Broadcasting (Oct 1931-Dec 1932)

LAST CALL for Frequency Monitors A Canadian Viewpoint (Continued from page 9) FEDERAL RADIO COMMISSION APPROVAL NO. 1452 June 21, deadline for General Order 116, will soon be here. Will your station be allowed to continue operating? It will if you have ordered General Radio frequency-monitoring equipment, because General Radio has Federal Radio Commission approval and General Radio is making deliveries on schedule. Here is a summary of the reasons for your choice of General Radio. No other monitor has all of these advantages: 1. General Radio makes a definite accuracy guarantee, a promise of performance that has been proved by actual routine operation in almost 100 stations. 2. The General Radio monitor has the large visible meter showing at all times direction as well as the amount of a frequency drift. 3. The General Radio monitor mounts either on a standard relay rack or on a small desk-type rack. 4. The price is $550. Liberal discount for cash or terms can be arranged. G ORDER TODAY BY TELEGRAPH COLLECT ENERAL RADIO CO. CAMBRIDGE A, MASSACHUSETTS of broadcasting ? Not in Canada, I assert. The Privy Council of Great Britain— which is equivalent to the Supreme Court of the United States — recently stated unequivocally that the Dominion Government of Canada had complete control over radio broadcasting within the domain of Canada, both as to transmitting and to receiving apparatus. It will have this control a year from now, or any number of years from now, and if any fictitious, or allegedly grasping alien "octopus" seeks to wrest this control from it, someone's tenacles can easily be clipped or attenuated. Admittedly then, we have, and will always have, this complete control. We could, if need be, prohibit the use of Canada of any receiving sets capable of tuning in foreign stations — as has been suggested by some extremists. Why All the Bother? WHAT MORE could we ask, than the intelligent exercise of this control, to preserve our birthright to the Canadian air? What need have we to bother about our silly but admirable Don Quixotes who are tilting the American radio wind-mills, or to humor our somewhat Pecksniffian "little" Canadians who depreciate our western hemisphere broadcasting methods and "madness" ? Whether broadcasting in Canada is, in future, to be governmentowned and operated, saris advertising, or is to continue under private ownership with active and intelligent Government control, may have been decided before this issue of Broadcasting is published, as the Parliamentary Committee which was entrusted with the matter has completed its public hearings and is now considering the case. The Dominion Government has been made the defendant, willynilly, and has been accused of not only failing to control broadcasting properly in Canada but also of allowing the foundation to be laid for complete domination of the Canadian air by American interests. It has been told that the only way to save the situation and to purify and debunk the Canadian air, is by wiping out all existing stations operated under private ownership, by erecting a chain of new ones at the expense of the taxpayers and by operating them, without sponsored programs, also at the expense of the taxpayers. American programs, which come to us more or less satisfactorily over the air, are to be debarred entry into Canada by wire, except such as grand opera from the Metropolitan Opera House, the New York Philharmonic, Stokowski, Damrosch, et al. These we will allow our American friends the privilege of transmitting to us, by wire, and we will condescend to listen to them — but, as for your vulgar and depraved advertising programs, we will have none of them. The sponsors of these programs are cordially invited to build their factories in Canada, to employ Canadians, to advertise in our newspapers and on our billboards, and to drink our liquor, but they must not defile our Canadian ai) with any audible utterances abou their produces. Bach didn't us< toothpaste, and Wagner abhorrer tobacco ! Fees for Program ON THE other hand, the Dominiar Government is being supported ir the argument by those who ask i\ to take more interest in broadcasting and to exercise more fully the control vested in the state. The Parliamentary Committee has been shown clearly and convincingly that private ownership with sponsored programs, can dc an excellent job for the whole ol Canada, if a portion of the revenue derived from license fees is used tc support broadcasting. The license fee in Canada is nov $2 a year, and it is estimated that there are more than one million radio set owners in the Dominion liable to pay this tax, which should yield a total of at least $2,000,000 annually. It is proposed that the government should appropriate about $500,000 of this amount towards leasing 18-hour-a-day transmission service from Halifax to Vancouver and that approximately $1,000,000 a year should be spent on a National Symphony Orchestra, a National Canadian Band, and on National Concert Orchestras and other musical groups, as well as on educational programs and other activities of national interest. Transmission service for coastto-coast network programs would, on the above basis, cost approximately $75 an hour, and it is believed that sufficient sponsored and sustaining programs would be available to enable 14-hour-a-day continuous broadcasting on all stations in the five time zones from the Atlantic to the Pacific. This can be accomplished, under private ownership, with a $2 annual license fee. Under government ownership, and with no sponsored programs, the fee would have to be about $15 a year for an all-Canadian show if programs were to compare favorably with those of the U. S. A. — and, at that, most of the artists and musicians producing the entertainment would be aliens . 15,500 Sets in Hawaii, Alaska Count is 1,500 AMONG the 77,070 families listed for Hawaii in the 1930 census, it is estimated by the Electrical Equipment Division, Department of Commerce, that there were 15,500 radios as of April, 1932. No count of radios was taken with the decennial population census, such as was made in the United States. The official census shows 4.8 persons per family in Hawaii, giving the islands a total population of 368,336. Alaska was not included in the radio census count either, and it is estimated it had 1,500 radios in use in April, 1932. Its 1930 census shows 59,278 inhabitants, or 19,850 families, with 3.0 persons per family. Page 28 BROADCASTING • May 15, 1932