Broadcasting (Oct 1931-Dec 1932)

STATION NOTES WJSV, Alexandria, Va., has just issued a new rate card, which also describes the territory it serves. FIFTEEN minutes additional time was made available in February to WINS, New York, a daylight station, and in March the "signoff" will come at 8:15 p.m. The station is on the 1180 kc. channel, and must sign off when it is sunset in the Pacific time zone, where the channel is shared by KEX, Portland, Ore., and KOB, State College, N. M. GOOD RECEPTION in New York City from WEEU, Reading, Pa., a recently authorized 1 kw. daylight station, is reported in the New York Times. WGY, Schenectady, one of the 10 oldest stations on the air, will be 10 years old on Feb. 20. Known as "the voice of the house of magic," the General Electric station has been a pioneer in the technical development of broadcasting under the direction of Martin P. Rice. VISITORS continue to flock to the new studios of WHK, Cleveland, although they have been open for several months. Last month 7,396 persons registered between 7 and 11 p.m., and the single day's record was set on Sunday, Jan. 10, when 901 visitors were tabulated. LETTERS from three different cities, Dunedin, Manaia and Palmerston North, all in New Zealand, were received recently by the Universal Broadcasting Company, reporting reception of WCAU, Philadelphia, the morning of Jan. 1. FOLLOWING the announcement of a new ruling of the Radio Commission, station breaks on WNAC and WAAB Boston, are made at half-hour intervals except when 15-minute programs are being broadcast. WOR, Newark, maintains 27 remote lines strategically placed in the metropolitan area. These are permanent and enable the station to broadcast spot news events any time of the day or night. The lines do double duty in that they are used to carry music to the transmitter as well. OF 249 questionnaires returned by families canvassed by The Bismarck (N. D.) Capital, a semi-weekly, to determine listener station preferences, KFYR, Bismarck, reports that 170 replies showed its station the most popular. All but eight of the replying families had radios. PROGRAM NOTES FIRST POLITICAL shots were fired in the coming race for Illinois Governor when William H. Malone started ^e?es, of talks direct to voters over KYW, Illinois, Jan. 27. Mr. Malone has contracted for some five or six other talks over the same station. With the presidential conventions of the Democratic and Republican parties to be held in Chicago, indications are that the radio stations in the chief city of Illinois will be called upon to handle many of the campaign speeches. WITH THE inauguration of a new series of "Joan and Betty Bible Stories," the British Broadcasting Corporation announces that a committee of Sunday School experts of all sects is cooperating in arranging a series of talks on intervening Sundays to explain the dramatic episodes. "MEET THE Orchestra" titles a new program from NBC in San Francisco Monday nights to KPO, San Francisco; KG A, Spokane, and KJR, Seattle. To bear out the titie, various players in the group carry solo airs. PAUL ARMSTRONG, director of naturalization in the San Francisco district, has inaugurated a series over KJBS in the same city, with a weekly talk on citizenship and a question and answer department. LOS ANGELES school children petitioned the sponsors of "Chandu" daily mystery serial over KHJ at 8:15 p.m., to give the feature earlier so it would not interfere with home study. So the Chandu act will be given over KNX, Hollywood, at 5:45 p.m. weekdays on a transcription. The KHJ series will continue as a "live" act. The KNX series will go back to the first episode, while the KHJ series continues in its regular sequence. KOIL, Omaha, Neb., will use the Royal Serbian Gypsies, a tamburitza orchestra with Slavic programs, for a twice a week studio feature. The "berde," "kontrasicka," "binnasicka" and "brocks" are played as a group and also in combination with violin and cello. THE SINGING CLOWN is a new feature over WOR, Newark, receiving favorable response. A rich, colorful tenor, his comic and tragic songs represent the extremes in vocalism. A NEW SERIES of sustaining programs entitled "The Scoop," has just been launched over WBBM, Chicago. Presented in dramatic form they concern the activities of Phil Peters, a newspaperman and his fiancee, Ann Lewis. Each episode is a complete story. THE HOOT OWLS, famous Friday night frolic on KGW, Portland, Ore., observed its tenth anniversary Feb. 5. It also goes to KOMO, Seattle, and KGO, San Francisco. SUNDAY NIGHT hi-jinks at KFWB, Hollywood, have become so popular that Warner Brothers sound stage four, where the productions are given, finds the 250 seating capacity has been allotted weeks in advance. Last week stage carpenters knocked out one wall and enlarged the capacity to 700. THE NINTH annual series of the Chicago Opera Company, which has been carried over WNAC, Boston, from the Boston Opera House for eight years, was introduced over the Yankee Network Feb. 2. A single microphone was used with satisfactory results. KMOX, St. Louis, will now originate the Musical Memories program, a CBS feature to be heard Sundays at 5:30 p.m. KFRC, San Francisco, uses a regular automatic drill in the studio for David Tamkin's spectacular arrangement of "Metropolis." KOIL, Omaha, Neb., has signed a rube act known as "Maude and her Boy Friends." Gus, Andy and Jim are Gus Sindt, Andrew Martin and John Mogg. Episodes give musical sketches of a tour around the country by three boys and their mule. KOLB AND DILL, who started as hoofers 34 years ago, have taken to the air and will do a three-times-aweek program from NBC's gold network on the west coast. Governor James Rolph, Jr., introduced the two characters on the initial program Feb. 2. Gilmore Oil Company will sponsor the duo in place of its former Gilmore circus act. "The Dinglebenders" titles the new creation and it has to do with two delicatessen store proprietors who have taken a baby to raise. BEGINNING Feb. 19, WOR, Newark, inaugurates a series of four broadcasts on income tax information. The series will be on Fridays from 6:45 to 7 p.m. and will be given by David Danish, New York expert. THE "ROUND the World Club" program, inaugurated at KMPC, Beverly Hills, Cal., a year ago, and transferred to KFI, Los Angeles, late in 1931, has moved up to San Francisco with NBC. "Bill, Mack and Jimmy" are the fictitious characters in the daily serial written and directed by R. U. Mcintosh. It will be given from NBC San Francisco studios over several of the coast stations. "MORE HOURS of national chain programs than any other station in Texas" has become the slogan for KTRH, Houston, which is affiliated with the CBS for chain programs. "THE MORNING EDITION" is what KGB, San Diego, calls its 7 a.m. week-day feature. This has been arranged in the form of an announcement period presented in newspaper style. There are late news dispatches, time signals every five minutes, musical tunes and commercial copy. Just as the news-sheet has copy on the day's bargains, the KGB "radio newssheet" likewise takes time out for sponsored bulletins. THE MERRY MADCAPS, dance orchestra of WTIC, Hartford, is the second orchestral unit selected by the NBC to present a series of programs over its network. The programs, directed by Norm Cloutier, are being transmitted from WTIC each Tuesday afternoon over 11 stations associated with WEAF, New York. The WTIC Concert Orchestra is relaying over the network a series of "Pop Concerts" under Christiaan Kriens' direction each Monday afternoon. KFWB, Hollywood, has announced a new program policy in that hereafter its orchestral groups will be hired for two week periods only. Constant changing of orchestras, it is believed, will bring more variety and life to broadcasts. "BILL THE BARBER," a stock character of the old one-chair barber shop, is a new feature on WMAQ, Chicago. ONCE EACH month the weekly program of the Inglewood Park cemetery over KHJ, Los Angeles, will be devoted to music of little known writers. Symphony orchestra and soloists will be used and preliminary hearings by the music staff will determine the compositions to be given. KROW, Oakland, has once more announced public auditions and has set aside an hour program Saturday afternoons with the acts broadcast. "VIGNETTES," dramatized highlights in the lives of famous music masters, has returned to KHJ, Los Angeles, after a rest of three or four months. Tschaikowsky was the first composer in the new series of half hour broadcasts with Raymond Paige leading the symphonic aggregation. "SKYSCRAPERS," as a sustaining program at KFRC, San Francisco, has become a weekly feature supervised by Meredith Willson, music director. It depicts the unusual and spectacular in modern orchestral music. KFAC, Los Angeles, has inaugurated a series of Saturday afternoon aviation talks. February speakers will include C. D. Doak, of the Department of Commerce; Earl W. Hill, professor of transportation at the University of Southern California; and D. A. McDonald, of the California State Chamber of Commerce aeronautics division. KMCS, Los Angeles, will spot a news broadcast three times daily via remote from the Illustrated Daily News with its radio editor, Kenneth W. Frogley at the microphone. RADIO'S drawing power was well illustrated early this month when Chicago's broadcasting stations and the NBC and CBS networks cooperated in promoting the gigantic chariLy festival. Ticket purchases for the entertainment, which was staged at the Chicago Stadium, netted $28,000 for the Joint Emergency Relief Fund. Radio talent provided the entertainment. Mexican-Cuban Grabs (Continued from page 6) seems certain that the State Department's defense will be that the matter of enlarging the broadcast band to invade the short waves will be considered at the International Radio Convention at Madrid next fall, thus paving the way for meeting the requirements of Canada, Mexico and Cuba. Dill Explains Resolution IN INTRODUCING the measure Senator Dill said the United States is spending about $500,000 a year to sustain the Radio Commission "in an attempt to make it possible for our radio station to broadcast so that there will not be serious interference between them in order that radio listeners may have the benefit of various programs." He said he offered the resolution because he believes it absolutely necessary "if the money this Government is spending to assure good radio service in th'is country is to bring any real benefits to American people and not prove to be largely a waste of funds." The Senator continued that he did not ask for immediate consideration of the resolution by the Senate, "because I want it to go to the committee in order that we may call before us the members of the Radio Commission and officials of the State Department to explain their side of the question before asking the Senate to take action." Senator Dill and broadcasters generally, however, are anxious to know why the administration did not act two years ago when conditions first became serious. The Senator observed that the Madrid conference results could not have been a plausible excuse at that time. Since then, he asserted, the situation has become steadily worse, with more and more stations "squatting" on channels, used by American and Canadian stations. Senator Dill's resolution follows in full text: Whereas, radio broadcasting stations in Mexico and Cuba are using frequencies being used by radio broadcasting stations in the United States, and thereby causing interference with the service of said stations to the American people, and it is reliably reported that a number of additional radio broadcasting stations are planned and under construction near the American border of Mexico, and Whereas, there is no international agreement or treaty dividing the use of frequencies for radio broadcasting among the nations of North America, and only by such an international agreement can the government of these countries protect the radio broadcasting stations within their borders from interference by radio broadcasting stations in other North American countries, and Whereas, the value of vast investments in radio broadcasting business in the United States and good service by the receiving sets of millions of listeners in the United States are dependent upon the prevention of interference by radio broadcasting stations located in adjoining countries ; Now, therefore, be it resolved, that the Senate hereby requests the Secretary of State, with the assistance of the Federal Radio Commission, to negotiate international agreements with Canada. Mexico and CuVa. and any other countries he may deem advisable either separately or by joint convention for the protection of radio broadcasting stations in all of these countries from interference with one another, whereby a fair and equitable division of the use of radio facilities allocated for broadcasting under the International Radio Telegraph Convention of Washington in 1927 may be made. Page 22 BROADCASTING • February 15, 1932