Weekly television digest (Jan-Dec 1961)

VOL. 17: No. 4 9 NEW YORK ROUNDUP Music on the air has done much to stimulate the public’s interest in everything from concert-going to recordcollecting, points out Broadcast Music Inc. (the broadcastindustry-created firm which licenses the music of many U.S. composers & publishers) in a brochure recently published to celebrate BMI’s 20th anniversary. There were, said BMI, 250 symphony orchestras, large & small, in the U.S. in 1939 and 15 million people played musical instruments. In 1960, the orchestra figure had jumped to 1,200 and 31 million Americans were making their own music. Last year, 1,262 of the country’s AM & FM stations programmed an average total of 13,300 total hours of concert music each week, or 10.5 hours per station per week. Screen Gems’ Fred Flintstone, cartoon star on the Hanna-Barbera animated show on ABC-TV, begins a personal appearance tour next month. A life-size animated statue of Fred, electronically rigged to speak in the voice (actor Alan Reed’s) of the TV character, has been made available to the ABC-TV affiliates. Over 35 stations have signed for the promotion stunt. “Live” appearances by Huckleberry Hound and other Hanna-Barbera characters are also being promoted by SG (Vol. 17:2 pl2). Ziv-UA 1960 sales were up 26% over 1959, a substantial rise considering the generally poor syndication season. Sponsor deals — both national & regional — led station buys, and sales were made to all 3 networks, the film company announced. Ziv-UA programs were seen in 92% of the 321 U.S. markets and on 89.1% of the 531 commercial stations. In nearly 40 top markets including N.Y. & Chicago, Ziv-UA had shows on every station. Screen Gems’ Yogi Bear has a busy season ahead. A new 30-min. TV series based on the Hanna-Barbera character debuts on 130 stations at the end of this month. On Feb. 5 Yogi Bear goes into 80 McNaught Syndicate Sunday newspapers. Some of the papers which will carry the TVborn color comic strip are the N.Y. Herald-Tribune, Chicago Tribune, Washington Star and the Los Angeles Times. Add syndication sales: UAA’s Popeye cartoon series, has been bought by WIIC Pittsburgh for the 5th consecutive year ... 7 Arts has sold its 40-feature post-1950 Warner Bros, package to 3 more stations, upping total markets to 34. New sales: WTOP-TV Washington, D.C., WJXT Jacksonville, KARK-TV Little Rock. Movietone News-UPI’s first production venture into the N.Y. TV documentary field is “De Gaulle and the 6Year War.” The filmed program spans the rise & fall of 4 French republics and includes films of the recent referendum on Algerian self-determination. It will be telecast on WPIX N.Y. Jan. 24 (10-10:30 p.m.). BBC-TV visitors Frank Muir & Denis Norden are here to “study American TV.” The British comedy-writingperforming team, known for their 12-year-run BBC Radio series Take It from Here, will be in the U.S. until the end of the month to confer with U.S. writers & producers. People: Norman Katz has resigned as UAA dir. of foreign operations to become Television Industries foreign operations vp . . . Abert S. Goustin, formerly Ziv-UA Uastern div: sales mgr., has been named gen. mgr. of the company’s new special plans div. HOLLYWOOD ROUNDUP WNTA-TV N.Y. will show a film presentation to ad agencies & potential clients this week in Los Angeles (Jan. 23) & San Francisco (Jan. 24). Attending the West Coast meetings will be the station’s Henry S. White, vp-gen.-mgr.; spot sales vp Donald J. Quinn; Mike Wallace, narrator of the film, and David Susskind. Next month the film will be shown to agencies in N.Y. & other cities. Desilu Productions’ Harrigan & Son, which stars Pat O’Brien and is on ABC-TV, has been renewed by Reynolds Metals for 24 more segments this season. . . . Desilu’s Guestward Ho! (Joanne Dru, J. Carrol Naish, Mark Miller and Flip Mark) has also been renewed for the rest of the season — by Ralston-Purina & Seven-Up. Four Star Television’s pilot, The Freshman, starring Gertrude Berg & Sir Cedric Hardwicke, has been sold to General Foods for next season — 39 first-run segments; no network yet selected. It’s the second Four Star sale for next season. First: NBC-TV’s 60-min. Dick Powell-hosted anthology series. CMW Productions producer Charles Marquis Warren has finished this season’s production of Rawhide for CBSTV, and is filming 26 segments of The Gunslinger, 60-min. series starting on CBS-TV in February. Tony Young and Midge Ware star in the new show. Warren will resume production on Rawhide for next season April 30. Gomalco Productions’ comedy-anthology series (Vol. 17:3 pll) is based on Ogden Nash works, will be hosted by a comedian. Gomalco, owned by George Gobel & David O’Malley, is also planning a musical version of Rip Van Winkle, a 90-min. film special starring Gobel. MGM-TV has shelved plans for co-production of 2 pilots, Cafe Bravo and Two for the Money, with Arena Productions (owned by Norman Felton). MGM-TV has also dropped Zero One, which it had planned as a coproduction with BBC-TV. Television Film Assn, has re-elected John P. Ballinger of Screen Gems as pres.; Jack M. Goetz of Consolidated Film Industries, vp, and Nicholas C. Muskey of Bekins Film Service Center, secy.-treas. Hugh O’Brian Productions, owned by the cowboy star, is packaging a situation comedy and an anthology series, Fright, in association with ABC-TV. Bill Burrud Productions and the Jerry Ross organization are packaging & producing U.S.A., a half-hour series to be filmed in color. Curtleigh Productions, independent company owned by Tony Curtis, will produce TV film series as well as movies. Format Films will pilot an animated TV film series, Kecmar, the Invisible Boy. People: Harold Goldman, former NTA vp and more recently with Famous Artists agency, has left Famous to develop TV & movie properties for his Television Enterprises Corp. . . . John Erman is named casting dii'ector at 20th Century-Fox TV . . . Walter Pidgeon has been appointed to Screen Actors Guild board . . . Earl Booth is named story editor on MGM-TV’s The Asphalt Jungle . . . Warner Bros, has signed John Monks Jr. to write The Force, a 90-min. movie which will serve as the pilot for a series about the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.