Broadcasting (Oct 1931-Dec 1932)

Radio Education That Has Succeeded Key to WTAR School Held Cooperation With Educators; Courses Selected to Please Majority of Listeners By RICHARD 0. LEWIS General Manager, KTAR, Phoenix, Ariz. TWO YEARS' experience with the KTAR School of the Air, Phoenix, Ariz., has proved that radio, properly utilized, can be a power"«£rB^ ful influence in ~K JH education. Re Mr. Lewis sjHs ,°,f thi,s schools work have shown it to be one of the most beneficial of the programs presented over KTAR. Two factors are held largely responsible, and it is felt they must have full consideration in any similar enterprise of radio. They are: (1) Subjects must be carefully selected to be of greatest interest to the largest number of listeners and ,i(2) all radio educational undertakings should be conducted by ?|and in cooperation with recognized -educators and schools. The KTAR School of the Air for j two years has effectively combined Ijthis station's "distribution" power .with the splendid educational facilities of the Phoenix Union High .School of which E. W. Montgomery is superintendent. The School jpf the Air has been an integral part of the Phoenix Adult School, itself a unit of the city's educational system. Courses Available AFTER some experimentation and considerable study, these courses yvere offered: parental education, Spanish, English, agriculture and nusic education. j Because of the large Mexican population of the southwest, the jSpanish and English classes are j.:oupled in the order of importance ,md each are given two weekly periods. The Spanish classes were started despite belief of the assigned fnstructor that the language could Hot be taught without properly Supervised work. Yet the enrollment in Spanish leads all the glasses, and after the first few I [jveeks of preliminary instruction (scarcely a word of English was j Spoken. | In a pre-school publicity caraI paign, registration was encouraged, I : particularly if the prospective stuW tent wished to work for high school ■ bredit. Enrollment for the last I . I fear was almost equal to the Adult ■school registration, and approximately one-half took the final eximinations for credit, these being Supervised examinations. L Supplemented by Pamphlets [ON RECEIPT of registration for : liny of the courses, complete syllabi were mailed out. As courses Progressed supplemental printed esson material was mailed regui arly. Correspondence pertinent to ' (tudy problems was encouraged. Material was prepared and lessons presented by teachers from the Phoenix Adult School, who now are unanimous in the opinion that radio instruction is superior in many respects to night school classroom work. These students this year were scattered in 61 Arizona cities and towns and in California, New Mexico, Utah and other adjacent areas in the southwest. Among these students were many of the 900 disabled World War veterans quartered in the veterans' hospitals at Prescott and Tucson. Others were housewives and mothers who would have been unable to attend school. Programs are presented daily from 4:15 to 4:45 p. m., with an additional period Friday from 2:30 to 3:30 o'clock. It is worthy of note that this latter, dealing with agriculture, follows a schedule of topics compiled from suggestions and recommendations submitted by listeners. This is an especially valuable point since agriculture, Arizona's second industry, is generally conducted under irrigation systems and therefore requires highly localized instruction. Enrollment in this class exceeds the normal school enrollment. In music appreciation the registration exceeds the night school enrollment by 300 per cent. The latter class, incidentally, is conducted by a leading piano teacher and is one of the most successful of the KTAR School of the Air. Results of the School of the Air work have evolved these conclusions: Students who voluntarily enroll for courses are willing, hard workers; instruction entirely by ear is entirely practicable and conducive to measurable results; fixed program time is essential for the successful radio school; and home study with the aid of radio is superior in many respects to classroom work. Inquiries and comments received by KTAR show that the benefits of the School of the Air, particularly in such courses as music appreciation, agriculture and English, are accepted by four listeners for every one enrolled. New Technique in Commercial Credits Urged as Benefit to Radio Advertising Walter J. Neff Calls Present Announcements Unnatural; Suggests an Exclusive Speaker for Each Account A NEW TECHNIQUE, and perhaps new blood, in commercial announcing is needed, in the opinion of Walter J. Neff, assistant director of sales of WOR, Newark, if radio advertising is to overcome its unnaturalness. "Advertisers, advertising agencies, and broadcasters have been so busy with the development of the commercial side of radio that little real thought has been given to the absolute function of a radio broadcast," he said. "Plainly speaking, broadcasting is the living, visiting ambassador of the concern which sponsors the program. Except for the fact that a physical presence is lacking in the home where a radio set is located, everything else remains exactly the same as if that advertiser's representative actually entered the home and discussed what he had to say with the prospective purchaser. Because of the lack of a physical presence, entertainment is used to attract the listener. "Consequently it is of vital importance what is said on the program. It might be well at this time toVecall your favorite program and think of what the announcer said and how he said it. The chances are 100 to 1 that the words which come to you in your own home, with possibly your wife and a child listening too, were not said in the same manner that they would have been said had that announcer been there in person. The whole speech was unnatural. In the light of this last thought, the spoken parts of our present day programs seem rather ridiculous. "In order to do what I suggest, it would be necessary perhaps to revise our present announcers' technique or, perhaps, get new blood in the field. It might be even better to assign an exclusive announcer to each commercial program, so that that particular announcer would be the true representative of one advertiser alone. "Let us go back several years in broadcasting. You will recall how popular announcers were at that time. People did not tune in to a specific program. They tuned to their favorite announcer, irrespective of the program. "That was in the days when an announcer could in his individual way interpose his own personality on a program. He was not stilted by the continuity written for him by someone else. The popularity of the announcer disappeared almost entirely when his personality was hampered by continuities that were written by another party. With the disappearance of the announcer's popularity, the people tuned to programs and the announcer became merely a reader of commercial credits. "What I am suggesting is not entirely new; the present trend toward the use of a 'master of ceremonies' on programs shows a groping in that direction. Nor is what I suggest revolutionary. Our present program standards could remain the same; the only change would be that the announcer would speak as though he were present in the home of every listener. If this were done, I believe great progress would be made in the field of commercial broadcasting." Publisher Scores N.E.A. Radio Plan H. E. Bucholz Exposes Lobby Work, Criticizes Morgan A SCATHING exposition of the lobbying and propaganda activities of the National Education Association, including its plans for "annexing the radio," is contained in an article entitled "The Pedagogues Leap Upon Us," in the July American Mercury, by H. E. Bucholz, head of the educational publishing house of Warwick & York and publisher of Educational Administration and the Journal op Educational Psychology. Tracing the history of the N. E. A. from its foundation, the author describes the process by which it has developed from an organization of lofty ideals to one whose chief concern is "raids upon the public treasury."' Regarding its radio activities, Mr. Bucholz has little to say commendatory of the work of Joy Elmer Morgan, chairman of the National Committee on Radio in Education, in seeking passage by Congress of the Fess bill to set aside 15 per cent of the available broadcasting waves for educational institutions. "Not content with their hold over the children of the nation today," he writes, "and their plans for extending that hold in the actual classroom, the pedagogues begin to dream of annexing the radio. At present the 'inspirational' matter printed in the Journal reaches only school teachers and their families; if radio were brought under control of the Headquarters Staff, it would be pumped into every second American home." Mr. Bucholz quotes from the Journal of the N. E. A., edited by Mr. Morgan, to show that "radio is worth at least |100,000,000 a year to the schools of America." One of Mr. Morgan's pet antipathies, cigarette smoking, is believed by Mr. Bucholz to be the reason for the Journal's challenge: "Should narcotic advertising be allowed on the air?" "By narcotic advertising, of course, the brethren mean tobacco advertising," the author explains. Educators Are Advised To Study Radio Methods EDUCATORS interested in radio educational broadcasts should study the methods used by commercial broadcasters to attract listeners, Dr. C. M. Koon, specialist in education by radio at the United States Office of Education, advises. This suggestion is offered in a forthcoming booklet on "How to Broadcast— the Art of Teaching Radio," which the Office of Education is now preparing. fugust 15, 1932 • BROADCASTING Houston Merger CONSOLIDATION of KXYZ and KTLC, both Houston, was authorized by the Radio Commission Aug. 9 in a decision which also authorized KXYZ, as the merged stations will be known hereafter, to increase power from 100 to 250 w. and to change frequency from 1420 to 1440 kc. Page 15