Roper on CBS

Last year CBS engaged Pollster Elmo Roper to find out how much good its 40 evening shows did for the products that sponsored them. Last week his answer was made public. It was a lot more encouraging than that which Statistician George Gallup gave to R.K.O. when it asked him to survey the cinema business (TIME, July 21). Using as his yardstick a period of one month, Roper discovered a raft of pleasant statistics about CBS and its programs. Among them:

> The average program reached 30.8% of all men, 32.4% of all women once a month or oftener--footing up to some 28,973,000 listeners.

> A single program (Major Bowes' Original Amateur Hour) reached 55% of all U.S. adults on an average of three times a month.

> 91.1% of all U.S. adults heard one or more of the 40 programs within four weeks.

> All of the 40 programs surveyed had more customers among listeners than the same products had among non-listeners.

In making his survey, Roper conducted 10,000 personal interviews all over the country, asked 630,000 questions, made 1,300 separate tabulations. Convinced of the value of his method, CBS in reporting on his findings pointed out: "The generally accepted program ratings (C.A.B. and Hooper) couldn't help us [in tracing net sales resulting from advertising and in checking the relationship between listening frequency and sales]. They check ... by telephone--either while the program is on the air (Hooper), or shortly thereafter (C.A.B.). And they cover only telephone homes in selected cities of over 100,000 population. Even if they covered every telephone-radio family in these cities, they would reach only 13.1% of the total U. S. radio families."

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