PL 8-6200, Where Are You?

As one of the nation's largest advertising agencies, Benton & Bowles normally turns its hand to things that are new or improved, whiter or brighter. But last week, in a pained full-page ad in the New York Times, the agency felt compelled to accentuate the abominable. The headline, over a list of Benton & Bowies' 801 Manhattan staffers, announced that "These are the people you haven't been able to reach at PLaza 8-6200." The ad went on to explain sarcastically that there had been "a little phone trouble," and concluded with an appeal to "keep those cards and letters coming, folks."

The broadside was aimed at the New York Telephone Co., one of the biggest of the Bell System. Benton & Bowles staffers have been struggling for five weeks with a near blackout of communications. Callers trying to reach the agency have encountered crackling static, interminable busy signals, voices that faded away strangely, and occasionally dead silence. "Not only were people unable to get us," says B. & B. Chairman Ted Steele,* "but there were gremlins in the outgoing system too." The troubles began when the agency moved to new quarters in Manhattan covered by the PLaza 8 exchange. It is the first of the city's three fully computerized exchanges--and one of its most overloaded. PLaza 8 machinery gagged on B. & B.'s volume of 10,000 calls a day. Steele's patience broke when he discovered that a major advertiser whose account was up for bids had been unable to reach the agency for nearly two days.

Benton & Bowles has company. Kohler Advertising, for example, protested that its service has been sporadic for six weeks; the agency is demanding "reparations" for a $15,000 account that it claims it lost as a result. Bess Myerson Grant, New York City's Commissioner of Consumer Affairs, has gone farther. She has demanded a rate cut and a $100 million refund for phone subscribers.

Massachusetts' Public Utilities Commission is equally indignant. Last week it put off an 11% rate increase, which New England Telephone & Telegraph had requested only days after the commission ordered it to clear up a long list of "unjust, unreasonable, unsafe, improper and inadequate" practices. In a hearing that piled up 607 pages of testimony, the commission heard stories of billing errors, "false" busy signals (which occur when circuits are overloaded), baffling difficulties in making long-distance calls and unreasonable installation delays.

Unhappy Planning. Though U.S. phone service is still excellent when compared with most of the rest of the world, it is deteriorating noticeably in many areas. The problems extend as far west as California, but most are concentrated in the densely populated Eastern U.S. In Boston, New England Telephone says that it is still suffering from the effects of a four-month strike of equipment installers last summer. New York Tel also had a strike, and its woes have been compounded by some unhappy financial planning. In 1968, the company held down capital spending and maintenance in anticipation of a slowing in the U.S. economy. Business soared, however, particularly in the mid-Manhattan and Wall Street areas. The high volume of stock trading caused acute phone-service hardships on two overburdened downtown exchanges (DIgby 4, HAnover 5), much to the consternation of brokers.

New York Tel is in the midst of a "crash program" to increase capacity. Its maintenance spending will rise from last year's $293 million to $343 million, and it is now installing 33,000 phones a month in the New York City area, up from 20,000 in 1967. As for Benton & Bowles, its problems persist. Last week the agency discovered that its listing was inadvertently left out of the new phone books. New York Tel promised to insert the listing in the last half of the press run, and to make sure that the early books are distributed to Manhattan's outlying areas where few subscribers are likely to feel a need to call an ad agency.

* Who last week also resigned his agency's Kent and Century brand cigarette accounts, saying that, in view of the health controversy, "We would just feel more comfortable getting out of the business."

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