Radio: How to Attract Women

In Manhattan last week, the TV industry was mulling over the advice of a practicing psychologist. Vienna-born Dr. Ernest Dichter had told his 60-odd corporate clients that U.S. women who claim they don’t like daytime TV are only fooling.

Psychologist Dichter* arrived at this conclusion, not by asking women questions and totting up the answers, but by letting them “ramble on.” He explained: “We use a free association technique.” Added his pressagent: “Dr. Dichter’s conducting a revolution against pure statistics.”

By thus plumbing the female subconscious, Psychologist Dichter decided that what kept women from watching pure entertainment programs in the daytime was 1) fear of temptation and resultant loss of work time, 2) guilt feelings if work is not finished, and 3) fear of loss of recognition as a “sacrificing housewife.” On the other hand, Dr. Dichter believes that women would be bored stiff by “domestic and educational” programs. His conclusion, a tip to program directors and sponsors: to catch women daytime viewers, shows must be labeled as “educational” but actually be “camouflaged entertainment.”

*Dr. Dichter made another notable survey for American Airlines, to explain why many people had never ridden in planes. A main reason, announced Dichter, was fear of “posthumous embarrassment”—i.e., people don’t mind being killed in a crash as much as they worry about friends who might say complacently: “Well, I told him never to go up in a plane.”