Broadcasting (Jan - June 1940)

iR©AD€ASTOINI€ cuixL Broadcast Advertising MARTIN CODEL, Publisher SOL TAISHOFF, Editor Published by BROADCASTING PUBLICATIONS, Inc. Executive, Editorial And Advertising Offices National Press Bldg. # Washington, D. C. Telephone— MEtropolitan 1022 NORMAN R. GOLDMAN, Business Manager J. FRANK BEATTY, Managing Editor # BERNARD PLATT, Circulation Manager NEW YORK OFFICE: 250 Park Ave., Telephone PLaza 5-8355 BRUCE ROBERTSON, Associate Editor 9 MAURY LONG, Advertising Manager CHICAGO OFFICE: 360 N. Michigan Ave., Telephone CENtral 4115 • edward codel HOLLYWOOD OFFICE: 1509 N. Vine Street, Telephone GLadstone 7353 • DAVID H. glickman Subscription Price: $3.00 per year-15c a copy • Copyright, 1940, by Broadcasting Publications, Inc. OUR PLATFORM Keep American radio free as the press. Maintain a system of free, competitive broadcasting, renderinq public service without undue restraint. Build programs to provide the greatest good for the greatest number. Avoid political partisanship on the air. Install radios in every home, classroom, office, automobile, passenger train and airplane. Keep pace with technical developments and foster their commercial applications. IndiaDa's Index IN THE FACE of consumer movements against advertising, to some indeterminate extent nurtured by government, conies the result of the most extensive single house-to-house radio survey ever conducted. It should provide real comfort to all those interested in radio advertising, and at the same time deflate the arguments of those who feel that sales promotion is somehow anti-social. For radio advertisers, present and prospective, and their agencies, the new stirvey more than substantiates just about every argument made by broadcasters about their medium. After ringing 84,099 doorbells in typically American Indiana, the Hoosier Radio Workshop found that 64.4% of the persons interviewed reported they make an effort to listen to radio commercials. And 52.9% said they regularly buy radio-advertised products. The results of this survey are more than a tribute to radio advertising. They denote a public confidence in radio, and a public desire to patronize those companies which foot the bill for the programs that provide them with entertainment, news and education. Because Indiana is an average State in all respects, the survey restilts doubtless can be multiplied by 48 with corresponding results. It was conducted by a major university in cooperation with the U. S. Office of Education, and under expert guidance. It is a gratifyingexample of cooperation with industry. Indiana, often called the cradle of journalism, by virtue of this pioneering large-scale undertaking now acquires a new stature as a radio testing laboratory. Totally aside from the willingness of the Hoosier listener to buy radio-advertised goods are several other disclosures which merit notice. Practically every home (94.1%) had a radio. Their dwellers listen an average of 4.2 hours a day. And about one-fourth of the school children are influenced in their program tastes by their school teachers. We hope that more workshop surveys of this nature are undertaken in other States, under the same kind of unbiased and unprejudiced auspices. Closer Affinity THE SIGNS of growing friendship and cooperation between radio and the press continue to multiply, and they are all to the good. Radio is now accepted for one of its primary functions, namely, another medium of journalism— "audible journalism," we like to call it. If there are any lingering misgivings among non-radio publishers, the public acceptance of radio as a news and advertising medium supplies the answer. It was gratifying to observe that, far from carping and criticizing as they formerly did, the American Newspaper Publishers Assn. convention and the annual meeting of the American Society of Newspaper editors this year simply took radio for granted. More newspapers are in radio (about 275 of the 829 stations licensed or authorized to date having newspaper ownership in whole or part) and by far the majority of the most prominent publishers and editors are now altogether friendly toward the broadcast medium. Now comes the Associated Press, cooperatively owned by its member newspapers, as a prospective purveyor of news to radio stations on much the same basis as UP, INS and Transradio. Although belated, its recognition of radio's journalistic function can only be welcomed. Our hope is that this new competition stimulates a better news service to radio from all sources. Certainly the revenues derived from radio will enable the press associations to bulwark their world news coverage, especially in these momentous times when the public's eyes and ears are concentrated on their newspapers and radios for every scrap of news available. Not a single objection has reached us since we recently advanced the stiggestion [Broadcasting, April 1] that feats of radio journalism be recognized in the annual Pulitzer Prize Awards, and we have high hopes that this will eventually come about. Half or more of the news-gathering, news-writing and news-ptirveying manpower of radio comes out of newspaper offices; it is easy for newspapermen to adapt themselves to the new medium, and ra dio has opened up a great new field of employment for them as mergers and demises of newspapers otherwise narrowed their oppor-' tunities. Gadflies JUST ABOUT every legislative headache the broadcaster has suffered during the last decade could be traced to a small group of lobbyists working for this faction or that. Bills to allocate fixed percentages of broadcasting facilities for educational or non-commercial purposes; to ban advertising of alcoholic beverages on the air; to combat alleged "monopoly" in radio; to tax transmitters according to power; and for sundry other purposes — all had the same sort of cloakroom origin. All flopped. The latest excursion is that of the printingtrades, seeking to curb "diversion" of advertisingfrom magazines and newspapers to radio. Here is an effort to sweep back the tide with a whiskbroom. International Allied Printing Trades Association, concerned over radio's growing stature as an advertising medium, wants to carry the torch on behalf of magazines and newspapers. It cannot hope to convince advertisers by argument that they should eschew radio. The publishers themselves dropped that years ago, and set out to build the proverbial better mousetrap. The fact that both magazines and newspapers increased lineage in 1939, after a rather sick 1938, indicates they have been reasonably successful. The fact that radio spurted ahead rather spectacularly during the same period simply denotes its continuing appeal to advertisers. It is apparent that the printing trades propose to undertake a legislative fight to ctirb commercial radio. The threat is slight in this Congress, which is much too preoccupied and which is likely to adjourn in a few weeks. Moreover, for such a campaign there must be contestants. Few publishers, we venture, would be willing to participate in a fight where the chances for success are so slight. There may still be a few die-hard publishers, relicts of the Ventura (Cal.) Free-Press era, but they aren't risking money on a futile cause. Alert publishers aren't sitting back and sulking; most of them are now synchronizing vdth the tempo of the times. It is clear to us, from the tenor of the feeler letter sent by the printing trades gro-up to publishers, that the eventual approach will be for discriminatory tax legislation — another effort to saddle radio with a privilege tax burden designed to be practically confiscatory. Otherwise, why should so much emphasis be placed upon station earnings stemming from a "Government license"? Printers, compositors, engravers, stereotypers and pressmen quite naturally want to protect the "job opportunities" of their crafts. That means protection of the publications dependent upon advertising. When the publications thrive, printing craftsmen are in a better position to bargain for wages, hours and other work benefits. It is a natural wish. But the follow-through inferred — of attempting to stop progress by scuttling commercial radio — is as silly as the last stand of the horse-car driver against the electric street car. Page 50 • May 1, 1940 BROADCASTING • Broadcast Advertising