Radio: How Many Grains of Sand?

In radio’s fiercely fought Battle of Sunday Night, CBS seemed to be winning over rival NBC. In every time segment from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m., according to last week’s Hooperatings, CBS had piled up a commanding lead. Jack Benny, moving from NBC to CBS, not only carried most of his listening audience with him but appeared to have bolstered CBS shows before & after his program. On CBS at 6:30, ear-jarring Spike Jones had climbed a few pegs, while Ozzie & Harriet on NBC dropped a few. Horace Heidt, hastily switched by NBC from 10:30 p.m. (where he had polled 17.3%) to the spot opposite Benny, sagged to 11.4%. CBS’s Amos ‘n’ Andy kept a lead (19.1%) over NBC’s Phil Harris Show (13.3%).

From 8 p.m. on, a third network, ABC, entered the struggle for Sunday night listeners. With the freehanded giveaway show Stop the Music (19.2%) and Walter Winchell (who currently leads the field with the top Hooper of 29.7%), ABC has clearly distanced its older rivals. Hardest hit in the percentage battle is bag-eyed Fred Allen, who dropped below CBS’s Adventures of Sam Spade, as well as ABC’s Stop the Music.

But Allen, as usual, had the last word. Explaining the involved mysteries of Hooperatings to his (according to Hooper) diminishing audience, Allen said: “[Hooper] calls up a few people . . . and tells you how many listeners you have in the whole 48 states. It’s like multiplying the bottom of a bird cage and telling you how many grains of sand there are in the Sahara Desert.”