The world is all gates, all opportunities, strings of tension waiting to be struck.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
While I was in my first year in business school in 1961, and three years before Johnnie Babcock joined him, as I said, my father had moved into his fourth career in broadcasting. Consulting with Procter & Gamble under a non-compete contract as the vice president and director of Duncan Hines foods, he was able to watch one of the world’s great merchandisers at close hand. It became evident to him that if P&G knew one thing to do well, it was to advertise. The company had the money to do it on a large and highly effective scale, and one of the reasons my father sold the Hines operation to P&G was that he knew he didn’t. P&G took Duncan Hines cake mixes into the food business big-time— via television.
I remember all the Christmases growing up in Ithaca when my grandparents and family would gather around the black-andwhite television to watch talent shows and comedies, and the last thing you would want to do was to advertise food products on TV. The only foods that might look OK in black and white would be a bowl of rice or black olives. Then television made its debut in color, and P&G began shifting ad dollars away from magazines and into television. The cakes looked great, and color TV put the eye appeal back into food. My father was sitting on top of 360,000 shares of P&G stock, and he couldn’t think of a better way to use this collateral than to break into the broadcast business. Companies were now pouring money into television advertising.
Working with P&G, Pops realized the full marketing power and potential of television. He was impressed at the way the Cincinnati marketing power bought up hours of radio and television time to promote their many brands. The P&G stock gave him the financial collateral he needed to borrow at low rates, move to the media side of the equation, and begin buying broadcast properties.
Johnnie Babcock remembers that in the early stages of building his broadcast empire my father had him accompany him on visits to large banks, where he aspired to secure credit and negotiate loans. He had long ago exceeded the loan capabilities of the Ithaca area banks. Babcock referred to his ability in this area and his technique as “Banker Up.”
I’ll let Johnnie take it from here.