Radio age research, manufacturing, communications, broadcasting, television (1941)

r and ' wliicli ;nii- -rfomifflte ''entliSym- ' Toscanini lyOtciiestia, .jotlfitkmicm- «1 Bell itleofanli- :ll,assi*'' These men stuck to the last, spurn- ing chances for evacuation, l^cll was reported bayoneted to death Ia tlic Japs by the late Melville )acol>) r.t Life magazine, himself a former NBC reporter. Silen is a prisoner of the Japs in .Manila. And W'allace was last heard from retreating to the hills Isex'ond the city with .American troops. A letter which Silen wrote to XBC in New York last November tells the storv ol this NBC man's devotion to his dutv better than anvthing anvone else could write. "Arrangements completed," he as- sured NBC. "I can broadcast at any time, e\en during actual bombing, im- less main power supply is destroyed. Will use special bomb-proof broadcast site. Have made arrangements for anti- aircraft guns to protect our position." On that fateful day of December 7, NBC reporters all over the world re- ported to America. Wahl and Loren Thurston were heard from Honolulu. Then followed Sidney Albright from Batavia, John Young from Singapore, Harrison Forman from Hong Kong and Ed Mackay from Shanghai. Mel facoin' spoke from Chungking. Dick Teniielh' in Tokyo had already been interned. He has since arrived in this country. But Mackav is still interned in Shang- hai at last reports. Scoop OH Dieppe NBC's newest scoop was the rait! on Dieppe. Five days before the raid Roli- ert St. John in London notified the NBC news room in New Y'ork not to expect any reports from MacN'ane until fmther notification. The reason was ap- parent when the radiogram came that Mac\'ane had arrived at an unidenti- fied British port and was ready to re- port on Dieppe. The report of the Dieppe foray by MacVane was heard on NBC and repeated on the Blue Net- work. Mac\'ane was the onlv .American radio reporter to accompanv the Com- mandos and Rangers. NBC reporters have done a magnifi- cent job but there's a bigger one ahead. That job is to report the remaining days of the war without bias, without prejudice, without fear and without favor. .And when the war is finished, there's the peace to hv won. Xiles Tramniejl, President of the Nationcd Broatlcasting Companv, has already envisaged the possibilities ol reporting the peace by radio. .\lr. Tramniell believes NBC microphones should be at hand to report the negoti- ations from dav to day to the American people. In sueh a wav, he belie\es, lies assurance for a tiee peace, written h\ tree people, for a free world. The radio of the futiu'e will be even more world-wide in scope. Our eo\er- age of the news internationallv will be intensified and onlv the limits of tlie globe will bound the peregrinations of om- reporters. Neu) Ideas Come out of the Blue (Coiiliimccl fidiii page 13) our schedule. l^a\mond Gram Swing, the distinguished news analvst, was added to oiu' group of newsmen, and with such noteworthy commentators as Dorothy Thompson, Walter Winchell, Drew Pearson and Earl Godwin we are in a position to offer our listeners the best in this type of informative broad- cast. At the time of our separation from NBC, 116 stations were affiliated with the Blue Network. Since then, 18 new- stations have joined the Blue and 5 have been lost to other networks. We haven't many 50,000 watters, but those we have are located in the places where they are really needed and where thev fuUv justify their cost. The Blue gi\es a primary coverage of 47 out of 50 leading markets, and serves a total of more than 21,000,000 radio families across the nation, appro.xi- mately 71 per cent of the radio homes in America. Since the first of the vear, the Blue has added 23 advertisers to its list of sponsors, more than any other network. Outstanding in interest to the adver- tising business, in addition to the Blue's signing of the first seven-day-a-week sponsored program on record, was the largest time sale in point of hours-per- w'eek to anv individual sponsor. NBC Program Ratings Climb cHossLEY K.\TiNc;s for NBC programs, in the first seven months of this year, show a material increase over the cor- responding 1941 period. Total ratings of all NBC programs are 6.8 per cent better than last vear, while the averace NBC program rating has gone up from lo.7 to 14.9, a gain of 8.S per cent. Blue Gets Legion Award THE BLUE NETWORK ou September 21 received the American Legion .Auxil- iary's seventh consecuti\e Radio Award as the network which lias made "the greatest overall contriiiution to our war effort." The award, an engraved plaque, was presented to E. R. Borroff, vice presi- dent in charge of the BLUE's Central DiN ision, bv Mrs. Eben P. Keen, chair- man of the Auxiliarv's National Radio Committee, at the Nbinieip.il Audito- rium in Kansas Citv. Each of the four national networks competed for the award by submitting the names of radio series, consisting of four or more programs, which would tend to "awaken the complacent, in- spire confidence and increase produc- tion tor the war eflort." RCAC in Bermuda Circuit DIRECT R.\Dio TELEGRAPH scrvicc be- tween the United States and Ber- muda, one of the kev Atlantic outposts of the nation's armed forces, was inau- gurated .August 10 b\' HC'.A Commu- nications, Inc. The new radio message circuit link- ing New York and Hamilton is oper- ated at this end bv RC.A (Communi- cations and in BiTiniida i)y Cable and Wireless, Ltd., which also is R(]A Communications* correspondent in Great Britain and in a number of other foreign lands. Operation of the circuit greatly facil- itates the handling of message traffic between the two points. In the past, telegraph service with Bermuda was operated bv wire and cable via Canada. I RADIO AGE 25 1 i i y-J