Radio: The Sensitive Commentator

For a radio-TV commentator doing one 15-minute spot a week, white-polled Walter Winchell, 58, seemed to be doing all right. He had been with the same network for 25 years;* he was getting as much as $16,000 a broadcast, and the American Broadcasting Co. had given him a lifetime contract, guaranteeing him a minimum of $1,000 a week, whether he broadcast or not. ABC also insured Gossipist Winchell for $1,000,000 against libel suits; even if he lost a suit, he would not have to pay.

For Winchell, it was not enough. The insurance did not seem to protect him from punitive damages, i.e., those incurred by “maliciousness.” It was a point that a commentator like Winchell is sensitive about. Early this year, he asked ABC either to insure him against damages because of malice or to drop his contract. ABC dropped his contract.

Last week Columnist Winchell, no man to do things in a small way, sued ABC for $7,000,000. He claimed the network had misinformed him, that he had been protected all along against punitive damages. Said ABC, revealing that Winchell has asked to be taken back in the fold and been rejected: “There is no basis of fact in Mr. Winchell’s complaint.”

*Originally NBC’s Blue Network, bought by the American Broadcasting Co. in 1943.