Category: Flashbacks

From the MCRFB NEWS archive: 1972

TM Productions Scaling Beyond Jingles Horizon; See Expansion Programming Radio Market Shares

DALLAS — It comes to a great shock to many to learn that T-M (for Tom Merriman) Productions of Dallas, is owned by the famous-articulate conservative, William F. Buckley, Jr.

It surprises even more to learn that this great I-D pioneer and jingle giant is devoting many hours of its efforts into programming, and is becoming a leader in its field.

Back at the beginning, Merriman got into the jingle business. That was in 1955. At that time, he and Bill Meeks (president of the rival PAMS) were working for the Mc Clendon station (in Dallas), and they made jingles together for the Liberty Network. It was something of a simultaneous idea to go on their own.

Merriman first formed the Commercial Recording Corporation, which he later sold, and formed Tom Merriman, Inc. He retained it until a year ago when it was sold to Star Broadcasting, Inc., owned by Buckley. But the company continues to function as in the past, with management left as the same.

T-M services about 600 stations each year with station I-D’s for the most part, with its staff of 25. Merriman still does most of the writing. Others are management, singers and sales personnel. All instrumentation is done in Los Angeles.

Business isn’t bad at all. The last year’s gross was $1,362,000. Considering the competition, it’s an indicator it’s pretty strong.

But Jim Long, who joined forces with Merriman a few years ago, and is executive vice president of T-M, has started some new moves. He has form T-M Programming, Inc. And he is president of this division.

Already this outlet is programming 30 important stations around the nation, all in the field of Easy Listening. But Long is about to move in the rock aspect. Two of the T-M studios in Dallas are set up strictly for this programming service. There are four studios in all.

Long feels that the real future is in broadcasting, and in programming for broadcasting. So he has devised an ambitious and somewhat complicated program of carrying this out.

He also has what he calls a Custom Commercial Service, with 150 clients for whom pre-recorded commercials have been done. He utilizes these to carry out a training program for stations which use his service. Basically, one of his people go in and meet with the sales staff, explaining in detail how the service works. They conduct seminars on custom commercials. The sales force may call in prospective clients to attend the seminars. The custom commercials are then played, and can be applied to a specific product or dealer (used-car sales, filling stations, ad infinitum), and the custom commercial is then made ready for air play.

While Merriman does most of the creative work with the I-D’s (he writes virtually all of them, produces, and does just about everything else), Long works on the other phase of the operation. He is quietly taking over, and fast becoming one of the leading programmers everywhere.

Chances are he’ll be calling on you. He feels he can get potential new clients fully automated, save a lot of money, and improve programming to boot. END

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(Information and news source: Billboard; August 19, 1972)