Variety (March 1959)

50 RADIO-TELEVISION Wednesday, March 11, 1959 isSmEft TV Radio Production Centers ; Continued from page 36 ; Sacks who recommended to Temple Univ. that Cantor be kudosed with a doctor of humane letters . . . Bob Barker has emceed his 560th “Truth or Consequences”. . . Michael Gradle won his veepee stripes as head of Needham, Louis & Brorby’s Hollywood office . . . Mitch Leigh, prexy of Music Makers (tv jingles) in town to install Mort Stein as manager of his newly opened Hollywood office. Says Leigh, “the market is getting too big to be neglected.”. . . CBS’ Bill Dozier gathered up all the old friends of Garry Moofe and hosted a pouring at Romanoff’s. EY CHICAGO ... WGN ballcasters Jack Quinlan and Lou Boudreau leave this week for the Cubs training camp . . . Howard Miller signed on with WMAQ for a two-hour deejay show daily immediately following his morning WIND stint . . . ABC-TV sales veep Jim Beach vacationing in Miami until the NAB convention . . . Bill Anson doing nightly interview show from Country Store Restaurant on WKFM . . . Art Van Damme Quin¬ tet, currently at Blue Note, is on leave of absence from local NBC staff for an in-person tour. Group returns to WNBQ-WMAQ in April . . . John C. Doerfer and Red Skelton set as guests on Irv Kupcinet’s WBBM-TV “At Random” show this Saturday (14) . , . Matt Culligan, exec veep in charge of NBC radio net, speaking at Chi Broadcast Ad Club luncheon next Thursday (19), following the NAB . . . WGN music director Bob Trendler again named batoner for Chi Tribune’s Chicago- land Music Festival coming up this summer . . . Fahey Flynn, WBBM- TV newscaster, leaves for three-week vacation in Mexico next week and John Harrington is on Hawaii hiatus . . . Franny Clark of NBC press dept, off to Florida for three weeks this weekend . . . Les Ur¬ bach, ex-WGN-TV, signed on with Fred Niles Productions as a director. . . . Clifford Barborka Jr., v.p. and manager of John Blair Co. midwest office, moderating radio panel for Chi chapter of American Women in Radio and TV meeting on March 21. Participating will be Art Thor- Jerry Austin, sidekick of "Cannonball" - Mike Malone- rugged men entrusted to maintain the nation's com¬ mercial lifeline. MVHTISBS SMPUPITCS New Markets Sold Each Day- Wire Now For Your Choice Of Availabilities I BRAND-NEW by Robt. Maxwell. creator of LASSIE! INDEPENDENT TELEVISION CORPORATION 488 Madison Ave.-H.Y. 22•PLaza 5-2100 THIS IS BRITAIN With Edward Whitehead Producer: Albert Grobe Director: Grobe Writer: Whitehead 30 Mins., Fri. (6), 7:30 p.m. BRITISH RAILWAYS & JAGUAR CARS WQXR, N. Y. (Vidor & Bennett ; Cunningham & Walsh) This is -bully listening and at a perfect time of year to whet the tourist’s appetite. Britain indicated the other day that it had a banner year in 1958 with more than a mil¬ lion foreign traipsers on her island and that one-fourth of them were from her one-time colony in Amer¬ ica. Undoubtedly Commander Ed¬ ward Whitehead’s informative and boomingly - delivered stories of Britain will woo more and more Yankees to her cities and country¬ side. Whitehead, the Schwepps man with the stunning beard, is a splen¬ did choice to tout Britain’s won¬ ders. Both British Railways and Jaguar Cars should derive consid¬ erable good will as a result of this 13-week deal on WQXR, the Goth¬ am AMer with taste. “This is Britain” is presented without furbelows, merely White- head spinning tales of England and interspersing them with fitting music. But the magnetism of Whitehead’s voice is as heady as the spirits (mixed with Schwepps, no doubt) in London’s venerable pubs. Opening program dealt with attractions of London. With fervor, he told of Her Majesty’s Life¬ guards, London’s famous parks and of the city’s many other facets. There was also appropriate music as for example the recording of a march made in 1957 by the band of the Royal Regiment of Artillery on the birthday of Queen Elizabeth II; the impish London bus song, “Transport Delight” and. Eric Coates’ “Knightsbridge” as White- head described the Knightsbridge Barracks where squadrons of the Household Cavalry are stationed. Nor did the bearded gent fail to mention the much-maligned Eng¬ lish weather. It’s not true that it always rains in London, he said, and that one can’t stir without gum boots, a mackintosh and umlbrella.' There are indeed bright days in London, he insisted, days filled with sunshine and beautiful girls. “For evidence witness the glint in the eye of even the most crochety of clubman as he takes his post¬ prandial stroll up St. James Street and along Piccadilly,” Whitehead sang out. Next week listeners will learn about Cornwall and later on Wales, English Lake District, Scottish Highlands and other British land¬ marks. Whitehead is so persuasive a salesman he could easily have con¬ verted even Hizzoner William Hale Thompson, onetime mayor of Chi¬ cago and intractable adversary of the British Empire. Rans. sen, WBBM’s.program director; Ward L. Quaal, WGN,vice prez and general manager; and Bernard Jacobs, prez of WFMT. in boston ... WBZ-TV, as part of its “Lamp of Knowledge” public service proj¬ ect, televised debate on the limited sales tax vs. increase in state in¬ come tax by the Governor and Prof. Arnold Soloway; ass’t prof. dept, economics. Harvard U., in special simulbast on WBZ radio and WBZ- TV Saturday (7) as a tv first . . . WJAR-TV Providence, R.I., featur¬ ing Rhode Island red rooster on tv news and “Jay Kroll Show” as part of Channel 10’s anni . . . Ed Pearled public relations chief of WBZ, back from Manhattan weekend where he o.o.’d new plays . . . Jean Har¬ rington, WHDH-TV’s “Miss Jean” of “Romper Room” show, celebrated first anni and nabbed a 13t£ lb. lollipop from her moppet fans . . . WNAC preems its new “radiant radio” policy Monday (16) knocking 1 out its former “easy listenin’ ” format with “modern music, public | service features of news, weather, time and. temp”. . . Duncan Mac¬ Donald guesting novelist Andrew Hepburn on her “Yankee Home” on WNAC. IN WASHINGTON ... Donald H. McGannon and other Westinghouse Broadcasting Co. execs staged a big Mayflower Hotel party for Governmental VIPs to announce one-year contract with Theodore Granik for once-monthly tv of “Youth Wants to Know” and once-monthly tv and weekly radio of “American Forum of Air.” Production tab runs about $100,000. WBC will syndicate two monthly tv products on videotape. Clients so far are WTTG-TV, Washington, and WABD-TV, New York ... WTOP- TV’s early a.m. beginner’s typing course was so suc 9 essful in ’58, it’ll be repeated, starting March 24.. . . Tied in with the Chipmunks craze, WWDC invited listeners to write in for miniature harmonicas. Sta¬ tion had 1,000 on hand, but promptly received requests for 2,000 . . . WTOP and WTOP-TV, which have signed’ to carry the ’59 season of the Washington Senators, will use Bob Wolff for the play-by-play. IN LONDON ... Associated Television to announce its awards to British writers for original tv plays on April 2. The three awards, carrying one prize of $1,400 and two of $700, wert to have been made known on March 1 but heavy last-minute response caused the delay. Mss. received in the closing week totalled 187 . . . Robert Beatty to make his first ap¬ pearance for Associated-Rediffusion in a full-length play Friday week (20), taking the key role in “Notes For A Love Song.” . . . BBC-TV has an exclusive contract to cover the Lincolnshire Handicap next Tuesday and Wednesday (17, 18). It’ll be the first time the race meet¬ ing’s been televised . . . Program controller W. Lyon-Shaw and senior features producer H. K. Lewenhak represented Tyne Tees Television on Friday (6)'at a conference in Durham on relations between tv and industry in the North East ... BBC-TV’s now resolved to replace “What’s My Line?” with “See What I Mean” starting Friday week (20) with Richard Murdock as emcee. Fort Worth—There were 695,000 sets in the Fort Worth-Dallas area as of March 1. IN MINNEAPOLIS . . . Twin City Federal Savings & Loan, biggest single local tv and ra¬ dio time buyer, to sponsor NTA’s Bishop Sheen video taped talks on his own station. KSMF-TV, here, starting next week . . . Veteran Twin Cities announcer Jack Huston and disk jockey’Paul Hedberg joined WTCN Radio . . . KTCA-TV, Twin Cities’ educational station, started 13%-hour class in Russian language with a local savings bank as spon¬ sor . . . WLOL started a Moose Milking Club as a”gag and claims with¬ in a couple of weeks nearly 4,000 people wrote in for membership . . .• WMIN now broadcasting music 24 hours a day . . . Pair who stole WTCN-TV cameraman’s $1,500 tv 16m sound camera and two camera cases arrested when they tried to peddle stolen goods for $5 . . . Now the Twin Cities’ Mutual Broadcasting System’s Twin Cities station and fulltime .operation, KEVE is expanding its country-Western music programming which it has featured the past several years. IN CLEVELAND ... Harrison Dillard, former Olympic hurdling star, named WABQ sports director . . . Western Reserve Univ. opened its 8th year of tele- courses on WEWS reporting 1,000 students have earned credit toward degrees . . . John Bell exiting all-night KYW disk stint for WINZ . . . Fred Austin named president of Northern Ohio Broadcasting Co. which soon opens WNOB-FM, 130,000 watts . . . Bert Wayne leaves WHK for WNEW and John Holliday, ex-WRVM, takes over the all-night stint . . . Mrs. Valena Miller named women’s editor WABQ . . . Sam Levine to emcee KYW-TV charity Bowlathon (14) . . . Dick Roll, ex- CBS, WTAM, named news director KRON-TV ... Bill Jorgensen, WERE news, doing daily two-minute editorial. He recently lost his Columbus radio stint because of a controversial editorial. IN PHILADELPHIA ... Tony Mammarella, producer of WFIL-TV’s “Bandstand,” subbed (9) for host Dick Clark, who took a three-day Florida vacation . . . WFIL and WIP marked 37th anni (17). Hal Simons, WFIL account exec, with station the entire time, has established an industry record . . . TV Guide sending out barbecue mitts to handle Godfrey’s “blis¬ tering comments” on commercials in current issue of mag . . . P. A. “Bully” Sugg, exec veepee NBC-owned stations, addresses the Tele¬ vision Radio Advertising Club (12) . . . WRCV-TV films of two center- city fires were used by Chet Huntley on net’s “NBC News”. . .’’Clicquot Club Dance Party,” a three-and-a-half hour session with dqejay Bob Klose kicked off on WFIL (7) . . . Harvey Miller, former record pro¬ motion man preeming a daily marathon jazz session on WHAT, six hours a day . . . Ben Gimbel, pres, and general manager of WIP, was one of few visitors to hospital room of Bob Hope. Hope is a WIP stock¬ holder * . . Kae Williams back at WHAT after a year and one-half absence. IN SAN FRANCISCO ... KSAY signed Benny Strong to do its important morning deejay show, 6:30 to 9 . . . Eddie Walker’s Band, which won Local 6 contest, gets a 60-minute shot on KQED March 24 . . . KGO-AM added more stereo programming, bringing nightly total to two and a half hours . . . Gene Hayes drew the directorial chores for Don Sherwood’s new KTVU show .... KRON kicked off a 13-week local series on old Fris¬ co—name is “Bonanza”. . .“Lineup” cast has just wound up a 10-city swing through East and Midwest aboard a motorized Frisco cable car . . . KSFO’s Russ Hodges signed to an early-morning sports show. IN PITTSBURGH ... Josie Carey gets a guest shot with Captain Kangaroo on April 18 ... Johnny Carson coming in next weekend for 5th birthday telethon of WQED, the educational channel . . . Michael Trench, son of Alan Trench, Ch. 4 sales manager, elected president of the English Club at St. Vincent’s College . . . Joe L. Brown doing his weekly KDKA radio show from Fort Myers, Fla., while the Pirates are in spring tr ainin g there ... Earl Davis added to Dave Lewis’ promotion department at Ch. 2 . . . Davy Tyson, the early morning man at WAMP, and his wife celebrated their 33d wedding anni . . . Kay Neumann to Ch. 11 to host the morning Burns & Allen strip . . . Fran Fisher, sports director of WHJB in Greensburg, has opened a record shop and hi-fi center there. WNTA-TV Adding Gypsy & Burrows WNTA-TV has signed Gypsy Rose Lee and is concluding dickers with Abe Burrows to become two more of the Newark station’s late- night talk personalities. Late last week, Ted Cott, boss of the tv’er, closed a deal with actor-producer Martin Gabel to take one of the late-night video tape slots. With Miss Lee and Burrows com¬ ing through on pacts, WNTA will have all five weeknights tied up with informal chatter sessions. Henry Morgan has already moved into the Friday night an¬ chorage, and Alexander King will do his own nighttime show Wed¬ nesdays. Tomorrow (Thurs.) Gabel moves in with his show. Miss Lee will handle Tuesdays, and Burrows Mondays. Pianist Joe Bushkin has been set to backstop Gabel musically, making the host’s show a liberal mixture of chatter and music. Louisville—J. MacWynn has re¬ signed as vp of McCann-Erickson agency and manager of the Louis¬ ville office to open his own'ad¬ vertising agency, with Louisville office. says Charles Keys, General Manager KOCO-TV OKLAHOMA CITY Socko—Popeye wins again! One Popeye hour couldn’t satisfy all the sponsors for KOCO-TV so they had to schedule asecond one! Here’s the record-breaking, money-mak¬ ing story from Charles Keys: “Clients love Popeye even more than kids. Phenomenal Popeye sell-out necessitates scheduling additional Popeye Hour Saturdays 11 to 12 a.m. Regular Popeye Theatre Monday thru Friday 6 to 6:30 p.m. scored whopping 25;0 Nov. —Dec. four week Nielsen/ 1 Popeye has been piling up sponsors and top ratingscoresforyears. Kids never tire of him. And sponsors are enthusiastic about the recep¬ tion he builds for their products. Popeye is whaling the tar out of competition for KOCO-TV. Want a share of the spinach? Write or phone: u.a.a. UNITED ARTISTS ASSOCIATED, inc. NEW YORK, 345 Madison Ave., MUrray Hill 6-2323 CHICAGO, 75 E. Wacker Dr., DEarbom 2-2030 DALLAS, 1511 Bryan St, Riverside 7-8553 LOS ANGELES, 9110 Sunset Blvd., CRestview 6-5886 .