Variety (March 1959)

BABIO-TELEVISION Focus on fun with these famed series: "Phantasies" "Fables" "Cobby Bear" "Krazy Kat" "PowWow" For details...call SCREEN ' VF ' GEMS., Inside Stuff—Radio-TV Shirley Temple, Once One Of Them, Sez Kid Shows Wednesday, March 18, 1959 : INBC Plea to FCC THE LARGEST SELECTION OF FILM CARTOONS IN TV! Big as they come, funny as they get, popular as ever! The perfect programming for junior guys and dolls! Bache & Co., brokers, this week had nice things to say about Storer 11 p »r 1 *mr Broadcasting, which operates five television stations and seven AM anorna Be uppea on iv and seven FM radio stations. Washington, March 17. Market letter from Bache has it that while the broadcasting indus- Children should be seen and try is facing uncertainties, and the future increase of sets-in-use just heard—more—on tv. That is, chil- can’t maintain the pace of the past decade, Storer has made striking dren’s programs should be, accdrd- gains in operating earnings, more upbeat is seen in 1959, management ing to Shirley Temple, is aggressive, and there’s the possibility of shifting. to tv stations in Mis$ Temple feels firmly about bigger market areas. this Her own network show, The Storer stock seems attractive for “longterm capital gains pos- “Shirley Temple’s Storybook,” was sibilities coupled with liberal yield,” states Bache. resold to ABC for a rerun to 1960. Storer’s operating earnings last year amounted to almost $4,000,000. ‘‘Fan mail from all the family, Dividends are at the rate of $1.80 on the 973,610 shares outstanding I principally fathers, was proof to and 24c per share on the 1,501,140 Class B shares owned by the Storer me »” Miss Temple said while in family. Divvy requirements at this rate are only $2,100,000 annually. Washington promoting “Cinde- - rella” frocks for a department Second part of three-part autobiography by Steve Allen in Look f ^ a ^u r fi, * s gr .^ ater . ne .^ magazine tells of the help the comic got from other .comedians on the ■ t ^, e entire family airlanes. He singles out Jack Benny, Fred Allen, Bob Hope, Groucho Ca rw C •' u ^ Marx, Red Skelton, Sid Caesar, Jack E. Leonard, Jerry Lewis, Phil s ^ or *| g f- Silvers. He also reveals that he’s more at ease on a stage than in a -liv- V ^/r- aD0U rr J^ 1 ! out - Jr ing room. He says he had an “argument” but no “feud” with Ed Sul- ‘“« s * S l livan anent the James Dean film clip from Warner Bros, and he won- P .^ at ^ e * j ders why certain newspapermen assume that anything newsworthy S,*! an actor does is motivated by a desire for publicity. turn them unopened” ® Her hope is that someday she Federal Trade Commission Thursday (12) approved a consent order can produce, for tv, E. B. White’s requiring Max Factor & Co. of Hollywood to stop misrepresenting in i “Charlottee’s Web,” which -she television, magazine and other advertising that its “Natural Wave” f considers the best modem day spray will change naturally straight hair to naturally curly. Order also ■ children’s book. It is one of two forbids claims that “Natural Wave” will change the structure of the ! children’s books written by the hair. FTC pointed out that the agreement is for settlement purposes ! New Yorker writer, the other be- only and doesn’t constitute any admission by the company that it vio- j ing, “Stuart Little,” the story of lated the law. ! a mouse. Neither has been pro- -- _ j duced for television. KLIF deejays, coming to the aid of the Lyna Pope Orphans’ Home -. . . .. . in Fort Worth, aired pleas that resulted in $21,860 in contributions ; D J* D • from listeners of the Dallas station in the first four days. Heavy hail: IlHQlO KfiVlCW and a violent windstorm, causing severe damage in Fort Worth on i March 10, levelled a brand new wing of the orphans’ home, as yet un- | —— ■ occupied. It was a complete loss, since insurance papers on the $50,000 ; PROFILES IN CRIME structure were to be signed March 11. Disk spinners Ken Knox, Ken With Joe Julian, Mason Adams, Reed, Bob Stevens, Art Nelson and Tom Looney started their “Dee- narrators, others jays for Orphans” pitches Wednesday (11) via KLIF. Requests for do- Director: Howard Phillips nations are still being aired by the platter spinners. v Walter Wager x 25 Mins., Mon., 10:35 p.m. -— WMCA, N.Y. Joint Canadian-U.S. North American Air Defense Command’s cur- Walter Wager, formerly with rent radio transcribed series, “Supersonic Supermarket” is going on CBS Public Affairs, has come up some 300 stations in both countries the last week in March, to run for with a very good radio series on 13 weeks. However, the once-weekly quarter hours which move from U.S. racketeers, their methods and Cape Canaveral to Wright Air Development Center in Ohio to the air- th ® ir history. . _ , „ craft and space industries of Southern California in locales, will break Pro . . on Frank Costello was to first on Greater Cincinnati Radio WZIP. Move is in deference 4o Mrs. . ■ e P° in $> provocative and terrible DelVina Wheeldon, who conducts the show and is a Cincinnati radio h" personality of old, now working for the Ohio Cinerama Corp.- An- cians y ^he Wager pfekage broad- nouncer on the series, which is being pressed by Allied Records m cast by . NY Indie WMCA consists Hollywood, is another Cincy vet. Bill Nimmo. WZIP’s General Man- 0 f 13 episodes, each segment con- ager Ed Skotch, late of Hollywood’s NBC force, made the arrange- centrating on ’ a particular hood, ments with NORAD. Lucky Luciano, Frankie Carbo, et - al. Judging from the Costello J. Walter Thompson agency is dangling an unusual top prize at ABC- episode, series is In the best tradi- TV station promotion managers in its current “Fresh-Up Freddie” j t10 ^ of public service, contest on behalf of Seven-Up. Winner gets a $500 expense account „:° e fl „ t ulia ?inarrated the Costello on Diner’s Club for himself, and for his station he wins an image re-! “ e and Mason search study by Seymour Smith Associates of Gotham. Runner-up j chores Sen Kefauver a racket^ prizes are more conventional. 1 buster' of distinction. r»amp in for Should Be Upped on TV Vq 1 9 Aff qii*p I ore Washington March 17 f O. Ll /ill dll C Lldl 5 Radio Review Washington, March 17. NBC, belatedly, asked the Federal Communications Commis¬ sion to reconsider its ruling that any presentation of political candi¬ dates during a campaign, even in routine tv newscasts, calls into, play the political “equal time” Communications Act provision. CBS, ABC and the National Assn, of Broadcasters, among others, have long since protested the rul¬ ing. The FCC held that Chicago splinter mayority candidate, Lars Daly, was entitled to equal time after Chicago tv stations telecast brief shots of incumbent Chicago Mayor Daley welcoming the Ar¬ gentine president and opening a charity drive. NBC said tv stations would have to choose between adequate news coverage of events which, might “incidentally” depict a political candidate, thereby laying them¬ selves open to inordinate demands for equal time, or “drastic curtail¬ ment” of news coverage during political' campaigns. The web said the ruling, therefore, would inflict “burdensome penalties on the station, and artificial, dis¬ torted news programs on tht viewer. cially Costello’s tieup with politi¬ cians. The Wager package broad¬ cast by N.Y. Indie WMCA consists tion of public service. Joe Julian narrated the Costello segment ably. He and Mason Adams alternate in the narration chores. Sen. Kefauver, a racket- buster of distinction, came in for Contest is in connection with the j.oint promotion of the “Zorro” . an effective “beep” interview. series and Seven-Up by means of the Fresh-Up Freddie doll. A bill introduced in the lower house of the Maine Legislature pro¬ vides for a 3% sales tax on outdoor advertising, as well as advertis¬ ing on radio or television and in any publication issued more fre¬ quently than once in three months. The measure, sponsored by Rep. Ronald Kellam of Portland, specifies that revenue from the levy would be placed in a fund for scholarships to qualified resident stu¬ dents in any Maine college. W. Walter Watts*; group exec veep of RCA, and a brigadier general, U.S. Army Reserve, was elected a director of the Electrographic Corp. this week. Latter is a major electrotyping and art service with plants in nine cities. Watts is in charge of the RCA electron tube division semiconductor and materials Division and International Division. Commercial time on the three tv webs continues to increase. Cur¬ rent (March 2-8) three-network total—153 hours, 38 minutes—repre¬ sents an increase of eight hours and two minutes (5.5%) over February, 1959, and is an increase of 20 hours, 55 minutes (11.6%) over the March, 1958, figure. For the first time since December, 1957, each of the three networks exceeded its year-ago total. Jones Jabs Mags 1 Continued from page 31 ! sets and that the average viewer is now catching more than ever before,, namely two - and - a - half hours a day, more time than is spent on all other leisure activity combined He thought some of the attacks on tv “seem to be levelled simply because they represent good, juicy, circulation-building copy, while still others, it is quite clear, reflect a built-in bias against j medium which is competing so sue ; cessfully for the leisure time of the ■ general public and the advertising budgets of the business commu nity.’ D. C. Mr. TV Fix-Its Form An Anti-Scalpers’ Assn. Washington, Ma rch 17 . Local uproar stirred by WWDC’a skillful campaign to catch Wash¬ ington television repairmen in the act of overchanging customers has caused a group of tv servicemen here to form a cooperative associ¬ ation to police such repair prac¬ tices. “We feel,” said one, Roger P. Powell, “that while criticism against some repairmen is well- founded, the whole industry is get¬ ting a black eye.” The association will have a spe¬ cial board to probe complaints of customers and take “proper ac¬ tion.” Leaders of effort believe about 75% of Washington tv re¬ pair industry will join association. Those interested see it as safety- first measure against possible Dis¬ trict of Columbia governmental controls to curb shady tv repair practices. .n t ST*** H 0 * * ond Financial Bf0 Consultants radio \tat'° wS Max Meth, who with lyricist Mack David wrote “Dreams Were Made For Children” for an unproduced Dwight Deere Wiman-Tom Weather¬ ly “Little Show” legiter in 1944, is suing his former collaborator as well as the Henry Jaffe Agency, NBC-TV, ABC-TV; Breck Shampoo and Sealtest and others concerned with “Shirley Temple’s Storybook.” Meth, asking for $500,000, claims the' money is due him for use of the tune as the theme song on the Temple show. Meth, according to his attorney, Nathan Math, charges David and Jerry Livingston with using the same title and the same first four bars as the original tune. BBC Eyes Continued from page 33 —— tures he saw, he’s noncommittal about the volume of possible pur¬ chases. Some relatively extensive Increase can be expected, however, over the two machines already in use at BBC-TV and two others on order. Though it has for some time been fully aware, of course, of the solving of problems such as art¬ ists’ availabiity that videotape can offer, BBC-TV is still constitution¬ ally in favor of live broadcasts. It’s the perfection of updated tape re¬ cording and reproduction that has caused the rethinking. Londoners to Council: Park TV Sets Elsewhere London, March 17. The. London County Council won’t, after all, try putting tele¬ vision sets in t o parks as part of j its summer open-air entertain¬ ment pattern. Council’s Parks Committee threw out the notion without a vote at its March meet¬ ing. Suggestion that had been made was that 27-inch sets be placed in certain parks for a start, to test public reaction. But reaction came without installation. According to Parks Committee chairman Regi¬ nald Stamp, letters had arrived from old ladies saying they’d “throw a brick through the first screen they saw.”