1634: Turn Your Radio On (9 page)

Just then Franz Peck walked into the room. "Franz. You know Reverend Fischer and Jennifer Copenhaver. Have you ever noticed anyone from their group asking for donations or money over the air?"

At this unexpected question, all the church people immediately swung their bodies around to see what Franz was going to say.

"No, Herr Grover. Reverend Fischer has never actually mentioned how to write him at any address. He hasn't even given out the station address either."

"That's great. Thanks for your time." Franz turned and headed back to his basement studio.

Roy swung back to put his full attention on John. He leaned over the table and glared. "Exactly what are you implying, John?"

John leaned back in his chair as he responded, "No offense, Roy. I just wanted to make sure that nothing was going on at my station that the General Electronics board would consider to be a bad business practice. After all, after just three devotionals, we're dealing with more fan mail for Reverend Fischer than any other program on our airwaves. Even the ones that run daily and our most popular weekly shows like
Robin of the Committees of Correspondence
.

"Now that I've been assured that we're working on a level playing field . . . " Grover took a sip of his coffee and picked up the file in front of him. "Let me tell you what my first thoughts are on your proposal.

"First of all, there is no way we can sell you programming rights to an entire hour. We must keep at least five minutes at the top and bottom of every hour for our news staff."

Roy, Maria, and Marc smiled, realizing that this negotiation was going to work. If John was thinking of ways to modify and improve the church offer, he had already agreed to it in principle.

"The second problem I have is that it's an open-ended agreement. We need to add some language that allows both your church and my station to terminate the agreement under specific circumstances. If you don't pay or you harm the other programming we put on the air, we want to retain the right to cut you off."

Roy smiled. "Neither of those terms poses a problem, John. Jennifer here has been working on what kind of program we're planning to put on."

Jennifer piped up, "John, you're going to be very pleased with our program. First of all, we're not planning to be 'preachy' on the show itself or solicit donations directly.

"Our plan is to produce
The Grand Ole Opry
meets
Star Search
. We'll have a good Christian message, lots of good music and try to bring in whatever musical talent that responds to our talent contest auditions during the week." She paused a moment and decided the fact that the Elders of the church had scheduled the auditions to take place immediately before the regularly scheduled Bible study wasn't important to the issue at hand. "We'll mix that in with a show band and some of the talent from the church performing some up-time country, some gospel music, and some bluegrass. Maybe we can get the Old Folks band to come in for a guest appearance. Or Benny Pierce and Minnie—they're popular already, so we can mix them with the new talent. Of course, Brother Fischer will be the show host and he'll have a segment where he tells the children a morally positive story. If you've listened to the devotional, you know how good he is with children."

After Jennifer finished laying out the proposed show format, they discussed some questions on specific details with Deanna Dee and John. When everyone ran out of questions, John tapped his pencil on the tabletop for a moment and turned to his program manager, "Well, Deanna Dee, what do you think?"

All this time, Deanna Dee had been jotting down notes of the specifics of the church proposal as it applied to her. "I've got to tell you, John, I like it. I used to watch Ed McMahon all the time on
Star Search
. It really pulled in the audience. I even used to watch the repeats of the old
Ted Mack Show
on that cable channel that showed all the really old TV repeats. It was one of the most successful shows of its era as well. I think it might have actually started up on radio. Then it moved to the early TV broadcasts."

"We'll have to add some man hours for station personnel to make the show work technically. I'll probably want to add on an additional janitor on Sunday morning to clean up after everyone's left."

Deanna Dee flipped through her notes, continuing, "The biggest thing we've got to look at is how do we keep the show in the critical hours. I'd suggest we set the schedule so the show starts on the first top or bottom of the hour following dusk. That way as the day gets longer, we don't have to keep moving the show around the fixed newscasts. It will start at 6:00 now, then move to 6:30 and so on as sunset changes."

After another round of questions, the discussion finally got to money.

"Marc," John looked to his sales manager. "How much do you think we should charge for this block of time?"

Finally Der Kronz could do his thing. "Mr. Grover, since we're keeping the two five minute newsbreaks, we could just charge them for fifty minutes at the one minute rate."

Roy responded to that suggestion with a laugh. "That would be nice, Marc. But we've come up with a different concept for fairly valuing the time. Maria, could you explain our thoughts?"

Maria opened the file in front of her and brought out a VOA Rate Card. "I've gone over this and the previous rate cards that Marc furnished us at Kurger's Emporium, and it's clear to me that the time slot we're looking at is set up as a fixed percentage of the cost of weekday spots at the same time. What that tells me is that you don't consider Saturday night a high listenership period."

Marc broke in, "Yes, but this isn't just the set aside commercial time we're talking about here, Mrs. Kurger. You want to promote your business . . . I mean your church the whole hour."

"That's not quite right, Marc," Jennifer interrupted. "We're buying the sponsorship of an hour entertainment program that has commercials built into it!"

"Precisely." Maria nodded and continued. "What we propose is to buy every commercial slot during the show for the length of the contract. We'll also agree to rate increases based on the same percentage that you change the rest of your rate card as you've currently established. What's more, we'll pick up any additional costs Deanna considers necessary to run the show properly.

"But to my mind, the best part of our offer is that you will be able to resell those same spots as special programming for whatever Marc thinks he can get at or above the rate we're guaranteeing. If he sells them all, we'll get credited back our guarantee costs, and you keep the rest."

Marc's eyes glazed momentarily as he calculated the profit to the station. "Yes, but we've got a certain percentage amount of overhead allocated to each commercial spot we sell. I don't know . . . "

At this point, Roy added, "Marc, we'll even guarantee upfront a full month of shows in cash. Any spot you aren't able to sell, we'll use ourselves. You just sell what you can and allow our new church treasurer access to your books so we can verify your numbers."

"I can live with that, Roy." John pulled himself close to the table and picked up his pencil to write the terms agreed so far on his copy of the proposal.

Roy thought for a moment and then asked, “John, we’re getting a lot of different currencies in the collection plate as well. Since the station doesn’t have to pay an exchange fee, would it be alright for us to pay in those other currencies?”

“I don’t see any problem with that,” John replied. “We get the official exchange rate at the time we make our deposits. I’ll pass that right back to the church. Then, once a month we’ll settle up the difference in USE dollars.”

As John began writing, Marc once again turned his eyes upward and seemed to lose focus as he thought through the deal.
There is something I'm missing. Why are they so willing to commit this amount of money and agree not to solicit donations on the air? We're leaving some money on the table. But how?

First, he studied Fischer's face, and then looked at Mrs. Kurger.

No clues there. She always did know how to get the best rate and the best times out of that Rate Card.

Then he turned to examine Roy Copenhaver
. No. Anyone who's doing the kind of work he's been doing will know better than to give anything away
.

Finally, Marc turned his attention to Roy's wife Jennifer. His eyes went wide and he practically yelled, "That's it. They
are
getting money in the fan mail!"

Jennifer turned white. Everyone in the room turned their full attention to Der Kronz and his explanation of his deduction.

"You've been receiving more than fan mail, you've been getting cash! We were thinking it might just be from increased church attendance. But, no." Turning to Fischer, Marc laid out his case. "I know you haven't been asking for it, Reverend. I know you haven't even given out an address to send it to, but for some reason listeners are being compelled to send you donations."

Marc was amazed at the thought. Here he had spent his life learning the secret of using words to get people to give him money. Now this preacher just gets on the air for five minutes every second week and has money cascading over him like Schwarza Falls. Marc was in awe!

"Is that true, Roy?" John asked.

"Yeah. We certainly didn't expect it. We for sure didn't ask for it. But for some reason the Holy Spirit saw fit to have an awful lot of conversations with an awful lot of people out there about supporting Reverend Fischer's word."

Turning to his wife, whose eyes were beginning to fill with tears, Roy added, “Don’t worry, dear. I should have realized that this would happen. We should have let you leave after you finished up the programming issues.”

Still holding his wife’s hand, Roy looked back to John. "We got every currency we've ever heard of and some even Maria hadn't. But they are all denominations of that new paper money the area governments have begun issuing, and some stock shares, neatly sealed inside the folded letters. A lot of people sent small, light, silver coins completely covered by the wax seal.

Then, Roy addressed Marc. “So, how did you figure it out, Marc?”

Beaming, Marc explained. “It’s something up-timers call a ‘tell.’ Gamblers watch their opponents for ticks or gestures that indicate they are bluffing. I’d noticed Jennifer freezing when the issue of your fan mail came up. But, when she was talking about her programming ideas, she was enthusiastic, inspired even. Then when money was mentioned again, her face froze.

“At first, I thought she wasn’t comfortable dealing with money, but it dawned on me. Mrs. Covenhaver is not just any up-timer, but the wife of a man who built his career dealing with money. Surely, she’s been in these situations before. It should be second nature, unless . . . ”

“Unless we had a hole card.” Roy finished. “Very good indeed, Marc. Maybe I need to get you drafted to come and help me with my negotiations over in Fulda.”

After some laughter, Roy got back to the subject. "We're still committed to no solicitations on the air. What we plan to do is to steal your idea of sending out flyers to teach listeners how to build crystal sets. Our flyer will be the song sheet of the featured song of each program. On the back we'll include a little Bible lesson and let the recipient know that if they enjoyed the song and wanted to support our work, they could send us any donation they felt it worth to them.

"We're prepared to give you a cut of all proceeds. We'll keep the VOA address only on those flyers. Each week Maria or someone representing her can come by and open all the mail in front of your people. What kind of percentage do you want?" With that, Roy shut up.

John grinned. "I suspected there was money in those envelopes. I just couldn't figure out how you were getting listeners to send it in. So Marc, what kind of split seems fair? Remember, this is a religious organization."

Marc had been ready with his answer until John brought that up. Marc recalled the kindness that had always been shown to him as a Jew in this community. He even had very clear memories of dealings with a good number of the members of this Pentecostal Church. With that in mind, he answered, "I think we should accept it as a tithe, Mr. Grover. Ten percent of all mailed in donations on top of all the financial conditions we've worked out before. That would be fair."

The people from the church seemed taken back at this act of generosity from the station sales manager. His reputation for increasing his pricing at the drop of a hat was well earned.

"That certainly is fair, Marc. Okay, Roy. We've got ourselves a deal."

"So when can we start, John?"

John asked, "How soon can we clear an hour on Saturday, Marc?"

Marc briefly thought through his ad commitments. "Think you can be ready this Saturday night, Mr. and Mrs. Copenhaver? That will give you three shows before Christmas."

Roy responded, "Absolutely! We'll be ready."

Fischer paid very little attention to the details. His mind was spinning over the size of the congregation he would be able to reach every week.
Surely The Holy Spirit is guiding me toward the mission that Reverend Chalker foresaw that first Bible study. Praise the Lord!

"And now a programming note, be sure to join us this Saturday night at six thirty for the brand new show,
The Ole Timey Radio Hour
featuring live blue grass, country, and gospel music, singing, fun, and the best talent Europe has to offer. That's
The Ole Timey Radio Hour
, hosted by Reverend Dieter Fischer, this Saturday night at six thirty on Your Voice of America!"

Susannah Becker was busily emptying the contents of one almost-finished bowl into its replacement full bowl when she spotted the girls. Every week the Bible study had attracted more and more visitors who still attended their regular denomination churches on Sundays. Now with the word out about a big announcement about the church and the radio, it seemed like everyone who had ever attended was packed into Slater's barn tonight.

With the noise that the fiddle group up on stage was making, she couldn't start up a conversation yet, but Susannah made a mental note to do so at the earliest opportunity. Both girls were dressed very nicely. Not anything that she would wear, with her Mennonite background, but not dressier either. It was just something about the way they wore their clothes that made Susannah think there was something special about them.