The Future of NBC

NBC President Niles Trammell had a job of explaining to do. In recent months, CBS had charmed away five of his top attractions (Jack Benny, Amos 'n' Andy, Red Skelton, Frank Sinatra, Edgar Bergen), beat him to a big sixth (Bing Crosby). NBC had lost talent to Columbia before, but never in such great clumps. The network's 164 affiliated stations were uneasy and fidgety.

In Chicago's Stevens Hotel last week--with eleven of his 14 vice presidents nodding approval--suave Niles Trammell soothed the affiliates' angers and anxieties, sent them home convinced that NBC is still the biggest thing in radio since the invention of the crystal set.

NBC was not limiting itself, said Trammell, to buying up a few expensive shows "for this season at the expense of the future." That other network, he noted, had had to borrow $5,000,000 to bring off its coups. And besides, radio couldn't be "satisfied indefinitely with the same material, the same performers, and the same programs." But NBC was nonetheless glad to be keeping some of its own: Fibber McGee & Molly, Phil Harris & Alice Faye, Bob Hope, "Duffy's Tavern." Trammell had also thrown together, he revealed, 30 fresh programs, which will employ such well-known stars as Cinemactors Charles Boyer, Rosalind Russell, Olivia de Havilland, Gary Grant and James Mason, as well as Comics Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis and Henry Morgan.

Then Trammell's executive vice president, Charles R. Denny, let go with what sounded almost like a declaration of war. NBC was going to stay on top as the nation's No. 1 network. Said he: "It has the money and the resources to back up [its] plans. And, above all, it has the resolve to use its money, its experience, and its every effort for that purpose."

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