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The problems with sponsorship in us broadcasting, 1930s–1950s: perspectives from the advertising industry

2011; Routledge; Volume: 31; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/01439685.2011.597994

1465-3451

Cynthia B. Meyers,

Media Studies and Communication

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. William Boddy, Fifties Television (Urbana, IL, 1990); and James Baughman, Same Time, Same Station (Baltimore, 2007). 2. Scholarship on the commercialization of US broadcasting includes Susan Douglas, Inventing American Broadcasting, 1899–1922 (Baltimore, 1987); Susan Smulyan, Selling Radio: the commercialization of American broadcasting, 1920–1934 (Washington, D.C., 1994); Erik Barnouw, A Tower in Babel (New York, 1966); Laurence Bergreen, Look Now, Pay Later: the rise of network broadcasting (Garden City, NY, 1980); Michele Hilmes, Radio Voices: American broadcasting, 1922–52 (Minneapolis, 1997); Robert McChesney, Telecommunications, Mass Media, and Democracy: the battle for control of U.S. Broadcasting, 1928–1935 (New York, 1993); John Spalding, 1928: Radio becomes a Mass Advertising Medium, Journal of Broadcasting 8 (1963–64), 31–44; and Thomas Streeter, Selling the Air: a critique of the policy of commercial broadcasting in the United States (Chicago, 1996). 3. For more on the broadcast reform movements and the debates over the commercialization of US broadcasting, see Kathy Newman, Radioactive: advertising and consumer activism, 1935–1947 (Berkeley, 2004); McChesney, Telecommunications, Mass Media, and Democracy. For a discussion of similar debates over commercialization in UK broadcasting, see Sean Street, Crossing the Ether: British public service radio and commercial competition, 1922–45 (Eastleigh, UK, 2006). Street points out that the UK policy of tax-supported non-commercial programming monopolized by the BBC was strongly contested by rival populist commercial broadcasters in the 1920s and 1930s. 4. Although several women rose to influential positions in the advertising industry during this period (for example, Helen Resor at J. Walter Thompson), men dominated the field. I use the term ‘admen’ to emphasize this. 5. The role of advertising agencies in US broadcasting history has been almost entirely overlooked according to Michele Hilmes, Nailing Mercury, in: Jennifer Holt and Alisa Perren (eds.), Media Industries: history, theory, and method (Malden, MA, 2009), 24, with the exception of two dissertations: Cynthia B. Meyers, Admen and the shaping of American commercial broadcasting, 1926–50, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas at Austin, 2005, and Michael Mashon, NBC, J. Walter Thompson, and the evolution of prime-time programming and sponsorship, 1946–58, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park, 1996. 6. Michele Hilmes, Hollywood and Broadcasting: from radio to cable (Urbana, IL, 1990), 81. 7. R. J. Arcenaux, Department Stores and the Origins of American Broadcasting, 1910–1931, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Georgia, Athens, 2007. For an argument for the vitality of early commercial radio, see Clifford J. Doerksen, American Babel: rogue radio broadcasters of the Jazz Age (Philadelphia, 2005). 8. William Peck Banning, Commercial Broadcasting Pioneer: the WEAF experiment, 1922–26 (Cambridge, MA, 1946). 9. Herbert Hoover, Opening Address, Recommendations for the Regulation of Radio Adopted by the Third National Radio Conference, October 6, 1924. 10. Hoover, Opening Address, 4. 11. Frank A. Arnold, Reminiscences, 1951, 5, Oral History Research Office, Columbia University, New York (hereafter OHRO). 12. McChesney, Telecommuncations, Mass Media, and Democracy, Chapter 2. 13. Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream (Berkeley, 1985); Stephen Fox, The Mirror Makers (New York, 1984). 14. Radio an Objectionable Advertising Medium, Printers’ Ink, February 8, 1923, 175. 15. Leroy Jenkins, Letter to B. F. Goodrich Company, May 26, 1925, Box 3, Folder 126, NBC Records, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison (hereafter WHS). 16. Agencies View Radio Advertising in Survey by Station, Advertising & Selling, April 30, 1930, 90. 17. Acute Inflammatory Radioitis, J. Walter Thompson Newsletter, February 15, 1928, 81–83, JWT Newsletter Files, Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising and Marketing History, Duke University Library, Durham, NC (hereafter HCSAMH). 18. Acute Inflammatory Radioitis, 82. 19. J. Fred MacDonald, Don't Touch That Dial! (Chicago, 1979), 32. 20. Marchand, Advertising the American Dream. 21. Melvin Patrick Ely, The Adventures of Amos ‘n’ Andy (New York, 1991). 22. Howard Angus, The Importance of Stars in Your Radio Program, Broadcast Advertising, February 1932, 26. 23. Acute Inflammatory Radioitis, 83. 24. An Advertising Agency Executive, When Will Radio Quit Selling Its ‘Editorial Pages’? Advertising & Selling, July 22, 1931, 17. 25. An Advertising Agency Executive, when will Radio 18. 26. Wayne Randall, Memo to Frank E. Mason, April 26, 1933, Box 34, Folder 34, NBC Records, WHS. 27. Inger L. Stole, Advertising on Trial: consumer activism and corporate public relations in the 1930s (Urbana, IL, 2001); Newman, Radioactive. 28. Randall, Memo. 29. Streeter, Selling the Air. 30. Randall, Memo. 31. For example, Donald S. Shaw, Memo to John Royal, March 15, 1935, Box 34, Folder 34, NBC Records, WHS. 32. Oppose Federal Radio Station, Printers’ Ink, July 1, 1937, 54. 33. William Benton, Letter to M. Aylesworth, August 25, 1933, Box 16, Folder 12, NBC Records, WHS. 34. Herman Hettinger, A Decade of Radio Advertising (Chicago, 1933), 24. 35. E. Wheeler, Don’t Sell the Steak … Sell the Sizzle! Radio Showmanship, September 1940, 6. 36. Hubbell Robinson, What the Radio Audience Wants, in: Neville O’Neill (ed.), The Advertising Agency Looks at Radio (New York, 1932), 48. 37. Angus, The Importance of Stars, 12. 38. Arthur Sinsheimer, Custom Blocks the Road to Radio Progress, Advertising & Selling, November 8, 1934, 32. 39. J. Wren, Why Some Radio Programs Fail, Advertising & Selling, February 5, 1930, 23. 40. L. Ames Brown, Radio Broadcasting as an Advertising Medium, in: Neville O’Neill (ed.), The Advertising Agency Looks at Radio (New York, 1932), 11. 41. Radio–If the Stars Were Czars, Printers’ Ink Monthly, October 1934, 16. 42. Radio–If the Stars Were Czars, 46. 43. L. Hughes, Should You Hitch Your Business to a Star? Sales Management, March 1, 1939, 22. 44. V. Herbert, Do Listeners Associate Radio Stars with the Correct Product? Sales Management, October 1, 1936, 465. 45. J. J. Boyle, Should Radio Stations Take the Chance of Programs Laying Eggs? Advertising & Selling, July 1939, 47. 46. Edgar Felix, Planning Copy for the Radio Advertising Medium, Advertising & Selling, May 18, 1927, 40. 47. Warren Dygert, Radio as an Advertising Medium (New York, 1939), 14. 48. JWT Staff Meeting Minutes, August 12, 1930, 8, J. Walter Thompson Papers, HCSAMH. 49. JWT Staff Meeting Minutes, February 2, 1932, 4, J. Walter Thompson Papers, HCSAMH. 50. Mark Woods, Reminiscences, 1951, 65, OHRO. 51. Frederic Wakeman, The Hucksters (New York, 1946), 24. 52. Wakeman, Hucksters, 25. 53. See also Newman, Radioactive, 166–192; Alan Havig, Frederic Wakeman's The Hucksters and the Postwar Debate over Commercial Radio, Journal of Broadcasting 28, 2 (Spring 1984), 198. 54. Between the Lines, Printers’ Ink, July 26, 1946, 79. 55. Dan Golenpaul, Interview, July 1964, 178, OHRO. 56. The Revolt against Radio, Fortune, March 1947, 102. 57. Charles Hammond, Memo to Niles Trammell, June 26, 1947, Box 115, Folder 17, NBC Records, WHS. 58. Revolt against Radio. 59. Niles Trammell, Advertising in the Public Interest, Address to National Association of Broadcasters, October 24, 1946, 9. 60. Carroll Carroll, Letter to A. Green, December 20, 1946, Carroll Papers, HCSAMH. 61. Revolt against Radio, 172. 62. Bruce Barton, Memo to Ben Duffy, April 4, 1950, Barton Papers, Box 75, Folder American Tobacco, WHS. 63. Charles Hull Wolfe, Modern Radio Advertising (New York, 1949), 9. 64. Fred Allen, Treadmill to Oblivion (Boston, 1954). 65. Pat Weaver, with Thomas Coffey, Best Seat in the House (New York, 1994), 165. 66. Weaver, Best Seat in the House, 164. 67. Pat Weaver, Speech, NBC Convention, September 7–9, 1949, Box 118, Folder 30, NBC Records, WHS. 68. Pat Weaver, Memo, September 26, 1949, 1, Box 118, Folder 5, NBC Records, WHS. 69. Weaver, Memo, 2. 70. Robert Garver, Successful Radio Advertising with Sponsor Participation Programs (New York, 1949); Hilmes, Radio Voices, 277–87. 71. Ned Midgley, The Advertising and Business Side of Radio (New York, 1948), 95. 72. The most detailed study of this process is Mashon, NBC, J. Walter Thompson. 73. Mashon, NBC, J. Walter Thompson, 126–131. CBS's efforts in 1946–48 to package radio programs and poach radio stars from NBC are also evidence this trend began before the television era. 74. Memo, The Development of the Packager, circa 1956, N. W. Ayer Archives. 75. Raymond Rubicam, Letter to William Benton, October 3, 1951, Box 7, Benton Folder, Barton Papers, WHS. 76. Fairfax Cone, Letter to David Sarnoff, July 28, 1953, Box 122, Folder 36, NBC Records, WHS. 77. Mashon, NBC, J. Walter Thompson, 84. 78. Thomas Harrington, Can an Advertising Agency Handle Television at a Profit? The Advertising Agency and A&S, May 1949, 49. 79. Harrington, Can an Advertising Agency, 51. 80. Development of the Packager. 81. Chris Anderson, Hollywood TV (Austin, TX, 1994). 82. William Boddy, The Seven Dwarfs and the Money Grubbers: the public relations crisis of US television in the late 1950s, in: Patricia Mellencamp (ed.), Logics of Television (Bloomington, IN, 1990), 98–116. 83. Boddy, Fifties Television, 171. 84. Christopher Sterling and John Kittross, Stay Tuned (Belmont, CA, 1978), 334. 85. Charles Brower, Me, and Other Advertising Geniuses (Garden City, NY, 1974), 213. 86. In the United Kingdom, regulators of early commercial television insisted on avoiding the US model of integration of advertising and program by requiring separable advertisements and programs. Burton Paulu, Television and Radio in the United Kingdom (Minneapolis, 1981), 63. 87. The phrase was so important to Jack Benny that in a legal settlement with one of his former writers, the writer was enjoined from using ‘Jello again’ in future work. Jack Benny Papers, Box 98, Harry Conn File, UCLA. 88. For example, note how the narrator transitions from the program text of Ma Perkins to a commercial for Oxydol laundry soap: ‘And so Ma Perkins has a change of heart at last. She realizes what mothers have found since the world began. You can’t run other people's affairs for ‘em, you can’t make them do what you think is best. You’ve just got to help them. And speaking of help, there's no household job that needs outside help more than washing clothes.’ Ma Perkins, 12 December 1933 broadcast. 89. Susan Douglas, Listening In: radio and the American imagination (New York: Random House, 1999), 121. 90. Bill Bernbach and Bob Levenson, Bill Bernbach's Book: a history of advertising that changed the history of advertising (New York, 1987). 91. Baughman, Same Time, Same Station, 301.