The Busy Air

P: After watching too many movies on TV, RCA Chairman David Sarnoff warned that "the true function of television will have failed if the film programming snowballs so as to become the dominant appeal." In an interview published by the trade paper Variety, Sarnoff holds out little hope that TVmen can save themselves from the movie blight. "Fortunately," he adds, "we have the public and advertisers to decide this for us . . . They may agree with us, or the movies-on-TV networks will take over."

P: Jackie Gleason, who has recently been bested by Perry Como in the ratings, last week switched his half-hour show to 8 p.m. on Saturdays in order to start on even terms with Como's hour-long variety program. The result was not decisive, according to Trendex: Gleason narrowly topped Como, 25.9 to 25.5.

P: Variety, totting up the creative blood transfusions that TV has given its sister arts, the movies and theater, found that 38 TV dramas have been sold to Hollywood and seven optioned to Broadway. Two of the dramas (Paddy Chayefsky's The Middle of the Night and N. Richard Nash's The Rainmaker) are scheduled to make a clean sweep by appearing in all three places.

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