The Did Justice Triumph? Radio Program

Background

Preview programs weren't particularly new to 1940s Radio. Since the mid-1930s most of major Film Studios had plugged their latest productions through a multitude of movies on the air programs. They were much like the trailers shown in movie houses across America, and very much like those annoying five to seven movie trailers we each pay $15 to see with our favorite movies today. But these previews were on Radio. Film previews simply served to create interest in the listening public for a soon to be released film. In at least one instance however, Warner Brothers attempted something similar to Radio program previews with its Warner Academy Theater often referred to as Encore Theatre of The Air. Promising rising young Warner Bros. stars were featured in screenplays upon which the listening audience could phone or write in to voice their approval or disapproval for a given talent or screenplay.

Radio program previews--or public auditions--were a new wrinkle in test marketing for their day. CBS and NBC both exercised this technique during the 1940s. CBS's rendition was called CBS Forecast. NBC's rendition was called NBC Premieres [For Your Approval] and the later Show Case which auditioned BBC Programmes for possible adoption by the network. Not to be outdone, MBS also employed the format with its For Your Approval series from 1945 to 1947 and emcee'd by Sherman 'Jock' MacGregor. It was a very innovative way to gauge listeners' real-time interest in a proposed program or series of programs to a far greater audience than test marketing auditions might disclose. To be sure, CBS, NBC, and MBS performed such focus group testing for smaller productions. They'd invite a cross-section of their target audience to one of their studios, give them the grand tour, treat them like honored guests, then sit them down and gauge their responses to a test program.

The major broadcasts that CBS Forecast, NBC Premieres and MBS For Your Approval produced were--depending on the network--somewhat grander in both scope and potential, if they clicked with a nationwide audience. In the case of MBS' For Your Approval series, Mutual had to gauge listener interest on at least on two important counts:

• Would the proposed programs generate strong enough prime-time ratings to risk airing them as sustaining productions until a major sponsor could be brought on board, or . . .
• Would a potential listening sponsor be so taken with the proposed program that they'd make Mutual an offer to sponsor the program on spec . . .

The more resource-intensive productions certainly merited a wider test audience--especially proposed programs with major name stars. Major talent might receive $3,500 to $8,000 a week during the era for a program in which the star was featured on a recurring basis. Add another $1,500 to $3,000 per week in production costs, technical support, marketing, supporting cast, orchestra, etc., and the proposed production may have represented a major investment for the day. Mutual's For Your Approval simply provided MBS a wider net to cast over their airwaves and perhaps snag a bigger fish in the process. And in Mutual's case they occasionally did just that. In fact Mutual's Did Justice Triumph was one of the first three weekly public auditions that For Your Approval presented.

Mutual spins off Did Justice Triumph from its public audition

From the January 26th 1947 edition of the [Pulaski, Virginia] Southwest Times:

Mutual To Begin
Mid-Week Series
From Newspaper

     Stories of people 'right down your block,' avidly read by millions as a weekend newspaper feature, will be dramatized in a new Mutual weekly series titled "Did Justice Triumph?" commencing over WPUV on Wednesday, (10 to 10:30 p. m.)
     George Carson Putnam, Mutual news commentator, is heard as narrator on this new show which is based on the New York Daily News' Sunday feature of the same name.  The stories adapted for the Mutual program have been carefully culled from over 1,250 detailed newspaper accountings of crime, pathos and the trials and tribulations of the next door neighbor.
     Actual legal cases, boiled down to the language understood by the average lay-man, also will be dramatized.
     The new program was originally previewed on one of Mutual's "For Your Approval" broadcasts, which serve as test showcases for possible network program material.  Audience response to the one-shot presentation was strong.

Series Derivatives:

Notes on Provenances:

The most helpful provenances were the log of the RadioGOLDINdex and newspaper listings.

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