Word: secondary
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...insisted a CBS executive. "We never discussed the script from the point of view of its subject matter. Our decision was based simply on our feeling that it wasn't a successful script. We just couldn't lick some of the creative problems." Retorted the author, John Secondari, head of ABC's Washington news bureau and himself a commentator: "I absolutely believe that it is a matter of CBS policy, not a question of dramatic merit...
...Secondari, an experienced novelist (Coins in the Fountain), wrote no Emmy winner in The Commentator, but the script is better than many and unique in coming to grips with a problem of backstage TV at the topmost level. Secondari's commentator creates a crisis by blasting a demagogic Congressman. The network backs him up (as CBS backed up Edward R. Murrow in his celebrated 1954 editorial against Joe McCarthy). But in the end-after speeches deriding the network board of directors as "careful coupon clippers'' and the advertising agencies as "prudent dispensers of panaceas and happy endings...
...Secondari, who works as a newsman for a network that encourages commentators to editorialize, wrote his play for NBC's Alcoa Hour about a year ago. Producer Herbert Brodkin bought it, but NBC refused to put it on the air. NBC's candid explanation, as given last week by a spokesman: "In making it appear that sponsors or advertising agencies have any influence on network news shows, the script was simply untrue." The rights to the play then reverted to Secondari. When Producer Brodkin moved over to CBS's Studio One, he bought The Commentator again, paying...