Radio and Television: Early Development

Items especially relevant to the development of radio and television include:
The "Officers" and "Staff" Series contains presentations on television program production and the exploitation of color (Speeches Subseries) and other materials on media management, test marketing, and talent casting (Staff Resources Subseries).
The "Corporate Publications" Series contains several histories of the agency produced as marketing materials from 1938 through the early 1960s, each describing B&B's radio and television strategies, production growth, and accomplishments to date.
The "History" series and "Frank Smith" subseries includes William Benton's account of the early days of radio and B&B's foray into radio advertising. Also in this subseries, the shooting script "Television: An Autobiography" (May 3, 1963), located in the folder "Resource materials about 1958-1966, 1958-1968," is a creative summary of B&B's successes in television advertising and program production.
The "Gordon Webber Project, Our Kind of People" Subseries contains additional documentation of the agency's first fifty years.

The Chesebrough-Pond's account file, in particular, provides a case study of how a traditional mass-market advertising portfolio was retooled in the early 1950s for the new medium of television. The file includes a snapshot of the television programming landscape during this formative period. Note these folders in Box 4, under the heading "Reports": A Study of Pond's Television Advertising, 1953; Media Recommendations, 1956-1957; and A Study of Pond's Advertising, 1956.
The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) account history (Box 16) contains a very early (circa 1948) case report on the marketing of--and market for--RCA Victor television sets. The file conveys the agency's perspective on the development of television as a public medium in the years immediately following World War II. Between 1946 and 1948, as television broadcast coverage expanded from five stations in three markets to 48 stations in 29 markets, the sale of television sets changed from a regional to a national marketing challenge.

Of particular interest are the files marked "Advertising--Expenditures--by Media--Radio and TV" (Boxes 14 and 15). In some of the early files, expenditures are broken down by mode of advertising (e.g., network programming versus 'spot' commercials), brand, product class, type of activity, and time of day.

Box 1 of this collection contains "Programs & Sponsors, 1934-1959," consisting of two series of large index cards arranged alphabetically by program title and by name of program sponsor. Program cards list a program's title, sponsor, broadcast, network or production company through which the sponsor's time was contracted, contract terms, broadcast network, time slot, program package price, and date of contract. Some also note contract transfers to other agencies, contract termination dates, markets in which the program was broadcast, dates on which the show was pre-empted, and option terms. Cards for Soaps (Soap Operas) and Sports are organized separately. Sponsor cards list program titles, names of talent contracted, broadcast medium, details of talent's representation (agents), dates of broadcast, type of service rendered, compensation, and contract date. The second box, "Talent, Music & Contract Cards, 1936-1962" contains a detailed card series describing the terms of the agency's contracts with individual performers, a second series documenting musical works for which JWT purchased performance rights, and a complete contract card index to individual paragraphs of the terms of talent and music contracts. The paragraphs are in numerical order, followed by clauses, amendments, extensions, and cancellation letters. Contract terms requested by individual artists but denied by JWT are also recorded on individual cards. The last series in the box lists artists' agents, including the names of agency principals, the artists they represent, and the names of the JWT clients to whom the artists are contracted. Additional information and contracts may be found in the JWT Microfilm Collection.

The Reports Subseries contains materials on the pre-testing of television commercials, radio and television program ratings services, and performer popularity analysis. Considerable overlap in content exists between the Radio-Television Department Series and the Corporate Administration Series, especially concerning television advertising produced by the New York office. This overlap also reflects Seymour's increasing involvement, by the mid 1960s, in company-wide management, leading to his eventual election as the fourth president of JWT, succeeding Norman Strouse.

The Clients Series, 1951-1970, documents television programming and media strategies for major JWT clients, including Ford Motor Company, Kraft Foods, Eastman Kodak, Lever Brothers, Liggett & Myers, and Scott Paper Company. Correspondence and memoranda in individual television program files reveal the level of agency control over scripts, plots, characterization, and choice of actors, regardless if the show was developed by JWT or already established but taking on a JWT client as sponsor. Client files also document how ad expenditures were distributed among various media and advertising options per medium (e.g., network television versus spot television, print ads in popular magazines versus industry journals), and the basis for these advertising decisions.

Materials on radio programming in the collection are minimal but include, in the Clients Series, a folder on the "Arthur Godfrey Time" radio show for the Schlitz Brewing Company, and several presentations and speeches about radio advertising in the Office Files and Miscellaneous subseries of the Corporate Administration Series, 1955-1973.

For other materials on Devine, see: J. Walter Thompson Company, Sidney Ralph Bernstein Company History Files. Oral Interview Transcripts Series.(1964 Sept.); J. Walter Thompson, Colin Dawkins papers - Interview, Aug. 1979.

The Legal Microfilm booklets index radio contracts and other contracts for broadcasting (copyright releases, consents, production rights, sports) on microfilm. In some cases, related correspondence is included in a performer's contract file. For some shows, contracts are grouped by broadcast date. The radio and television scripts are indexed in the “As Broadcast” Microfilm booklet, also located in the Reading Room. For assistance in locating specific scripts, please contact the Reference Archivist. Broadcast date and title of the show are necessary for locating any scripts in this collection.

Significant relevant presentations in the Account Representatives' Meetings (1927-1932) series include:

11 July 1928 - A report on the latest developments in radio, including an overview of other agencies' activities in radio, discussion of JWT accounts already "on the air," and the technical aspects of transmitting programs by wire or short wave between cities.
3 April 1929 - A presentation on the different varieties of radio ads and the effectiveness of different approaches.
10 April 1929 - A talk on the value of radio as an advertising medium, with statistics on radio ownership, audience demographics, and audience survey results for Royal Baking Powder ads
8 July 1930 - "Radio Plan Work," a primer on rethinking print copywriting strategies and practices for radio and a listening audience.
12 August 1930 - "Showmanship in Radio"--a continuation of the July 8 talk, with introductory remarks about JWT's expectations for television as an emerging commercial broadcast medium.
16 September 1930 - Reference to a Time magazine article on the first commercial television broadcast (a JWT production).
13 January 1931 - The presentation "Media Aspects of Radio Advertising" paints a detailed picture of radio as an advertising terrain, and the Radio Department's strategies for navigating it, as well as how other networks are operating in the medium.
14 April 1931 - Detailed description of how a radio program gets produced, and how Radio Department personnel knit advertising into both process and product.
2 February 1932 - An overview of the radio advertising market: why clients are interested, how advertising is handled, what other agencies are doing and a critical assessment of their approaches.

In the Creative Organization Meetings (1932-1934) series, see:

26 March 1932 - A talk on "showmanship" in radio advertising, the unique challenges of writing for a radio audience, and how to exploit radio as a medium for propaganda.

Examples of relevant contents include:
William L. Day, "What About Radio?" (1930s)
Linnea Nelson, "Why Radio Time Buying is Hell" (1944)
Linnea Nelson, "How Should Television Be Sold?" (1949)
Arthur A. Porter, "New Dimension of Radio" (1957)
Jack B. Landis, "Measuring the Effectiveness of Television Advertising" (1961)

Jones also lectured widely on advertising methods and strategies.
The "Speeches 1955-1974" subseries includes such titles as "Television Commercials From Confusion to Conclusion" (1955), "Creation of Television's and Radio's Advertising Effectiveness" (1957), and "How to Create More Effective Radio Commercials" (1959).