Broadcasting (July - Dec 1941)

Got Their Recipes BETTER late than never! Last year when a recipe booklet offer was made over WNAX, Yankton, S. D., three listeners who had requested the booklet, enclosing in their letters 10 cents, failed to receive their copies when the letters fell into the hands of a mail thief. Recently the discarded letters were found in a box car down South and forwarded to WNAX which immediately made arrangements to send out the recipe books. Maj. Armstrong Warns 65fi00 Dealers Of Danger From Inferior FM Receivers ACTING to insure high-quality FM reception living up to public claims of its high-fidelity, noisefree characteristics, Major Edwin H. Armstrong, inventor of the Armstrong wide-swing FM system, has blanketed 65,000 radio dealers of the country with letters calling attention to the ultimate damage to public confidence resulting from sale of low-priced "inferior" FM receivers not capable of first-class program reception and reproduction. Although no names were men UP A TREE ABOUT THE BEST WAV TO REACH THE BUYING POWER OF THE RED RIVER VALLtY? YOU'LL FIND THE ANSWER ON WDAY FARGO, N. D. 5000 WATTS-NBC AFFILIATED WITH THt FARGO FORUM FRE£ & PETERS, INC. NATfONAI REPRESENTATIVES tioned in the Armstrong letter, it was evident the blast was leveled at manufacturers producing FM receivers without an Armstrong license and employing circuits of their own design for the low-price field. Facts for Dealers Outlining "some facts about FM which every dealer in this country ought to know", Maj. Armstrong declared : "I have had a part in a number of revolutions in radio in the past and I know from long experience what happens when a fundamental idea takes hold and a large public demand is about to occur. It is at that time that the imitators and high pressure sellers who have done nothing to further the advances in the art then present themselves to the public as the exponents of new ideas and new 'fundam.ental' systems. "These ideas and systems seldom have anything new about them except the advertising slogans which are invented for them, and their exponents are more often than not people who are attempting to take advantage of pioneer work by selling to the public cheap imitations of what the public really wants. "This is about to happen, apparently, with FM. I want to do what I can to prevent it from happening, and the only way in which that can be done is with the help of well-informed dealers who will tell the public the facts and prevent a waste of the public's money on inferior apparatus. The sale of sets which do not give full FM performance that measures up to what has been repeatedly demonstrated and what the public has been led to understand FM will do, will not only have a bad effect on the industry generally, but it will reflect on those pioneer manufacturers who have honestly tried to give the public its money's worth and to open up a new market for the dealer." Concluding, Maj. Armstrong listed companies licensed to build FM receivers under Armstrong patents, including Ansley Radio Corp., Espey Mfg. Co., Fada Radio & Electric Co., Freed Radio Corp., General Electric Co., Howard Radio Co., Magnavox Co., Meissner Mfg. Co., Philharmonic Radio Co., Pilot Radio Corp., E. H. Scott Radio Laboratories, Stewart-Warner Corp., Stromberg-Carlson Telephone Mfg. Co., Zenith Radio Corp., Hallicrafters Inc., Hammarlund Mfg. Co., National Co., Radio Engineering Laboratories, Western Electric Co. EDWIN A. KRAFT, owner of KINY, .Juneau, Ahiska, and head of Northwest Radio Adv. Corp., Seattle, lias aiiplied f.i the FCC for a new 2.50Avatt station on 1230 kc. in Kodiak, Alaska. Lt. Bingham Bingham to Capital For Liaison Work WHAS Owner to Serve Naval Newspaper, Radio Groups TRANSFER of Lieut. Barry Bingham, president and publisher of the Courier Journal and Times and owner of V/HAS, Louisville, now on leave of absence, from the Great Lakes Naval Training Station to Navy Department headquarters in Washington, was announced last week at the Department. Lt. Bingham for the last two months has been at the Great Lakes station as assistant public relations officer of the 9th Naval District. His new temporary assignment in Washington is in the public relations office, radio branch, now being reorganized under the direction of Frank E. Mason, vicepresident of NBC, who holds the status of civilian chief and special assistant to Secretary of the Navy Knox. Liaison Function Because of his experience both in the newspaper and radio fields, Lt. Bingham is expected to function in a liaison capacity between the two branches of the public relations department. Lt. Bingham has been on leave of absence from the newspaperradio properties in Louisville since his call to active duty several months ago. Mai-k Ethridge, vicepresident and general manager of the newspapers and station, is actively in charge of the operation during Lt. Bingham's indefinite leave. M & M Candy to Add M & M CANDY Co., Newark, periodically adding stations for its 26-week schedule of station break announcements, now has the following list: WMBG WCAO WDRC WJSV WEEI KYW WGY WARM WBAX WTAM KDKA WHIS WRAK WDBJ. Others will be added later. Agency is Lord & Thomas, New York. MRS. CHARLOTTE NELSON, 82 mother of AI Nelson, general manager of KGO-KPO. San Francisco, died .July 11 at her home in Chicago 'dJT mm CBS PHOENIX ARIZONA'S FIRST STATION First on the dial First with listeners ' First in results for advertisers Mail response means sales response— and KOY pulled over 90,000 letters in 1940! JOHN BLAIR & COMPANY ] AFFILIATE STATION WLS CHICAGO Page 26 • July 21, 1941 BROADCASTING • Broadcast Advertising