Time & Space

In the business of selling advertising time and space, 1937 was a nip & tuck race between a spring spurt and a fall recession. The spurt won by a few whiskers, and the year's $928,300,000 turnover was 5.7% ahead of the 1936 volume, according to tallies made public last week.-

Radio. National Broadcasting Co. dropped 70 employes in November, a few weeks before General Motors' discontinued its Sunday Symphony, Chevrolet's Romantic Rhythms (CBS) and Pontiac's Varsity Show. But NBC's 1937 take for radio time turned out to be $125,000,000, an 18% increase over the previous year. Thirty-six new stations were licensed during the year. As further evidence of good health, last week the three big networks contracted for 1,000 additional musicians.

Magazines. The plague of picture magazines did not add a corresponding volume of advertising to the magazine business. But one picture magazine, LIFE, made the most brilliant new showing of the year by selling $7,300,000 worth of space in the first eleven months, crowding into the Big Eight.* The in other leading magazines carried $161,000,000 worth of advertising in 1937, a 15% gain.

Billboards-Outdoor advertising, not quite so susceptible to quick shifts in business confidence, also showed a 15% gain over 1936 with a $40,000,000 total.

Newspapers-Twenty-three daily papers folded last year and the 2,084 remaining squeezed by with a 2% gain over 1936. However, the $595,000,000 spent for newspaper advertising is still the elephant's helping of the $928,000,000 rough total (excluding weekly newspapers) of tallied advertising for 1937.

*By Radio Today, Outdoor Advertising, Inc., Publishers' Information Bureau, Editor & Pub Usher and Printers' Ink. *Eight in order: Saturday Evening Post, Col lier's, American Weekly, Good Housekeeping, TIME, LIFE, Woman's Home Companion, Ladies' Home Journal.

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