Broadcasting (Jan - June 1940)

All Richardson Radio Interests Sold To ISew Trans-Canada Communications Actual Radio Experience Included in New York U Summer Workshop Plan PLANS for New York U's seventh annual summer radio workshop have been annonnced by Douglas Coulter, director, who stated that students would be given regularly scheduled opportunities to produce programs and to become familiar with the practical aspects of radio production during the six weeks' period starting July 1. A. Murray Dyer, script writer for the CBS American School of the Air, and Robert Aura Smith, script writer and commentator for the CBS program This Living World, have been appointed as instructors in script writing. Radio production will be taught by Earle McGill, CBS casting director, while the studio production groups will be directed by Philip Cohen, production director of the radio division of the U. S. Office of Education, who also will conduct a seminar on the educational aspects of radio. Speakers in the series of special lectures on various aspects of broadcasting include: George O. Milne, NBC engineering division; Nila Mack, CBS producer of children's programs; Edward Lasker, vice-president of Lord & Thomas, New York; Lyman Bryson, chairman of the CBS Adult Education Board; Morris Novik, manager of WNYC, New York's Municipal station; Bernard Hermann, CBS staff conductor. Florida ASCAP Briefs FOLLOWING the hearing April 16 before a three-judge statutory court in Gainesville, Fla., to test the constitutionality of the Florida anti-ASCAP law, both ASCAP and the State are preparing briefs supporting their contentions to be submitted by May 18, according to Herman Finkelstein, of Schwartz & Frohlich, ASCAP counsel. No further action was reported in Nebraska, where the State is seeking a new trial after a three-judge court found the Nebraska antiASCAP law to be unconstitutional. 'Helzapoppin' on WABC SELECT THEATRES Corp.. Xew York, which recently ended Charles Stark's Odd Side of the News on WABC, New York, on April 22 started a musical program of Old Fashioned Favorites on WABC for "Hellzapoppin," Broadway show. Agency is Blaine Thompson Co., New York. By JAMES MONTAGNES AFTER 16 years of broadcasting activities, the radio division of James Richardson & Son, Winnipeg grain brokers, has sold its stations and all radio interests to a newlyformed Trans-Canada Communications Ltd., Winnipeg, subsidiary of the holding company Armadale Corp. Ltd., Winnipeg and Toronto, of which Victor Sifton, Western Canada newspaper publisher, is president. Stations changing ownership were CJRC, Winnipeg, and CJRM, Regina. Included also were shortwave stations CJRX and CJRO, Winnipeg, and portable VD2R of Winnipeg. Neither Clifford Sifton, officer of Armadale Corp., at Toronto, nor Charles Campbell, secretary-treasurer of James Richardson & Son, in Toronto, would disclose the amount paid for the stations. Unofficial estimates in the radio industry lead to a figure between $100,000 and $150,000. Same Management According to Clifford Sifton, no changes are to be made at present in the management of the station. Vic Neilsen, formerly of CFCF, Montreal, remains as manager of the radio division and becomes manager of the newly-formed TransCanada Communications, with Victor Sifton, Winnipeg, as president. The new owners have no plans at present for station expansion, but it is understood they had tried to have the license for CJRM changed from Regina to Saskatoon, since the Armadale Corp. already owns CKCK, Regina, through its ownership of the Regina Leader-Post. It is understood the change was not granted by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. or the Department of Transport. The sale was made because the Richardson interests have decided that since broadcasting was not their main business, they would drop it altogether. This tallies with other moves made by the organization since the death of James Richardson last year. The deal gives the Sifton interests through various interlocking directorates a broadcasting outlet in Winnipeg in conjunction with their fully-owned Winnipeg Free Press, and a possible outlet if at a later date a license can be procured for Saska toon to go with their Saskatoon Star-Phoenix. The Richardson interests have been in broadcasting since 1924 when they owned a station in Moose Jaw, gradually extending their radio ownership to Regina, Yorkton and Winnipeg. The Moose Jaw station was scrapped in 1934 and CJRM, Regina, took its place. Because for many years the Manitoba Government maintained a broadcasting monopoly, CJGX, Yorkton, was established just outside Manitoba with studios in Winnipeg. The station was later sold because the Canadian Federal Government no longer recognized Manitoba's broadcasting monopoly and allowed Richardsons to build CJRC at Winnipeg and also two powerful shortwave stations there. The Sifton interests own CKCK, Regina, and the Winnipeg Free Press, Regina Leader-Post and Saskatoon Star-Phoenix. FCC Team Resigns (Continued from page 13) graduate of Harvard in 1933, and studied law under the famed Felix Frankfurter, now an associate justice of the Supreme Court. He was graduated from Washington U, St. Louis, having won a four-year scholarship from his high school as the highest ranking student. He also attained a scholastic fellowship at Harvard. Social Research At Washington U Mr. Koplovitz majored in applied sociology, receiving his A.B. degree in 1929 and his M.S. in 1930. While engaged in a research study for the Russell Sage Foundation in New York in 1932, he co-authored a book titled "Emergency Work Relief"— the first study of its kind, which eventually was used as a foundation for New York relief work. The thesis of this study was to pay wages to unemployed instead of instituting the dole. Mr. Koplovitz joined PWA in 1933 where he first met Mr. Dempsey. That started the Federal association that ran for seven years with a lapse of only the few months when "Big Bill" was Mr. McNinch's legal assistant and "Little Bill" held forth at the Power Commission. Mr. Koplovitz was born in St. Louis May 30, 1909. Single, he resides in Washington with a sister and a nephew. WFBG ALTOONA PENN. providing the ONLY full coverage of the Altoona trading area 2Votc NBC-RED and FULL TIME OPERA'nON Impact of Media Subject of Study Missouri School Seeks Data On Readership, Listening RADIO listening habits, along with newspaper and magazine readership, were surveyed in a "three-dimensional study of primary advertising media" started early in April by the Missouri U School of Journalism in Columbia, Mo. The "product improvement" study, covering the three media simultaneously over six consecutive days, is expected to produce revealing data on effective coverage and the degree of readership and listening. The radio phase of the survey employed both the "aided" and "unaided" recall methods in house-tohouse questioning. With about 200 journalism students working as interviewers, following pre-survey training in the Gallup-type interviews, the study covered local listening to 11 stations • — KFRU, KMBC, KWOS, KMOX, KSD, WDAF, WGN, WHO, W L W, WOAI and WTMV. One hundred interviews were made each day in the radio survey. Economic Divisions For purposes of the three-way study, the city of Columbia, with a population of 20,200, was divided into four economic income levels. Survey work was so arranged that a correct sample of the total market was obtained on each of the phases of the study. Accm-ate divisions of economic districts were checked against the 1940 R. L. Polk & Co. city directory for thoroughness and exactness. "Unaided" recall questions included : Was your radio turned on this morning (afternoon, last night) ? If on, between what hours ? Did you read a newspaper or magazine while you listened to the radio ? What radio programs did you actually hear this moi-ning (afternoon, last night) ? On what stations ? What product or company did each advertise ? Do you regularly listen to specific programs at specific periods ? Name of program and station ? "Aided" recall data included listings of programs for each of the 11 stations at 15-minute intervals for each day. Interviewing was divided into three time-phases — 6-10 p. m., 8 a. m.-noon, and noon-6 p. m. The interviewer made his calls during the period immediately following that covered by his questions. Thus morning programs were checked during the afternoon. The other two phases of the survey covered the two local daily newspapers, the Columbia Missourian and Columbia Tribune, and nine monthly and five weekly magazines, and extended to a detailed research into interest in both editorial and advertising content. Facts of the three dimensional study, directed by Prof. Donald H. Jones of the journalism school, after tabulation and analysis will be of service to broadcasters and advertisers in indicating the type of news and advertising material consumed in specific income levels, it was pointed out. FOX FEATURE Syndicate, New York, reports that 30 .stations have signed for The Blue Beetle, twiceweekly adventure comic strip, being produced for radio by Jean V. Grombach. /0oo—srR£AMimj>-jVffffs Page 78 • May 1, 1940 BROADCASTING • Broadcast Advertising