Broadcasting (Oct 1931-Dec 1932)

TED COOKE, announcer at KDB, Santa Barbara, Cal., is engaged to marry Miss Zoe Patterson, of Washington, D. C. WINNIE PARKER, now singing under the name of Mona Low, has left Los Angeles to sing over the NBC-KPO network from San Francisco as a staff singer. DUE TO THE DEATH of Clint Babbitt, the Hoffman Old-Timers, heard daily for several years over WTMJ, Milwaukee, are being replaced by a new feature starring Hugh Marshall and Dudley Lyndon. BING CROSBY, of CBS, is scheduled to arrive in Los Angeles June 4. He will do some talkies for Paramount and will broadcast from KHJ, Los Angeles, to the CBS chain Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 3:45 p.m. PST, starting June 8 and ending July 6. HAL O'HALLORAN, announcer of WLS, Chicago, was inducted into the Ojibway Tribe of Indians recently when a group from the Wisconsin reservation named him Ba-Zwa-WaGe-Zhig, or "Echoing Skies," in ceremonies that took place in the Eighth Street theater, from which the WLS National Band Dance is broadcast. LLOYD DENNIS, for the last three years with WEAN, Providence, where he was announcer, continuity writer and baritone soloist while attending Brown University, on May 18 joined the announcing staff of WAAB, Boston. ACTIVITIES of staff members of WLWL, New York: Rudy Forst, musical director, has just returned from a fishing trip; Max Feldman, staff violinist, is playing first violin in the revival of "Show Boat"; Herman Steisel, staff cellist, is with the orchestra of the musical comedy "There You Are," and Dea Cole, artist, is sitting for a sculpture by Hilja Nordmark, the Finnish sculptor. IN THE CONTROL ROOM LAWRENCE McINTYRE, recording engineer of the World Broadcasting System, has been assigned to supervise the recording laboratory of the new World studios which have been installed in Washington. The installation of the ERPI equipment was supervised by C. M. Norberg, recording supervisor of ERPI. CARL MEYER, chief of WGN, Chicago, accompanied by Dan Gallerup, chief engineer of WTMJ, Milwaukee, and staff, conducted field intensity surveys in Wisconsin during the middle of May. Gallerup also experimented last month with the new lapel microphone to be used in connection with public events broadcasts. DONALD M. STANIER has been appointed chief operator of WBZ, Boston, succeeding M. G. Limb, resigned. RAY MEYERS, who was chief radio operator on Sir Hubert Wilkins' polar exploration in the submarine Nautilus and one of the heroes of the expedition, has been signed by NBC Artists Bureau at Boston under exclusive contract. Meyers' most recent broadcast exploit was a short wave relay from a Navy submarine at Revere, Mass. EDWARD LUDES, NBS sound engineer in San Francisco and formerly chief announcer at KYA, now takes the part of "Uncle Thomas" in the nightly Cecil and Sally skits over the NBC-KGO network. A. H. SAXTON, Pacific division engineer for NBC, spent the month of May on an inspection tour of NBC stations in the northwest. THE COMMERCIALLY financed broadcasting systems of the United States are doing more than the government-owned networks of Europe to promote interest in public affairs and political international education, William Hard, radio reporter of international politics, on May 20 told the annual convention of the National Advisory Council on Radio in Education at Buffalo. He recently returned from Geneva, where he covered the Disarmament Conference for NBC. "European governmental broadcasting, which in theory might bs concentrated upon governmental problems, achieves its peculiar success in promoting private individual culture," Mr. Hard said. "American private broadcasting, which in theory might be mindful only of the affairs of private life, has its special superiority in advancing the copious and comprehensive discussion of governmental policies and solutions. "Governmental broadcasting does a bit more for man as a student. Private broadcasting does a great deal more for man as a citizen. That is the paradox, and it is ineradicable. Private broadcasting, since it is supported by advertisements, must give to those advertisements a certain number of minutes which a tax supported radio organization can devote to cultural objectives. Censorship in Europe "GOVERNMENT broadcasting, since it is supported by the state, must be careful not to offend the state and must therefore, while it escapes commercialization, embrace censorship and forfeit freedom. "I have introduced a multitude of foreign statesmen to the American air. Never have I asked them what they were going to say. They were responsible men and they spoke on their own responsibility. Seldom does a European broadcasting organization reciprocate our American hospitality to European public personages. "Occasionally, however, I have introduced an American political dignitary to a European audience. In each instance I have been obliged to submit the text of his remarks beforehand to foreign governmental or quasi-governmental agents for scrutiny and approval. "It is nonsense to say that radio is necessarily an agency for civic good. Radio controlled for the purposes of persons in power can be made the most effective agency ever devised for the enslavement of the mass mentality of a nation." The German Election THE SPEAKER stressed the point that he was not referring to socalled "entertainment" programs but was confining his address to his own specialty of political education. As an example of the way government control affects political broadcasting he referred to the recent German election campaign. "There were four presidential candidates," he said. "Hindenburg, Duesterberg, Hitler and Thaelmann. Hindenburg already inhabited the presidential palace. To Approve U. S. Radio j (Continued from page 7) if he can get the American public, • or even a section of it, to listen to ! him it will be worth the effort." Still unsolved is the question of J financial support for educational broadcasting, Mr. Tyson asserted. J He pointed out that costs are exceedingly heavy and stagger the..1 uninitiated. "How are these enormous costs *; to be met in America if educational > broadcasting is to be developed and persist? It is hardly conceivable 1 that private funds can be secured i to develop a well-rounded program , of educational broadcasting. It is 3 not likely that a proposal that the I industry should support educational broadcasting would receive much response. There is about as much likelihood that support should or could be secured from our Federal Government for this purpose. This question remains the most elusive and puzzling in educational broad ! casting." Radio Held Supplementary PREDICTION that the broadcast-: ing of supplementary lessons to children in their classrooms will I become the nation-wide practice i was made by Miss Judith C. Waller, assistant manager of WMAQ, Chicago, midwest education director of NBC and chairman of the NAB education committee. "However," she said, "I do not by any means feels that radio will ever do away with the school. It won't. Radio has its own niche in the educational schema as a supplementary service and as such it already has proved its worth." A warning to the broadcasting industry that there would be further governmental regulation of broadcasting unless broadcasters mend their ways was sounded by Richard J. Smith, associate professor of the Yale University law school. Judge John W. Van Allen, of : Buffalo, general counsel for the ; Radio Manufacturers Association, however, took issue, asserting that radio today is laboring under the most onerous control of any indus l try in the country. He was thereupon the only presidential candidate admitted to the German air. A speech by him was broadcast on Wednesday afternoon. It was again broadcast, from a record, on Saturday even ing. On Sunday the German radio listeners, thus educated in the speaking personalities of the presidential contestants for their suffrages, went to the polls." During the Disarmament Conference, Mr. Hard said, the total number of broadcasts from Geneva to all European countries outside Switzerland was forty, while he alone, with his guest speakers, spoke to the United States fortyone times. "When American radio meets European radio in the only field of direct comparison, the international field," he said, "it is not European radio, it is American radio, that proves its superior interest in noncommercial public affairs and instant world-wide political international education." Page 18 BROADCASTING • June 1, 1932^