Weekly television digest (Jan-Dec 1961)

VOL. 17: No. 18 9 Network Countdown on Space Shoot: The long-awaited U.S. man-in-space shot, which may come tomorrow (May 2) between 7:45 & 8 a.m., will receive “the most far-flung TV pool coverage in history,” all networks agreed late last week. The TV & radio networks have each contributed “as complete facilities and personnel as possible” to provide live, taped, filmed & audio coverage. Pool reportage will be fed simultaneously to all networks, but each will be free to cut in with commentary or news inserts. Network pre-shot specials over the April 28-30 weekend highlighted U.S. astronauts Glenn, Grissom and Shepard. CBS Reports’ “Why Man in Space” on Fri. (10-11 p.m.) included an interview with Glenn, and NBC’s The Astronauts (Sun., 7-8 p.m.) was a biographical study of all 3 men. But ABC, in an attempt to get the jump on network competitors (and NASA itself) prepared 4 separate 30-min. shows, 3 featuring individual astronauts and one devoted to all the candidates. ABC hopes were that NASA would make its final selection before air time (Fri., 7:30-8 p.m.) of its one-shot space special, “Road to the Stars.” By air time NASA hadn’t chosen the man. NBC is Top Grosser: January gross time billings (before discounts) stood at $23 million at NBC-TV, a new January record for the network and $2 million over Jan. 1960. NBC-TV was $136,000 ahead of CBS-TV and more than $7 million ahead of ABC-TV by the same yardstick, the network also claimed last week. The score, added NBC, makes January “the 3rd of the last 4 months in which NBC-TV has been the network leader in gross billings.” On the network radio side, NBC also claimed the lead, topping CBS “by almost 3 hours a week (14%)” and ABC “by more than 5 hours (33%)” in terms of hours of sponsored radio time. Count so far for NBC-TV in April: “An advantage of more than 3 hours over each of its competitors” with a total of 52 hours, 48 minutes of network TV sponsored time, the primary gains due to increased daytime billings. Hagerty Needles White House Press: Echoing sentiments expressed recently in Pittsburgh by his successor, Pierre Salinger (Vol. 17:16 pll), ABC news vp James C. Hagerty, former Eisenhower administration press chief, last weekend blasted “press-conference trivia” in Washington. Addressing a group of Air Force information officers, Hagerty recalled that on numerous occasions during Presidential press conferences he handled: (1) Reporters would skip important international questions to discuss “silly, trivial” matters. (2) The President was seldom given a chance to dwell on a single topic long enough to present a full opinion. White House press conferences, Hagerty made clear, don’t belong to the press. The session, he said, “belongs to the President.” He added that he had instituted a policy at ABC whereby any TV-radio misstatements of news facts were collected on the air in the same or equivalent time periods. In an April 28 telegram to Salinger, Hagerty more directly expressed agreement with New Frontier views on “common-sense reporting.” Said Hagerty: “Please inform President Kennedy that I wholeheartedly support his speech before the publishers in N.Y. yesterday and that the ABC News department will do its best to follow his national interest recommendations.” NBC SRC) on Bowls: More than 7 months before the annual football bowl games, NBC-TV coverage of 4 of the events is completely sold. Programming High Cost of Eichmann Reportage: Although the psycho logical effect on audiences of the extensive U.S. TV coverage given Adolph Eichmann’s trial is still debatable, the tug on network & station purse strings is unquestioned. Each network: (1) pays Capital Cities Bcstg. $50,000 for daily 60-min. tapes of the proceedings; (2) maintains its own news force in Jerusalem for outside-court coverage, and (3) contributes, on a rotating basis, one-third of the cost of editing, flying the tape over and feeding it to other networks. Added to this are the costs of over a dozen pre& post-trial specials, most of which were unsponsored. In the face of such financial facts, few local stations are providing tape coverage of the trial. The N.Y. market, where one-fourth of the world’s Jewish population resides, is the one local-level exception. WNTA-TV has a daily (Mon.-Sat. noon-1 p.m.) series, and WABC-TV is running The Eichmann Trial (Mon.-Fri., 6:30-7 p.m.). WABCTV’s coverage is quite extensive. Realizing the trial’s public-relations possibilities in the N.Y. area, WABC-TV spent $23,000 on advertising & promotion activities in preparation for its series. The campaign included a series of full-page newspaper ads and the mailing to viewers of some 24,000 copies of the 15-count indictment against Eichmann. And, according to gen. mgr. Joseph Stamler, it has paid off. Arbitron ratings for the first week of the show were almost double the average rating of The Tommy Seven Show, which it pre-empts. Glickman Corp., a N.Y. real estate firm and one of the few sponsors which does not equate sponsorship of the trial with the black plague, has bought half of the Jim Bishop-narrated series. “There’s no sales pitch,” said Sidney Posner, vp of Glickman’s agency Newmark, Posner & Mitchell. “We use only 90 seconds of the 3-minute commercial time for a brief explanation of what Glickman is and the message that the trial is being presented as a public service.” The audience response has been “excellent,” Posner said. “We feel the series has greatly added to our public relations stature.” Campbell-Ewald’s TV Findings: A special “Television 1960” study has been completed by Campbell-Ewald which “explores the sociological & psychological meanings of TV as a medium for entertainment, advertising and communication.” Some key findings: (1) “TV is, and will continue to be, a tremendously important force in our society.” (2) “The viewer is beginning to demand a variety of entertainment . . . becoming more & more selective in his TV tastes.” (3) “In terms of programming, Westerns & specials generally are on the decline . . . suspense-mystery shows are receiving more viewer attention . . . soap operas are increasing in popularity, as well as adventure show's.” (4) “Attitudes toward and time spent with TV differ by social class. The upper class does not depend as heavily on TV for entertainment & information.” (5) “Attitudes & feelings . . . carry over directly into how people react to commercials. The program is the setting or stage for the advertising message.” Prime Time Public Service: KRON-TV San Francisco canceled Lockup, syndicated show regularly scheduled at 7-7:30 p.m., in order to rebroadcast in prime time President Kennedy’s April 20th address on Cuba. The station carried the network feed at noon, then ran the speech twice in succession in the evening.