Broadcasters’ news bulletin (June-Dec 1931)

June 13, 1931 LAFOUNT ilDDRESSES EDUCATORS Educetors must mske full use of the fecilities assigned to them before demand¬ ing more, Commissioner Hero Id A. Lafount told the annual Institute of Education by Radio at Columbus, Ohio, lest week, Ai'ter making a cereful analysis of the time devoted to education by educa¬ tional stations in each of the five zones, the Commissioner said; "That the Commission is now and always has been sincerely interested in and sympathetic with education is evidenced by the growth in the number of hours per week devoted to educational broadcasts since the Commission became the licensing authority from almost nothing to approximately 3,457 out of the total 33,784 hours used by commercial stations in the United States as of January, 1931, this being better than 10 per cent of the total time used by such stations. While the per¬ centage of total time used by educational stations devoted to educational broad¬ casts is somewhat less (7.74 per cent) than that of commercial stations, together they average about ten per cent of the total time used. Since these figures were compiled, there has been some evidence of further increase in the number of hours devoted to educational broadcasts by the stations in the United States, and a definite tendency to continue in this direction is apparent, "It appears, therefore, that education is fairly represented in hours per week devoted to its cause by stations all over the United States at the present time, and that looking into the future, this growth may be expected to continue. With all of the stations of the United States devoting at present ten per cent or better of their total time, to educational broadcasts, and a very real possibility of this percentage increasing, I believe the public will be much better served than it can possibly be by confining education exclusively to a percentage of the whole number of existing stations. In my opinion this is so for the reason that such stations could not possibly cover the entire United States with the result that some communities would get more than their share of educational broadcasts, while others would get little or none. Furthermore, it has been iry experience that the listening public will not stand for an exclusively educational program for a whole day or night from any station! You will bo lucky if you get the average adult to listen to an educational program for two hours a day," Miss Judith Waller, chairman of the Educational Committee of the HAB, in her address tothe educators said that she was opposed to passage of the Fess Bill which would set aside 15 per cent of all channels for education, "I disagree solely on the grounds that the passage of the Fess Bill will de¬ feat its own purpose," she said, "Educational institutions have yet to prove that they can adequately use the present ten per cent of the 90 channels which they now control, before I will believe that they should bo granted 15 per cent. If the time should oome when they could go to Congress or the Federal Radio Com¬ mission and say *Here is the record of what we have done, a worthwhile job from every standpoint as attested by these documents, our listeners are demanding a larger and more comprehensive service, we have used every available channel as¬ signed to us tothe best of our ability, please give us more time,* I would be the first to urge that their petition be seriously considered, "But they have not done an adequate job , or even a good job, Thera are 51 purely educational radio stations on the air today with a total of 1C27 broadcast¬ ing hours and out of that number only 286 hours are devoted to so-called educa