Broadcasting (July - Dec 1936)

RadioLuxembourg Bans Script Shows English Commercial Periods Now Devoted to Music RADIO Luxembourg, Europe's big commercial broadcaster, has banned all script programs in English, according to Kenneth Hall, London agent of Standard Radio Inc. The move to ban all but musical programs on the big super-power continental station resulted from listeners' complaints from Belgium, Germany and France, who could not understand what was going on when the station put on script acts in English, according to Hall. Music being a universal language and the station allowing but 90 seconds of commercials in each quarter-hour, it was thought the entire listening audience of the station could be held by eliminating the scripts entirely. With only two or three continental stations serving the English market successfully the problem for the English advertiser, says Hall, is not to find a program idea which he likes but to be able to buy time at all. Radio Luxembourg allows two hours each night and Sunday mornings for transmission of English advertising programs. Time is sold through English brokers having exclusive rights to these periods and the rate is the highest for any station in the world. This can be understood when it is realized these few stations transmit the only commercial programs to a potential market of 44,000,000 people. Like American Programs PROGRAM preferences of the English advertiser lean toward the American type of program, Hall explains. The English listener prefers American bands and the American way of broadcasting although not articulate enough to change the method of operating BBC. A striking second to this thought was given Broadcasting's Hollywood reporter when he casually asked an all-English cast of film players working at a studio which stations and which programs they liked best in England. Their universal preference was for the American type broadcast of commercial programs over Radio Luxembourg, followed by certain favorites of BBC and the Russian symphonies! This preference is more striking when it is considered practically all of the features from Radio Luxembourg of a commercial type are of the transcribed kind standard Radio Inc. announces it has several of its features running for some of England's largest advertisers, with more waiting for time. There is only one conclusion to reach from such reactions, according to Hall. It is: The program, not the method is the real test of a show. Given a localitwhere no preconceived notions have been built up in the public's mind and the transcribed show is favored over live talent! COVERING THE ELECTIONS— Every detail of the Nov. 3 elections will be covered by the networks and stations, the networks depending largely upon Press-Radio Bureau for the returns and the stations upon their network reports and upon Transradio, UP, INS and their local newspaper tieups. Indicating the elaborate plans being made for handling reports is this layout of the CBS election returns studios. Inserts, left to right, are H. V. Kaltenborn, Bob Trout and Hugh Conrad. Networks and Stations Complete Plans For Fast Coverage of Presidential Vote PAT FLANAGAN, veteran sports announcer at WBBM, Chicago, has been going to night school lately — as a teacher. Fifteen-hundred service men of the Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., sponsor of his football broadcasts, have been taking a course in salesmanship under the sports ace. RADIO is ready to cover the 1936 presidential election — the fifth since KDKA announced the Harding-Cox vote in 1920 — with an elaborate coverage that will link countless thousands of polling places with highly-organized staffs keyed to provide up-to-the-second results for the listening millions. Networks and stations have been working for weeks and months to tune their news-gathering facilities for the big night, Tuesday, Nov. 3. Both routine vote counting and novelty programs will be on hundreds of broadcast schedules. Both NBC and CBS will require a half-hundred or more persons at their New York offices to handle tabulation of the 40 million or more votes which will be cast. United Press, International News Service, Universal Service and Transradio Press have perfected nationwide setups for their vote counting, and will offer special service far in advance of that provided to broadcasters in past presidential elections. NBC Well Prepared NBC will have a general election desk where bulletins will be received, edited and passed on to the announcer. Returns will be supplied to Press Radio Bureau by Associated Press, United Press, International News Service and Universal Service. A four-room suite in Radio City will be transformed into a workroom and studio and election flashes will be fed from this room as they are received from Press Radio Bureau. NBC microphones will be set up at Hyde Park and Topeka, as well as party headquarters in New York and Chicago. Mobile units will pick up crowd reaction. Bulletins received by telegraph and teletype will be printed on three shades of paper to distinguish between presidential, secondary and summary material. Data will be tabulated on a board. After editing, bulletins will be passed to the chief announcer's desk, who will telephone orders to the bulletin control board and determine when to cut into network programs. At the board will be Graham McNamee and John B. Kennedy, veteran NBC announcers. A fourth room will be used to check broadcasts as they go on the air. NBC will have microphones at New Ashford, Mass., traditional first town to complete its count, usually announcing its returns about 8 a. m. CBS will carry periodic bulletins during the day, cut in bulletins after 6 p. m. with greater frequency, and after 10:30 p. m. will turn over the entire network to continuous election programs until the Presidential choice is known. H. V. Kaltenborn, Bob Trout and Hugh Conrad will announce and analyze returns. Listeners will get a behind-thescenes glance into the CBS election setup between 6 and 7:30 p. m., when preliminary contacts with various remote points to be heard later in the evening will be broadcast. A preview of CBS plans will be given Nov. 2 when Paul White, CBS special features director; Bob Trout and James W. Barrett, editor of Press Radio Bureau will explain the coverage. Mr. White will be seated at a special desk Nov. 3 and will have instant contact with Topeka, Hyde Park and national party headquarters, as well as news sources and the network's 103 affiliates. Page boys will shuttle between his desk and teletype and code machines with reports. The vote will be relayed to a white "blackboard", said to give improved visibility. Special election service will be provided by local stations, which are preparing to cover local as well as national results. WGAR, Cleveland, will start its election coverage Nov. 3 at 6 a. m., and will have a mobile transmitter on the job all day, describing scenes at polling places and urging the public to vote. Under sponsorship of Bisceglia Bros., St. Helena, Cal. (Greystone wine), WIP and WFIL, Philadelphia, will broadcast election returns until the presidential choice is conceded. Microphones will be installed in the Philadelphia Inquirer news rooms, local party headquarters, City Hall and Transradio service will be used by WIP. WFIL will use INS reports and the WFIL news bureau will tabulate and analyze balloting under direction of Donald Withycomb, general manager of the station. Five remote crews will provide local coverage. Townsend Group Books 94-Station CBS Hookup PURCHASING the complete CBS network from 10:45 to 11 p. m., Sunday, Nov. 1, Dr. Francis E. Townsend was scheduled to make his first network broadcast over a 94-station hookup. The previous Sunday, via transcription, the oldage pension campaigner had addressed the audiences of KVOS, KFBI, KTSM, KGNC, KNOW, KTRH, KTSA, KFDM, KRLD, KOMA, KTHS, KWKH, KDSU, WALA, WSGN, WHBQ, WWVA, WMBG, WWNC, WIS, WMAZ, KFYO and WCHS. Howard Ray, who has come from the Los Angeles to the Chicago headquarters of Townsend National Recovery Plans Inc., where he succeeded Dwight Bunnell as director of radio for the organization, says that if the CBS broadcast goes off successfully, plans will be made for a 13-week series of broadcasts by Dr. Townsend under the sponsorship of the National Townsend Weekly, organ of the Townsend group, with the hope of selling enough subscriptions to defray the cost of the broadcasts. Mr. Ray also said that he expects to continue placing the transcribed talks on local stations throughout the country. These programs are recorded in the D'Arcy Laboratories, Chicago, and have been placed through the Conover-Serviss Co., Chicago station representatives. Moon Glow to Expand MOON GLOW COSMETICS Co., Los Angeles, is planning to expand its radio campaign into new territory in December. A quarterhour afternoon program from KHJ, Los Angeles, to Don Lee network, started last June, was expanded after two months to Don Lee-CBS network, and later included KSL, Salt Lake City. This series was renewed for 26 weeks and expanded to the whole Pacific Coast and Mountain area. Two announcements of a free sample offer brought some 1,500 responses. Emil Brisacher & Associates, Los Angeles, is agency. JACOB DOLD PACKING Co., Buffalo, on Oct. 10 renewed its fiveminute UP news periods on WGRWKBW, Buffalo, every hour on the hour from 9 a. m. to midnight. Batten. Barton. Durstine & Osborn Inc., Buffalo, placed the account. Page 40 • November 1, 1936 BROADCASTING • Broadcast Advertising