Broadcasting (July - Dec 1938)

arvcL Broadcast Advertising Published by BROADCASTING PUBLICATIONS, Inc. Executive and Editorial Offices: National Press Bldg. £ Washington, D. C. MARTIN CODEL, Publisher £W Telephone MEtropolitan 1022 SOL TAISHOFF, Editor GATE TAYLOR, Advertising Manager Subscription Price: $3.00 per year-15c a copy-Copyright, 1938, by Broadcasting Publications, Inc. J. FRANK BEATTY, Managing Editor % BERNARD PLATT, Circulation Manager NORMAN R. GOLDMAN, Advertising Representative NEW YORK OFFICE: 250 Park Ave., Telephone PLaza 5-8355 BRUCE ROBERTSON, Editorial • MAURY LONG, Advertising CHICAGO OFFICE: 360 N. Michigan Ave., Telephone CENtral 4115 • paul brines HOLLYWOOD OFFICE: 6331 Hollywood Blvd., Telephone GLadstone 7353 • david h. glickman Hough's Puff QUOTH that whimsical sage of American radio, Harold Hough, when asked by Broadcasting to comment on the Texas elections which assured the governorship for W. Lee O'Daniel, a WBAP flour-selling buildup turned statesman by listener demand: "He is not a landslide — he is an earthquake, and he is strictly the outcome of radio showmanship, all of which means, I guess, that the few of our remaining radio advertisers will soon turn politicians. Charlie McCarthy will become Emperor of America, and Jack Benny is a cinch for the White House in 1940. Really, Texas is in a terrible turmoil. If the heat doesn't get us, the hillbillies will." Siesta WITH CONGRESS out of session, it is refreshing to note that those who beat the big bass drum against broadcasting are taking a siesta. They quit their thumping because the soundingboard isn't available — there isn't any opportunity now to "revise and extend" remarks in the Congressional Record or go into oratorical gyrations on the House floor, reading "ghosted" remarks of those with axes to grind. During this stillness, it's tubes to tubas that the anti-radio artillerymen are busy batting out sensational stuff for winter delivery, coincident with the next session of Congress. Take the hoary harangue about station "license fees" for example. That's a perennial, too good as a front-page publicity-puller to be forgotten. Yes, let's take the license fee business! We have said before in these columns that it would be discriminatory to single out an industry like broadcasting for license fees to defray the overhead of the regulatory authority when other industries, also governmentallyregulated, are not subjected to similar fees. Since last session when the wattage-tax bill — moth balls, cobwebs and all — was whisked into the wastebasket, new information is available. The FCC has made a balance sheet of broadcasting. It shows among other things that the stations and the networks last year turned into the Federal exchequer exactly $3,746,239 in corporation income taxes. That doesn't include State taxes, or individual taxes, or other Federal, State and municipal levies. Now let's look at the other side of the ledger. For the current fiscal year, Congress has appropriated for the FCC a fund of $1,740,000. That is less than half of the sum tossed into the Federal pot last year by the broadcasting industry. And that budget is for all FCC operations, including regulating telephone, telegraph, cables, 45,000 amateur operators and divers other activities not directly related to broadcasting. Aside from the recognized fact that the FCC could get along with lots less if it were a more efficiently functioning organization, and if it spent more time helping industry help itself rather than frying foreign fish, we submit that the broadcasting industry, perhaps to a greater degree than comparably regulated industries, is defraying the cost of the authority regulating it. Whether it is getting its money's worth is beside the point. With only 7.3% of respondents reporting any conviction that radio is ahusing its poicer in the latest 'Fortune' survey, it doesn't seem as though the selfanointed crusaders against radio have much basis for their much-publicized outcries. Possibly the reason they get so much publicity is to be found in the figure for the press, which led all categories with 24-5%. Thanks to the Campus JUST as the organized American bi'oadcasting industry drew upon the academic cloisters for a leader and spokesman in Neville Miller, late of the Princeton campus, the powers that govern radio in the British Isles have chosen a university executive, Prof. Frederick Wolff Ogilvie, president of Belfast's famed Queen's University, to succeed that able if sometimes hard-headed Scot, Sir John Reith, as director general of the British Broadcasting Corp. American broadcasters, particularly the networks, have always enjoyed a most cordial entente with British radio, exchanging programs regularly, extending studio facilities to one another's "correspondents" in Europe and America, often swapping personnel for studies of methods of operation and programming. This despite Sir John's oft-spoken apathy toward commercial broadcasting and his originally expounded thesis, far removed from the American idea, that radio (at least British radio) should give listeners what they ought to have rather than what they want. In deference to Sir John it should be noted that in recent years the BBC has lightened and popularized its program fare considerably, although it required the impelling pop ^Monopoly': Whose Show? THE NEW regulatory vogue appears to be "monopoly" — plain or fancy, apparent or real. The broadcasting industry is on the qui vive not only because of the FCC chain-monopoly inquiry slated for fall showing, but also the Federal monopoly inquiry, in which radio as yet hasn't made its debut even on paper. We have discoursed on this whole subject before — projecting the view that some good and no real harm can result if the investigators devote themselves to finding facts and ignore ballyhoo except as a by-product. First, we hope — and there is every indication that the hope is well founded — -that the Federal committee will not dip into the broadcasting situation and confuse the proceedings slated for FCC scrutiny and study. Aside from the fact that radio is small potatoes when placed alongside America's heavy industries, it is assumed that the joint CongressionalDepartmental board will have its hands full without invading the broadcasting field, though there appears to be pressure already from expected sources to that end. It is encouraging to note the interest being evinced in the forthcoming FCC proceedings. Independent Radio Network Affiliates has called a meeting in Chicago this month to consider its participation in the hearings. Transcription organizations are planning participation. And of course the networks will figure prominently. But it should be kept in mind that this isn't a "network show". It should be generally accepted that networks are a necessity in the broadcast structure; that they have done a prodigious job in leading American radio to become the world's best, and that they are an indispensable asset in the American tempo. By the same token, it is true that inequitable situations have developed in the relationship of networks with affiliates and in other competitive fields. And we cannot brush aside the fact the statute prescribes that the FCC regulate networks if it deems it necessary — something it has never essayed to do directly. The kernel of the FCC chain-monopoly investigation, as we see it, is that stations should not go into the forthcoming hearings with any idea of scuttling any existing entity in broadcasting. In seeking to appease individual grievances against the networks, station operators should not lose sight of network indispensability. They should contribute whatever they can, without bias or malice, toward bolstering the entire radio structure, and they should seek to avoid the building up of more governmental supervision and restriction of broadcast operations of the sort that might result only in hamstringing the ability of each broadcast unit to perform maximum public service with minimum governmental interference. ularity of broadcasts, particularly sponsored broadcasts, from France and Luxembourg. Prof. Ogilvie, like Neville Miller, is new to radio — but he comes with a fine background as a college president, an economist, a World War veteran and a man frequently called upon by his Government to lend his talents to the solution of social problems. Like the Miller appointment, his selection is a recognition by radio of its broader social obligations. We welcome the Scottish professor to radio's fold. Page 40 • August I, 1938 BROADCASTING • Broadcast Advertising