The Busy Air

P: Norman Leyden, musical director of CBS's The $64,000 Question, helpfully enumerated the types of music required for a big giveaway show. Included are: 1) "Playon music." to fit the personality of the contestant as he comes on stage; 2) "Sorting and Punching music," to fit the mechanical gyrations of the IBM machine as it picks out the card containing questions; 3) "Thinking music," to match the cerebrations of the contestant as he tries to come up with the right answer; and 4) "Cold-Sweat music," to match the audience mood as the contestant broods inside the illuminated box during the 30 seconds allowed before he tries for the big money. According to Leyden, the best suspense music is supplied by muted brasses, and combinations like the piccolo, harp and xylophone. A piece like Ravel's Bolero is best for times of tension.

P: CBS and NBC traded punches in the endless audience-rating war. According to last week's Trendex figures, NBC's Perry Como edged out Jackie Gleason's Honeymooners, 26.5 to 25.7, while CBS's 90-minute Eddie Fisher show walloped NBC's George Gobel, 31.5 to 18.5.

P: In Chicago, Researcher A. C. Nielsen's list of the Top Ten radio shows contained not a single nighttime program. Radio's decline was further emphasized by the fact that the three top shows were all daytime soap operas: Young Dr. Malone, Guiding Light and Ma Perkins.

P: In Hollywood, Cinemogul Spyros Skouras, president of 20th Century-Fox, admitted that TV "has given us tremendous competition and is rapidly arid vastly improving, with such presentations as the Sadler's Wells Ballet, Peter Pan and The Devil's Disciple, which the people get gratis."

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