From the MCRFB radio news scrapbook: 1945

LOCAL PROGRAMMING HEDGES POSTWAR

Stations Go, Live in Hopes

DETROIT (May 26, 1945) — Check of all major local stations indicates that emphasis on local programming is continuation of fairly long-time trend. In general, it has been something the stations has been doing for the last three years.Typically, WWJ has increased programming cost heavily in last two years, and WWJ has had a 73-piece symphony orchestra sponsored by a cut-rate department store for the two and a half years in a full hour Saturday night show with barely any mention of the sponsor.

Trend is definitely continuing, with new developments, both commercial and sustaining, tending away from the all-platter shows, except in post-midnight and early-a.m. hours, where they appear to have a permanent useful place. WWJ for the last year has done a job with Nurses In Action, dramatizing the nurse recruiting campaign, and Victory Matinee, devoted each Wednesday afternoon to a different war effort cause and using the full talent resources of the station. Another show of typical operations here is Tenth Floor, Please, sponsored by a department store, which dramatizes the story of products sold on this floor.

In the last year, WJR pioneered in inter-station contacts for ideas, sending out five teams of station men, paired from different departments — typically the commercial manager and the program director — on one-week junkets around the country to inspect station operations in other cities.

Recently a swing quartet from the Motor Bar was put on the air for 15 minutes at 9:45 — at a cost of $65.00 daily — chiefly to break into the general soap opera schedule with something that wasn’t transcriptions, until change of schedule forced its abandonment. 

Check on inter-station cooperation indicate this is largely by letter elsewhere. WXYZ, typically, reports frequent interchange of ideas, and requests for info on how the station has solved particular problems — such as what they do on department store programs. Most of these correspondence come from stations of the affiliated Blue. Station has made a practice of working closely on production with clients and agencies, in contrast to WJR, where the station typically done its own particular show packaging and then offered the product for sale. 

Recorded programs on WXYZ have been reduced some 50 per cent in the past year — chiefly in favor taking net shows, rather than local production, in which the station was already strong, originating at least three week serials — notably Lone Ranger. Another trend toward better programming here is the move away from short records in favor of the larger disks with a full 15-minutes of music, or re-broadcasts.

The move toward better programming emphasis appears concentrated in smaller towns, typified by Michigan Radio Network, which has heavily moved this way within the past three months. END

(Information and news source: Billboard; June 2, 1945).