Go over the interviewing technique with her; then do 15 minutes of practice for her. See if you can get her to do 15 minutes for you. Sometimes reporters are extremely nervous about this. Explain to her that we realize she will be nervous and make mistakes, but it will help her in the long run, and also explain that while she, and you, may know she is making an error, the person on the other end of the phone does not. Leave the reporter with eight sheets and have her do 2 hours of interviewing. Explain that it is only practice work and that it can be done anytime between 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. Make an appointment to go back after she has completed the practice work.

When you return, go over the work that she has done. Training, in one sense, varies with the individual being trained. Some new reporters are quick to learn, others require a time to be alone reading the material and, therefore, when you return to pick up the practice work you are the best judge as to whether the training will require another visit.

For this is what is still left to be done:

1. Explain the division of the phone book and her place in it.

2. Wired results.

3. The pink part of the TV instruction.

4. Radio instructions.

5. Qualitative Research, Inc.

6. Explain nickeling.

7. Explain that you, or another supervisor will periodically visit her to check her work.

You must collect from her (1) practice work; (2) application blank; (3) two signed (in ink) copies of the contract form-with both your signature and hers on them.

Send all of the above along to us with a copy of her assignment in the phone book and the time and expenses you incurred.

PLEASE REMEMBER AND NOTE

If, when you see her practice and after you have discussed it and her questions, you feel that she will not work out because she's sloppy, too nervous, insists upon doing things her way, do not hire her. If a new interviewer starts giving trouble the first time you meet her, you'll continue to have trouble with her. Please do not confuse the above with someone who is merely nervous because it is new work to her, or who is the type with whom you have to work slowly. But your reporters must be competent and willing to take instruction, corrections, and orders from you and this office. Believe me, if you have doubts, it is much better not to hire them, no matter how desperate you may be.

Again, there is no set rule for telling a person they will not work out. It is easiest to merely point out your reasons and then help them convince themselves that they would be happier in doing something else. Usually, they will see it your way.

RETRAINING

It is possible, that from time to time, you will be requested by the office to visit and retain an interviewer. When you are requested to do so, call the interviewer and explain that the office would like you to go over whatever point is under question and make an appointment to see her. Ask her to prepare two interviewing sheets; when you keep the appointment, have her interview for you. At that time you can take up the problem. When you return, send us a note about the correction, your expenses and any comments you may have.

PHONE BOOKS

The supervisor will divide the telephone directories so that each member of her staff has her own place in the directory. In most cases there are four columns to each page of the telephone directory and the easiest thing is to assign each reporter one column, say of the even pages, another the first column of the odd-numbered pages, etc. This will take care of eight reporters. When you have a staff of more than eight, then divide the directory in two parts, i.e., if the first page in the directory is 2 and there are 200 pages in it, the first half of the book would be from page 2 to page 101, and the second part from 101 to 200, then you could give someone the first column on the even pages from 2 to 100, and another the first column of the odd pages from 3 to 101. In this manner you will have enough for 16 reporters.

When you are instructing a new reporter on the phone book, impress upon her that she must restrict herself to her column and her pages, and that when she comes to the last residential number on the last of her pages, she returns to the beginning of her assignment and works through the phone directory again.

PAY RATE, TAXES, CONTRACT FORMS

Make certain that the new applicant understands the pay rate how interviewing is paid and when payment is made.

Each reporter is paid on a compeleted sheet basis-25 cents for each completed single sheet and 50 cents for each double sheet. This amount includes 13 minutes of calling (in the case of a single sheet) and the preparation of the numbers on the interviewing sheet. Certainly this should take no longer than a minute or two. Reporters are not paid on an hourly basis.

Taxes

Under the new law, passed the latter part of 1955, reporters are considered, not employees, but independent contractors, and as such we cannot withhold taxes from their wages. Certain rulings are still in the process of being made and when presented to us, we will forward them to you. A form #C will be supplied to each reporter at the end of the year. This is not a W-2 form, but an information form for her use and guidance in preparing any tax returns she may make.

Contract (applies primarily to traveling supervisors)

Explain to the reporter that this is for her protection. From time to time supervisors, in hiring reporters in towns in which they live, have been asked "After you've trained me and I work for a month, how do I know I'll be paid?" This is the answer; the two forms will be signed, sent to New York, signed by a representatives of the company and one copy will be returned to the new interviewer, the other kept in her file in the New York office.

The important part of the contract form for local supervisors is that it will enable you to remove from your staff any reporter at any time-someone not working out satisfactorily, a careless or troublesome reporter without reason. It is important, however, that you do not fire the reporter in person for any reason whatsoever without notification and approval by one of the field staff supervisors working out of the New York office. A letter must be sent

from New York to terminate the contract, and to send them their last check. Even if you train a reporter, she does practice and for any reason at all such

as

1. She does not feel she wants to undertake the work.

2. Some personal thing has come to prevent her from taking the job. 3. You feel she'll be unsatisfactory.

You must not pay her in cash for the practice work she has done. This must be in check form even if it is a sum like 25 cents. That is the law.

SUBSTITUTIONS

Please make certain that when substitutions occur that, if there is time you notify the office. Sometimes programs are taken off the air, or questions may be changed and we must be able to contact them from here if we cannot reach the supervisor.

There should be little need for wholesale switching of schedules or substitutions. Granted there are emergencies, but one woman, for example, should not require say three or four substitutions in 1 week, because of her social life.

MISSING WORK

There should be no missing work, and for this reason each supervisor should have at least one substitute on her staff. Sometimes a phone will go out of order, or some other emergency arise when a reporter cannot work or reach her supervisor, but there is no excuse for dropping say 15 minutes because of a long-distance call. The reporter can always tell the long-distance operator to call back, either on her 2-minute break, or after she has finished surveying. Work that is missed cannot be made up. We cannot put a program back on the air.

89567-59-pt. 7—12

NICKELLING

As you know we work for the radio and TV industries and the work which your staff does is sometimes responsible for changes in programs, people losing their jobs, etc., and for this reason we must be able to prove to that industry that our reporters are working when they should be. For this reason nickelling was evolved, and it is just a case of checking individuals while they are working, by the only means available to us, the phone.

Here are your instructions:

Do not begin nickelling, until the interviewer has completed at least one-half hour of work.

Begin dialing the interviewer's number at precisely the time she should begin her second half hour. For example, should she be working from 7 to 8 p.m., you would begin dialing at 7:32 p.m. Should the line be busy, place a checkmark in the space below. You will keep dialing each 5 minutes thereafter until you have done so for an hour, or you have broken through and she has answered the phone. When this occurs, follow along below: Name of interviewer.

date__. _to_____

Busy

:291⁄2

When you break through and the reporter speaks to you say:

"This is a Trendex supervisor. Please give me the telephone numbers of the last two respondents with whom you spoke; that is, the last two persons who said they were either looking or listening or not looking or listening."

(Supervisor list those numbers here)

No. 1.
No. 2.

Then ask the reporter:

Listening or looking

Not listening or not looking

"Did (and say the No. 1 telephone aloud) report listening or looking?" (Mark with a check alongside of No. 1 to show what the respondent told the reporter.)

Repeat the above for No. 2.

Tell the reporter to get on with her work, then.

You are then to call the two numbers listed above and say to each: "This is a supervisor of radio and television reporters, did someone call your home a few moments ago to inquire if you were listening to your radio or looking at television?" Record the information you are given alongside of these numbers:

It is a difficult thing to think of but there is always unfortunately the possibility that the person you are nickeling may not be working * * * if this is so, wire me immediately and tell the reporter to stop any future assignments until you or she hears from this office.

This is not to be construed as a reflection on honesty, but rather a business practice made necessary by the fact that interviewers are working away from supervision.

When you explain nickeling, tell the reporter that they may be nickeled at any time they are working, either by you, or by someone from New York. It

is a horrible thing to think about, but if you should call a reporter who is either not working when she should be and has no excuse, or whose numbers do not check back, please notify the office by wire immediately. The most important thing to remember is to repeat to the interviewer the telephone numbers as you get them from her. If when you call and the person there says that he or she had not been called, repeat the number to them for verification.

GENERAL INFORMATION FOR SUPERVISORS

Compensation: You are paid $15 per month as a retainer, this is to arrange substitutions, make certain people are working and assign last minute jobs. In addition, you are paid $1 an hour

1. For hiring and training (plus expenses incurred in such training). 2. For retraining, semiannual visits to your staff.

3. For nickeling.

4. For time spent in correction of reporters, either by phone or in person.

PROGRAMING

This will give you a little background on why we often ask you to wire what program is carried on a particular station at a particular time.

We are often requested by a client to produce a rating on a new show going on the air. The client will have ordered, from the network broadcasting the program, that this be transmitted to say 100 television or radio stations.

The network then requests each of the 100 stations to carry the program. Unfortunately, however, it is possible that the local station in your city already has a commitment for that time. It reports to the network that it will take the national program, but probably not the first broadcast. Now this local station must let the network know whether it did or did not accept the first broadcast so the network knows how much to charge the client. But it does not have to this for 2 weeks.

Therefore, when we are rating a certain program, we are given all of the markets that it is in and then provided with a list called "possibilities" and should your city be so listed, we would then wire you to let us know what program was actually carried at that time.

I realize that you cannot possibly watch the program, but I do request that you check your local daily paper for this information, not TV Guide or some weekly TV log, because the weekly guides are made up 2 to 3 weeks ahead of time and might list the old program.

Also your wire to me need include only the time, station, and program, for example, 9 p.m., CBS, Ford Star Jubilee that's all.

When we get your wire we then can calculate the ratings based on the number of cities that actually showed the program, and those that did not.

For the same reason, we request the information on baseball. When we get wired results from interviewers we cannot tell which programs actually were on. When the interviewing sheets come in, of course, it is easy. Therefore, we have you let us know that baseball was carried at a certain time on a certain channel. Then we know that the program normally carried at that time could not be on because you had a night baseball game.

WIRED RESULTS

When wired-results schedules, and only scheduled assignment is made up, it is sent to you in the way we need it.

This may not completely correspond to the schedule which exists in your city; unfortunately, there are always a few. Therefore, if you have one reporter working from 5 to 7 p.m. and one from 7 to 8 p.m. and the wire schedule says, "Wire 5 to 7:30 p.m. by 21⁄2-hour totals," your one reporter would wire 5 to 7 p.m. by 2-hour totals and the other 7 to 7:30 p.m. by the half hour.

Also, if the schedule requests cumulative totals for Thursday plus Friday and due to some reason one reporter is interviewing Thursday and another is interviewing Friday, each would send a telegram-one for Thursday and one for Friday.

Cumulative totals are requested because we know Thursday's mail will not reach us in time, and instead of working with two sets of wires, all can be -combined in one telegram.

FORMS

Attached are copies of the forms you should use it will make it easier for you and for us. Remember that timesheets cannot be mailed on the 30th from your home and be included in compensation mailed from here on the first of the month.

NOTE. Just remember you have been appointed as the supervisor because we think you are the best person for it and are eminently qualified for it. All of the New York staff is at your disposal for assistance or for answering questions. Please do not be afraid to call on us.

We know there will be times when perhaps you need the answer to a question and the office is not open (office hours, incidentally, are 9 to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday). The only thing you can do is to make whatever decision has to be made to the best of your ability-right or wrong you have to make it. Your field staff department will back you in this decision. All you can do is write and let us know what you did and your reasons for it.

Good luck.

2. MATERIALS FURNISHED BY THE PULSE, INC., INCLUDING SAMPLE QUESTIONNAIRES, INSTRUCTIONS TO INTERVIEWERS, SPECIAL STUDIES OF VIEWERS' OPINIONS OF PROGRAMING, ETC.

Mr. NICHOLAS ZAPPLE,

JUNE 27, 1958.

Communications Counsel of the Senate Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee, Capitol Building, Washington, D.C.

DEAR MR. ZAPPLE: I want to express once again that I was very pleased to have had the opportunity to appear yesterday at your committee hearings.

Enclosed are copies of the additional material which I promised to send you. This includes some of our questionnaires, which you can see are simple recording forms, and the time-line association technique spelled out much along the lines which I discussed yesterday.

In addition, I am including several copies of questions used in research which we have made dealing with likes and dislikes of programs. It is my feeling that Senator Monroney would like to know that such research is being done. These studies were made for advertising agencies and networks. If you believe that you would like to see the results, I will ask our clients for permission to submit them to the committee. I feel that these questionnaires should be in your hands so that you can see that there is such research in the industry.

I have also included a few additional news releases and pulsebeats relating to additional aspects of research.

Sincerely yours,

SYDNEY ROSLOW, Director.