Prospect for Winter

All along Radio Row, distinguished necks were bared to the ax. The networks' fall schedules were almost filled in. Yet nobody had met the ante for such top-dollar talent as Nelson Eddy, Hildegarde, Rudy Vallee, and the wisemen on Information Please. Instead, low-priced shows had been snapped up. The reason: radio advertisers had pared their budgets to the bone (TIME, May 27).

For other reasons, some heads already rolled in the sawdust. Top men on Radio Row had decided that the public was fed up with straight gag shows, wanted its humor coated with a story. So off the air went Danny Kaye ("too arty"), and off went Cass Daley (whose Hooper rating had skidded). Abbott & Costello hoped to save themselves with a new routine.

From now on, there was to be Dignity in radio humor. To insure it, gags would be censored as never before (see below). Nevertheless, radio would continue to devote more time to a bore and a nuisance--the audience-participation show--than to any other single item.

On the fall register so far there were only two new arrivals worth cooing over. Dinah Shore would be back, and with her the new comic, Peter Lind Hayes (TIME, June 24). And Victor Borge, a sort of Scandinavian Alec Templeton, would share billing with Benny Goodman.

Hottest program news of all: after many a song & dance about it, Bing Crosby had decided to sign with Philco. Last week he sent them his terms, probably the steepest in radio history: 1) $35,000 for a weekly half-hour program; 2) the right to transcribe some shows. The reason: he might want to be somewhere else at broadcast time,* could record the program in advance.

Far more important than Crosby's proposition was its corollary: if other radio stars followed his lead with transcriptions, any independent station would be able to air talent that only networks can now afford. If Philco accepts, the show will probably go on over ABC or Mutual. The big networks, NBC and CBS, have too much to lose; large-scale transcribing could rip them apart.

*For other news of Bing, see SPORT.

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