Hour of Amateurs

Steve Labunski had never done hot line radio in his life, but when he took over New York City's top-rated Brad Crandall show on WNBC last week, he fielded stupid phone calls from listeners like a real pro. Over and over, of course, Labunski kept warning that "the views expressed do not necessarily refleet those of management." That was funny, since Stephen B. Labunski is the president of NBC Radio.

Thus continued the absurd ironies occasioned by the broadcasting strike that began two weeks ago: on the inside, a thin, red-eyed line of executives and management staffers making like performers; on the outside, the well-clad picket line of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, proving by their absence that radio and TV could use a change of face once in a while.

Striking Spots. In addition to NBC's Labunski, there was old Arnold Zenker again (TIME, April 7), filling in for Walter Cronkite and doing a pretty good job of telling the news too. True enough, some of the other substitutes sounded like sweet young office secretaries or shipping clerks trying to be discovered. For compensation, there was a sense of humor about it all. Public Affairs Man ager George Heinemann, who had taken over WNBC-TV's evening weather shows, couldn't help looking like an elderly but appealing high school boy hauled up to the front of the classroom for a recitation. NBC Radio's spot announcements were peppered with statements like, "WNBC, the station that never strikes out," while ABC Radio proclaimed that "more of the pickets you want to see are in front of all-American radio 77, WABC."

The real irony was the walkout itself, which had now spread to 18,000 AFTRA members and roughly 1,500 supporters from sister unions. That was a lot of muscle flexing, considering that the contract dispute involved a mere 300 announcers and newsmen from the three networks' outlets in New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles. For the reporters, AFTRA was asking a $325-a-week guaranteed salary plus at least 50% of the fees earned for sponsored appearances; the networks were offering $300 and 25%. For the announcers, the industry's proposal of $220 a week was within $5 of the union's demand. AFTRA also was asking networks to maintain announcers solely for their FM stations, a demand that management described as "blatantly featherbedding." By NBC's reckoning, "The effect would be the hiring of three additional men to handle a total of two hours work each week." At any rate, the picketers were not exactly eligible for the welfare rolls. Even under the currently expired old contract, the announcers and newsmen in 1966 averaged well over $20,000 a year.

Protest Letter. The strike meanwhile precipitated some more moral wrestling among newsmakers and newsmen. Dean Rusk and Kenneth Galbraith, new head of the Americans for Democratic Action, discreetly canceled scheduled appearances on public-affairs shows, while Senator Wayne Morse passed through the AFTRA picket line to go on ABC's Scope. Bennett Cerf, who is both a union member (panelist on What's My Line?) and a management man (board member of RCA), elected, of course, not to picket.

The No. 1 AFTRA renegade was still Chet Huntley, who was busy between newscasts trying to round up a cadre of journalists in an effort to start up a separate union. He didn't make any progress last week. In fact, 48 newsmen sent him an open protest letter headlined: "Where Were You, Mr. Huntley?" Predictably, annoyance at times gave way to acrimony. Jim Hoffman, an NBC time salesman who took over the llth Hour News on WNBC-TV walked into Hurley's, the broadcasters' favorite Sixth Avenue bar--and into an earful from striking Newswoman Liz Trotta. "Why are you being rough on me?" he asked her. "Well I'll tell you," huffed Trotta. "We just don't like amateurs." That opinion was Liz Trotta's, and did not necessarily reflect that of the nation's viewers.

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