Busy Air

P: Pilot Radio last week unwrapped the first television set to sell for less than $100. But as the price tag grew smaller ($99.50), the set shrank in proportion: the new model has a squinty screen no bigger (2 in. by 3 in.) than a ten of spades.

P: After 16 years, Walter Winchell and his longtime sponsor, the Jergens Co., agreed to part company when their contract ends next Dec. 31. The split came when Jergens tried to plug Dryad, a deodorant, with a commercial that was too malodorous for Winchell (". . . decaying action of bacteria in perspiration . . ."). Winchell did not need to worry about losing Jergens' $390,000 a year. His network, ABC, rushed in and signed him to a $520,000-a-year contract (to prevent him from going to CBS), promised to turn over anything extra that another sponsor might want to pay. The new paycheck, even without his newspaper earnings, puts Winchell near the top of the Treasury's list of U.S. wage earners. But Winchell was rueful: "I don't give a damn about the money. I won't get any of it, anyhow. I'd have stayed if they had just shoved that commercial over to Parsons."*

P: Televiewers last week got a look at a radio program in action, We the People. It looked worse than it sounded. A guest named Evil-Eye Finkle made evil eyes at the camera; Mrs. Spencer Tracy fastened her eyes to the script; Fred Allen mostly looked glum; Nat ("King") Cole sang Nature Boy and Composer Eden Ahbez showed his curls. Master of Ceremonies Dwight Weist went his own way, all but ignoring the prying eye of the telecamera.

P: Hollywood was now almost knee-deep in TV. Warner Brothers closed a $1,000,000 deal (contingent on the FCC's sanction) with New York Post Publisher Dorothy Thackrey to buy her two West Coast radio stations and a precious Los Angeles TV permit. Paramount already owns two stations, is bidding against 20th Century-Fox for a San Francisco channel. Twentieth Century-Fox announced that it will now also produce films specially for television. Only two major studios (MGM, RKO Radio) still hang back. "The whole industry," said one film maker, "is either jumping or jumpy."

* Louella Parsons, whose program follows Winchell's on the air, is also sponsored by Jergens.

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