Radio: The Great Salesman

When Edgar Kobak became boss of the Mutual Broadcasting System, it was a nationwide junkpile of 247 “light bulbs” and “coffee pots” (low-power radio stations). That year (1944), advertisers spent $19,600,000 for Mutual’s thin air; in 1946, $25,800,000. And this week Mutual signed up its 400th station: Atlantic City’s 250-watt WMID. It was the 15th station to join Mutual in 15 days, the 153rd since Kobak took over.

At 51, Ed Kobak is an unpressed little man with a face that might have been clipped from any old banquet photograph —shy, inexact grin, blurred eyes, tired grey hair. Actually, he is a sensationally successful huckster, known far & wide among radiomen as The Great Salesman. He loves Donald Duck, practical jokes and the Notre Dame team. He signs his letters with a great big friendly “Ed.” In his office is an eight-foot bull whip; Ed likes to snap it around and make like a slave-driver. But all his employees know that Ed is just kidding; he’s really a card. His office door is always open, and to make perfectly sure that nobody gets any uppity ideas, Ed has had interoffice partitions torn down in Mutual’s Manhattan offices.

Ed got a fast start in radio as NBC’s sales manager; he laid the commercial foundations of the Blue Network (now ABC) almost singlehanded. When he came to Mutual, Coca-Cola transferred its $2,000,000 account, just to be with Ed.

Ed sells almost continually, for the love of it. Last year he traveled some 75,000 miles, calling on stations and sponsors. He made speeches at every other Rotary luncheon he saw (he does a lallapaloosa about a salesman, propped with a worn-out pair of shoes and a doorknob). Every night in bed, Ed reads a copy of every business letter (sometimes there are hundreds) sent out by Mutual to clients and stations that day. Betweentimes, he scribbles away at the MBS Open Circuit, a diary which he gets printed up once a week and circulated to all “Mutualites” and clients. Excerpt:

“Some of us are getting a bit careless again in watching expenses and extremely careless on the subject of office hours. Just to let you in on a secret—our offices are open at 9:15. . . . It’s a business organization and we want everybody to be busy—and we know from experience that when you are busy you are happy. And we want everybody to be happy.”

Also in the Open Circuit, lucky employees get what Ed calls a “P.F.” (Praised Fearlessly). If a Mutual man wins enough P.F.s, he may get to be a “Boy Scout,” Ed’s most affectionate nickname for favored underlings.

Of such jolly bits & pieces, Ed has built his huge theater. Now all he really needs are some good shows. Aside from alert news and sports coverage, big, sprawling Mutual has only six or seven programs worth the time of day or night. Ed knows his weakness: “Programs will be our No. 1 objective this year.” He means “programs with that commercial aroma.” Ed once directed Conductor George Szell of the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra not to play over Mutual “for art’s sake—play simple, melodic things for the millions.”

Ed is frankly out for the millions. “We’re not going to fuss around with highbrow programs. We’re primed for a battle with the other networks for mass listenership. It’s taken us two years to get in position, and now we’re going to move in, fast.”