Radio: Rainbow Remedy

To the unjaundiced eye, radio chuck-a-lucks like Mu$1co and Pot o’ Gold (TIME, Oct. 16) may seem a natural radio retort to cinema’s screeno, bingo, bank night, etc. But cinemanagers hate to have their potential customers stay home in the evening. Last month astute, 50-year-old Manager Bob Livingston of the Lincoln, Neb. Capitol tried a remedy for the lure of one radio rainbow: $1,000 to anyone sitting in his theatre instead of at home Tuesday nights when Pot o’ Gold’s $1,000 telephone call comes. Odds against his losing: about 50,000-to-1. Last week the Capitol still had its original bait, had won back most of its Tuesday night crowd. In the wind was a national variation of his scheme: a $2,000 pot, offered to all cinemaudiences of major U. S. cinema circuits, and subscribed by a $1-a-week assessment on each U. S. chain cinema house.