Film and Radio Guide (Oct 1945-Jun 1946)

FILM AND RADIO GUIDE WILLIAM LEWIN, EDITOR November, 1945 Volume XII, No. 2 CAN RADIO TAKE IT? BY BOB NICHOLS Can radio take it? Can the broadcasting industry stand criticism of its commercial policies, given not in the comparative privacy of trade convention or trade paper, but over the air for all the world to hear? Well, radio does take criticism on the “Bob Nichols Radio Parade” over the Western Division of the American Broadcasting (Blue) Network — it takes it and likes it! During recent months, in addition to presenting its usual stories of radio programs and personalities, the “Radio Parade” has listed seven “signs of the times” in an indictment of over-commercialism i n radio ; and it has proposed a “Will “The Radio Parade” is a twentystation Pacific-Coast American Broadcasting Company Network presentation, Monday through Friday, sponsored by the Fisher Flouring Mills of Seattle. Material from the “Radio Parade” is used by the Armed Forces Radio Service for overseas broadcast. Bob Nichols has spent twenty years in commercial radio. He was an NBC producer in the days when San Francisco was the origination point of West Coast network programs, and started with Carleton E. Morse, Tom Breneman, A1 Pearce, Don McNeil, and many others who are well-known on the air today. During his twentythree years in radio, Mr. Nichols has been everything from copy boy to station manager. In addition to his Blue Netwoi’k show, he operates a Seattle Advertising Agency and has two local across-the-lioard sponsorc'd broadcasts. Bob Nichols Hays Office” to be set up by the industry to clean the house of radio. The seven points were : 1. Newspaper criticism of radio overcommercialism. 2. FCC Chairman Paul Porter’s warning to radio to clean its own house or Congress would do it for the industry. 3. Congressional proposals that part of radio’s profits be siphoned off to pay the cost of increased FCC regulation. 4. The slowly but steadily decreasing radio audience. 5. Sponsors’ greed for high listenersurvey ratings, which effectively forces producers to seek quick popularity rather than quality in programs. 5. The sale of radio stations for many times their physical-property and good-will value — which means it is the wave length that is being sold. 7. The complete failure of the industry to encourage and aid the development of young talent. On the April 6 broadcast of the “Radio Parade,” I called for a Will Hays Office for radio as a means of forcing radio to accept its public responsibilities. I said, “Radio needs a very tough ‘Will Hays’ who will enforce his decrees ; a man whose authority is given him, not by the government, but by an enlightened radio industry operating not only for better radio, but to save radio as a commercial medium unfettered by government control.” Fear compulsion in sales copy, shouting, circus barking, repetitions, attention-compelling devices, bad taste in selecting types of commercials for particular types of shows, all came under my direct criticism. Neither did I overlook the blatant, transcribed, singing and dialogue, station-break commercials. In making this series of stern indictments of radio’s over-commercialism I had the full consent of the American Broadcasting Company. Not once in scores of instances of editorial criticism was any attempt made to censor my scripts. My sponsor — the Fisher Flouring Mills of Seattle— gave full approval, telling me to tell the truth as I saw it. Public reception of the editorials was enthusiastic. Mail was