Time on Their Hands

Despite their air-conditioned offices and silk suits, the executives of the nation's three television networks have good reason to sweat this summer. Never before have program sales for the fall and winter season fallen so far behind schedule. At the end of last week the three networks moodily reported that a total of 16 1/4 hours of their prime evening time--the equivalent of five full evenings' programing for one network--was still up for sale. Value: some $65 million.

The networks' plight is bad, and has probably got worse in recent weeks. Nervous sponsors have canceled traditional programs or shifted their ad budgets to other media. Series-type programs (which require a chunk of network time each week) are being dropped in favor of one-shot spectaculars (which occupy only 60-90 minutes a month). Some of TV's most prestigious shows have got the ax, including Edward R. Murrow's See It Now, Climax!, Wide, Wide World, Suspicion, Kraft Theater.

Network officials lay much of the blame on the obvious scapegoat: the recession. Late in hitting television (billings were actually up 13% for the first five months of 1958), the recession is now making many a sponsor juggle his advertising dollars, e.g., both Ford and Chrysler are cutting TV expenditures. In addition, some sponsors seem to be disenchanted about the selling power of even top-ranked shows. Chrysler is killing Climax!, and General Electric is switching from Cheyenne, a front-runner in most Nielsen ratings last year, to the new drama Man with a Camera (who uses G.E. flashbulbs).

Other sponsors are signing on for only 26 or 13 weeks instead of the standard 39, and showing a heavy preference for TV's bargain specials: the filmed western (which can be used for reruns) and quiz shows (which get prizes in exchange for a plug).

Despite the gloomy present, network executives profess to see only full screens and coffers for next fall. "If we were in a depression instead of a recession, our posture might be different," says NBC's Don Durgin, vice president in charge of sales. "We fully expect to be sold out when the fall season begins." Insists ABC Vice President Don Coyle: "By October, there's no doubt that we'll be all locked up." Then he makes a finger-crossing addition: "Of course, you're never locked up until you're locked up."

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