Variety (January 1959)

94 January 7, 1959 RADIO-TELEVISION Fifty-third British Commercial TV Topper Sets Forth His Credos On The International Community’ London. Sir Robert Fraser, director gen¬ eral of the Independent Television Authority, has been accused by some of the more vocal elements oi being one of the main offenders in allowing “American domination’ of British commercial television. As administrative head of the ITA, S*r Robert is responsible for the operation of the Television Act, under which the independent net¬ work is allowed to function. What does he have to say about the many allegations that have been made in the past year? “Sta¬ tistically,” he answers in forthright style, “it's all my foot.” “Let’s^ look at it. In the year that’s just passed, about 85% of the total transmissions were Brit¬ ish in origin and performance. That seems to do ample justice to the previsions of the Act. , “Imported film programs aver¬ aged between 1212% and 13% of the total running time. Virtually all these ‘mports were of American origin. Beyond that, we find American and oLher elements tucked away here and there, such a? in the Palladium show, or in those of the panel games trsed on U.S. formulae. American television invented a program based on court scenes. Independent television has “The Verdict Is Yours.” So what? Who started chess? Who first played naughts and crosses? Who first put on mock trials? “According to our reckoning, the overwhelming majority of variety shows on tv are of British origin, but the Palladium is a theatre which, over many years, has built up a reputation as an international showcase. Is it wrong, therefore, that it should present a bill which, for example, might ''nclude a Ger¬ man juggler, an Itili-'n tenor and an American comic? Then, there’s Chelsea at Nine, designed from the outset as an intcrnat’onal concert show7. Would it he proper for the ITA to say that indeoe^dent tele¬ vision could not present some of the biggest and best talent from the international concept scene for this program? It jutt wouldn't make sense.” Those Writer Beefs S‘r Robert then referred to the complaints that had been made over the Dast year by the British writers. Three or four years ago, he explained, when commercial tv was just starting in Britain, the industry found itself desperately short of writers. It was not that British writers were bad, hut. there were not enough of them with ex¬ perience of the medium. Suddenly, starting from nowhere, the tv in¬ dustry found itself involved in the production of about 12 filmed series a vear, equal to approximately 450 half-hour films, or the equivalent of 130-140 features. Two years ago, perhaps a half of the writers en¬ gaged on the production of these series were of British origin, hut he estimated the percentage had now gone up to 80, wh’le in some only British writers were employed. The production of telefilms in Britain. Sir Robert added, had been devised as an An^Io-American operation to rerve the two big markets in the English-speaking world. He could see nothing wrong with that. It was now rot uncom¬ mon to find that these films were fce’ng made in Britain with, an allBritish cast, with an all-British producer-director team on the floor, and only an American ex¬ ecutive producer to make sure that what came out of the can would not be a failure in the United States. What most of the critics seemed to overlook, added Sir Robert, was that the American elements In Anglo-U.S. film ventures ac¬ counted for as little as 5% to 10% of the total expenditure, although the average cost for a series of 39 half-hours was probably over $1,000,000. They also overlooked the fact that these programs, when sold to the United States, brought hack a tremendous volume of dol¬ lars to Britain — more, in fact, than the industry paid for its limited import of American artists. The unions had been quick to realize how important tv had become for the welfare of their members. British Actors’ Equity, for example, made no secret of the fact that r.s members were reporting more en¬ gagements in tv films than in the feature films. Works Two Ways “Coming back to the larger ques¬ tion,” Sir Robert said, “the ITA has no sympathy whatsoever with the extreme insular approach. I hope it’s true that the world can learn a lot from Britain. I. believe it, anyway. But we don’t hold the only key to the secret of life, we can learn, too. We hold no brief for the ‘keep-it-to-ourselves’ school or the ‘keep-everyone-out’ boys. Because that can work two ways. “There are three Important rea¬ sons why we, at the ITA, believe in and favor cooperation with the United States — and with other countries. Firstly, to be insular in outlook is not the way to go about building ‘one world,’ and we want to see tv playing its part in achiev¬ ing an international community; RALPH CAMARGO AnnouncerActor-Narrator Registry JTJ 2-8800 secondly, of all arts we feeb that television ought to Be an interna¬ tional one. To deny it contact with the ‘outside world’ would be to rob it of one of its great opportunities of growth and final maturity, and, thirdly, if we close our door on the world — well, the moment you hear the door click will be the mo¬ ment when oversea demands for the work of British writers, British artists and British' directors will stop.” Does It Really Matter What Reviewers Say? By EUGENE BURR Maybe it’s still a hangover from : the show .that’s supposed to “imthe old deathwatcli in legit — which, [ prove” it. as you don’t have to be told unless [ The so-called problem is only you're an exclusive product of made a problem by a couple of } “ . (groups whose connection with the radio or some other form of semi j industry is peripheral: >1) newsshowbusiness, was the gruelling j papers, magazines and other med'a procedure of waiting up after an that look with dyspeptic jealousy opening until the early editions of' uP°n‘he huge and Increasing bill; mgs allocated to televrsion; and (2) the morning papers appeared with ; commentatdrs and other assorted the reviews, and you could learn ; fauna who peer from the soft how good or bad you were. Strong ; marshlands of determined pseudomen used to go mad during the • intellectualism, and scream that tv, ... . . . . j . j whenever it tries quite properly to death-watch; producers and direc. attradt a mass audience, is clieap tors who hadn’t spoken socially, to J a r.dl vulgar and ined'oere and whateach other since the first week of ! cvet else the commentators feel rehearsals would mingle tcai« in J that they themselves are nor. a communal booze-bucket; ingenues Success and failure depeni lip0n would make dates with assistant I a show»s willingness and ability to stage managers who didn t ha\ e a ( meet the differing but not exclusive d me; everyone went crazy. ! probiems of getting a mass audi In legit there was some reason j ence and, at the same time, offerfor it. Because of the insane ccft; ing entertainment good enough to nomics of the theatre. New York s ‘'improve” that audience’s taste. Top 20 National Syndicated Shows Data for this chart was taken from the U.S. Pulse Spot Film Reports covering a period from Nov., 1957, through Oct., 1958. A program to appear in this report must have appeared in four of the basic 22 Pulse markets. The national average is weighted according to the size of the market. Any program to appear in this chart must have appeared at least 6 times. Program No. of Appearances Distributor Yearly Natl. Ave. 1. Highway Patrol .. . (12)-. . . Ziv . . . . . 18.3 1. Sea Hunt . . 9).. . . Ziv . . 18.3 2. Honeymooners . . (12).. ..CBS . . 16.5 3, Mike Hammer . . . . . . ( 8) • . . MCA . . . 15.2 3. State Trooper _ . (12)... ..MCA . . 15.2 4. Death Valley Days .....(12).. . .U.S. Borax . 14.9 5. Silent Service .... . (12)... . . CNP . . 14.6 6. Sheriff of Cochise . (12),.. ..NTA . . 13.8 7. Whirlyhirds . . (12).. ..CBS . . 13.1 8. Popeye . . . . . . (12) . . . . AAP . . 12.8 9. Annie Oakley . . . ; . . (12).. ..CBS . . 12.6 10. Casey Jones ....... . (11).. . . Screen G’s . . . 12.4 11. Code 3 . . . (12).. . . Hal Roach . . . 12.0 12. Cisco Kid (12).. . . Ziv . . . . 11.9 13. Boots and Saddles . . ..CNP .... . . 11.6 14. Harbor Command .. . (12).. . . Ziv . . 11.5 14. 26 Men . . . . . . . (12).. ..ABC . . 11.5 15. Decoy . . (11).. . . Official . 11.4 15. Gray Ghost . . (12).. ..CBS . . 11.4 16. Sky King . . (10) . . . . Nabisco _ _ . 11.3 In The Beginning Is The Show... ' By LOUIS G. COWAN reviews could (and still can) ac¬ tually make or break a show. But there’s no reason whatsoever for ii in tv. And still they do it. Net¬ work brass, agency bulgebrains, show7 directors, actors and even production assistants— aU of them If I may be forgiven a brief ex¬ cursion into autobiography, the original problem of “The Verdict Is Yours” is a good illustration in point. We were faced with the need to get the housewife out of the kitchen in m;d-afternoon long w*ait breathlessly to find out whai f en0Uah to watch a half-hour ores was said about them in the Nev. York review’s. And it couldn’t nrat entation of a court trial, with ro a'tion except the movement of ter less. ; v;itnesses to and from the stand. Time after time in the course of and with, 0f necessity, little oi a season— or in the course of an j none of the schmaltz that has be average week— a show can get ex Come the trademark of successful cellent reviews across the country; : daytime drama. At the same time, but here in New York, where cul { v;e faced the problem of keeping a ture is self-consciously spelled W;ith ; cultural level, represented by a capital “C,” the boys and girls * maintenance of judicial practices will wax something less enthusi ( aTjd attitudes, thus bringing to astic. And, for some reason, those . miui0ns of Americans (we hoped) connected with the effort contsm j new knowledge of and respect for pla|e the more sensational forms , American court procedure, of hara-kiri. It doesn’t make sense. | But, in maintaining— and teachThi records are literally packed ; jrg to the audience — an . appreciawith tv shows that were subjected j t;on 0f American jurisprudence, w7e to the culturally curdled caterwaul j als0 faCed the problem of getting ings of Manhattan cognoscenti; and i as large as possible an audience still went on and did pretty well : to winCh this might be taught. That for themselves. j meant broadening the base of the However, the whole thing points < program to include the attention ; ( President , CBS Television Neticork) It reveals no dark secret of network practices to say that the single most important aspect of any network’s life is its program schedule. Audiences, advertisers and affiliated stations are vital to the network to be sure, but even their very existence hinges first on the programs. That is why the care, feeding and continued improvement of our programs have always had first priority at the CBS Television Net¬ work. We spend millions of dollars a year in program research to work up new projects and new ideas. Today, for instance, our program de¬ partment has 31 new show’s under development. Not all of them will appear on the network, of course. But ideas beget other ideas, and out ’ of this creative process comes our most valuable new material. At the present time we are engaged to a far greater extent than any of our competitors in the packaging and producing of our own net¬ work programs. To this end the network has gathered under its wing the biggest, most imaginative, most able creative staff in broadcasting. Its membership reads like an honor roll of television’s most respected award winners including Fred Coe, John Houseman, Herbert Brodkin, Bob Banner, Ralph Nelson, Nat Hiken, Delbert Mann, John Frankenheimer, Gordon Duff, Arthur Penn, Barry Wood, Leland Hayward, Cy Howard, Perry Lafferty, Fred Friendly, Mario Lewis, Rod Serling, Robert Alan Aurthur and Reginald Rose. And this is by no means a complete list. The network has always acted in the conviction that it has a basic responsibility to develop, experiment and take the forefront in the presentation of new and original programming. This is a responsibility which extends both to the public and to the network’s advertisers. This commitment to creative leadership is the; chief reason in my opinion why -the CBS Television Network has continued to rank first both in audiences and advertising for the past four consecutive years. Evidence that this pattern of leadership will continue in the future caij be found in the fact that again this season the majority of the most popular new entertainment programs wrere introduced on our schedule. The Restless Public up a situation that continually faces and afflicts anyone working in the tv field. This is the ScyllaCharybdis deal of do:ng a show that plays fair with the clients and the network by attracting as man* customers as possible, and at the same time mainta5ns a mgh -or at very least an acceptable — “cul¬ tural” standard. It’s not too much of a problem if even a modicum of common sense is brought to bear on it; you provide a base for your program that is as broad as possi¬ ble, and then upon that base you erect a show with quality, taste and cultural value as high as you can make them. In other words, first you get an audience, and then you “improve” it. It’s to be . noted that no audience whatsoever can be “improved” if it isn’t watching This longterm record is all the more significant in light of the fact that public taste is such a restless ever-changing force. To keep pace with our own leadership philosophy and the audience’s unyielding de¬ mands for different entertainment we must be consistently on th® prowl for new talent, new ideas and fresh concepts. We must have the courage to back writers and artists who seek to create new and excit, mg formats. We must go far beyond merely imitating already estab¬ lished successes. We must keep moving — improving the old and exper¬ imenting for the future. This is a responsibility which our own creative staff puts us in the best position to carry out. Over the years the programs developed and packaged by the CBS Television Network itself have been among th® pioneers and award winners in every classification of television enter¬ tainment, from the medium’s revolutionary hour-and-a-half weekly dramatic series “Playhouse 90,” to its highly respected “adult” west¬ erns, “Gunsmoke” and “Have Gun, Will Travel”; from the globe-span¬ ning new concept of “Small World” to the enduring variety format of “The Ed Sullivan Show”; from Phil Silvers’ uproarious comedy series about army life to the authentic court room drama on "The Verdict Is Yours.” Besides cultivating its own creative resources, oi course, a network must do. everything within its power to encourage all outside sources of programming. The importance of the contribution of these inde¬ pendent packagers to our network schedule cannot be stressed too often. They originate many of the medium’s finest and most popular and interest of as many housewives : network programs. And it is precisely because program production as possible. And that meant, sim! comes from so many different streams that the nation’s audiences can ply, choosing cases that, intrinsi¬ cally or because of the emorional relationships between litigants, carried an extra content of drama and audiepce-sympathy. In choos¬ ing such cases there was no need to mar the basic legal structure in any way. The two-pronged problem can be met by any show, if the self-con¬ scious bleats of those who confuse anti-entertainment with culture are disregarded. Set up a base for your show broad enough to include as large a inass audience as possible; and then, upon that base, create a structure of the highest possible cultural quality. If longhair pre¬ cedent Is required, that’s how Shakespeare built “Hamlet.” be assured of a fresh, continually improving flow of new television en¬ tertainment. At the CBS Television Network we pride ourselves on the fact that our advertisers can choose the best from two worlds — the networkdeveloped shows and the outside packages. In either case we are able to offer our expert creative assistance. And, in both cases, the public is the ultimate beneficiary of the better programs that result. Of course, in the area of news and public affairs, the network feels a special responsibility for the creation and development of its own programs. We have a primary obligation to keep the public informed and to maintain fairness and balance while so doing. That is why, when it comes to news, current events and matters of controversy, th® network produces all its own programs. Television is an immensely powerful instrument. It is still so young that we have only just begun to tap its capacity to inform and enter¬ tain. To probe more deeply into its unexplored possibilities requires an enormous expenditure of talent, energy and creativity. Today, as in the past, the CBS Television Network is spending these resources in the conviction that basically, the most important single contribution we can make is to offer every creative force at our command.