Radio revue (Dec 1929-Mar 1930)

40 Editorials RADIO REVUE Makes Its Bow TT will be the aim of Radio Revue, a magazine for -*■ the listener, to give, clearly and impartially, news about radio personalities, the radio business, both from the broadcasting and manufacturing angles, the rights and wrongs of advertising clients, the woes of announcers, the crimes committed by radio fans, the punishments deserved for these crimes, blasphemous errors in diction and in musical announcements, distortion and war-provoking mispronunciations of foreign wrords known to every music student, blatant self-advertisements by announcers, salacious and unfair advertisements, overpowering use of advertising material, the uplift in music, the downpush in jazz, the curse of the crooners, etc., etc., ad infinitum. We do not expect to revolutionize and reform the radio business over-night, nor do we intend to investigate and imprison a lot of nice people, nor attack commissions, assault governors, and threaten governments with the press, nor threaten the press with the governments. We believe that there is a definite need and place for such a publication. Five years' practical experience in radio broadcasting and a much longer period spent in the publishing field have caused us to arrive at this conclusion. Radio broadcasting has had an unprecedented growth and bids fair to continue its amazing progress. In the process, however, a number of important things have been overlooked or slighted. We hope to have a part in remedying some of these shortcomings. To this end, we shall campaign, among other things, for: 1. Wider dissemination of news and information about radio artists and program developments. 2. A general improvement in the standard of radio programs being broadcast. 3. More extensive use of radio broadcasting for educational and economic purposes. 4. A decided improvement in reception conditions for the radio listener. 5. A wider appreciation of the need for better and more standard English diction in all radio broadcasting. However, lest we be accused of becoming too stuffy and pompous, we wish to have it distinctly understood that this magazine will be edited with the editorial tongue always in' the editorial cheek. We do not want to become too serious about this business — especially when there are so many opportunities in it for real humor. With this introduction we now commend to your attention our newly-born infant, conceived in the ecstasy of a new idea and born in the agony of pre-publication uncertainty. We bespeak your kind indulgence for its deficiencies and assure you that, whatever they may be, we shall try to overcome them in future issues. We expect to have plenty of fun with this magazine. Our prime purpose is to make a lot of money — and, of course, to publish the most entertaining magazine possible. RADIO REVUE Radio Censorship Impracticable f*\ N the face of it, radio censorship seems as imprae^^ ticable as it ' must appear preposterous. Here we have no physical thing, like the book or the film, products created at a tremendous expense, which can be — and often must be — altered and amended to satisfy a large and discriminating public, as well as a small group of official moralists. Once a voice or a band has gone on the air, it has gone beyond the power of recall through human agencies. Each must be as nearly perfect as possible before its agent will permit a broadcast. The more prominent radio corporations are continually endeavoring to improve their broadcasts, and their energies and capital are not only expended upon class, but upon type as well. By that is meant the nature of the program as well as the grade of the performing artist and the music itself. The public finds but little fault with the artist as a rule, because the broadcasting company, through its tests and auditions, can generally have the best entertainers at its constant command. The difficulty lies with the nature of the program. Programs may be classified, roughly, under three heads : classical, popular, and a third class that strikes a happy medium between these two. Classical programs, as a rule, refer to symphony concerts, song recitals, and the radio presentations of grand opera and famous plays, or specially dramatized resumes of standard books. In the third class we must include performances of light operas, original skits of a reminiscent nature, travel talks, band concerts, and the analyses of world-wide interest which are generally seen on the news reels in the motion picture theatres. All of these have their tens of thousands of enthusiastic radio fans. The complaint — a real one — has been directed somewhat against the popular program, and specifically against jazz music — not against the remarkably fine, polished performances of a small number of skillul orchestras under competent and sensitive leaders, but the raucous, blatant, stupid noises of poorly-manned bands, whose chief asset is a villainous "director," or a tin-throated tenor with castiron lungs. The hig'h-grade syncopating ensembles will quickly enough be featured by one of the radio companies or advertisers of national importance ; the second raters will have to confine themselves to the small hotels and cabaret enterprises which provide expense money for them, while they give their services gratis to the smaller broadcasting stations. And, if they are not to be wiped off the slate of radio through natural means, then a form of censorship must be set up to save our tortured ears from their continued and cacophonous assaults. An instrument ultimately may be devised to measure purity of tone, balance, finesse, and perhaps even that elusive quality, "radio personality." With this miracle performed, whoever and whatever does not come up to a certain standard will be dropped. The unkind critic will doubtless add that they should be dropped from the air . and from a great height.