Variety (December 1960)

. Wednesday, December 7, I960 KABIO-TELEYJSI9X H TELEVISION’S FUNNY MONEY ~ ' CBS-TV s lets Start AH Over Again’ 300G Ad Splurge to Woo Public; Mils Pitch in On Tab Top 25 Specials (Two-Year Span) During 1959 and 1960 more than 500 specials have been presented on three major tv networks. Here, in terms of total audience and average audience Nielsens, are the Top 25 for the two-year period: Heatter-Quigley in Biz Because Of a Flight Over a Zulu Village In these days of limited live pro¬ gramming, frowned - upon quiz shows and longterm packager-net- work relationships, it’s something like a 100-to-one shot for a new packaging outfit to sell a live net¬ work show. Yet that’s what hap¬ pened six months ago to Heatter- Quigley Productions, and with one of the two partners having been out of the business for three years previous besides. Heatter - Quigley are Merrill Heatter and Bob Quigley, who package “Video Village’ 7 in asso¬ ciation with CBS-TV. It was their first (and only, so far) sale as a packaging team, though both have long daytime production track rec¬ ords. But the partnership was formed only a year ago, when Quig¬ ley returned to the U, S. and the business after a three and a half year residence in South Africa. In 1956, Quigley had been pro¬ ducing two daytime strips, “On Your Account” and “Love Story,” and a weekly nighttime hour, the Cesar Romero-helmed “Chevrolet Showcase” on ABC. He’d talked about quitting the business and writing, but it was all talk until an oldtime collaborator. Bill Sears, onetime Philly Eagles sportscaster who had moved to Johannesberg, invited him to move there with his family. Quigley suddenly de- cided to go. and packed up his wife and three kids and took off. During his three and a half years there, Quigley collaborated with Sears on two plays and three screenplays, produced a stage re¬ vue. opened a restaurant, and did i a disk jockey show. None"of the plays or screenplays have been produced: the restaurant is still in business, though not prospering; but the radio show is still on the air, with Quigley taping it here (Continued on page 42) Our Man In Berlin Hans Hoelm discourses o» political Infl mM eet la tfco apsarqa of West Germany Television on* of tfia many Editorial Features fa the apcoftitag 55th Anniversary Number of VSt&IETY CBS Radio’s Yale Spree on Specials CBS Radio is going all-out for Christmas this year, with 14 spe¬ cials slated for the period from Dec. 18 to 24. exclusive of the annual “Christmas Sing with Bing” entry Christmas Eve. Lineup includes “The Watchers.” a Moravian night watch story; a show from NATO naval headquar¬ ters; White House pickup of the annual Christmas tree lighting there; “Christmas in Union Square,” from San Francisco; Doug Edwards’ 13th annual “Santacast from the North Pole”; Armed Forces greetings from overseas; and several college choirs singing traditional Christmas songs and selections. - Shuffle in Snag; Hold Off Changes A major hitch has developed in CBS-TV’s projected reshuffle of Thursday night, and the entire shakeup may be delayed until next month- CBS had hoped to get the changed schedule on the air to¬ morrow night (Thurs.), with “Wit¬ ness” moving to 9-10 p.m., Ann Sothern moving • dowm to 7:30, “Angel” to 8 and “Zane Grey” remaining at 8:30. Ironically enough, the stumbling block are sponsors of “Witness” whose contracts are scheduled to expire within the next couple of weeks. Esquire arid Schick termin¬ ate their pacts oh “Witness” next Thursday (15), and Helene Curtis on Jan. 5. But It was Curtis and one of the others which refused to shift “Witness” from 7:30 to 9, thereby stymying the entire shuf¬ fle. Consequently 4 web may have to (Continued on page 54) P&G Wants to Shift ‘Peter Loves Mary’ Procter & Gamble, unhappy with tlie Wednesday-at-10 slot for the half-hour situation comedy; would like to move “Peter Loves Mary” to Fridays at 8:30 sometime after the first of the year. Whether us¬ ing this Peter Lind Hayes-Mary Healy Starrer as the sub for the Friday “Westerner” series is’ex¬ pected to be decided this week by ! the NBC program board. 1 Desire for the shift was ex¬ pressed by Benton & Bowles, the P&G agency. For all th« admitted risks and difficulties in producing successful situation comedy, the payoffs are such as to make westerns and private-eyes look like penny-ante ehtries In comparison. A situation comedy may have a tough time making it in the rating sweep- stakes, but even a moderate rating success can pay off as if it were^an Irish sweeps winner. % Hollywood can argue the ques¬ tion of whether residuals are real or imaginary in a general sense, but when it comes to filmed comedy, there’s no question. Comedy reruns have grossed well over $60,000,000 and show no signs of a letup in either the’* syndication or the network daytime field, A Danny Thomas can hardly moan about residuals, what with his $7,000,000 NBC rerun deal; neither can a Robert Young or Gene Rodney, with their $7,500,000 “Father Knows Best” daytime deal at ABC, which hasn’t even started yet—meanwhile they’re collecting residuals on two years of CBS nighttime repeats on the show. George Burns may have spent some coin on pilot films since selling off his “Burns & Allen” comedies to Screen Gems, but the pilot ex¬ penditure has hardly made a dent in that $6,000,000 selloff. | And so it goes. There’s no telling ; how much “I Love Lucy” reruns figure at on CBS-TV—they’re all over the map. But Desilu got theirs with a selloff of the half- hours to CBS a few years ago. Even shortlived first runners like “Dear Phoebe” racked close to $500,000 in network rerun. On ; NBC’s comedy strip, j Network comedy reruns figure at i better than $28,000,000 gross over I the past five years. List includes “Lucy,” “Thomas,” “Father” (up-! coming but purchased), “December ! Bride,” “The Gale Storm Show,” j “I Married Joan,” “Bob Cummings ! Show,” “Dear Phoebe,” “It’s a: Great Life" and “The Thin Man.” j All have been used or are still be- j ing used on a strip basis, and the j standard deal (except for block-1 busters like Thomas and “Father”) is $5,000 per showing. That means a'$1,300,000. gross if a series were j used continously as a strip over a 1 full year, and some have passed ; that mark already. j Non-comedy entries, of course, have -played the network strip re- \ run route—there’s “The Million- ! aire,” “T h e Texan,” “Loretta ' Young,” “The Restless Gun””even | “Yancy Derringer.” But no pro- ! gram category has had the con- j sistency of comedy in rerun use, j and na filmed program form lends j itself to stripping in daytime as ! does situation comedy. I That’s apparent in syndication as j well as network. “My Little ! Margie,” “Burns & Allen,” “The People’s Choice,” “Our Miss Brooks,” “I Married Joan” (since its network rerun days), “Private Secretary,” “Life of Riley,” and “Amos ’n’ Andy,” among others, are daytime programming staples for most stations, indie or net- affiliated. And they go on and on, through their umpteenth repeat in a market, without any apparent slackening in their draw as day¬ time attractions. Moreover, there’s a flock of comedy shows in syndication that have scored big grosses even on a once-a-week basis, like “The Honey mo oners,” “Abbott & Costello” (occasionally stripped as well, but in kiddie time), Phil Silvers show, et al. Comedy series figure to have grossed something over $30,000,000 in syndication over the past five years, and they’re still going strong. To say nothing of theatrical oldies that are enjoy¬ ing syndicated popularity, from “The Three Stooges” and “Little T'-seals” down to “Laurel & . Hardy.” i CSS' Walter Cronkite has avHiorad aa Interesting White Paper on TV Correspondents * * * one of the many Editorial Features ia the apcoailaq 55th Anniversary Number of ISfitUETY TV Revamp; Looks Like Klondike Out NBC-TV program board is con¬ templating an almost complete overhaul of the network’s Monday night schedule by mid-season. Klondike” for the moment seems the most imminent candidate to follow “Riverboat” In departure from the airwaves and the net¬ work’s brass look upon “Dante” and “Barbara Stanwyck Theatre” as other shaky investments for the remainder of the ’60-61 season, al¬ though ho actual steps have been taken to cancel the last tw-o yet. It’s held probable that the net¬ work will decide’to replace “Klon¬ dike” with another western. If the network can accomplish the transi¬ tion in lime for a February start, it’ll drop the succeeding 9:30-10 p.m. “Dante” and replace it with a nighttime version of one of its day¬ time audience participationers, a change that finds its precedent in the day-and-night treatment for ‘Price Is Right.” Only the 8.30 “Wells Fargo” seems secure at this point. At 7:30, it’s definite that “Riverboat” will be sunk and “The Americans” made to stand in its anchorage. For a time—and maybe still— NBC was thinking of bringing back “Lawless Years” to share a strange alternate-week partnership with “Dante” on Tuesdays. I^BC-TV now employs Tuesdays from 10 to 11 p.m. for specials, and many of the hour time periods are unsold. As a consequence, web mulled the idea of keeping the specials only every other week and using “Dante” and “Years” back to back in the remaining Tuesday nights on the season’s schedule. No action was taken at Monday’s program meetings about the Tuesday shuf¬ fle, it’s understood. - Operating on the premise that with elections, debates, specials and other preemptions finally eas¬ ing off. the regular season is only now- beginning, CBS-TV* has launched an intensive two-week consumer advertising campaign to promote its regular programming. The campaign is a co-op effort with its affiliates, with a toal of $300,000 involved. Ads broke Monday (5) in over 125 cities, including 22 of the 24 cities in the Nielsen Multi-City rating list. They’ll run through a week from Sunday (18) on a daily basis, with each affiliate permitted to buy up to a total of 3,000 lines a day, divided any way they wish among the three major newspapers in their market, or that equivalent spread among lesser papers in the signal^area. Web and affiliates are splitting costs 50-50. Campaign is virtually a repeat of CBS’ campaign at the start of the season, each two-column ad containing a rundown of the night’s programming, night by night, with updated program syn¬ opses. Theory is that the large number of political programs, elec¬ tion coverage, specials and other preemptions hindered the public in familiarizing itself with the reg¬ ular CBS program schedule and hurt in terms of the formation of a habit pattern by the public. There were a total of 39 preemp¬ tions in the first 58 nights of the season on the web. Though more limited in time than the start-of-the-season cam¬ paign, the current newspaper splurge is a bigger effort, with more affiliates participating, more of the top markets represented and more money being spent than in the earlier one. In fact, this stands as one of the biggest ad splashes in CBS history. The earlier cam¬ paign, affiliates w r ere restricted in terms of the number of news¬ papers they could buy, as well as the amount of lineage. This time out, though size of the ads is lim¬ ited, total lineage permitted in each market is far greater. Co-op offer was made to 195 af¬ filiates. As of the weekend, there ; were only 12 negative replies, bet- i ter than eighty “yesses.” with some ; 40 verbal approvals and several ■ stations still not heard front. Met’s Kaycee Bay Washington, Dee. 6. Metropolitan Broadcasting Corp. has completed negotiations to purchase KMBC-TV, the channel nine ABC affiliate at Kansas City. Owned by Cook Paint and Varnish Co. Purchase price w'on’t be dis¬ closed until the application for license transfer is filed with the Federal Communications Commis¬ sion within a few weeks. The paint firm also owns KMOS- TV, Sedalia, Mo., and WFRM-AM, Concordia, Kans., w'hich Met is also buying in the package deal but will spin off. WBC’s $3500,000 Dicker for KLAC Hollywood, Dec. 6. Westinghouse Broadcasting Co. has reportedly begun negotiations \ for purchase of radio station KLAC | here from Mort Hall. Purchase : price is said to be around $3,500,- jOOO. Hall met all inquiries with a “no comment.” Westinghouse currently owns radio stations in Pittsburgh, Boston, Chicago. Baltimore. Ft. Wayne, Cleveland and Portland. It would be required to sell off one station to remain within the seven- station limit, but it’s known the company has long desired an L A. outlet. Los Angeles in the past three years has been a major target for group operators. Crowell-Collier ; started its radio chain operation • here with KFWB. Storer Broad¬ casting bought in recently. NAB NAMES VELOTTA Washington, Dec. 6. John Velotta, ABC vice presi¬ dent for special projects, has been j named to the Freedom of Informa¬ tion Committee of National Assn. | of Broadcasters. i He replaces John Charles Daly, ; recently resigned ABC v.p. for j news, as the ABC member on the Committee.