Swing (Jan-Dec 1953)

Record Details:

Title:
Swing
Date:
Jan-Dec 1953
Publisher:
Kansas City : WHB Broadcasting Co.
Volume:
Swing (Jan-Dec 1953)
Leaf #:
000451
Language:
English
Subjects:
Radio broadcasting -- Missouri -- Kansas City -- Periodicals, Radio broadcasting -- Kansas -- Periodicals","WHB-AM (Radio station : Kansas City, Mo.) -- Periodicals","Kansas City (Kan.) -- History -- Periodicals","Kansas City (Mo.) -- History -- Periodicals","Cook Paint and Varnish Co. -- Periodicals","WHB Broadcasting Company (Kansas City, Mo.) -- Periodicals.
Collection:
Broadcasting & Recorded Sound
Format:
Periodicals
Contributor:
University of Maryland, College Park
Sponsor:
LYRASIS Members and Sloan Foundation
Coordinator:
Media History Digital Library
Description:
The official magazine of Kansas City's WHB radio station, SWING printed far more than the station's schedule (which, as the title SWING suggested, relied heavily on music). From 1945 to 1953, SWING offered readers something eclectic every month -- profiles of entertainers on one page, discussions of citizenship in the postwar world on the next, with write-ups of nightlife offerings in KC, Chicago, and New York mixed in. WHB spent decades lobbying the FCC for clear channel status; the magazine's ambitious scope may have been part of the station's attempt to legitimate itself. But it was SWING'S first editor, Jetta Carleton, who later wrote a celebrated novel, that gave the magazine its distinctive style. -- Eric Hoyt, 2015
Date Added:
March 28, 2024
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JOHN CROSBY COMMENTS 333 bills in broadcasting, he has had a way of dominating the program content. And his dominance has generally meant that the level of the program' ming has gone down, not up. That, at least, has been the American experience. Conceivably, the in' [herent British conservative taste may 'overrule the lust of the advertiser to ■'sell goods. Or maybe it won't. Most ■British advertising is a model of de' fccorum and it's doubtful that the worst ■ excesses of American advertising will ■ be repeated over there. Take, for example, this advertiseilment which appears on the wrapper :|of that indubitably British product, ■Pears' Soap. "With the fullest confi' Mdence, the Proprietors of Pears Trans > parent Soap recommend their manw I facture to the notice of those not I already acquainted with its long-es' j tablished merits." So long as the Brit' r ish advertising fraternity turns out > copy like that, the British have nothi ing to fear about commercials on the air — except a tendency to put them to sleep. The British Broadcasting Corpora' tion will continue to be a government owned and operated TV network without commercials. Commercial television will be permitted on a separate competing network which will also be under strict government supervision. Thus competition will be introduced to British broadcasting for the first time and it will be very interesting to see what effect that will have on British programming levels, whether it will drive them up or down. It was long the theory of Sir William Haley, former director general of the BBC and now editor of "The Times" of London, that competitive broadcasting would be "at the mercy of Gresham's Law," that good pro' grams would inescapably be driven out by the bad. Sir William, I'm afraid, clung to the notion that the worse a program was the more popular it would be, a debatable proposition at best. My own theory is that a little competition will stimulate the BBC rather than extinguish it, might drive some of the stuffiness out of British television and could very well be a good thing all around. It's useless to speculate now, though. The British will soon find out whether Gresham's or Crosby's law operates in competitive broadcasting. Mostly It Takes Stamina THE telethon is likely to be with us a long time. The reason is simply that the telethon, as a device for raising money for a charity, is almost unbeatable.