Plug for Plugs

A well-qualified expert last week took on the thankless job of defending commercial "plugs." The unloved commercials' aggressive defender was Ralph Smith, general manager of Duane Jones Co., an ad agency that puts some 2,000 commercials on the air every week--mostly for soap and patent medicines. In a letter to the New York Times, Smith asserted "Persons who complain about commercials are, as a rule, disgustingly healthy or so strongly fortified financially that grocery bills are no problem. Frankly, commercials are not written for such as these."

Adman Smith also addressed himself last week to the radio industry. In Broadcasting magazine he sounded a warning against "campaigns or movements calculated to turn public opinion against radio." Set up an overall governing body, he advised, and give it power to enforce a code of practice in radio advertising. The possible alternative: Congressional action imposing "arbitrary rules governing commercials."

One important function of radio's own governing body, Adman Smith thinks, should be to plug radio itself, on the air, with commercials defending commercials. Sample Smith plug which an announcer might read with seductive fervor: "Friends, just take a moment and look around your home for the various items that have made your life easier, happier. . . . Dozens and dozens of these things, you'll find, were recommended to you over your radio. ... So today, let's tip our hats to radio's forgotten man--the radio advertiser. . . ."

Stimulants for Tucumcari

The local stations of some 200 small towns had literary stimulants to dispense last week. Author Meets the Critics, a two-year-old weekly feature on Manhattan's WHN, will henceforth be heard on records in Opelika, Ala., Tucumcari, N.Mex., many another village out of earshot of the big networks.

This cultural promotion is neatly capsuled in informal charm. Three or four critics swap frank opinions about a current bestseller, while the author sits by and takes it. Then the author gets a chance to talk back. Participants in last week's recordings: the New York Herald Tribune's Lewis Gannett, Story magazine's Whit Burnett, American Magazine's John K. M. McCaffery (who acts as m.c.) and Author Richard Wright (Black Boy --TIME, March 5). -

Two months ago, the show got its first backer, the Book-of-the-Month Club.' A second break came when an organization called the Keystone Broadcasting System, which supplies its 214 scattered member-stations with recordings, took on the program as an educational sustainer.

KBS is confident that its crossroads listeners--in Anchorage, Alaska, Alamosa, Colo., Hickory, N.C., Siloam Springs, Ark.--will eat up Author Critics, whose past guest-victims have ranged from James Thurber to Lucius Beebe, Emily Hahn to Ilka Chase. KBS is doubly confident because the Book-of-the-Month is offering book prizes for the best letters from listeners. Said a small-town-wise KBS official: "Whenever you give them a prize, they're happy."

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