Broadcasting (Oct 1931-Dec 1932)

PROBABLY no man in the business of broadcasting has had dealings with more individual broadcasters than has Scott Howe Bowen, head of the corporation bearing his name. It is one of his proud claims that his firm has placed more business with more radio stations than any other company in the five years since it was founded in November, 1927. Today its business is reported to be ■] at peak, with some 300 active accounts, despite the depression. A master salesman, Scott Howe Bowen is the sort of man who conceives or grasps an idea readily and instantly proceeds to its execution. Usually, he handles new accounts himself, although it is one of his traits to rely upon the men around him to carry out the details as he lays them out. He expects every man in his organiJ zation to have the same live-wire energy that is his own marked characteristic — an energy born of the self-reliance forced upon him when family reverses caused him to leave Harvard in 1910. Today the Bowen organization has a score of executives and sales and service men centered not only in its main office in the Chrysler Building, New York, but in branch offices in Boston, Detroit, Chicago, Omaha, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Its primary business is station representation, which Mr. Bowen tells us he is now shaping along lines of exclusive representation, but he has also been one of the leading transcription producers in the country since he purchased the control of the Byers Recording Laboratories two years ago. Scott Howe Bowen was born in Elyria, O., Nov. 27, 1888, the son of Samuel Howe Bowen, scion of a New England family that traces its lineage to the Mayflower Pilgrims. His mother was a descendant of Thomas Hooker, founder of Hartford, Conn., and first Colonial governor of that state. Her father was Martin Webster Pond, a grand nephew of Noah Webster. He had emigrated to Ohio by ox-cart in 1819. With such a family tradition, it was only natural that young Scott should be groomed for the higher education. Finishing at Oberlin preparatory school, he matriculated at Oberlin College in 1908, only to be forced to leave because of a breakdown in his health. He then went to the University of Colorado for a year, and finally entered Harvard. But after a year at Harvard his family met serious financial reverses and he had to go to work. His first job was as a reporter on the old Cleveland Leader. He left that newspaper after a year to become publicity manager for the Cleveland Bell Telephone Co. Soon he joined the Baker Electric Co. as assistant advertising manager. In 1914, he joined the Caxton Co., Cleveland printers and engravers, with which he remained for two years. In 1916 he became interested in aviation when he promoted a company to market the Greene automatic control device for aircraft. One month after the United States entered the World War, Scott Howe Bowen enlisted in the aviation section of the Army Signal Corps. First attending ground school at the University of Texas, by August he was commissioned a second lieutenant and was transferred to Rockwell Field at a pilot. He was one of the first two or three hundred pilots to be commissioned by the Army. December, 1917, found him at Langley Field, Norfolk, Va., as an experimental and test pilot. His aptitude as a flier really kept him, as it kept many another good pilot, from going overseas, though he tried strenuously to get a foreign assignment. It was not until the very eve of the Armistice that he was attached to a bombing squadron scheduled for duty in France. Disappointed, on Nov. 12, 1918, he secured his discharge because his eyes had begun to fail him for the strenuous duties of piloting. That Lieut. Bowen was a good pilot is attested by the fact that he had flown test ships 400 hours and never once had a serious mishap. This, despite the fact that PERSONAL NOTES COMMISSIONER H. A. Lafount was a speaker at the inaugural program of the new 50 kw. WSM, Nashville, Nov. 12. Among the guests present were George F. McClelland, assistant to M. H. Aylesworth of NBC, Vice Presidents Niles Trammell and Frank Mason of NBC and James Stahlman, publisher of the Nashville Banner. EDWARD G. FOREMAN, Jr., formerly with Blackett-Sample-Hummert & Gardner, Chicago, has been assigned to take charge of the new Chicago studios of World Broadcasting System in the quarters formerly occupied by WMAQ and the Chicago Daily News building. HAROLD KEMP, head of Warner Brothers booking department for two years, has been appointed to take charge of bookings of NBC popular artists for radio, stage and screen. Mark Levine continues to handle classical artists. FORD BILLINGS, formerly of WLW, Cincinnati, is now general sales manager of KSTP, St. Paul. Phil Bronson, who has been announcing football on KSTP for the last five years, has been promoted to production manager. He is a former newspaper and agency man. H. A. HICKMAN has been promoted from chief announcer and assistant manager of WDEL-WILM, Wilmington, Del., to general manager. He formerly announced for WRVA, Richmond, while a law student at the University of Virginia. the hazards of test piloting — especially with our wartime airplanes — were fully as great as the hazards of aerial warfare. Feeling "lucky to be alive," he left Langley Field never again to take the stick of a plane. He had married Maude Morrison Clement, of Rutland, Vt., in June, 1917, and an airplane crash in which her brother had been killed had induced him to promise his wife never to pilot a plane again. He still flies frequently as a passenger, however. Going to New York, still in his lieutenant's uniform and with not enough money to purchase a new suit of clothes, Scott Howe Bowen joined the McGraw Hill Co. as an advertising copywriter. Within a few months he formed Technical Publicity, Inc., specializing in trade paper publicity. Then he joined Frank Presbrey Agency as a "new business" executive. Successively he worked at various enterprises until in 1926 he became eastern advertising manager of College Humor, which he left to handle Pennsylvania and Southern advertising for Collier's. In 1927, while with Collier's, he saw the power of radio advertising when that magazine, through its radio broadcasts, increased its circulation from 125,000 to 850,000 within a short space of time. He wrote to the U. S. Department of Commerce for a list of radio stations, sent all stations a letter offering to act as their exclusive sales representative, secured 85 signed contracts. Most of those contracts are still in effect. He is the father of three sons, Scott, Jr., 19; Frederick Clement, 9, and Roger Conant, 7. His hobbies are tennis and golf — when he has time away from his business, which isn't very often. His clubs are the New York Harvard Club, Romany Club and Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. MAJ. GEN. CHARLES McK. SALTZMAN, who resigned last July as chairman of the Radio Commission, spent October and early November in Iowa campaigning for President Hoover. He is continuing to make his home in Washington but has definitely retired from public life. WALTER LOCHMAN, formerly with WNAX, Yankton, S. D., and WIBW, Topeka, Kan., is now program director of KGBX, which recently was moved from St. Joseph to Springfield, Mo. HOWARD ROCKEY, formerly of Lord & Thomas & Logan, has joined the staff of the World Broadcasting System as publicity director. D. I. MacDONALD, at one time with yie Curtis Publishing Co. and the Chicago Elevated Advertising Company, is now business manager of WLS, Chicago. ANITA BOLTON, secretary of Jennings Pierce, chief announcer of NBC Pacific Division, San Francisco, and W. J. Poyner, district manager of the General Petroleum Co., sponsor of "Memory Lane," were married recently in Reno, Nev. TED BRAUN, former New York booking agent, who joined the artists' bureau of KHJ, Los Angeles, in October, has been appointed manager of that department which will function under the direction of Tom Lee, son of Don Lee, station owner. NORMAN G. SOUTHER, long identified with radio and educational interests in the mid-west, has been appointed managing director of the Federal School of Radio at Dallas, Tex. ROSEMARY WEBER, formerly with the A.A.A.A. in New York, has joined the sales promotion staff of NBC. BURTON BENNETT, announcer at KFAC, Los Angeles, has been appointed acting production manager. LOU EMMEL, of the San Francisco NBC Artists Bureau, was awarded a large silver trophy recently after he had staged a radio show for the Knights of Columbus. EDWARD KLAUBER, first vice president of CBS, has returned to his desk after an illness and a convalescing voyage to the Mediterranean. WEBSTER H. TAYLOR, former vice president of the Campbell-Ewald Co., has been placed in charge of a CBS branch office just opened in the Fisher building, Detroit. HOWARD HERRINGTON, former advertising manager of Phillips Petroleum Co., Bartlesville, Okla., and formerly of the Rankin Agency, Chicago, has been appointed advertising manager of WMT, Waterloo, la. WAYNE MILLER, writing the daily radio column for the Los Angeles Examiner the last three years as "Ray de O'Fan," has joined the radio-news staff of KFI, Los Angeles. CHARLES E. DENNY, formerly manager of WHO, Des Moines, has joined the staff of Stoner-McCray, department store, as manager of the radio department. GEORGE MCCLELLAND, assistant to M. H. Avlesworth, president of NBC, visited WCKY, Covington, Ky., Nov. 11. RALPH WORDEN, formerly radio editor of the Cleveland News, has joined WJAY, Cleveland, as program director. FRED A. (Ted) LONG has resigned his post as station supervisor of WEAN, Providence, to join the production department of CBS in New York. PIERRE BOUCHERON, advertising and sales promotion manager of RCA Victor Co., Camden, N. J., has been advanced to the rank of Lieutenant Commander in the U. S. Naval Reserve. December 1, 1932 • BROADCASTING Page 19