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| Broadcasting |
August
18, 1975
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| Huge promotional push to get ITC's
'Space: 1999' into orbit |
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Photos/Captions:
Page 20:
Photo:
WTVJ(TV) General Sales Manager Tom Fraioli, Barbara Bain and Martin Landau and Local
Sales Manager Mal Kahn pose before the Miami's Space Transit Planetarium's projector.
Caption:
Space spectacular. Among the elaborate station promotions for ITC's Space:
1999 was one at Miami's Space Transit Planetarium, where some 350 clients and
press representatives were treated to a preview and reception by WTVJ(TV), last Monday
(Aug. 11) L to r: General Sales Manager Tom Fraioli, series stars Barbara Bain and
Martin Landau and Local Sales Manager Mal Kahn. |
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Broadcasting
August 18, 1975
Pages 19-20
(Author: Unknown)
Programing
Huge promotional push to get ITC's 'Space: 1999' into orbit
Syndicated show said to be costliest ever receives commensurate PR efforts by stations,
some of which will pre-empt networks for it
Promotion directors at many TV stations around the country are doing more tub-thumping
for a new syndicated show, the one-hour Space: 1999, than for the new prime-time
programs they'll be carrying from their networks.
One reason is that their managers in many cases are scheduling the science-fiction
series at least partly in prime time, pre-empting or delaying the affected network
program. Network station-relations executives confirmed last week that Space:
1999 was giving them more displacement problems than they needed, although some
also tended to minimize the difficulties.
Planetaria and museums--or more conventional sites decked out in space-flight style--are
being used by a number of stations for preview parties for clients, local opinion
leaders and newsmen.
WTVJ(TV) Miami, for one, entertained 350 guests last Monday night at the Miami Space
Transit Planetarium, previewing both Space: 1999 and the new CBS-TV schedule
under a multimedia projection of the Miami skies as astronomers determined they will
appear on Sept. 13, 1999--the date when, in the space series, the moon is blasted
out of orbit and the adventures of Space: 1999 begin. Similarly, WUAB(TV)
Cleveland-Lorain, an independent, showed the first episode of Space: 1999
to some 300 guests last Wednesday under a simulation of Sept. 13, 1999, skies at
the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.
KDNL-TV St. Louis, another independent, is having a preview party for about 200 guests
at the McDonnell Douglas Planetarium on Sept. 8. In a somewhat different tack, KHJ-TV
Los Angeles, also an independent, reports that it is working with the California
Museum of Science and Industry on a Space: 1999 display opening there Oct.
1 for eight weeks. KTIV(TV) Sioux City, Iowa, will have it's "Space: 1999-NBC
Preview Party" at the local Hilton but with sets built to resemble a space ship's
control room. KFSN-TV Fresno, Calif., a CBS outlet, will have several hundred guests
in to a combined preview and grand opening of it's new plant on Sept. 10.
Linkups with museums and use of space-age mock-ups are among the more exotic additions
to conventional advertising and promotion. Costumes used in the series which were
designed by Rudi Gernreich, the noted fashion designer are being traveled around
the country and put on display in shopping malls and other traffic centers by a number
of stations, including WFLA-TV Tampa, Fla.; KTVV-TV Austin, Tex., and KFSN-TV Fresno.
In Sioux City, KTIV not only plans to have costumes on display for a full week but
among other things is working with 11 local department stores to install video cassette
players for continuous playing of Space: 1999 promos, with Roger Mansfield,
station manager, narrating highlights.
Some stations, such as KRON-TV San Francisco, are going after the Star Trek
cult in particular. KRON-TV, an NBC affiliate, is doing a mailing to the 6,000-plus
names on the mailing list of the Trading Post in Berkeley, Calif., a store dealing
solely in Star Trek memorabilia, and is thinking of holding a special preview
in Berkeley for the Trekkers. In Cleveland, WUAB is scheduling Star Trek as
lead-in to Space: 1999, KMSP-TV Minneapolis-St. Paul, an ABC outlet, hopes
to reach a larger, if less preconditioned, potential audience by passing out special
promotion material at it's space at the Minnesota State Fair from Aug. 20 through
Sept. 1.
Many stations are launching the series on Sept. 13 to coincide with the moon-blast
date in the first episode. Many others are starting earlier--or broadcasting "previews"--to
get the jump on new network programming and in the process to get more extensive
play in local newspapers and TV supplements.
Independent Television Corp., which produced and is distributing the series, has
produced a wide range of promotional support. "I've never known a syndicator,
ever, to put this much behind a promotion," said Larry Kellogg, promotion manager
of WFLA-TV Tampa. "It's just never happened. And it's quality material."
Jerry Bronston, promotion and public relations director of KMSP-TV Minneapolis-St.
Paul, said "they're sending us everything you can think of."
Martin Landau and Barbara Bain, stars of the series, have made 151 personalized promos
for individual stations, given 74 telephone interviews, made personal appearances
in nine cities, and are slated to appear on all major national talk shows. ITC is
also providing 30-second promos--usable as 30's, 20's or 10's--for each of the series's
24 episodes, plus promos for the series as a whole. Beyond that, stations have been
furnished with slides for on-air use, suggested copy for local on-air origination
along with background music on audio tapes, a selection of photos--on contact sheets
in both color and black and white--from each episode and for generic use, materials
for TV Guide ads and for newspaper ads of all sizes from full pages down,
plus sales kits and press kits as well as access to merchandising material that already
ranges from T-shirts to pocket books, comic books and $15 models of the series's
space ship and eventually is due to include more than 100 products.
Abe Mandell, ITC president, who initiated plans for the series, says it is clearly
the most expensive in TV history, with costs to date totaling $6.5 million, but that
it is already assured of being profitable with sales thus far in 146 U.S. markets--including
48 of the top 50 and predominantly to network affiliates, and in 101 other countries
around the world.
Mr. Mandell says he has been surprised--but is obviously pleased--that one early
forecast proved wrong. He said last winter in announcing the show that he expected
many stations to delay starting it until they could determine which network shows
proved weak, and then work it in as a prime-time substitute (Broadcasting, Jan 20).
Instead, he said last week, stations haven't waited. He said that 98 of the 146 station
buyers' thus far have already reported time slots and over 60% of these are in prime
time, displacing network shows by shifting them to other periods if not pre-empting
them completely.
Among the ABC shows most frequently displaced reportedly are Barbary Coast
(Monday, 8-9 p.m. NYT) and Happy Days and Welcome Back, Kotter (Tuesday,
8-9); on CBS-TV, Big Eddie (Friday, 8-8:30) and Good Times and Joe
& Sons (Tuesday, 8-9), and on NBC-TV, Invisible Man (Monday, 8-9)
and Montefusco and Fay (Thursday, 8-9).
Article content copyright © by
the respective copyright holder(s). |
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| Space:
1999 Centerfold (Advertising Insert) |
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