Broadcasting (Oct 1931-Dec 1932)

BIR©AP€ASTDINI€ THE NEWS MAGAZINE of THE FIFTH ESTATE MARTIN CODEL, Editor SOL TAISHOFF, Managing Editor F. GAITHER TAYLOR, Advertising Manager • Executive and Editorial Offices: National Press Building, Washington, D. C. Subscription Price : $3.00 a Year 15c a Copy Copyright, 1931, by Broadcasting Publications, Inc. Published Semi Monthly by BROADCASTING PUBLICATIONS, Inc. National Press Building Washington, D. C. Metropolitan 1786 Better Business HIGHLY commendable is the move on the part of leading Chicago broadcasters to put their own houses in order in the matter of questionable and blatant advertising and commercial practices generally. It is to be hoped that the movement will spread to other parts of the country — but, it is devoutly to be desired that it will not require any impetus from Better Business Bureaus. That the Chicago group should have met at the behest of the Better Business Bureau there, simply to draw up a set of standard practices essentially the same as those recommended in the Code of Ethics and Standards of Commercial Practices promulgated three years ago by the National Association of Broadcasters, seems regrettable. Yet it was the Chicago Better Business Bureau that took the initiative, with only the two major networks and nine stations out of the twenty invited sending representatives. Self-regulation is the only way to forestall Congressionally imposed regulation, already threatened in the new Congress. Self-regulation does not need the good offices, however friendly, of any Better Business Bureau. The NAB code was a far step toward self-regulation; pursuance of it is entirely sufficient to effect a housecleaning of radio, if housecleaning it needs. To broadcasters everywhere in the land, a voluntary movement along the lines of the Chicago movement is certainly to be preferred against arbitrary rules of conduct rigidly defined to regulate this all-too-regulated business of broadcasting. The NAB Code of Ethics and Standards of Commercial Practice should be dusted off so that the industry, the Congress and the public may know that they actually exist and that a large element in broadcasting is adhering or is inclined to adhere to them. Shackles JUST WHEN it appeared that the Radio Commission was beginning to see the light by relaxing iron-clad regulations that did naught but deter broadcasting, along comes that agency with several legislative recommendations, which, if enacted, would undo all the good accomplished — and then some. We can see no plausible grounds for the recommendation that licenses be restricted to one year. The law itself provides for a threeyear license term. Broadcasting as an industry will remain on a foundation of sand as long as licenses are for short periods. There can be no stability in an industry forced to exist on a month-to-month basis, subject to attack from all sides. Congress saw fit to provide for three-year licenses as soon as broadcasting emerged from Page 18 the shake-down stage. If the difficulties now confronting broadcasting — legal, economic and program — were traced, they would inevitably lead to the short license span. The Commission would do well by leaving well-enough alone. Longer licenses will not freeze broadcasting. The Commission is unduly perturbed in that regard, because it can always exercise the power of revocation in extreme cases. Changes in frequency and power always can be accomplished with the consent of stations. We agree with Commissioner Robinson that the time is near at hand for longer licenses. We go further, and say that the statutory provision of three-year licenses be invoked, and at once. Then and only then, can broadcasting settle down and work out its own problems with reasonable assurance of protection. In a second recommendation, the Commission wants to become a police court. It wants to "suspend" stations for periods up to thirty days as a disciplinary measure. The Commission should realize that the public and not the station would be penalized in such instances. We feel there is no middle ground in radio regulation — that either the station should be deleted or should be allowed to continue, depending upon the magnitude of his trangressions. The Commission deserves commendation for its liberalization of the station break and transcription regulations. They will improve program technique. By and large, the new rules and regulations to become effective Feb. 1, represent a material improvement over the existing sheaf of disassociated general orders. More Ventura S. HOWARD EVANS, traveling representative of the Ventura (Cal.) Free Press, which is conducting a campaign of opposition to the present system of radio, was a visitor at the offices of Broadcasting during the opening week of Congress. He said he will remain in Washington, with side trips to various eastern points, through the Congressional session and perhaps afterward. He reported that 1,000 newspapers, chiefly small town dailies and weeklies, are enlisted in the campaign of H. O. Davis, publisher of the Ventura Free Press, which is largely one of printed propaganda against things as they are in radio. Mr. Davis, he said, is conducting his fight in the conviction that radio enjoys certain unfair advantages — not clear to us — in competition with the press; he added that Mr. Davis, should he fail in his great effort in the next year or so, as we think inevitable, will then consider the possibility of acquiring or affiliating with a radio station. Mr. Davis can save himself much time, effort and money by acting on the matter of a radio affiliation — if anyone will affiliate with him — right now. The RADIO BOOK SHELF NEW EDITIONS of the lists of "Commercial and Government Radio Stations in the United States," and "Amateur Radio Stations in the United States," corrected to June 30, 1931, have been published by the Government Printing Office and are now available from the Superintendent of Documents, Washington. The lists were compiled under the direction of William D. Terrell, director of the Radio Division, Department of Commerce. Because of their increased size — the amateur list alone shows an increase of 4,000 names — there has been a slight increase in their cost. The "Commercial and Government" list is available for 20 cents and the "Amateur" list for 35 cents per copy. These lists include all American stations with the exception of broadcasting. The broadcasting stations are listed in a book compiled by the Federal Radio Commission last February, to which monthly addenda sheets with corrections have been issued. The Radio Commission log will be reissued to bring it up to date some time in February. IN AN ARTICLE in the Nov. 13 issue of World Radio, weekly radio publication of the British Broadcasting Corp., with a circulation of more than 250,000, Tyrone Guthrie, an Englishman, compares the various aspects of the American and British broadcasting systems. His discussion is based on observations made while in Canada last January at which time he was engaged by the Canadian National Railways to direct the production of a series of broadcast plays. Mr. Guthrie believes that American broadcasting fulfills its purpose — that is, it sells the commodity — but he laments the fact that it is merely the "handmaiden of commerce." In England, Mr. Guthrie states, the arrival of broadcasting as an art meant a "new era in the communication of ideas." Our English critic commends the gusto and ingenuity with which the American programs are presented, but, he says, we make a poor showing if anything other than the general run of popular entertainment is attempted. A consideration of some of the recent and successful broadcasts of distinctly cultural value, such as the programs of several symphony concert orchestras and lectures by leading American educators, would tend to disprove this statement by Mr. Guthrie. The American and British systems are inherently different, each fulfilling a different end. Can it be said that one is "superior" to the other? — Laura Smith. A DETAILED description of the new "House of Radio," Berlin-Charlottenburg, Masurenallee, which was opened in January, 1931, is carried in the November issue of Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers. The broadcasting station, one of the finest technically in Europe, is described by Gunther Lubszynski and Kurt Hoffmann. The design of the plant was based on arrangements between the German Reichs Post Office and the ReichsRundfunk-Gessellschaft for joint broadcast operation and the principle of controlling performances in the very place of reception: namely, in a control room adjoining the studio. The amplification plant, in which all eight amplifiers are concentrated at a centrally located station, is said to be the first broadcast station in Europe which operates with no batteries but is fed by the generator only. BROADCASTING • December 15, 1931