Quad-City Times from Davenport, Iowa • 29

section Classified Advertising Inside this section QUAD-CITY TIMES Sunday, Sept. 29, 1985 rn UVJ n. I 1 M' -vN'' ft I 1 I I 4 I lit flip )y I 2- i r'-Y j-" -y'i'' l)U(3LS Upstart TV station hits the deck running By John Willard QUAD-CITY TIMES KLJB-TV, the Quad-Cities first independent television station, is on a roll in attracting both viewers and advertisers. Since signing on July 28, the Davenport-based station, Channel 18 on the UHF band, has pulled in 100 local advertisers ranging from dry cleaners to car washes, station officials say. They say the accounts represent some $300,000 in sales, many times more than projected.

In addition to winning over advertisers, Channel 18 apparently is a big hit with viewers. A telephone survey taken Aug. 2 in Davenport by the Arbitron Rating Service showed KLJB-TV was the Quad-Cities' most-watched television station in both the S-lo-7 p.m and 8-to-10 p.m. periods. KLJB-TV's lineup of "My Favor- ite "I Love Lucy," "Beverly Hillbillies" and "Hogan's Heroes" posted a 26 percent audience share, beating out the Quad-Cities' three network affiliates' news, game shows and situation comedies.

And Channel 18's 8 p.m. movie, "G.I. Blues," starring Elvis Presley, attracted a 30 percent audience share, besting the baseball, movies, situation comedies and human interest shows of the network af iliates. "We're not sure whether we should be called 'The new kid on the block' or 'The biggest success story in the history of independent says Gary L. Brandt, the station's vice president and general manager.

Officials of the Quad-Cities' three network affiliates agree that Channel 18 is a professionally run, aggressive station that will have an impact on local television advertising and viewership. "We are looking at them (Channel 18) very said Joe Lentz, general sales manager at WOC-TV, Davenport. "The presence of an independent television station in this market will make us all sharper, more aggressive. Oliver Gillespie, general manager at WQAD-TV, Moline, said he was amazed at KLJB-TV's claims of signing up 100 advertisers in such a short time. "There's no question that Gary Brandt, vice president and general manager for KLJB-TV, and Bridget Bowen, sales manager, see good things ahead for the Davenport-based independent television station.

(Times photo by by Larry Fisher) KLJB officials say their station is strong because viewers perceive it -as new and different. "But most important, I think we have quality programming. It appeals to both viewers and advertisers," Brandt said. Bridget Bowen, KLJB-TV's advertising manager, says the station offers greater frequency of commercials to advertisers, a prime selling loot "The network affiliates have a. limited number of commercials they can sell to local advertisers.

But since we buy all our programs, we can offer up to three times more commercials than the three network affiliates combined," said Ms. Bowen, who spent five years in sales at WOC-TV before jumping to Channel 18. Ms. Bowen says Channel 18 also offers attractive advertising rates. "We've had a grand opening sale for advertisers, something that's unique in the industry," she said.

"During August and September, advertisers have been able to buy 100 30-second commercials for $18 each, and they can have their commercials shown in any time period or program subject to station availability. In contrast, during the fall season, an advertiser can expect to spend anywhere from $600 to $1,200 for one 30-second commercial on network television during prime time." she said. Channel 18 also can produce commercials in its new studio at 937 E. 53rd Davenprt, a spacious complex decorated in burgundies and soft grays and sporting the latest computerized equipment Here 43 people work, including five local advertising sales representatives. KLJB-TV can make commercials on location like it recently did for an East Moline apple orchard.

The commercial's "extras" included pheasants and reindeer. "KLJB certainly is a force in the market, but it's really too early to assess what that impact will be," Harrison said. grams and replaced them with adult shows like "Dallas," partially in an effort to counter Channel 18's kiddie fare in that time slot. people are watching Channel 18. But let's wait til the actual fall ratings 'book' comes out before making any judgements," he said.

Chuck Harrison, television general manager for WHBF-TV, Rock Island, said his station has dropped its daily afternoon children's pro Urn Sending Into show biz for meetings their bosses to school Sending managers back to school to catch up on current business research is not new. Top-ranked business schools, such as Harvard, Stanford, Wharton and Columbia, have been doing it for years during the summer months. But now, many of the top schools are making their programs year-round operations. They are also expanding them overhauling curriculums, even offering the programs overseas to accommodate international companies. Meanwhile, "second-tier" business schools have begun offering their own executive education programs, often specializing in niche markets, such as taxation and oil and gas accounting.

This has made executive education a buyer's market "Companies are becoming much more cUscriminating in where they send their executives," James M. Hulbert, vice dean at the Columbia Business School in charge of executive education, said. "They simply dont want to send their executives away for long periods without getting value. The opportunity cost is too high." stage gatherings for 100 to 2,000 people that can last for days. Nationwide, there are more than 3,000 audio-visual communications concerns.

Most are small mom-and-pop operations, specializing in one area, such as sound. But a half-dozen companies in New York City, including Colmart-Anniforms, Jim Sant' Andrea, Jack Morton Productions Inc. and Contempo in recent years have found a niche for themselves in staging meetings from top to bottom. They have become specialists in orchestrating corporate events that range from annual meetings for stockholders and employees to elaborate shows to kick off a new product and impress potential buyers. "It could be Avon psyching themselves up to knock on doors or I.B.M.

encouraging its work force to go out and do what it has to," said Leslie Buckland, founder and president of Caribiner, a 15-year-old company now owned by Mickelberry. Inc. A well-orchestrated meeting, he added, "sends the message that a company cares about its people and about the quality of its product" ecutives take time off from their jobs for one week to two months to attend executive education programs such as the one at Northwestern's J.L Kellogg Graduate School of Management There, they get updates on the latest thinking in finance, marketing and production. "Executive education is extremely hot and destined to become even more important than ever in the development of senior-level managers," Ray Watson, associate dean for executive education at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, said. The number of business schools offering such programs has quadrupled since 1970, to 800, he said.

EVANSTON, 111 At 8 am in one of Northwestern University's dining halls, a group of students are doing what students often do before class: cramming. Between spoonfuls of cereal the students use yellow markers to furiously highlight lecture notes, making occasional wisecracks about professors. What Is unusual is that these students are mid-career managers mosty in their 40s and 50s. Rather than boning up for a lecture on, say, Thomas Hardy, they are about to hurry to a 90-minute case study on how corporate directors should choose a chief executive. Each summer, thousands of ex Stories from New York Times NEW YORK When 400 managers of gathered for a three-day meeting last April at a luxury hotel, the climate inside was scarcely what they had expected on Florida's balmy west coast.

A 75-foot-wide snow-peaked mountain made of fiberglass dominated the ballroom where the meeting was held. Forty-five computer-operated slide projectors created images of clouds floating in the air and laser-beam lightning bolts shot across the room. Suddenly there was an avalanche, then a snowstorm all creations of Caribiner Inc, a New York City communications concern that specializes in staging corporate meetings. Finally, as the sun set into an alpenglow, H.L. Walker, president of a division of Mars appeared at the foot of the fiberglass mountain to give a welcoming address.

To be sure, corporate meetings are not what they used to be. The typical meeting that might at most have a projector or two as a visual prop is increasingly being replaced by computer-operated, laser-lit, videographic events, whose only limits appear to be a company's budget Some companies pay millions of dollars to.