Word: sparger
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Nielsen Co., which repeatedly warns its sample audience against such tampering attempts, uncovered and thwarted Sparger's scheme well before the air date of the Channing show. Nielsen sued Sparger for $1,500,000 for "impairment of confidence in the accuracy of the measurement service and the security of the sample." The suit also charged that 1) Sparger used privileged information gathered as a onetime congressional investigator of the ratings industry, and 2) he "concluded that it would be possible to obtain substantial sums of money [for rigging shows] on behalf of interested parties." The company immediately deployed private...
Wait For Santa Claus. One possibility was Charles F. Lowe, who is Carol Channing's husband, manager and sometime producer. In pretrial hearings, Sparger swore that he had met Lowe only casually, had spoken on the phone with him at most twice, and had not "received any money from Mr. Lowe for any purpose." Double checking, Nielsen detectives got two depositions to the contrary. The first, from Bell Telephone companies, revealed that Sparger and Lowe had recently exchanged not two but at least 40 calls. The second, from a woman teller at Oklahoma City's Liberty National Bank...
Before these depositions came out, Lowe denied to the press that he had ever done business with Sparger. He also signed an affidavit, say Nielsen spokesmen, indicating that he had no connection with any rigging. To debate the contradictory evidence, lawyers for Nielsen, Sparger and Lowe met in Chicago over the July 4 weekend. Nielsen's man suggested that the company would drop the suit if Sparger would make a complete, Nielsen-ghosted public confession of his activities and Lowe would pay $100,000 to cover the company's expenses in the case. Sparger and Lowe rejected...
...Needed Help? In reply, Lowe contended that his $4,000 payment to Sparger was only for a survey of the show's "commercial effectiveness," presumably by polling viewers. Such an analysis is commonly made by sponsors if not by producers. In any case, Lowe noted, it is "ridiculous and incredible to believe that Carol Channing should need any help," because in both the Nielsen and Arbitron ratings, her special outdrew the second-place show in the time slot by millions of viewers. And even if somebody wished to rig the ratings, it would seem ridiculous...
...Sparger shifts around the names of the other three programs. Industry insiders believe he was interested primarily in the Channing show...