Variety (August 1959)

Wednesday, August 5, 1959 JsSriET? HAMO-TEIJEVISIOX 47 .Mexico City, Aug, 4. The often threatened embargo against excessive commercials extomrig the virtues of alcoholic beverages is now going into ef¬ fect. Department of Health monitors are now keeping tabs on pro¬ grams sponsored by liquor and brewery interests, marking up a score of the “exaggerations” in commercials by announcers, mod¬ els, and commercial skits, Assstant Secretary of Health Miguel A. Bustamante has been preoccupied for some time by the upward leaping alcoholism sta- : \ tistics in Mexico, It- has gotten so bad, he said, that many times . Mexican families .spend hiore on cbnsumptioii of . alcoholic liquors than on foodstuffs. • Apart from, this, the administration has looked askance at pro¬ grams themselves (questionable double-entendre comedy, scant¬ ily ciad girls, suggestive dances, burlesque blackout routines, etc.) . as “inciting the public to incline to vice” as well as to drink. A special congressional Radio and Television Commission has been studying the entire matter of. policing of radio arid televi- r- sion networks fdrsome time. Now, according to Assistant Secr.e-r tary Bustamante (and he. is voicing the administration attitude \ it is high time to reduce exaggerated liquor, and beer advertising, to a minimum.. New revision of law's regulating radio and tv would “prohibit the diffusion of songs: and programs which, are. outspoken apolo¬ gies forcr^^ which, per se, contribute to the grow ing, wave . of crime, and homicides in Mexico/’ If suggestion is approved and passed as law this will be a death knell to the hundreds of rarichero ditties, here which eulo¬ gize killers, drunks and general no-goods. ' Allen, Paar, Sullivan, Garroway As Top 4 Pied Pipers on Book Sales A common belief ameng intellec¬ tual snobs is that the video view¬ ers has a book and you couldn’t sell him aiiother one ' unless it happened to be filled With green stamps. Books, according to the cockeyed notion of some stuffy, stiff-shirted longhairs, s h o u I d never be. peddled, on the crass cat.hode-ray channels. But a small revolution is never¬ theless taking place in book circles. There is considerable pother among booksellers .that tv is in¬ deed capable of. selling books, no¬ tably at. the hands of such Nielsen- enriched personalities as Steve Al¬ len. Ed Sullivan, jack Paar and Dave Garroway. • An in-depth survey of bookstore opinion anent publishers’ promo¬ tional'activities recently conducted by Sonia Levinthal, veep of the Publishers Adclub, chairmairi of its. special projects committee and pubrelations chief of McGraw-Hill revealed that the. above-mentioned video personalities w-ere,. Without question, . the pre-eminentPied Pipers when it came to sending people into bookshops in search of a video-touted volume. Paar, Sul¬ livan, Allen and. Garroway .were mentioned by more than 100 book¬ sellers as largely responsible for upping the sale of books. Next on the list of . contemporary book boosters were Art Linkletter and Pat Boone, both of \yhom also happen to be on the best-seller list as the result of their pwh ad- inission into belles lettres. Other figures on the broadcast- \ing scene Who definitely;contribute 'to the sale of books when they, happen to single out an author or interview the writer are Garry Moore, Edward R. Murrow, Bennet Cerf and Arthur Godfrey, accord¬ ing to Miss .Levinthal’s. survey. . The tenor of the booksellers? re¬ plies,: in the main, was that “the response to both Dave Garroway and Jack Paar is usually immedi-: ,ate and heavy.” Booksellers urged publishers to notify them as soon as.: possible when an author was ■ going to -appear on the Garroway and Paar shows or when the. book was going to be plugged. In either case, customers began bang¬ ing on booksellers’ doors the next morning asking for the title, such apparently being the . persuasive power of certain personalities on the video lanes. .. Chief Beneficiaries Tv, booksellers insist, was large¬ ly responsible for catapulting into best seller ranks such books as Alexander King’s “Mine Enemy Grows Older” and Jack Douglas- “My Brother Was An Only Child” because of plugging. on the. Paar. show; “Brotherhood of Evil,” thanks to Allen’s sendoffs; “The FBI Story” and “The Tumult" and the Shouting” which got rousing notices oii the Sullivan programs and Lowell Thomas’ encomiums for “Cripple Creek Days.” Booksellers also observed that Sullivan was particularly effective, in rushing potential buyers to bookstalls in search of specific sports books; on the other hand, Godfrey and Linkletter were strong ; on' pushing humor books while Boone could quickly zoom sales on juveniles and teenage titles. As. for Garroway. his sweep was far.- reaching, taking in . all categories including- juvenile titles, humor and both significant non- : fiction and: meritorious fiction, /. I Such, .was not the case however for the selling of books before tv arrived on Hie scene;, according to some observers. Radio never had as many effective pitchmen for the product of hook, publishers with the possible exception of. the late Alexander Woollcott, who was per¬ haps the broadcasting industry’s principal fugleman in behalf of books when he did a" series of Sun¬ day night verbal essays over CBS Radio. Booksellers today are also ap¬ plauding a : recently introduced bobkshow with considerable bite and controversy on the CBS-TV owhed-andToperated outlets. It is “First Meeting,: a package created, written and produced by Turnley. Walker, author-actor.-critic for Sun¬ day. afternopn transmission. There appears to be a healthy interest among Gotham book publishers in WCBS-TV airing of this program. ■ Great Bally Publishers are reportedly- eager to find out when their books will be on tb. help publicize and pro-, mote the event every way they can.: Interest in the show probably stems from the shocking fact that not since Martin Stone’s. “Author Meets the Critics’* has there been an endorsable book review pro¬ gram in the metropolitan area. There is some talk; too, that “First Meeting” may lead to a sponsored series of book reviews on WCBS- T.V and other of the web’s p&o outlets. Web also indicated; this week that because .of the warm re¬ ception accorded the three pubaf- fairs shows that are. currently being exchahged by three CBS-TV owned • stations, there probably would be mofe of this . exchange plan not only among CBS o&o’s but also in other network plans, j What hr a Ic e s “First Meeting” i such an arresting literary show for ‘ most viewers is .that it blends an articulate critic (Walker, in this instance) plus an author of a re¬ cently-published major book and i prdfessiorial actors in dramatiza¬ tions of segments from the book. One of Walker’s biggest headaches, is . getting okays; from copyright I owners and purchasers of film rights, in some instances, to do , portions of the book in dramatic ! fqrhi, but thus far he's managed to : land; some first-rate titles for. his ! video shows": From .10 to 12 min¬ utes of the show usually go into : the dramatization, . . i - Walker aims at the big stuff on \ the bestseller lists and lie’s built up ah enviable list of contacts in. publishing arid showbiz circles as a, result of hi$ co-nioderating a pre¬ vious literary series, on KNXT, Los Angeles. He \vas on that show “Cayalcade of Books” for two years. It also grabbed, off a Pea¬ body Award, during that time, for J its literary worthiness. / “First Meeting” is a KNXT pres- I entation with William R. Ander¬ son as associate producer and Dan Gingold, director. Budget on the Show . is .$5,000: Author of book on each show gets his transportation paid to and from the coast and actors in the dramatizations get scale but are glad to accept the assignments because they consider “Fi rst Meeting” top drawer pres- 4 |ig and a redeeming credit In their bio listings. ‘For The Proletariat’ Walker, who was iri Gotham recently. renewing contacts with publishers., literary agents,, au¬ thors, said he : jwasn’t after “the habitual book buyers and readers” blit strictly aiming his 30 : mi’nute show at the proletariat who pre¬ viously hadn’t been struck with the virus of book buying because, as he ; put it, “they’d never been accosted in an honest,, lively fashion.” It’s Walker’s contention that, the typical video viewer doesn’t cot¬ ton to the lecture-type of presen¬ tation. “Why should he?” he said. “But if we give him a show—who knows, maybe ultimately we’ll win him over to reading books.” : Evidently “First Meeting” is meeting with the approval of view- esr judging by recent Arbitron ratings. on the show. over. WGBS-. TV. On the May 31 program, for example, it had a 2,3 against a 1.8 for “Cinema 59”. on WRCA-TV and . ,9 for WABC-TV’s ‘‘Movie Matinee.” it scored a real block¬ buster, on June 14 when "Walker turned up with Leon Ur.is, author AP$ Radio-TV Assn. Faces Up To ‘Reporttag in Depth’ Problems Problem of meeting the needs of : out the day was both inevitable stations which desire more back¬ ground and more “reporting In depth” of their radio wire service coverage . from. the Associated Press will be examined when, the AP Radio-TV News Editors Assn, meets in N. Y. next month. This is one of the several prob¬ lems that will be studied at the conclave hut AP execs concerned with the broadcast news Wire are upbeat that subscribers will be satisfied with ultimate results. “Something may have to be sacri¬ ficed if there is to be more “re¬ porting in depth,’ ” an AP spokes¬ man said this wer iy : ‘but there’s no doubt that good will come of the meeting.”' Meanwhile, there's been an in¬ crease of “in depth” coverage on the broadcast news wire. John Aspinwall, AP Radio-TV news edi¬ tor; pointed out this week that the five-minute summaries do contain additional bracketed details on the day’s top stories, which news edi¬ tor can or cannot use, depending on their specific newsroom poli¬ cies. -.■■ Aspinwall observed there’ll al¬ ways be a certain number of "rip and read” stations but more and more outlets are becoming news conscious and for their benefit AP and desirable, “There is a limited number of good stories in a day and few editors would want AP to delete them after a couple of hours merely to get fresher but less im¬ portant material into the sum¬ mary,” Powell said. “By and large, the rewriting is done quite skillfully, so that one does not get the impression of hearing the same thing all day long.” Eyes Dominion TV, Collects Sponsors London, Aug. 4. Aiming to jump in on Canada's decision to allow independent com¬ mercial tv stations to operate, a new company called Atlantic Trade Associates Ltd. has been launched in Britain to enable export firms to sponsor, collectively and individu- of “Exodus,” the No' f best'seiler! has upped its “in depth” coverage. j aly ’ Peaktime live shows that will on the current fiction list plus a!A-t least one or more times a day - be aired across the Dominion, dramatization of the book with j stations are getting up to 700 word j ATA .elaims that 15 big firms Ben Cooper playing Don Landau;! ^ depth’’ accounts to supplement are initially interested, and the David Armstrong as Ari Ben Can-j the five-minute roundups. It 1S ■ n1 . n - + * t half Virmr- ennie • nan; Jenna McMahon as Karenj important to remember that new-P* 3 ^ 1S to take half-hour spots for and .Vladimir Sokoloff as Akiva. ; summaries on the radio wire are these on a cooperative basis—with On . this occasion, “First Meeting” -i basically a digest.” Aspinwall said. • three firms sponsoring each of ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ "What we’re^iying to do is strike j the sh<)ws that will go out nigh ,i y a happy medium. , i,, . At last year’s end, radio and. tv M° nd f y through Friday., station associate membership, in! Atlantic Trade Associates Ltd. the AP totalled 1.878 compared ’will be run on a non-profitmaking c ?. os ® °JL 1 p 57 - ? t j basis, acting solely as a servicing marked the first time that radio i . v . * . .. ■ membership exceeded newspaper i and 1,a,son orgamration. Direc-' membership which totalled 1,763 , tors are Sir John Baker, chairman, publications. i S.A.F. Dickson, G. Alex Thorne Aspinwall. said members of the ; and Roy Ward Dickson. Latter, obtained a 5.3 against a 3.8 for the. national golf tournament on WRCA-TV aiid 2.9 for,.“Movie Matiiiee” over WABC-TV.- Walker also has done “The Ugly American” the William L. Lederer and Eugene L. Burdick fiction best seller. CBS-TV o&a outlet program¬ mers, considerably buoyed, by the reception accorded “First Meet¬ ing* 1 indicated that if the program continued. to. maintain its present pace and popularity toward mak¬ ing viewers more literate it would most likely, achieve Wider distri¬ bution oil. the web after its initial 13-week run on an exchange basis. Commercial sponsorship of book shows appears likely for both ABC Radio and the FM Concert Net¬ work this fall. “Authors and Books” will preem on the Concert Network Sept: 15 under co-sponsor¬ ship of Houghton Mifflin* Little BrovyU & Co. and Beacon Press. “Authors and Books” .■■will run in prime time every. Tuesday at 8:30 p.m. over WNCN, N.Y.; WHCN, Hartford; WXCN, Providence; WBCN, Boston, and an affiliate, WMTW, Portland, Maine. Half hour program will feature authors of books of aforementioned pub¬ lishing houses ini interviews with William Lacey, professor of. liter¬ ature and drama at Boston Con¬ servatory of Music. ABC Radio deal is with Grosset & Dunlap to plug juvenile books on the “Don McNeill Breakfast Club” starting Oct. 10. Theory is that women make up majority of. buyers of kiddie literature these days. ' B’cast Editorial Reports Elects Williams, Witz ;E(l\vin Moss "Williams and Guy X. Witz have been elected to the board of Broadcast Editorial Re¬ ports Inc. Williams was formerly veep and general business manager of UP and is currently consultant to the Freedom of Information Commit-, tee. Witz is president of the Marc- X Studios. A. Maxwell Hage, chairman arid prexy of BER, said the. organiza¬ tion, which provides editorial opinion material to broadcasters, would furnish its subscribers with taped material starting in the fall. Other members of the. BER board are William F. Brooks, for- riier NBC news exec, and Raymond C. Connell, N.Y. attorney.; and for¬ mer FBI special agent. : Houston^-Fred Nahas has been signed by KPRC-TV. here to tele¬ cast “Sunday at. the Shamrock” tv opus for the fail.; The series, will start in mid-Septeriiber. Nahas; in¬ terviews .celebrities visiting the Shamrock Hilton. APRTA have been getting more and more representation in AP matters and that for the first time in its history, a representative of APRTA was invited to attend a meeting of the whole board of di¬ rectors of Associated Press,. Cur¬ rent. prexy of APRTA is Daniel W. Kops, who’s also prez of WAVZ, New Haven, and WTRY, Troy. Election of new officers is now under way and winners will be announced shortly. Majority of ( APRTA members feel that. AP is j who’s had plenty experience in Canada, is currently a director handling programs for TWW Ltd., the network serving South W'ales and the West of England. He’d han¬ dle presentation of the coopera¬ tive shows, first of which should be ‘on the air by the end of i960 inasmuch as applications for sta-. tions under the new Canadian rul¬ ing are due in Sept. 15 and it’s ex¬ pected that licenses will be handed out next spring. ATA claims that the cost to each anxious to. cooperate with subscrib-| sponsor per week, thanks to the ing stations arid doing its utmost: get-together nature of the project, to improve the expanded five |.would be less than that of a single minute summaries. This and > 30-second commercial tv spot in other^moves on the part of AP, it the London area. In fact it’s es- is said, reflect-AP s cqntmumg ef-, iimated that each sponsor would forts to: keep its radio news wire g e t jjjg one shared nightly show at a abreast of current trends m the, a cost of $2,150 per over 39 Weeks, industry ... , .Firms interested .will be offered Several members of APRTA three-year contracts with an annu- have taken issue with recent re- , y, ^ . al cancellation clause and an op- ™? ks -v t . ha ? was imperious a nd tion to ren ew for a further three inflexible in dealings with radio-tv vears subscribers. Tom Powell, news di- , * rector of WDAU-TV and WGBI, : Scranton, and chairman of the news committee of APRTA, said the charge was completely unfair. He said that AP has adopted- vir¬ tually every charge recommended by the new’S committee and on its own initiative has instituted major innovations at making the wire more useful to subscribers. Powell said that the 1957 wire study committee surveyed, the na Educl TV Gets Penna. Setback Harrisburg, Aug. 4. Educational tv took a long count ....... . , here this week, when a program tional membership on “in depth” | calling for regularily scheduled ireatriient and found that more | language instruction telecasts Was than two-thirds of . the stations fa-j discarded due to a lack of the ne- vored complete elimination of the detailed 15-minute summaries^ “The assertion that-stations are not getting coriiprehensive or interpre¬ tive coverage is not a true bill,” Powell said; “Some angle of the day’s big news irivariably is devel¬ oped in a special ‘in depth’ report added to the wire this year. Inter¬ pretation also. is provided in a daily 15-minute script which has been a wire fixture for sometime,” Powell said that unquestioriably there were some stations seeking more copy “but. the fact is that most stations prefer the surface treatment.” Looking at the prob¬ lem in the light, the APRTA news committee concluded last ^year that AP had arrived at a rather happy compromise, Powell ‘‘ said, adding that it was obvious that the radio, wire couldn’t be tailored expressly to meet the require¬ ments of one group or another.' Powell thought the “rehashing” of the. news in summaries through- cessary funds. Blow was an especially biUer" one for the educators, who bad spent two* years working on the project, which would have called for. daily half-hour lessons to be beamed to high school classrooms in Central Pennsylvania, and would have augmented the lan¬ guage courses with a series of special instructional shows based on other higher education subjects as the school year progressed. Despite the fact that much of the material to be used in the series would have been donated, including special films which were made available through the local newspapers, the educators stated that there were not sufficient funds available to pay a teacher, which would have cost about about $5,000, plus the time charges for the various stations which would have been hooked into-the special network which was planned.