Speaking from Experience

"Good reviews cannot always save you," wrote TVulcan Walter Winchell, 60, in last week's TV Guide. "We speak from experience. Last year's W.W. variety show, for example." As another example, Winchell might have added this year's Walter Winchell File. For as Walter peered benignly from Guide's cover,/- his sponsor, Revlon, announced that as of March 28 Winchell's filmed crime show over ABC will have to go.

Walter refused to believe the newspapers. All week he filled his New York Mirror column with plugs and denials. "ABC Veep Oliver Treyz called and said the stories in the papers are not true at this time!" (Said Treyz: "I have not spoken to Walter for weeks.") He titled one column "The WW File," and, as a longtime enemy of the ratings system that tyrannizes TV, he even started his own "Tallyvision Poll," drew some 35,000 replies in 32 days. "It's been fantastic," said Walter. "Even the post office complained that they ran out of mail bags." Winchell readers turned out to be Winchell TV fans. Although Nielsen ranked him 107th, Walter's own poll ranked him fourth (behind Perry Como, Lawrence Welk, Gunsmoke). Ed Sullivan, Winchell's favorite "ingrate," ran a poor 28th disguised as Toast of the Town, a title the Sullivan show has not used in 2 1/2 years.

Never one to digest reality, Winchell said he had also been reassured by Revlon's top men, Charlie and Martin Revson. "Last week Charlie sent me $10,000 for the Damon Runyon fund and a pair of diamond-studded cuff links. I called him and thanked him but said, 'I've been looking all over the cuff links but I can't find the option.' So Revson said, 'Don't worry.' I asked him if I should look for another sponsor, but he said no."

Still--even though the sometimes good, sometimes maudlin Walter Winchell File was racking up a decent rating (about 15 on Trendex)--Revlon decided that the show had to be dropped. Said Martin Revson: "We just found it wasn't the right kind of show to sell our product. . . I wouldn't use a cowboy show to sell lipstick, would I?"

But the network hopes to get File another sponsor soon. Said ABC's Treyz of Winchell's Winchell: "We have found him the soul of affability."

/- After plugging Guide's soaring circulation in his column, Revlon, said Winchell, had warned him months ago: "Get yourself on that cover."

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