Broadcasting (Jan - June 1940)

NEWS AND MORE NEWS is demanded these days by an avid public, and radio stations are giving it to them. Newsroom (top photo) of WKBN, Youngstown, was set up in a special booth at the Youngstown Home Show to display to visitors how a modern radio press department functions, with all Transradio newscasts originating from the booth. At mike is J. Lothaire Bowden, WKBN station director, with News Editor Jerry Bowman at the typewriter. Lower photo shows the WBZ, Boston, news staff in action in its new quarters in the Hotel Bradford. Left to right are Charles Gilchrest, news supervisor; Jimmie Collins, handling UP and INS teletypes, and John M. Cooper, editor and newscaster. Misconduct^ Tyranny Charged to Payne By Ulmer in Reply to Hearing Report SPA Seeks Curb On Song Plugging Adopts Plan to Limit Number Of Promotions on Networks SONGWRITERS Protective Assn., at a special membership meeting in New York May 7, unanimously adopted a resolution designed to abolish excessive song plugging on the air, and authorized its executive council to confer with the council of the Music Publishers Protective Assn. and with the program directors of advertising agencies toward limiting the number of network plugs any song may receive, with 20-a-week suggested as the maximum by Irving Caesar, SPA president. Decrying the "inordinate, unnatural plugging of songs" as forcing people to listen to songs they don't want to hear, Mr. Caesar laid the blame for excessive song plugging partly on the ASCAP system of giving bonuses for radio plugs and partly on the advertising agency executive who refuses to consider a song for a commercial program until it has had 10 or 12 plugs on the air. To get these performances, Mr. Caesar stated, the song plugger goes to the sustaining band leaders and buys, directly or indirectly, a spot for his number on their programs. Movie Promotion With these sustaining plugs obtained, he went on, the publisher goes after the agencies and gets his number on the big commercial programs, "winding up with 40 or 50 plugs a week and no sales, while the public has been bored stiff with something it didn't want to hear to begin with." In the old days before radio, Mr. Caesar explained, a song would be introduced by a popular singer and the audience reaction noted and also the public's purchase of sheet music. Only if both were favorable would the publisher begin heavy exploitation of the number. But today, he continued, the moving picture controlled publishing houses use their radio plugs to gain publicity for their musical pictures without being interested greatly in the sale of the songs themselves, and the independent publisher tries to compete, while the public has nothing to say about what it hears. New WLOL to MBS WHEN the new WLOL, Minneapolis, goes on the air, it will replace WDGY as the Mutual Network's outlet in that city, according to an MBS statement. Authorized for construction last January, with 1,000 watts on 1300 kc, the station is expected to be ready for operation shortly. Its chief owner is J. P. Devaney, former chief justice of the Minnesota State Supreme Court. THE Senate on May 9 unanimously confirmed the reappointment of William A. Ayres as a member of the Federal Trade Commission for a term of seven years, beginning Sept. 26, 1940. Mr. Ayres was lirst appointed by President Roosevelt June 30, 1934, to succeed James M. Landis, who resigned to become a member of the Securities & Exchange Commission. CBM, Montreal, goes on the air June 15 with a new 5 kw. RCA transmitter installed in a new building at Maryville. Que., 25 miles southeast of Montreal. ALLEGATIONS of "misconduct" and of an "intolerant, arbitrary, capriciotis, tyrannical, personal attitude" were leveled against FCC Commissioner George H. Payne by counsel for Dr. James G. Ulmer, Texas broadcaster and former minister, in a series of exceptions filed with the FCC May 9 to the commissioner's preliminary report recommending revocation of the licenses of four Texas stations in which Dr. Ulmer was interested [BROADCASTING, May 1]. The commissioner presided at hearings in Texas during March and April involving Ulmer's purported "hidden ownership" in KTBC, Austin; KNET, Palestine; KRBA, Lufkin, and KGKB, Tyler, all of which he recommended for deletion. Hearings also have been held on KAND, Corsicana; KGFI, Brownsville, and KSAM, Huntsville, on which reports have not yet been issued. Charges Irregularities Filing separate exceptions to the Payne preliminary report, counsel for Ulmer minced no words in attacking the commissioner's findings and in seeking reversal of the recommendations by the full Commission. Oral arguments were requested in each instance. James H. Hanley, former radio commisioner, appeared as counsel in all the cases, but other attorneys were listed as counsel along with him in each proceeding. Among the additional counsel, seeking to resist the revocation orders, were R. A. Stuart, of Fort Worth, former State Senator; A. W. Walker Jr., Austin, professor of law at the University of Texas; R. B. Anderson, former president of the Texas Tax Commission; Norman L. Meyers, Washington attorney; Leslie Neill, of Tyler, Tex., and F. I. Tucker of Nacogdoches, Tex. All of the charges of purported "fraud" and "hidden ownership" were categorically denied. Stock transfers and other kindred arrangements were held to be outside the scope of FCC authority in the light of the recent Supreme Court opinion in the Sanders case, holding that the Commission is given no supervisory control of programs, business management or policy of stations. Throughout the exceptions, the allegation was made that Roy G. Terry, former associate of Ulmer, was the pastor-broadcaster's enemy and had acted as the commissioner's "star witness, stooge and stool pigeon". In the Palestine case, as in others, Ulmer counsel excepted to "the misconduct of the commissioner" because of the "irregular manner in which his findings were made and published abroad throughout the land in the daily press and by radio." It was held that his preliminary report should have been "confidential, open only to the eyes and ears of his fellow commissioners". The procedure was labeled as "most irregular and is in gross violation of the rules and procedure of the Commission". "The premature publicity of the Commissioner's findings, whether sustained by the full Commission or not," it was added, "has de stroyed property rights and the good name and splendid reputation of Dr. Ulmer." George B. Porter, FCC assistant general counsel, along with Commissioner Payne, was criticized for the conduct of the hearings. It was charged that the commissioner in all his findings acted "most arbitrarily, most capriciously and, not being a lawyer, wholly disregarded all rules of evidence." In one of the pleadings, it was charged that the only public injury that has been done was not by the respondents "but is by the commissioner himself," whose attitude in these cases was "Let the public be damned." In the Lufkin case, Attorneys Hanley and Tucker criticized Counsel Porter's manner, alleging that he attempted to ridicule Dr. Ulmer by asking a witness whether Dr. Ulmer was a "chiropractor" or "a horse doctor". In the latter instance, it was stated that the question is not reported in the record and that "it is probable that the records were deleted in this respect because of the venom shown thereby." Described as Prejudged Taking exception to the conclusions reached by the commissioner in which he stated that Dr. Ulmer "hovered over the application and applicants like a guardian angel until the application was granted and the applicants had received a construction permit from the Commission," the attorneys for KRBA charged : "This remark is sacrilegious and reprehensible and shows the venom existing in the perpetrators thereof. It shows that a fair hearing was not given and shows that due process of law was not adhered to by the commissioner or by counsel and that his every act or finding was actuated by prejudice, passion, excitement and tyrannical power. The combined attitude of Hitler and Stalin in their most balmy days of power and confiscation of private rights and property do not exceed the attitude and power reflected by the commissioner in his findings in this case." Alleges Case Prejudged Charging that every finding of Commissioner Payne was arbitrary and capricious, "showing that he had prejudged the case from malicious slander coming to his ears prior to the time of its hearing," the KRBA pleading added that his findings "show that the commissioner himself was fatally bent tipon mischief in procuring said testimony so as to sustain the revocation order of Feb. 7, 1940." The only extenuating circumstance in his favor, it was added, "is that he is not a lawyer and is wholly ignorant of rules of evidence and court procedure." In his testimony during the proceedings in Texas, Dr. Ulmer said he had helped to obtain licenses for the stations involved in the hearings and had assisted in building them. He testified that his purchase of stock in various stations had been reported to the FCC but that he had been advised by counsel in several instances that it was not necessary to report operating contracts. Dr. Ulmer is former pastor of the First Christian Church at Tyler, from which he retired because of illness, according to his testimony. He is president of the board of regents of Texas State Teachers College. Page 94 • May 15, 1940 BROADCASTING • Broadcast Advertising