ago. The audience from the head of the creek is playing a Tn »sq I oredict svndicators will -st/onSer role„ in. Picking the winners and losers. Because of this shift brSk from the hvrmotic of o£ power’ televislon’s anSels have had to look homeward, look hard, sM^rufe ^ratfoos^^d Joo^with g* u«> some The lienee * « new equal fascination on program pro s duction. • j " There’s Gleason & Berle | Though syndication Is deemed ; — * to have “arrived” — with fallen • A recent column surveyed the decline of Jackie Gleason and Milton wild-catters and one-shotters strew Berle. The “Eye & Ear Man” put the blame on the half-hour format, ing the '57 and ’58 wayside, there the lack of good comedy writers, over-saturation, and a “historical . . . is admittedly more ground to be old hat” quality of the routines. His arguments may or may not be covered in terms of self -improve valid; good WTiters are a factor; the audience has become more ment. The most encouraging part sophisticated and harder to excite. But one facet was overlooked; the of all this is that the prognosis is climate at the head of the creek. The tv audience profile has changed, excellent. . And the ehange is being felt by comedians who have appealed more to The syndicator finds and wel urban audiences than to the land of RFD. comes multiplying pressures from In the early days, tv was largely a big city affair. Now', with tv’s all sides, : pressures that demand broad diffusion over the nation, the audience is making different dehe , create original, stimulating mands. Tv’s big-city bias is a thing of the past. Reaching today’s mass video entertainment. Fortified by means delivering an updated product. And it falls to the networks to years of experience with the medi serve up a quality menu with fare for both the country mouse and um, the television viewers have be the city mouse, Gleason and Berle do not provide the right combinacome critics. The advertisers, tion of vitamins. The vote from the head of the creek, reflected In many more of them national big the ratings, certainly hurt Gleason and Berle as much as format, leaguers, now cast a discerning familiarity, script or ahy thing else. eye on the nature of sponsor iden Since jugglers went on the road in the Middle Ages it has been a tification; audience count has show business axiom that a schism exists between urban and rural ceased to be the overwhelming tastes. Variety famed headline, “Sticks Nix Hick Pix,” points up the criterion. The syndication industry special preferences of rural audiences. Through research, wre art itself has become a terrifically learning which types of programs have broadest appeal, and w’hich competitive field in which medi have a strong sectional magnetism. We are coming to know the ocrity and imitation are intoler composition of our audience and the pattern of its loyalties, ablf. We know that our total audience is made up of many distinct parts. Example: There can no longer But we ais0 know that a common denominator of solid television pleasbe “still another western. Those ure definitely does exist. Please note the phrase is common denomwide open ^prairies had better have inator, and not lowest common denominator. No responsible person a commanding point of view tsiich j know ever believed that a program must be of poor content and as a legitimate historic base) and quality to reach the greatest possible audiehpe. The reverse is true — human bemgs instead of just good and truer today than ever before. Invariably.it is the top quality prodguys and bad ones. . uct that reaches the most people and creates the most response. Example: In the field of adven Recenly an advertising executive expressed strong regrets about ture, the public insists on a ma what he confers the “mediocre” television product that is being ture approach. . CaJ“J°“’t®-" "J® ’ offered this season. This view seems peculiar in light of the unanimous winds protagonists will be unable reports that television viewing all over the country is up. More time is beiflg sPent with television; in 1959 some 45 million television infthl homes will form our Viewing public. advanta^ of staying Palive know That same critic of teIevision’s current product voiced doubt over ^21 La the value of the research services. He pointed out that Arbitron, The h bi2eest lesson I have Trendex, ARB, Nielsen and other services frequently “disagree.” It is learned out of a auSte?-centurv in exactly in the fact of the suPP°sal “disagreement” that the services the movies and television S th\s prove their worth. The services do no contradict each other. On the simnle truth vou can’t have a contrary, it is remarkable how closely they affirm each other’s reports, good Show unless you start with J* must be remembered that theymeasure different things, and report a ffnnd ctnrv pvnprHv enrintpri from different vantage points. Trendex and Arbitron, for example. In the quest for uniqueness, deal m big rfty samples. The national Nielsen reports on the head there are some avenues yet to be j creek as well. . explored by syndication. One of Taken together the various services give us a total picture that Is explored by syndication. them is color, which CNP believes valuable in determining the size and character of our audience. What should not ho s network, exclusive scorns to be dis3S^66iii6nt« is only the result of ndturHl difference bcised Another is video tape. In *58, on th* that the audience under the yardstick is a different CNP launched two properties in audience. color as well as black-and-white, Success predicted on the basis of. Trendex may be washed away by “Cameo Theater” and “Danger Is Nielsen, just as good tidings on 'the Nielsen report may conceal a My Business.” The possibilities of weakness in the competitive cities measured by Trendex. Separately, tape seem" limitless and we wel each is lacking. Together the reports tell a story, come its forthcoming appearance The hew television audience has mammouth proportions. It is harder in the syndication lists. f°r today’s tv giant to do a turnabout than it was for tv in its infancy. Every aspect of syndicated show Therefore we must be more patient if we are to avoid the waste of business must submit to constant wrong judgments. And we must get into the habit of waiting for the examination. This includes the Jesuits from all sectors. Only when the returns are in from the cities running time of a program. Why and from the head of the creek can we really know “the people’s must it freeze to the half-hour choice.” standard? . CNP is currently study Each time the rating books come in with the latest ballots from ing production and distribution of New York, Wichita, Los Angeles and Podunk, we feel a fresh excitefull-hour dramatic series and in ment. The head of the creek and the heart of the big city are showing tends to make public its findings their greater selectivity — demanding the best in entertainment and at a later date. information. Their votes are our guides. It’s common knowledge that syn To generalize from the reports: don’t rush to act on the first returns dication grosses are on the high from the crowded big-city wards — wait for the returns from the whole rise. We are dedicated to main? electorate. For to be truly a hit, like the “Real McCoys,” a program taining that trend by providing, (J must succeed not on1/ in the metropolitan markets but also at the (for Quality) entertainment. •; head of the creek.