Television: Host with the Most

Ever since NBC made Nat “King” Cole the first Negro to host his own network show (TIME, July 15), potential sponsors have kept a sharp eye trained on both the show and its popularity polls. But even top nationwide ratings and a glittering line-up of guest stars (Harry Belafonte, Ella Fitzgerald, and in a rare upcoming live appearance, Bing Crosby) have failed to get him a national-sponsor nibble. Last week the makers of Rheingold Beer persuaded NBC to let them sponsor Cole in the East only—where Rheingold is marketed. “The fact that Cole is a Negro is of no importance to us,” said a Rheingold spokesman. “His show has quality, and he has even outranked The $64,000 Question.” Following Rheingold’s lead, two wine companies promptly asked to sponsor Cole in the West. And the program became NBC’s first nighttime show to be aired on a cooperative basis.

From Crooner Cole came praise for NBC for “supporting the show [at a cost of $20,000 a week] and picking out good sponsors—like Rheingold Beer.” As other sponsors queued up, Cole curled his prune-whip voice around a hot salvo for Madison Avenue: “That street still runs TV, and there is reluctance on its part to sell my show. Madison Avenue is in the North, and that’s where the resistance is. Sometimes the South is used as a football to take some of the stain off us in the North. I have been well received in nightclubs and on records—why not TV? You don’t judge entertainment on a racial basis.” This week, as Cole’s show began its fall season in a new time slot (Tues. 7:30 E.D.T.), some 16 regional sponsors had flocked around to pick at it.