Broadcasting (Oct 1931-Dec 1932)

The RADIO BOOK SHELF ilR©AOCASTDIM€ 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, 1932, by Broadcasting Publications, Inc. Published Semi Monthly by BROADCASTING PUBLICATIONS, Inc. • National Press Building Washington, D. C. Metropolitan 1022 Back to Good Times GET THE BANKS in your community on the air! It means money in the bank for the banks and money in the bank for the broadcasters. It means more than that, hastening the day when good times will be with us again. For what better medium has ever been devised to build up confidence in a service, as well as in commodities, than radio advertising ? Banks are "naturals" for broadcasting. This is the time for bank advertising on the air. Some of it is already being done in scattered communities, with good results reported. In the last year, several runs on banks, resulting from unfounded rumors, have been halted when banking officials and others went on the air to allay depositors' fears. One notable instance of effective use of radio advertising by a great banking institution is ably reported in this issue in the address by Mr. Michelson, of the gigantic Bank of America. What he says gives force to our point that banks should be leading radio advertisers. His remarks should stimulate many a broadcaster and agency to develop this wide new field of business. More than any other element, the bankers know that it is up to them to take the leadership in bringing about a return to normalcy. Mr. Michelson shows how publicity of the character that instills confidence influences banking deposits. In California, the Bank of America used the slogan "Back to Good Times" in its radio campaign. Now all California is resounding to the slogan, first heard on the air. Mr. Michelson brushes aside any question about the "dignity" of banks being radio sponsors. He says he would give his radio listeners "A Hot Time In the Old Town" if that would convey his message better than an aria from Aida. He prescribes "good taste and common sense" as the principal considerations in presenting a bank program to the family. Banks have definite services, as well as intangible good will and institutional messages, to "sell" the radio audience. Broadcasters have perhaps the finest medium extant for purveying these messages, tastefully, unobstrusively and effectively. Mr. Michelson tells you how he did it in his inspiring article which Broadcasting deems it a privilege to publish. RADIO seems to have its compensations in the sometime bitter political arena. Rep. Ewin L. Davis, arch-critic of radio advertising and author of the famous Davis equalization amendment, appears to have failed of renomination and may not return to the House. Now comes Henry Field, practical Iowa broadcaster who took the Republican nomination away from Senator Brookhart largely by his radio campaigning, with the assurance to his fellows of the broadcasting fraternity that they will have "a friend in court" if he is elected. TIME MAGAZINE, which returns to the air over CBS Sept. 8, is calling attention to its programs in its mail circulation solicitations in a manner that might well be adapted by other advertisers. Across the bottom of all its circulation letters, it carries a printed notation that the "March of Time" program is returning. Its Own Niche ONE OF THE FACTS all too frequently overlooked by broadcasters — and one that ought to be impressed more vividly upon the consciousness of the public — is that broadcasting now occupies a distinct economic niche of its own. It has definitely graduated from the stage of a few years ago when its devotees were precocious kids and adult nuts who liked the new electric thing. It has passed beyond that stage where it was merely regarded as a publicity avenue for some department store or seed house or newspaper or whatnot kind of business. Today it is serving a definite need of society, furnishing an avenue for reaching a multitude of people to reputable concerns who will pay the price as well as to public service purposes without cost. In other words, broadcasting is now on its own in an economic niche of its own. It certainly is no longer an electric toy, and it is far from being a publicity sideline of some other business. But 99 out of a hundred of the public do not realize that. They still think of broadcasting as the "voice of this or that company," not as the voice of any community project or of the variety of business sponsors to whom it gives voice. Too many broadcasters are submerging their real mission, and incidentally losing an opportunity for some vitally important good-will publicity for themselves, by failing to let their own audiences know what they really mean to their communities. Some think of broadcasting as a purely entertainment medium; others as only educational and informing. "Why, broadcasting is like the theater, it entertains," one layman will remark. Another will say, "Oh, it's all advertising." All are wrong of course. Broadcasters simply say to the schools, or to those with entertainment or information or advertising: "We have built up here a great audience for you. Come to it with your message." That's the real public service and economic niche of radio, however much it may include or cooperate in the entertainment, school and other fields to build audience and hold it. The public should be set right about it. An ideal identification for a station would be the signature: "This is Station BLANK, furnishing means of reaching a great and interested audience in the BLANKVILLE area" or such variations of this phraseology as are suited to the particular station. WHOEVER inspired Graham McNamee's chapter on "Radio Thrills" in Fred J. Ringel's "America as Americans See It" (Harcourt, Brace and Co., New York, $3.75) should not be selected to write that estimable announcer's biography. The book, the Literary Guild's selection for June, is a symposium of various phases of American life with chapters written by authorities, more or less; its original conception was that it should be written for European consumption with the idea that it would give Europe an authentic view of the American scene. McNamee's chapter is one of the poorest in the volume, not simply because of the manner of writing but because of its context. Extremely brief — only about 1,000 words long — an extraordinary portion is devoted to the telling of McNamee's greatest thrill as an announcer. It wasn't covering the political conventions of 1928, the Lindbergh arrival or any other big event of history — it was a world series game won in the ninth inning by a home run with the bases full! If that sort of thing adequately tells Europe the scope and place of radio in American life, let us get announcers with Oxfordian accents such as the British employ. We read the chapter with mixed feelings of despair and disgust. With the conclusion of Stanley Walker, reviewer in the New York Herald-Tribune Book Section, June 5, we heartily agree: "No matter what one's tastes may be, the radio would seem to require a competent chapter. It is mentioned in passing by several of the authors, but the only chapter devoted to radio is one by Graham McNamee, the broadcaster, entitled "Radio Thrills," from which the great man culls a few bouquets thrown from his garden of memories. It tells nothing about radio, which, it seems even to such an amateur social philosopher as this reviewer, is among the most significant and appalling things in American life. Certainly it is worth a workmanlike discussion." WRITING FROM what he datelines as "No Visitors, N. Y.," Ring Lardner has been contributing an interesting series titled "Over the Waves" to The New Yorker, weekly magazine of sophistication. His comments and criticisms on programs and performers are in the best Ring Lardner vein and have already attracted considerable interest. The series presumably will continue indefinitely in alternate issues of the periodical. THE JULY issue of Electrical Communications, published quarterly by International Standard Electric Corp., subsidiary of I. T. & T., carries articles on the new 25 kw. Swiss broadcasting station, by F. C. McLean; on "The Swiss Broadcast Network" by A. Muri, chief of the Technical Department of the Post, Telegraph and Telephone Administration, Berne, and on "Standard Broadcasting Land Line Equipment" by A. R. A. Rendall and J. S. Lyall, of I. T. & T. Laboratories. THE THIRD edition of the international list j of radio stations in order of frequencies is now available at the International Bureau of the Telegraph Union, Radiotelegraph Service, Berne, Switzerland. The price, including postage and supplements to the end of the year, is $6.76 (35 Swiss gold francs). Remittances should be made direct to the Berne Bureau by international money order. Page 16 BROADCASTING • August 15, 1932