JULY UP FRONT

Airway Robbery: Channel 4 Tries to Hijack 6:30 Fun

The war between KDFW Channel 4 and WFAA Channel 8 is beginning to get a little cutthroat. First, Channel 4 brought in a new anchor team who look suspiciously like clones of Channel 8’s highly popular duo, Tracy Rowlett and Iola Johnson. Then the two stations ran ads featuring a series of almost identical promotional slogans. Now KDFW is after WFAA’s highly successful “PM Magazine” format.

When the format, which is leased to local stations by the Westinghouse Corporation, came up for renegotiation recently, KDFW dangled big bucks in front of Westinghouse in an effort to buy it out from under Channel 8. Apparently Westinghouse wasn’t impressed: They signed Channel 8 to a multi-year deal based on the station’s solid ratings performance with the show. But KDFW’s bid did have its effect on the deal: Channel 8 reportedly had to cough up “substantially more” to renew the contract. Stay tuned.

High Rise vs. High Culture: Crow and Parker Settle Their Differences

The resolution of a quiet conflict between the Dallas museum board and developer Trammell Crow apparently led the way to the city council’s approval of another bond vote on the proposed museum complex (now tentatively set for November 6), city insiders say.

The conflict erupted when Crow bought a tract of land next to the proposed museum site, after voters turned down funding for construction in last year’s bond election. Crow’s proposal to build a multi-story office building on his site rankled museum supporters, who thought the building would “infringe” on the new museum’s aesthetics. That attitude, in turn, apparently rankled Crow, who didn’t hesitate to point out that private developments provide the tax monies that pay for new museum buildings.

Insiders say a series of 11th-hour meetings among Crow, museum director Harry Parker, and museum chairman George Charlton eventually ironed out the problem. Museum supporters now say the Crow building will be compatible with the proposed arts complex.

Where Are They Now? Laux, Mann Find Greener Pastures

From the Whatever Happened To Department, two notes of interest : Gar Laux, the former Chamber of Commerce president who left amid controversy in 1972, has resurfaced in Detroit as vice-president for marketing of Chrysler Corporation. Laux will be in charge of all marketing and sales for Chrysler in the United States and Canada.

Laux left the Chamber in ’72 because of a conflict with the board over additional expenditures for marketing. He subsequently started his own marketing consulting firm here, then moved to North Carolina to work with pro golfer Arnold Palmer’s growing financial empire. When tapped by Chrysler, he was in semi-retirement.

Greener pastures have also been found by Bob Mann, former chairman of the SMU Department of Journalism. Mann was recently named director of public affairs for the Federal Communications Commission in Washington – a newly created post considered a plum by media types. Mann left SMU in 1976 to work as a media consultant to Rep. Bob Krueger’s senatorial campaign. Following Krueger’s loss, Mann worked with the President’s Wage and Price Commission before stepping up to the FCC.

Bunker Hunt: A Billion Bucks For Jesus



Bunker Hunt is hard at work on his most ambitious project yet: Raising $1 billion to spread the word of Christ to the 4.3 billion inhabitants of planet Earth. Hunt, along with Roy Rogers and Holiday Inn magnate Wallace Johnson, is heading up the international Here’s Life Campaign, sponsored by the Campus Crusade for Christ. Among other things, the campaign strategy involves organizing churches and missionaries worldwide and, with the help of Warner Brothers, making a film called Jesus, based on a literal interpretation of the gospel of Luke. It will be released in the U.S. in October and later dubbed into more than 160 languages.

Hunt is currently looking for 1000 businessmen who will put up at least $1 million each over the next five years to reach his goal. Always one to set the example, Hunt kicked off the campaign by promising $10 million. So far, the results have been impressive: A recent meeting of 250 people from around the country at the Fairmont Hotel resulted in commitments amounting to $35 million, bringing the start-up total to just over $75 million.

Is the Underground Shopper Underhanded?

The Underground Shopper, billed as an impartial consumer’s guide to good buys and merchants in Dallas, got a sting from the Texas Attorney General’s office recently. Seems that a handful of merchants who’d refused to pay to be listed in the Shopper complained they’d been given unfavorable reviews in retaliation. Indeed, the attorney general found no uniform standards of rating the stores, and such standards as there were were applied inconsistently.

“We found ourselves concerned with inherent misrepresentation,” says Joe Chumlea of the attorney general’s Consumer Protection Division. “There were suspected violations of the Deceptive Trade Practices Act.” The Shopper’s publishers were put on notice in the 193rd District Court and given the chance to promise they’d comply with the law in the future. They made the promise.

Publisher Sue Goldstein insists her book is taking a bum rap. “There was just some confusion and that was five years ago. We tried to rectify it. We now list 917 merchants who are shopped anonymously and we have uniform ratings. I swear, there was no wrongdoing.”

Bad Circulation: The “News” and the “Herald” Aren’t as Healthy as They Say

Newspaper reporters hate the word games lawyers play, but when it comes to self-promotion, even the daily press indulges in an occasional white lie. Take the Dallas Morning News, which, in the May 6 edition, billed itself as “Dallas’ Largest and Fastest Growing Newspaper.” The paper published huge bar graphs in red showing circulation superiority over the Times Herald. It was almost true: The News does sell more papers than the Herald. But the fact is that both papers now sell fewer copies than they did a year ago.

According to figures compiled by the Audit Bureau of Circulation, the News’ average daily circulation for the six-month period ending March 31, 1979, was 280,124 daily and 345,618 Sunday. That compares to 282,751 daily and 352,257 Sunday the year before – a decline of 1 percent weekdays and 2 percent on Sunday. The Herald’s losses were more severe: down 3 percent from 250,505 daily a year ago and down 1.4 percent from 344,601 on Sunday.

When the News says it’s “Bigger and Better . . . still growing,” it really means it’s shrunk slower than the Herald. Curiously, the circulation problems in Dallas County – one of the fastest growing in the country – buck a national newspaper trend of growth over the previous year.

Private Practice: Caruth’s New School System



Wealthy Dallas businessman W. W. Caruth Jr. is known for doing things in a quiet way, but his latest plan may hit with a splash: Caruth wants to start his own school system.

He recently had the Community Chest Trust Fund return to his personal foundation $1.3 million in stock dividends (from NorthPark Inn preferred stock he had previously donated to the Chest) for the project, and enlisted former Greenhill School headmaster Bernard Fulton to spearhead the effort. The Caruth system would operate around a central high school sharing its accreditation with “satellite” elementary schools, to be established in local church classrooms by franchise.

Caruth’s goal is to give parents an alternative to the Dallas public schools – which he believes are, by definition, robbed of authority and rendered even more helpless by busing. “It’d put the schools back in the neighborhood where they belong,” he says. “The two basic requirements would be that a student behave and keep up. If he doesn’t, the administration should kick his ass out of there.”

The project is far from getting off the ground. Even so, the idea that a branch of the Caruth system could spring up wherever there is classroom space in Dallas makes him chuckle. “Wouldn’t it be ridiculous if they started leasing public schools to a private school?”