Radio: A Sponsor for the Bishop

With his Life Is Worth Living, Bishop Fulton J. Sheen last year proved that a religious TV show could put a dent even in Milton Berle’s huge audience. Among the impressed observers was President Ross Siragusa of Admiral Corp., maker of radio and TV sets. Last week Siragusa announced that Admiral will sponsor Bishop Sheen this season on a coast-to-coast Du Mont TV network. Telecaster Sheen’s fee for the season: nearly $1,000,000, to be paid to Mission Humanity, Inc. (Bishop Sheen is the national director), a voluntary agency of the United Nations which distributes funds to leper hospitals, orphanages and homes for the aged without regard to race, creed or color.

This week Du Mont, Admiral Corp. and its advertising agency were struggling with the problem of how to manage the commercials on Life Is Worth Living. Present plans, according to a Du Mont spokesman: ‘The bishop will open with his usual good evening. Then he will possibly say, ‘And now a message from our sponsor,’ and well cut away from him to do a one-minute, high-level, institutional commercial. There will be no commercial in the middle of the show and just a little direct sell at the end. When the last commercial is over, the bishop will come back for his goodnight.”