Hollywood Airs Wares

Girls, "what would you do if you had a job with the Government in Washington and you came home and found Joel McCrea singing in your shower?

This sample teaser for Columbia Pictures' forthcoming comedy, The More The Merrier, was heard on 50 stations of the four major radio networks last week. CBS's Manhattan station WABC turned the silly gag down--to the extent of refusing to hitch the advertising plug to a newscast. Other CBS stations were willing, however, to mention McCrea's shower on variety and other light programs.

A few years ago even so small a controversy would probably have sent Columbia Pictures scurrying off in a huff. For years Hollywood looked upon radio as a poor relation in the field of showmanship, did not consider it seriously as an advertising medium. But World War II has begun to change all that.

When paper rationing froze Hollywood's magazine linage last year, and cut the free newspaper publicity customarily given to cinema, moviemakers bought more newspaper linage (up about 10% in 1942) and turned to radio. Some immediate results:

> RKO opened a sleeper, Hitler's Children, in Cincinnati, and plugged it with one-minute radio dramatizations (cracking whips, moans, etc.). The results were so encouraging that the campaign was extended to 200 local radio stations.

> United Artists experimented with nine different opening dates for one picture, bolstered five with radio ads. They outdrew the other four by an average of 15%.

> Manhattan exhibitors used radio advertising exclusively during last autumn's newspaper strike, found no decrease in trade.

> To its amazement, Paramount has discovered that its own Cecil B. De Mille, cinema's best-known director, is better known for his radio work than for his pictures.

None of these results is conclusive evidence that radio can supplant periodical advertising, and Hollywood does not believe that it can. Nevertheless Hollywood is taking no chances. Its radio expenditures to date are only a fraction of its total advertising budget, but they are rising. Five months ago Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer bought five minutes five days a week on Blue Network--the first coast-to-coast movie commercial. All major Hollywood studios have vigorous plans for forthcoming radio advertising.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.