Variety (March 1959)

Wedmegday, March 25, PSSUETY TV-HUMS S3 40 FIRST-RUNS FOR ’59 MARTS All Majors Accounted For Hollywood, March 24. For the first time, the five top motion picture majors will all be represented on network tv next fall, with the only active holdout among all other major companies being Allied Artists, which nonetheless is in the telefilm field via its Interstate TV syndication subsid. Entry of Paramount into tele production and its sale of '‘Con¬ quest of Space” to CBS-TV (hourlong entry is tentatively slotted Tuesdays at 7:30) makes it unanimous among the big five. Par has at least one more pilot in the works as well. Lineup otherwise reads this way: Metro is a sure bet for one series, "Jeopardy,” with NBC financ¬ ing the pilot of the hourlong suspense series; it’s got six more pilots to peddle; has a 50-50 chance on a ‘‘Thin Man” renewal and a si™ prospect of an order for IS new “Northwest Passage” segs. 20th-Fox, via Martin Manulis, has sold "Adventures in Paradise” to ABC and “Dobie Gillis” to CBS (with Marlboro, picking up the tab), has another 10 pilots in work. Warners and Columbia, latter through Screen Gems, are hardened ^nd successful tv veterans, figure to have at least eight series each on the air in fall. There’s Walt Disney, too, with “Walt Disney Presents” and “Zorro” on ABC. As to the rest of the "majors,” U-I has sold its studio, Bepub- lic is out of the production business and BKO has folded. Even UA, not a producing company, is in the act, with Marlboro bank¬ rolling its “Troubleshooter?” on ABC and “The Vikings” a hot web prospect __ 4 Star, WB Eschew Syndication Yet Ride TJ Profit fravy Train Interestingly, two of the four 4 major telefilmeries riding network 1 berths have no syndication arm. The two are Four Star and Warner Bros. The other two are Screen Gems and MCA-TV’s Bevue, both well represented in the syndication field. All told, the Four Star, Warner Bros., SG and Bevue quartet ac¬ count for a total of 32 shows among them, or .48% of current, telefilm production for network nighttime use, and 27% of all nighttime programming, regard¬ less of whether live, taped or filmed. The seeming anomaly of Four Star and Warner Bros, skirting the market-by-market field is partially explained at this date by the highly-specialized talents needed to setup and run a syndication company. Four Star’s Dick Powell many times has publicly stated his desire to get into the syndication biz, but translating that desire into reality has proven unfruitful to date. Apparently blocking Warner Bros, entry into the syndicaion fold is the film company’s big ro¬ mance with ABC-TV, with the net (Continued on page 46) Ziv’s lnt’1 Topper Bullish on Future A vast expansion of the foreign market, based on current trends, was foreseen by Ed Stern, Ziv’s in¬ ternational topper. Five factors were listed by Stem for his belief: the spread of com¬ mercial tv to countries now exclud¬ ing advertising; rising levels of set ownership in Latin Anferica and Europe; addition of new tv stations in many countries; launching of tv in countries not now having service; and increased use of Amer¬ ican film programming by all sta¬ tions. Ziv’s foreign topper forecast that the resounding success of commer¬ cial tv in Britain will spur the adoption of commercial tv outlets in other countries. West Germany * for example, ivill have commercial tV in another two years. Purchase of tv receivers has been going up in many foreign coun¬ tries, especially Germany and Italy, “Just as American stations discov¬ ered that they could not support, economically or creatively, an ex¬ tended broadcast day on live pro¬ gramming, telecasters in other countries will swing to increased Use Of film,” Stem forecast. v '*There will be more emphasis* on enter¬ tainment rather than ‘uplift’ pro¬ gramming,” he added. Currently, 22 Ziv shows are be-' ing aired in 37 countries. 'Lassie’ Set for ’59-’60 Campbell Soup, which has had j “Lassie” since its ’53 bow, has re¬ newed for the show next season on CBS-TV. Sherman A. Harris, exec pro¬ ducer for the Jack Wrather Or¬ ganization, will be in charge of production of the new series, with Robert Golden as producer and Hugh McCollum as production supervisor. Shooting on the new series is slated to begin on the Coast in May. British ABC In $850,000 Aussie Deal; 9 Series London, March 24. Biggest export deal yet has been struck by Britain’s ABC Television with the handing over to Australian businessmen Rup- pert Murdoch and Ewan Waterman of nine series for distribution throughout the Commonwealth. Bringing in a sterling advance equivalent to arpund $250,000, the contract’s expected to yield a total $850,000. Murdoch and Waterman will handle the programs through a re¬ cently-formed setup. They’re also. controlling shareholders of Aus¬ tralia’s Southern Television Corp., Adelaide. Under the argeement just struck, they will take forth¬ coming product from ABC-TV in¬ cluding Harry Alan Towers’ cur¬ rently-shooting “Tales From Dick¬ ens” and hjjs “History 1 Of The Eng¬ lish Speaking Peoples.” Showings (Continued on page 46) HAL GERS0N EXITS DESILU WORKSHOP Hollywood, March 24. Hal Gerson, brought here from New York six months ago to head Desilu Workshop Theatre, exits that post the end of this month and will set up his own permanent repertory group here. He’s now dickering for a theatre. It’s understood Gerson has be¬ come dissatisfied with the post when it began to develop into a training school rather than a pro¬ fessional little theatre, as be’d ex¬ pected.. . Gerson, production associate to Garson Kanin on "Diary of Anne Frapk,”. believes the current legit boom here could stand a profes¬ sional hand and this is believed triggering his Desilu exit NTA Tape Network’s Guarantee Of 1 Hours a Week; Unveiled at Chi -:—f TAPE HDDS PLUS TO SYNDICATION By MURRAY HOROWITZ Telefilm " product., supply for syndication in 1959 " looks good, with at least 40 new fresh first- nmners seen for the year: That lineup wili^be augmented by the many tape shows now head¬ ing for the market-by-market route and the off-network entries. Skeins in latter category, while they may be reruns in the realm of all tv, are fresh for the syndi¬ cation marts. And such off-net- work shows as “Burns and Allen,” “Honeymooners” and “Jeff’s Col¬ lie” (Lassie) stack up better than many fresh syndication series. Forecast of at least 4' first-run¬ ners this year in syndication about parallels the number of fresh properties made, for syndication in ’58. New element this year is the growing number of taped entries, with National Teleflim As¬ sociates and Guild Filins heavily represented in that category: Whether tape has grown to be¬ come a competitive force of tele¬ films remains to be seen. (Count now is 87 stations equipped with video tape machinery, represent¬ ing 45 markets). Lineup at the first quarter of the new year finds telefilm bouses prepping new entries. In many instances, there’s a holdup on tabbing properties for syndication. Reason is that the properties in question are being or will be pitched nationally. If a network deal isn’t made, then those prop¬ erties are slated for the market- by-market route. Ziv: *Bold’ Plus 5 Ziv, which paces the field with a new syndication entry virtually every two months, should have six first-runners this year. “Bold Venture” is Ziv’s newest entry, with another upcoming in the spring. CBS Films: 4 Minimum CBS Films’ newest ones include : “U.S. Border Patrol,” and “Ren¬ dezvous.” It also has given the greenlight on third year produc¬ tion of “Whirlybirds.” CBS subsid is set to introduce four fresh new properties in ’59; with an extra one or two as a possibility. " ITC: 4 Independent Television Corp. has just begun selling its off-net¬ work “Fury,” (“Black Stallion” in syndication), and should account for at least four fresh properties in syndication this year. NTA: 2 Plus Tape National Telefilm Associates has two properties out in the field now, “Glencannon” and “William Tell.” It also has a roster of taped shows, all but one fed by its New- ark-N.Y. station, WNTA-TV- Taped shows include “Mike Wallace Interviews,” “Alexander King,” “Juke Box Jury,” “Bishop Fulton J. Sheen,” and wrestling. Peter Potter’s “Juke Box Jury,” picked up from a Coast station, is the only one not out of the-WNTA-TV (Continued on page 46) NTA TARGET: BIGGER FOREIGN REVENUES In further meetings aimed at boosting foreign revenues, Vernon Burns and Leo Lax came in from abroad for conferences with Har¬ old Goldman, NTA International prez, and other NTA execs. Burns, headquartering in London, is In charge of all NTA European operations. Lax, with offices in Paris, supervises NTA operations on the Continent. NTA’s target is to boost its foreign from 5% of its total take to 25%. As part of its expansion program, outfit plans to. open of¬ fices this year in Munich, London, Paris, Rome, Brussels and Aus¬ tralia. NTA also plans to stepup its co-production activities. Also attending the .N.Y. confabs were Sidney Kramer, foreign dis¬ tribution director, and Samuel Gang, foreign sales manager. Ziv Stars See Double Ziv* is how using doubie- decker deals for the talent it employs. Operating under -a “get-’em-hold-’em policy,” the packaging bouse. has four of its stars working on their sec¬ ond series. Macdonald Carey is currently doing‘“Lock Up” for Ziv, his first series being Dr. Christian.” Other thesps doing their sec¬ ond skeins are Kent Taylor, whose original role was “Bos¬ ton Blackie,” and is now co- starred in “Rough Riders.,, Richard Carlson has followed 'T Led Three Lives” with this year’s “Mackenzie’s Raiders,” Adolphe - Men jou, who hosted the “Favorite Story” series, now dittoes on “Target” UA Pots Brake On Features-for-TV; Profitable to Wait United Artists, which has re¬ leased 163 feature films to tv over a three-year span, is in no hurry to come out with a fresh package. As a UA exec put it, “features to tv are not a depreciating asset. We got more, money for cinematics the second year, as opposed to the first year, and more the third year com¬ pared to the second. The longer we wait, the more we’ll get in fu¬ ture years.” Another factor putting the brake on UA is its acquisition of Associ¬ ated Artists Productions, which holds the Warner library among other cinematics. New title of firm is United Artists Associates, op¬ erated independently of United Artists Television, the latter a di¬ vision of UA handling telefilm product. UA contends to have the tv rights to over 800 features, all of which fall in the post-’48 product. Many of the 163 cinematics re¬ leased to tv up to this point have been produced abroad. Those made in Hollywood and coming under talent guild jurisdiction have been the subject of residual negotia¬ tions. Talent guilds are demanding a share in the tv earnings on all pictures produced after August, ’48. UA, because it has no studio of its own, has no direct contract with the guilds. Individual producers whose pictures have been released to tv by UA in some cases have' reached some settlement with the guilds. In other cases, UA has built a reserve fund from tv revenues, to be allocated when and if, the industry agrees on ’ a residpal formula. But in any case, there won’t be any immediate fresh-.pix from UA' immediately; with af -slight pos¬ sibility that a new package may be fashioned the latter part of the year. TERROR HOUSE’AS AIP TELEFILM ENTRY Hollywood, March 24. American International Pictures, the most prolific of Hollywood’s motion picture exploitation film "producers, is planning to enter the telefilm field. AIP toppers Samuel Arkoff and James Nicholson said they’re readying “Terror House,” half-hour anthology series covering horror, suspense and sci-fi sub¬ jects, for the fall. . AIP, most closely associated with the teenage and science-fic¬ tion field, said it’s begun prelimi¬ nary discussions with National Telefilm Associates on a distribu¬ tion deal, but NTA indicated disr cusslons have not reached the ser¬ ious stage. The NTA Film Network comes the fall may be a misnomer—for there may be a heavy accent on taped shows, most of which would be off the WNTA-TV, Newark-N.Y., beltline. Indie station operators in 12 markets got some insight into ten¬ tative fall plans of the NTA web. The initial approach was to the in¬ dies, for with them as a base, the programming outlets could be ex¬ panded. • Plans were unveiled in Chicago at an informal meeting of the indies addressed by Ely Lan¬ dau, NTA board chairman, and Charles (Bud) Barry, NTA Film Network prez. Tossed in the hopper were the following WNTA-TV taped shows: “Mike Wallace Interviews,” “Alex in Wonderland” (Alexander King) “Henry Morgan Show,” the stripped “Richard Willis Show” (a woman's beauty program), among others. Landau spoke about the possibility of feeding affiliates spectaculars. In toto, NTA exes held out the possibility of guaranteeing 20 hours of programming per week to the assembled indie station operators. NTA’s Newark-N.Y. flagship, under the enunciated concept, would be¬ come the guinea pig for testing possible web entries. Newark sta¬ tion is going to run a show fronted by Gypsy Rose Lee, which may also become a web entry. How deeply the NTA web em¬ barks on the progra mming venture depends on the acceptance by in¬ die operators throughout the coun¬ try. Current plan is to give the NTA web a certain allotted time to sell the programming nationally or to large regionals. In the case of web failure on the national or re¬ gional level, stations would have the option to sell the program¬ ming locally, with the web and sta¬ tions sharing the revenues in a given ratio. Another key to the plan is to have the indies program web shows at the same local time throughout the country. Encompassed in the plan are In¬ dies in the following cities, other than N. Y. and Minneapolis-St. Paul, where NTA has o&o’s: Chi¬ cago. Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, Phoenix, Dallas, Den¬ ver, Seattle, Indianapolis, and St. Louis. Stressed in the presentation was the drying up of the feature back¬ logs for tv, a prime source of pro¬ gramming for indies, and the need for indies to look for new sources of programming to fill the heralded vacuum. N.Y.-to-Europe: A Commonplace For many telefilm execs, the N. Y. to London to Hollywood shuttle has become as commonplace as their daily suburban commuta¬ tion trip. Leslie Harris, CBS Films produc¬ tion v.p., is off to London following a trip to Hollywood. In London, he will set up the <• pilot production unit on “Man frorfi Antibes,” with producer Sam Gallu set to begin filming April 17. He also will con¬ fer with Edwin Knopf on the re¬ maining 13 episodes of “Rendez¬ vous,” a British co-production. Returning from Europe was Bruce Eells, exec v.p. of United Artists Television. While there, he had conferences on “Tales of the Vikings,” being filmed in Germany. Boon after his return he left for the Coast for confabs on UAT’s four other projects. . There isn’t a vidpix enterprise around that doesn’t book those N. Y.-to-Europe tix virtually every week.*