Transcontinental

Of all the enterprising Roosevelts, Elliott, in radio, naturally has the oddest messmates. Oddest of these for a Roosevelt to be hobnobbing with is a Chicago adman named Hill Blackett, mainly famous for having guided Alf Landon's campaign in 1936. The Blackett advertising agency, Blackett-Sample-Hummert, Inc., does the biggest business in radio: mostly sobby, low-cost network serials plugging household helps, headache remedies, beauty aids, etc. to U. S. housewives.

Big networks generally restrict these serials to daytime hours, reserving the night air for classier stuff. Recently B-S-H tried to place transcriptions of some of its cheaper CBS and NBC serials, like Stella Dallas, Backstage Wife, etc. on small stations for night-time broadcasting. One prospect was Elliott Roosevelt's 24-station Texas State Network. But when Elliott and Blackett tried to get permission to take transcriptions of the shows off NBC and CBS wires, they got a royal runaround.

Thereupon Elliott tried a bold stunt. He offered to hire many of the existing MBS coast-to-coast wire circuits for two hours a night, 8-10 EST. The answer was No. So last week Elliott went to work on an even bolder enterprise--a brand new national network.

Transcontinental Broadcasting System, Inc., Elliott Roosevelt's venture, is scheduled to go into business Jan. 1 with some 100 stations. All last week at The Blackstone in Chicago, the lure of Elliott's name, plus the promise of some 60 hours a week of steady if cut-rate business, kept customers coming. B-S-H had already contracted for 15 premium night-time hours a week; Emerson Radio & Phonograph Corp. scheduled its noisy commentator, Elliott Roosevelt himself, on Transcontinental. Dorothy Thompson was courted; Boake Carter and Father Coughlin were possibilities. There were no such headliners as Jack Benny, Charlie McCarthy or Kate Smith in sight, but Transcontinental had hope. At week's end, TBS had 65 stations signed up, mostly low-watt independents, a few from the upper crust.

Organization. Elliott Roosevelt himself holds no office in TBS, says he has none of his own money in it. TBS has thus far sold $350,000 worth of stock at $175 a share, most of it to Publisher Elzey Roberts of the St. Louis Star-Times, and his brother John; H. J. Brennen, owner of two Pittsburgh stations; David Baird of Manhattan. TBS's president is John T. Adams, onetime adman who prettified Lydia Pinkham's preparations for U. S. networks.

Obstacles. First job of any new network is leasing point-to-point A. T. & T. circuits, which cost basically $8 a mile for a month of 16-hour radio days. A. T. & T. seldom has an oversupply of coast-to-coast circuits. Network men on the outside withheld judgment on TBS's prospects until they could find out: 1) whether TBS could get wire lines; 2) whether the business it had lined up would warrant an annual outlay of $800,000 to $1,000,000 for lines; 3) whether it could keep enough important stations in line to survive. Lacking the straight dope on these points, they called it a "ghost-to-ghost" network.

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