The Biggest Studio (Contd.)

TV blanketed San Francisco with $10 million worth of gadgets on top of Cadillacs, hotels and barns, at airports, inside train stations and cramped hotel corridors. But unlike the strife-spiced Chicago convention, the show itself failed to measure up to the expensive, flexible coverage accorded it. Said CBS's Convention Boss Sig Mickelson: "The Democratic Convention was hard news; the Republican Convention is soft news."

No single network ran away with journalistic honors. All three had their share of beats; CBS cut off Sherman Adams (who had just addressed himself to the "millions watching TV") to bring viewers an absorbing, technically brilliant scene from inside the airport control tower and a radarscope-view of Ike's Columbine winging toward the city. Equally expert and alert, NBC's mobile unit rode herd on the President's motorcade all the way to the St. Francis Hotel downtown. Next day NBC beat the other webs to the President's first "live" press conference (film versions of White House conferences are skillfully edited). ABC's TV floor operatives, jostled by delegates and Cow Palace cops, gave viewers their first glimpse of Nebraska's "Terrible Terry" Carpenter after he nominated that generic American character Joe Smith for Vice President (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS).

Cartoons & Shorts. For the most part, the Republicans trudged through the script like good town marshals in an uninspired Hollywood horse opera. Even with live pigeons and baby elephants, Chinese dragons and pretty pompon girls to dress up the act, the actors were depressingly well-mannered. But if the feature attraction was predictable, there were some lively cartoons and notable short subjects: a beaming Ike playfully flicking balloons with Joe Martin; Mrs. Henry Cabot Lodge cold-shouldering Harold Stassen; Keynoter Langlie imitating Keynoter Frank ("How long, O how long?") Clement; the Eisenhowers and Nixons grouped together beneath the rostrum; Ike's proud-grandpa chuckle when beamish Len Hall made eight-year-old David Eisenhower honorary convention chairman; Joe Martin steadying old (82) Herbert Hoover with a thoughtful touch of the elbow; the fixed, pasty smile on the face of Harold Stassen; the sheer spectacle of thousands of balloons cascading overhead as bells, sirens, organ and band music clashed with the crowd's roar.

Humor & Error. Caught with dead time on their hands, the reporters just let the pundits talk (complained ABC's Martin Agronsky: "There's no fight here and I'm not going to make one"). ABC lined up an able but monotonous panel of experts: Author Quincy (The World We Lost) Howe, Erwin Canham (Christian Science Monitor) and Ernest Lindley (Newsweek). CBS's Sevareid-Murrow duo this time worried less about making history than reporting it, and NBC laid on durable old (78) Hans V. Kaltenborn (it was his 18th convention) with his blackboard doodlings and a lofty contempt for all the fancy new gadgetry. The NBC tete-`a-tetes were again larded with the deadpan humor of Commentator David Brinkley. Between conventions, ABC's baggy-eyed John Daly squeezed in a Manhattan trip to appear on What's My Line?, reported: "The panel told me I look tired. Well, how the hell was I supposed to look?"

TV's technical failures ran neck and neck with human errors. NBC's Chet Huntley. caught with his mike open, was overheard asking for a cup of coffee, later introduced Herbert Hoover Jr. as "Hoobert Hover"; Daly referred to "the late Senator John Sherman Cooper" (who later rose to address the convention); Elmer Peterson (NBC) reported: "Now the President's plane is landing at Los Angeles' International Airport."

Song & Dance. These unscheduled bits were topped with great helpings of pre-fabricated entertainment: trumpet-voiced Ethel Merman belting her show tunes through the rafters, Irving Berlin's trembling version of his own song, Ike for Four More Years, the pear-shaped tones of Nat "King" Cole's pop singing, the high reaches of the Met's Patrice Munsel, the stylized chitchat of Mutual's old-time Cinemactress Constance Bennett ("I don't feel well; I feel frazzled").

But one of the biggest reasons for the show's doldrums was ex-Hoofer George Murphy, who issued an "Urgent Message" to all delegates: "Keep your mind on the TV camera, because the TV camera may be on you." Apparently Stage Manager Murphy told everybody everything except what to say. Commented Murphy: "Someday I'm going to run a convention the right way, with a trap door right under the speakers."

Early audience figures were a jolting disappointment to sponsors and networks. According to rating services, about 32 million families (or 85% of all TV homes) watched at least some part of the show, but only 30% watched it most of the time. NBC and CBS split 80% of the audience about evenly, and ABC got the balance. Though delegates intend to go right on using TV as a political soapbox, networks may have other plans for 1960. Despite lavish sponsor commitments, the TV chains lost money. CBS alone estimated a loss of some $500,000. (Ike's day-early arrival cost them $100,000 by pre-empting The $64,000 Question.) As a show, it was stiff, padded and costly, but TV served tradition to the hilt.

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