: 6SOOO RECORDED STAR SPOTS 27 000 PUBLICITY RELEASES AMD PHOTOS 45000 LIVE AMMOUHCEMtMTS MATS 15 OOO NEWSPAPER ADS AMD PICTURE 44 Tttl W NBC executives confer on gigantic all-year promotion at Chicago display. Left to right: James M. Gaines, assistant advertising-promotion director Niles Trammell, president; Charles P. Hammond, director of advertising-promotion, and Frank E. Mullen, vice-president and general manager. 2 NBC Transmitter VOL. tO OCTOBER, 1944 No. 1 MOVIES, RADIO AND NEWSPAPERS BACK NBC Transmitter UP STAR PARADE’S BANDBOX CAMPAIGN Published. Monthly by the ijjs National Broadcasting Company CHICAGO.—Motion picture trailers in estimated audience of 30,000,000 persons. RCA Building, Radio City, N. Y. nearly 1,000 houses plus a basic hard- This portion of the campaign will be en- hitting newspaper campaign in station tirely underwritten by NBC, but it is ex- HAPPY RETURNS cities are features of NBC’s third annual pected that additional showings will be Parade of Stars campaign for 1944-45. undertaken by affiliated stations in their nostalgic Not without some Plans for the promotion were outlined coverage areas. fondness for bygone days—a sure to NBC station representatives at the NAB This year’s NBC-financed newspaper sign of advancing age—this writer remembers Presidential elections conference in Chicago by Niles Trammell, advertising campaign will be extended before radio came into its own. president; William S. Hedges, vice-presi- over the last quarter of 1944 as compared We remember standing oppo- dent in charge of stations, and Charles P. with the two-week campaign undertaken site a newspaper office on Election Hammond, director of advertising and last season. The company-financed por- Night in 1912 with scarcely room promotion. tion of this campaign will be confined to to breathe in the milling crowd. A revolving rag sign slowly and Much more comprehensive in scope daily newspapers in NBC managed and painfully brought the returns. than anything the company has done be- operated station cities and production Enterprising newspapers de- fore to promote its annual star parade, points to reach a circulation of 20,000,000 vised schemes to give the final re- the campaign is based on successful for- persons. As in case of the motion picture sults. Green rockets meant the mulas developed during the last two years, trailers, extensive advertising also will be election of Woodrow' Wilson, red rockets that William Howard Taft plus a mass of suggestions from station undertaken by the affiliated stations. was reelected and white rockets management, plus the ingenuity of Ham- Also for the first time, NBC presented that Theodore Roosevelt had mond and his associates. several network programs as a direct aid smashed precedent and would Use of motion picture trailers on a mass to the campaign this season. The broad- serve a third term. scale is an entirely new venture in radio casts featured top NBC talent from day- On Election Night, 1944, listen- ers from coast to coast will sit be- advertising promotion. The trailers are time and nighttime schedules with pickups fore their radios—in the comfort composed of scenes taken from motion from all the principal production centers of their homes — to receive the picture productions in which top NBC of the network. most comprehensive Presidential name talent has appeared, and the cam- The Parade of Stars Bandbox, a collec- returns ever attempted on the air. paign is keyed to run these- promotional tion of promotion material covering every As detailed in the story in this issue of The Transmitter, NBC, trailers in a minimum of 117 NBC commercial program on the network, fol- on November 7, will go “all-out” affiliated station cities. lowed by material covering public service to give the nation speedy, accu- There will be one new trailer a week and sustaining features, has been sent to rate returns. The network will re- over a period of four weeks starting in all NBC affiliates for local use. This was main on the air until the Presi- mid-October, playing before a minimum described in last month's Transmitter. dential race is definitely decided. Radio City’s huge Studio 8-H will be the nerve center of the complete coverage. Giant charts will be kept up to-the-minute by Football Sponsored on FM Jobs for Institute “Grads" all leading wire services so that - So far as is than per cent of commentators can have the very MILWAUKEE, WIS. CHICAGO.—More 50 latest figures before them. known, WMFM. Milwaukee, will be the the student body available for employ- NBC’s ace news voices have first FM station to broadcast a complete ment on completion of the third annual been assigned special election season of play-by-play football. NBC-Northwestern University Summer coverage tasks to assure the expert The Wadham’s Oil Company, for 16 Radio Institute has been absorbed by the flow and interpretation of returns consecutive years the sponsor of play-by- industry less than two weeks after the as they come in. Sidelights to the actual ballot count will also be play broadcasts of University of Wiscon- close of the session, according to Judith covered, special men being as- sin and Green Bay Packer games on Waller, co-director of the institute and signed to the major parties’ can- WTMJ. recognizing the increased impor- public service director for the NBC Cen- didates on Election Night. tance of FM. this year added WMFM to tral division. Offers of jobs were still The continuity of broadcasting its schedule. coming in from radio stations all over the the returns will not prevent the voices of usual Tuesday night Russ Winnie, veteran WTMJ sports- country as The Transmitter went to press. favorites being heard. However, caster, will start his 16th consecutive sea- Of the 110 enrolled in the 1944 insti- the entertainers will di- be woven son broadcasting Wisconsin and Packer tute, 40 signified their intention of accept- rectly into the broadcasts, their games for Wadham’s on WTMJ, and ing employment at the close of the six- appearances being keyed to the Election Night coverage. launch his first season broadcasting the week course. Twenty-three definite place- same games on WMFM. ments were announced. ; October 1944 3 KILOCYCLE WEATHERMAN KFI Pioneers in Forecasts with Agricultural Interpretations; Charts Distributed LOS ANGELES.—For probably the first time weather forecasts with agricultural interpretations are being made success- fully. And Station KFI is playing an im- portant part in this public service. It’s a three-way cooperative job. The United States Weather Bureau staff at Burbank makes the temperature and trend forecasts— and with surprising accuracy it may be said. The weather facts are inter- preted in the light of agricultural use or crop-hazard by members of the Los An- geles County staff of the Agricultural Ex- tension Service. Then this information is relayed to Station KFI for broadcast by the Noon Farm Reporter. During the season when frost is a hazard a preliminary forecast is given at noon, and then a close-up of what may be expected is given at eight o’clock by Floyd D. Young. It’s a service highly valued by citrus, avocado, truck crop and other agri- cultural industries of the southland. With the development of agricultural interpretations along with weather fore- DOING SOMETHING ABOUT THE WEATHER— William B. Ryan, general manager of KFI, casts it is necessary to simplify terms so and Nelson Mclninch, the station's “Noon Farm Reporter,” recently played host to agri- that all may understand. It seemed desir- cultural leaders for the purpose of discussing the KFI weather and temperature chart which able to make a chart of south California enables growers to better interpret summer agricultural weather forecasts and maintain a to show the areas that have generally simi- record of winter frost estimates. Pictured are: (left to right, seated ) Marshall G. Richardson, the State Poultry lar climatic conditions. After much study prominent Southern California poultryman and a member of Improvement Commission ; Floyd D. Young, regional director. United States W eather Bureau; Paul S. and consultation with many persons a Armstrong, general manager of the California Fruit Groivers Exchange, and W illiam B. Ryan. system of arbitrary zones was established. (Standing ) : Carlyle Thorpe, general manager of the California W'alnut Growers Association Since the only thing sure about the weather Clarence V. Castle, Los Angeles County Farm Advisor, and KFl's Nelson Mclninch. is that it is going to change, it is obvious that a line dividing two zones wrnuld weather conditions predicted for his own on the prediction of a hot-dry period w ill change from day to day. However, zone and nearbv areas and the general weather make sure that their crops have plent\ of lines were established on the basis of the prediction for the entire section. The cli- water. If freezing temperatures or rain most frequent location. mate zones enable growers to standardize are forecast management plans will be A wr eather and temperature chart, a terms and areas mentioned in the noon changed accordingly. deluxe job in four colors, was especially weather forecasts and organize their work Sometimes an unexpected period of ver\ designed. The chart locates the fruit-frost accordingly. hot weather will come along and accel- districts of Southern California, provides Value of the temperature forecast infor- erate the rate of ripening of fruit and record forms and tabulated information. mation is evident to practically all farm vegetable crops and then it is neecssary The device enables growers to visualize crop producers. Growers of citrus, avo- to get picking and packing operations the districts instantly as they are named cados, walnuts and other tree crops— if the under way several days earlier than on KFI ’s nightly frost reports.