Roy Neal, a Broadcast Pioneer

In July of 1947, a national publication wrote this about Roy Neal.

Thursday, 8-8:20 p.m. Sustaining over WPTZ (Philco), Philadelphia.

Radio's familiar pattern of across-the-mike interviews with personalities is transplanted to the video studio with a high degree of effectiveness in this weekly "Pleased to Meet You" visit. Much measure of the show's success belongs to Roy Neal, mike regular at WIBG here, who brings to the television camera a pleasant personality and an air of informality that makes him a most welcome visitor into your home parlor. Moreover, Neal displays a fine gift of conversational gab, with voice and diction to blend in a manner that makes the onlooker feel like more of an insider.

Handshakes across a blow-up of the familiar city landmark of William Penn's statue atop the City Hall set the informal stage for the show. Projecting his personality on the cathode tube, Neal established friendly relationships with both the viewers and studio visitors from scratch and it's all the more to his credit that he generates an even flow of conversation without dominating it. For the 20 minutes, he brought four different persons before the camera, taking each on for about five minutes, and maintained a swift pace that made the visit end all too soon.

Neal eschews the dribble associated with most mike interviews and gets right into the meat of the subject matter. And avoiding question-and-answer triteness, he makes it a running conversation. When caught, he presented four diverse and topical subjects. He started off on a serious note, inviting the area rent director to sit beside him in an easy chair to discuss the provision of the new federal rent bill. He followed with last year's contestant for the Miss Greater Philadelphia (Ginny Brown), who is coaching this year's contestants for the Miss America beauty pageant. The two assuming a standing position, the gal was able to demonstrate how a queen must strut before the judges.

Back to the easy chairs, Neal next brought on Cy Peterman, war correspondent for the Philadelphia Inquirer just back from a roving assignment across the pond. He talked about his recent junket to Russia without getting into any heavy controversy, and ended with a timely piece on the significance of Independence Day. And again contrasting the subjects and subject matter, Neal polished off with the general manager of the local bubble gum outfit, telling about the "blowing bubbles" contest to be held at the park the next day. He took time out to synchronize his facial muscles with the off-stage recording of Spike Jones' bubble gum song, polishing off with two kids coming in to blow giant bubbles.

The e-mail address of the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia is pioneers@broadcastpioneers.com