Weekly television digest (Jan-Dec 1961)

VOL. 17: No. 27 )3 ‘Today’ Goes Live Again: Originally a fully live show, Today has shifted more & more to tape production until only the Monday & Thursday segments are done without pretaping. Now, Today will switch back from tape to alllive production, effective July 17. NBC’s reason: “The program will dwell more strongly on news than in the past.” One result of the switch: Program regular Jack Lescoulie, who has been with the show for nearly a decade, announced he was resigning, stating “I can’t face those hours (7-9 a.m., with rehearsals starting around 5:30 a.m.) anymore.” Garroway himself leaves the show Sept. 15. NBC & Westinghouse Bcstg. Co. last week were all but challenging each other to a choice of slide rules at dawn as one of the season’s liveliest rating feuds continued. Needled by NBC’s release of 5-city Arbitron ratings in which Jack Paar and WBC’s PM East & PM West shows are compared (Vol. 17:26 pl2), Westinghouse hit back. Had WBC’s new tape-syndicated series initially lost out to Paar in Arbitron? WBC didn’t care if it had. Inverting the situation to produce the classic good-offensive-is-thebest-defense, WBC snapped: “The Jack Paar Show has made no dent whatever on the ratings of PM East & PM West.” Furthermore, said WBC, it knew that “across-theboard shows don’t capture a No. 1 position on the first week out . . . WBC is quite happy with the initial progress & major objective.” NBC bounced back with a new round of data: “The 2nd week of PM East & PM West shows no apparent trend upwards from the first week ... In fact the share softened slightly the 2nd week . . . Paar has shown a slight increase in shares.” WBC, meanwhile, had closed deals in 12 markets, with sales pending in 4 more. 4th “Continental Classroom” Series: NBC-TV’s earlymorning educational series, Continental Classroom, will continue for a 4th season on that network, NBC Chmn. Robert W. Sarnoff announced last week. Missing, however, will be the administration & financing assistance of Learning Resources Institute, which has shifted its allegiance as a network ETV angel to CBS-TV for an educational series this fall (Vol. 17 :19 p8). The latest Classroom series will be a 2-semester college-level course in the structure & function of the U.S. government, taught by Dr. Peter H. Odegard of the U. of Cal. at Berkeley. The series will be colorcast & carried by “approximately 170 stations” Mon.-Fri., 6:30-7 a.m. In the 30-min. period prior to the political science course, there’ll be a rerun of the show’s course in contemporary mathematics. NBC, Sarnoff told us, is currently discussing low-pressure financial support for the new series with several large industrial concerns, and there is also a possibility that the show may be opened for full-fledged TV sponsorship. Jack Gould: “One of the more attractive innovations of summer TV is the decision of ABC and CBS to give a showing of programs produced by stations in other cities. Tuesday night, as an example, the ABC affiliate in Oklahoma City, KOCO-TV, held the screen on Channel 7 (N.Y.) with an unpretentious & tasteful half-hour of history entitled ‘Cows, Cowboys and Cow Country.’ ” — N.Y. Times. Experiment ’61: That’s the name of a local 30-min. series WCAU-TV Philadelphia started airing last weekend (July 2), Sundays at 11 a.m. The show resulted from a canvassing by program dir. John 0. Downey of employes. Their ideas will make up the series. Sunday’s show was “A Walk Into Freedom,” produced by Vicki Brown, a secretary. Advertising TV Sets Pace for Ail Ad Media: Network TV ad volume was 16% higher in April compared with the same month in 1960 and represented “the brightest spot in the national advertising picture,” reported Printers’ Ink last week. There is, said PI, a “pattern of decline” evident in all other media (magazines, newspapers, network radio, business publications, outdoor) that are measured for the advertising trade publication by the media planning div. of McCann-Erickson. This decline resulted in an April allmedia volume drop of 3%. Rallies were staged in April by farm publications & business papers, but not enough to offset the long-term drops. Here in Pi’s index for April as prepared by McCannErickson’s media-planning division: % INDEX CHANGE FROM % MEDIUM April April 1 month 1 year Cumulative 1961 1960 ago ago Change GENERAL INDEX 229 235 — 3 — 3 0 TOTAL MAGAZINES 177 190 — 5 — 7 — 2 Weekly 198 215 — 7 — 8 — 3 Women’s 136 140 — 4 — 3 + 4 General Monthly 208 232 — 8 —10 + 1 Farm 97 100 +21 — 3 —21 NEWSPAPERS 196 211 — 8 — 7 — 5 NETWORK TELEVISION 512 443 — 2 +1B +13 NETWORK RADIO 23 25 0 — 8 — 8 BUSINESS PAPERS 234 255 + 6 — 8 — 7 OUTDOOR 125 157 — 7 —20 -11 All indexes have been seasonably adjusted. The index shown for each medium is based on estimated total advertising investments in the medium, including talent, production and media costs. For each medium, the base (100) is an average of total investments in the years 1947-49, except for the TV base, which covers the years 1950-52. “Cumulative change” in the last column refers to the change, from the same period last year, of the index average from January through April 1961. Magazine Attacks Summer TV : Latest exchange in the running media duel between TV & print came in the form of a Sports Illustrated ad in the N.Y. Herald-Tribune June 26 which heaved a promotional brick at TV’s “slack, summer-replacement & rerun season.” Unlike TV, said the ad, “magazines put on a new show all year round . . . and in the summer, distributors will tell you that newsstand sales boom in the resort areas.” [They will also tell you what Sports Illustrated did not add: That newsstand sales in non-resort areas go down in the summer; that subscription-delivered magazines are often left unopened until thenowners return from vacation; and that vacationists have been known to look at TV while staying at resorts. — ED.] Then, getting down to Madison Ave. cases, Sports Illustrated added: “You could take $50,000 out of what you’ve saved with your summer show and invest it in, say, 8 beautiful black-&-white pages in tested, tried-&-true Sports Illustrated— and sell all summer long.” New Reps: WTTG Washington to Blair Television Associates July 1 from Peters, Griffin, Woodward • WKSTTV Youngstown to Young July 1 from Weed • WITN Washington, N.C. to Venard, Rintoul & McConnell July 1 from Bolling. Ad People: Herbert D. Strauss promoted from exec, vp to pres., Grey Advertising, succeeding Arthur C. Fatt, named chmn. & chief exec, officer. Lawrence Valenstein, founder of the agency, resigns as chmn., continues as exec, committee chmn. . . . Hilton N. Wasserman elected administrative vp, Kenyon & Eckhardt; Fred Hauser appointed dir. of personnel services and a vp; Alfred Norcott elected controller, continuing as secy. Mickey Trenner, ex-Grey Advertising, named to head TV-radio & commercial production activities, Kenyon & Eckhardt Los Angeles office . . . Stanley DeNisco elected a Ted Bates vp.