Broadcasting (Oct 1931-Dec 1932)

TO MANY Dr. Frank Conrad is known as the Father of Broadcasting. If you asked him about it, he might admit his share in the engineering paternity but he would say that the administrative paternity belongs to his late chief, Dr. H. P. Davis, Westinghouse vice president, whose recent death shocked the radio world. He would also be one of the first to admit that Dr. Lee De Forest is justly entitled to the appelation Father of Modern Radio for his revolutionary invention of the radio tube. The newspapers and magazines, not Dr. Conrad, have fastened the soubriquet on him. If the broadcasting art is really a hybrid of many inventive geniuses, there are few who can doubt the importance of Dr. Conrad's contributions. At 57, he has a long list of radio and electrical inventions to his credit, besides the noteworthy pioneering achievement he accomplished with KDKA, Pittsburgh. % Next month, on Nov. 2, to be PERSONAL NOTES DR. LEE DEFOREST, noted radio inventor, who is now making his residence in Los Angeles, where he is interested in television work, has been making trips to Mexico City recently. Reports are to the effect that he is interested in the transmitter and radio set fields in Mexico. DR. ALFRED N. GOLDSMITH, vice president and general enginees of RCA, was elected president of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers early this month, following a counting of the mail ballots at the Society's annual convention in Swampscott, Mass. He succeeds J. I. Crabtree, whose retirement is effective in 1932. M. H. AYLES WORTH, president of NBC, has announced the appointment of three additional vice presidents. Frank Mason, former exact, broadcasting observes its eleventh birthday. On that day 11 years will have elapsed since KDKA went on the air with the Harding-Cox presidential election returns as the first pre-scheduled radio program in world history. Dr. Conrad was the announcerengineer and director of operations. At the instance of Dr. Davis, Dr. Conrad began his experiments with radiotelephony. They were an outgrowth of point-to-point radiotelegraphy, and the idea was conceived during the World War when Westinghouse manufactured and developed radio apparatus for Uncle Sam. Dr. Conrad began his informal telephonic broadcasts from a shed at the rear of his home at Wilkingsburg, a suburb of Pittsburgh, every Saturday night, his phonograph record programs being received by his engineering colleagues and a handful of amateurs. This "station" was the forerunner of KDKA, which Westinghouse calls the "pioneer broadcasting station of the world." president of International News Service will become vice president in charge of public relations. John F. Royal, former Boston newspaperman and until last February manager of WTAM, Cleveland, will be vice president in charge of programs. Roy C. Witmer, since last December sales manager, will be vice president in charge of sales. Other NBC vice presidents are: George F. McClelland (general manager) ; A. L. Ashby (general attorney); John W. Elwood; George Engles (Artists' Service) ; Frank M. Russell (Washington Division) ; Niles Trammell (Chicago Division) , and Don Gilman (Pacific Division). EDWARD J. STACKPOLE, Sr., president of the Harrisburg Telegraph, and A. H. Stackpole, manager of WHP, Harrisburg, Pa., the newspaper's radio station, supervised the recent broadcast over that station of the Pageant of Progress in celebration of the newspaper's centennial. The radio program, written by Fred Frey, WHP production manager, was carried to promote a special centennial edition. HERBERT R. CONNOR has returned to KFOX, Long Beach, Cal., after having left that station to be commercial manager of KGER, in the same city. He is doing a combination of sales and continuity work, doubling in character also to take the part of "Goofy" in the Butter Cream Schoolhouse program which he originated on KFOX. The station recently increased its selling staff to six, with Clyde Warner as sales manager. BEN McGLASHAN, owner of KGFJ, Los Angeles, made his 100watt station pay his way through the University of Southern California. J. ERNEST CUTTING, for the last year and a half booking dance orchestras for the NBC Artists Service, and Edward Paul England, III, formerly social director of the Lido Club, Long Beach, N. Y., have been appointed by George Engles, vice president in charge of the Artists Service, to supervise all musical and social activities at the new Hotel Waldorf-Astoria, New York City. Their offices have been established in the hotel. PAUL WHITEMAN, famous orchestra director, has been named music supervisor of the NBC Chicago Division, according to an announcement by Niles Trammell, vice president in charge of the Chicago division. Leroy Shield, conductor and arranger, who was with RCA-Victor in Chicago and Hollywood before joining NBC, has been appointed musical director. Shields will direct the symphony on the Minneapolis Honeywell program. RALPH BRUNTON, owner of KJBS, San Francisco, is responsible for fans missing the voice of Shirley Dale, who conducted the station's daily shopping period. Shirley Dale was the radio alias of Miss Emma Woodling. She became the bride of Mr. Brunton a few weeks ago, and they immediately sailed for the mid-Pacific on a honeymoon. R. L. RUST has returned to KTM, Los Angeles, as commercial manager. He was formerly manager of the station when it was known as KNRC, leaving to go into the electrical transcription field. In 1925 and 1926 he was commercial manager of WQAM, Miami. When he was with the old KNRC, Rust had Charlie Hamp (of Strasske toothpaste fame) as one of his staff singers, and Tom Mitchell (later NBC's Rainier lime rickey man) was the studio announcer. CARL NISSEN, with the Los Angeles Herald for the past 18 years, and recently its classified advertising manager, has joined KNX, Los Angeles, as commercial manager. WILLIAM H. HEINZ, formerly manager of WHO, Des Moines, and sales manager of Continental Broadcasting Corporation (transcriptions), is now manager of KGB, San Diego. GLENN DOLBERG, former manager of KHJ, Los Angeles, later with the Dan B. Miner advertising agency, Los Angeles, after a six month period at KFI and KECA, Los Angeles, as production manager, has become assistant manager of the latter stationsFrederick Shields, formerly in radio at Kansas City, later manager of KTM, Los Angeles, succeeds Dolberg's production work at KHJ. R. E. DEARDORFF, for three years in advertising with the Scripps-Howard Times in Indianapolis, and for the past two years in the same department at the Los Angeles Examiner, has joined the commercial staff of KTM, Los Angeles, as a contact man. HORACE D. GOOD, former owner of WRAW, Reading, Pa., is now the branch manager for the Continental Broadcasting Corporation (transcriptions) at its recently established office in the Hotel Annapolis, Washington, D. C. JOHN HENRY, formerly managing editor of the Daily Nonpareil of Council Bluffs, la., and recently radio editor of KOIL, has been appointed station director of KOIL, effective October 15, succeeding Hal Shubert. The same station announces the appointment of Max Vinsonhaler, former stock player and more recently continuity writer and announcer, as director of KOIL's permanent radio stock company known as "The Hilltop Playhouse." BORN, to Mr. and Mrs. Charles L. McCarthy (traffic manager for the NBC Pacific Division at San Francisco,) a girl, weight six and a half pounds and the first girl to be born to the McCarthy family in five generations. STEWART P. ELLIOTT, sales manager for the Sperry Flour Co., San Francisco, who has been handling the "Sperry Smiles" program on the NBC Pacific network, has joined the San Francisco branch of Erwin, Wasey & Company as merchandising expert. GEORGE W. HILL, of Tupelo, Miss., has been appointed assistant counsel of fhe legal division, Federal Radio Commission, succeeding George B. Porter, recently appointed assistant general counsel. Both appointments are effective November 1. KEN STUART, formerly announcer for KJR, Seattle, and KFRC, San Francisco, has joined the announcing and sales staff of KOL, Seattle. BEHIND THE MICROPHONE TOM EVERETT, young graduate of Oxford, has been made assistant to Fred Smith, of the staff of Time newsmagazine, in the preparation of the scripts for "The March of Time," CBS network feature. PAT FLANAGAN, sports announcer for WBBM, Chicago, is handling games being broadcast over WBBM under the sponsorship of Marshall Field & Co. JOSEPH LITTAU, co-conductor of the Roxy Symphony Orchestra, who has been directing the Gay Vienna program on the NBC-WJZ network Sunday afternoons, leaves this month for Omaha where he will be director of the Omaha Symphony Orchastra. October 15, 1931 • BROADCASTING Page 19