Variety (March 1959)

Wednesday, March 11, 1959 UfiRIETY RADIO-TELEVISION 31 RADIO & THE ‘CORPORATE EGO’ ’58-’59’s Top Dozen Specials Thus far this season some 70 specials have appeared on the three tv networks. Here’s the Trendex rundown on the Top dozen, which, incidentally, include three Lucy-Desi comedy hours for Westinghouse and three Bob Hope specials for Buick: Lucy-Desi (CBS). 38 Some of Manie’s Friends (NBC) .*-*. 35 Bob Hope (NBC) ..•••.31 Lucy-Desi (CBS) ... ..... . .31 Lucy-Desi (CBS) .,.... 29 Bob Hope (NBC) .,. ....... - 29 Harvey (CBS) .. 28 Bing Crosby (ABC) . 26 Jerry Lewis (NBC) . ...26 Dean Martin (NBC) . 26 Wonderful Town (CBS) . 26 Bob Hope (NBC) . 24 The Men Who Didn’t Come to Dinner Mutual Plays Musical Chairs at D.C. Correspondents Shindig; Hurleigh Shows Washington, March 10. Mutual played musical chairs with its head table seat at the big radio-television correspondents din¬ ner Saturday night (7) when MBS almost didn’t produce' a man to come to dinner. Negotiations over Mutual's sale prompted the shift four times from the seat reserved for Mutual’s pres¬ ident. First, Alexander L. Gu- terma, president, cancelled when he resigned two weeks ago. Then, Hal Roach Jr., board chairman, too occupied with new responsibilities cued by the Guterma resigna¬ tion, cancelled. Blair Waillser, ex¬ ecutive vice-president, intended coming but last minute negotiations detained him in New York. Mutual seat was finally occupied by Robert F. Hurleigh, Washington v.p., who came, dined, and ‘‘had a wonderful time.” Otherwise, dinner was smash success with leadership of other webs present, plus countless Gov¬ ernmental toppers, including vice- president Richard M. Nixon as ranking guest. Entertainment made big hit, with Herb Shriner, Mar¬ guerite Piazza, Mike Nichols and Elaine May and dancers Augie and Margo participating. Outgoing asso¬ ciation president is Edward P. Morgan, ABC; incoming prexy and dinner cjhairman, Julian Goodman, NBC; and program chairman and emcee, Ted Koop, CBS. John Gambling Plans Retirement John B. Gambling, celebrating his 34th year with WOR Radio, N.Y., as an early morning person¬ ality, plans to retire in December, ’60. at the expiration of his cur¬ rent five-year contract. Gambling described his take, pegged on the commercials car¬ ried on his two morning stripped shows, as running between $300,- 000 and $400,000 last year. His early show, “Rambling with Gambling” is stripped from 6:15 to 8 a.m., followed by “Second Breakfast.” running from 9:15 to 10 a.m., with a five-minute news break. Gambling, who’s been grooming his son since he’s been a young¬ ster in broadcasting hopes that when he retires John A. now a “boy” of 29, will take over his “Rambling” and “Breakfast” stints. John A. hosts WOR’s “Mu¬ sic from Studio X” and an after¬ noon show on the station. That decision, though, says the elder Gambling, is up to the station’s management. Senior Gambling said his deci¬ sion to retire isn’t definitive, but after the 35-year mark in broad¬ casting he’s ready to step down and. if at all possible, let his son take over.. And So to Bedouin This is a clean story—but Jordan’s King Hussein will be sleeping in Martha Rountree’s bed ancf appearing on Ted Ayers’ CBS show, “Face the Nation,” March 29. More accurately, it’s Miss Rountree’s ex-bed. When she recently sold her Washington mansion to the Jordanian gov¬ ernment to be” transformed into the Jordan Embassy, the ambassador also wanted to buy the furnishings, including her king-sized (no pun) beds. She agreed. Then she bought Franklin D. Roosevelt’s pre- White House home here. For Ayers, the .Middle East¬ ern king follows a long list of governmental chiefs to face his CBS cameras. NBC-TV s Wad Of Sponsorship Coin; 'Jazz Age’Repeat NBC-TV this week found bank- rollers for “Black Saddle,” “Mas¬ querade Party” and a repeat per¬ formance of thq “Project 20” program, “The Jazz Age”. which the late Fred Allen narrated. Colgate-Palmolive signed as al¬ ternate-week sponsor of “Black Saddle” the new Saturday night western starting April 4. Colgate joins Liggett & Myers in co-spon¬ soring the filmed series. Hazel Bishop will pick up the tab for “Masquerade Party” on seven al¬ ternate-weeks starting March 26. Cosmetic outfit also will sponsor the “Bob Cummings Show” on three, alternate-weeks starting next Tuesday (17). Sterling Drug is sponsor of the repeat show of “The Jazz Age” on Sunday, March 29 from 7 to 8 p.m. It will immediately pre¬ cede the hour-long “Music With Mary Martin” colorcast on the Easter Sunday schedule. PABST NAMED PREXY OF CALIF. BLASTERS Sacramento, March 10. California Broadcasters 'Associa¬ tion elected William Pabst, gen¬ eral manager of. KTVU, Oakland, as president at annual meeting last week. Pabst replaces George Whit¬ ney, of KFMB, San Diego. CBA also tentatively okayed plan to finance itself by getting a voluntary slice of advertising funds given the broadcasting busi¬ ness by the California State Fair. Other new officers elected were: Vice-presidents, William Goetze, San Diego; Art Westlund, Berke¬ ley; Clark George, Los Angeles; secretary-treasurer, M. F. Wood- ling, Chico; new directors, in addi¬ tion to Woodling, Westlund, and George. Joseph Drilling, Fresno, and Ernest Spencer, Santa Ana. I By ART WOODSTONE Radio networks have begun stripping bare the bone, not to make money but (clearly, for the first time) to keep from losing it. This the networks no longer make a vigorous effort to hide. Why this curious study in as¬ cetic survival still exists, at a time when the minimum test for cor¬ porate durability demands nothing less (and much more, most of the time) than a 7% or 8% return on capital investment, is a query which has persisted since 1952, when television began in earnest to feather-pluck the golden goose. The recent cutbacks by ABC and CBS, the disputed program¬ ming step taken two weeks ago by NBC, and now the mighty round¬ house swing by the Securities & Exchange Commission against Mutual (through the person of its ex-topper Alexander Guterma), only serve to accentuate network radio’s struggle for survival on a path (by their own admission) which, at its smoothest, leads to a kind of teeter-tottering, marginal profit. Recent commentary would indi¬ cate that it is not the all-too elu¬ sive goal of profit that keeps CBS, ABC. and NBC going (at the mo¬ ment. Mutual is considered a real question mark), but. instead, two overriding factors: (1' “Corporate prestige” and (2) “The intangible of government,” which embodies the fear that drastic steps may be taken on Capitol Hill to amend the withdrawal of the three tv net¬ work radio. Take each of the three networks in turn: RCA Factor at NBC A high-ranking NBC executive said the other day, in answer to why NBC continues in the network radio field, when admittedly it is not making a money profit from it: “RCA (the parent company) still has radio in the name.” Gen. David Sarnoff, who is the RCA board chairman and the founder of the network, he said, believes that if all the radio net¬ works cease,* the Government w'ill step in, if only for the sake of na¬ tional defense, and set up its own network system among radio sta¬ tions, this for the purpose of quick and total wartime alert. The NBC exec then speculated on the possibility, however remote, that once the Government got into network radio it might “in five or 10 years” also get into network television, not for the purposes, certainly, of making money, but for information and perhaps for edu¬ cational reasons. This, in turn, could deprive commercial video of some prime 'channel allocations and create gratuitous competition. Back to the comment that the R in RCA stands for radio. RCA makes, radio, as well as video, re¬ ceivers for public consumption, and the radio. network has proved over the years to be a prime mover of RCA radio sets. Without a net¬ work, this, too, could not be done. CBS is no longer in the business of selling sets, either radio or tv, to the public, and a major CBS (Continued on page 54) Como Keeping Good Company On Those $24,090,(100 Two-Year TV Wrapups: Desilu, Chevy, Sullivan The Perry Como-Kraft $25,000,- 000 two-year deal (actually it spans 28 months) in which the singer will deliver 66 Wednesday night 9 to 10 shows on NBC-TV to be produced by his Roncom Porductions, is ad¬ mittedly “sensational” in the big coin dept. In reality, however, it is but one of several deals on the tv program-talent front that are prob¬ ably just as^Spectacular in terms of sponsor recognition of the medi¬ um and the ultimate coin payoff. Take, for example, the Ed Sulli¬ van situation. CBS-TV right now is sitting on top of $18,000,000 in potential sponsor coin but is in a quandary as to what to do about it. Lincoln-Mercury is pulling out at the end of the season. Eastman- Kodak remains as co-sponsor. Time and talent, it’s a $12,000,000 sea¬ sonal wrapup. (Over the two-year stretch that just about pars the Como-Kraft $25,000,000 pledge of allegiance.) For the Lincoln-Mer¬ cury $6,000,000 half of the Sullivan Sunday 8 to 9 entry, Colgate, Rev¬ lon and Lorillard are in there pitching for the takeover. That’s $18,000,000 in orders in the house,' but CBS has got to choose whose $12,000,000 gets a turndown and which $6,000,009 is accepted. While Como is reaping the per- On the assumption that the haus- j sonal publicity out of his Kraft ' frau craves more than souffle red- maneuver, in many respects the jpes and soapers. CBS-TV plans a i“ t ; a " nounced , ? es * , Ar ? az * 12 -* ! , . , . . . , 000.009 renewal for Westinghouse j pantry-packed senes of significant spoTlsorshio of " Desi i u P ] a vhouse” | daytime “specials” starting around nex t season (which also totes up to i May 15. Overall title of the series 1 a $24,000,000 time-and-program Engineer In the House? Washington, March 10. Senatorial experts on televi¬ sion, radio, telephone and all reproductions of the human voice throughout the land had a problem of their own. When the Senate Commerce Committee held its first meet¬ ing the other day in the new' $10,000,000-plus New Senate Office Building, something happened. Loudspeaking equipment went haywire. “We had to adjourn,” ex¬ plained a member, Sen. Norris Cotton (R-N. H.), “because we couldn’t control our own squawks! ” CBS-TV ‘Woman’ Daytime Specials At 11G Per Show j is “Woman!”, subtitled “Herself, I Her Family, Her World, Her Fu¬ ture,” Programs, all of a deeply • investigative nature, will cost in ; the region of $100,000 for each ' show' for preemptions and produc- ; tion costs. Series, under supervision of Irv- I ing Gitlin, director of pub-affairs . for CBS News, and Oscar Katz, veep in charge of daytime pro¬ grams for_ CBS-TV, will get the type of probing treatment usually accorded nighttime documentaries and specials. First of the in-depth appraisals for the midday milady W'ill be “Do They Marry Too Young?”, an earnest examination of the increase in teenage marriage and the desire for larger families. Other topics, all handled on a mature level, include “Who Tells Me How r to Dress”; “Is the Ameri¬ can Woman Losing Her Feminity?’ and “You Can’t Raise Your Chil¬ dren by the Book.” Programs, in all instances will be of hour-long duration. James Fleming will de¬ velop and produce the “Woman!” series. Fleming plans to have each pro¬ gram introduced and guided by a name figure, chosen either from the broadcasting field or outside the showbiz sphere. There’s no set time for the telecasts except they’ll been seen anytime from 10 a.m. to 12 (noon) and 2 to 5 pjn. Fleming indicated he would make consider¬ able use of video tape, film and live studio pickups for the series. Silvers: 1 Was Out of My Mind’ Atlanta, March 10. Paul Jones, tv editor of Atlanta Constitution, spent last week In New' York as guest of WAGA-TV, Storer chain outlet here which serves as mouthpiece for Columbia Broadcasting System. Jones picked up stories here and there (about CBS personalities, for the most part) and wired them back to his paper. One was an interview with comic Phil (Sgt. Bilko). Silvers, who told Jones he was going to shelve role of conniving non-com in CBS-TV howler, “You’ll Never Get Rich.” Now, Silvers, after seeing his words in the light of cold print says he has no intention of sidetracking Bilko. “I must have been out of my mind,” Silvers said Friday (6) in referring to the exclusive interview he gave Jones. “There’s nothing to it. I did say those things, but I must have been out of my mind.” During course of interview Silvers told Jones he was “turning in his chips” after program’s season ends in May. (Continued on page 54) ‘Lawless Years’ At Bargain Prices NBC-TV is offering sponsors, latest among v them being Procter k Gamble, ‘The Lawless Years,” ‘he half-hour telefilm skein slot¬ ted for 8:30 p.m. Sundays, at a “special introductory nrice” of $25,000 per enisode. This is ap¬ proximately $20,000 below the actual production cost of each episode. This is not the first time that NBC. or for that matter eiher of its netw'ork tv rivals, have of¬ fered bargain program prices, but the sale of “Lawless” at net much more than half of w'hat it takes to break even is said to hinge on NBC’s desire to hold the 9-10 p.m. Chevrolet business. It’s Under- , stood that the Dinah Shore bank- roller demands a strong lead-in. At the reduced program figure, the per show time-talent nut to sponsors is $96,132. Network guarantees the introductory offer for the first 25 weeks of the show (from April 5 kickoff until Sept. 27), in an effort to build an audi¬ ence for this detective adventure sxein placed in the 1920s. After tha', when the regular fall season begins, NBC hopes that it can up the price to the $45,000, which is w'hat it costs to make, at the same time be able to offer prospective customers a substantial rating vis- a-vis CBS-TV’s Ed Sullivan last half hour and ABC-TV’s “Law r - man.” NBC is also offering a 13-week reduction deal, again at $25,000 per seg. ‘Amateur Hour’ Into ? to P’ Sumner Slot Ted Mack and his “Original Amateur Hour,” sponsored by Pharmaceuticals, will probably warm up the Friday night 10:30 to 11 period during the 13-week sum¬ mer layoff of “Person to Person.” “Amateur Hour” is currently slotted Sunday afternoons at 5:30. When “P to P” returns in the fall Arthur Godfrey win be seated in the Ed Murrow chair.