Broadcasting (Jan - June 1942)

I^©AP€ASTDINI€ cwuJL Broadcast Advertising MARTIN CODEL, Publisher SOL TAISHOFF, Editor Published Weekly by BROADCASTING PUBLICATIONS, Inc. Executive, Editorial And Advertising Offices National Press Bldg. • Washineton, D. Telephone — MEtropoliten 1022 NORMAN R. GOLDMAN, Business Manager • BERNARD PLATT, Circulation Manager J. FRANK BEATTY, Managing Editor NEW YORK OFFICE: 250 Park Ave., Telephone PLaza 5-8355 BRUCE ROBERTSON, Associate Editor • MAURY LONG, Advertising Manager CHICAGO OFFICE: 360 N. Michigan Ave., Telephone CENtral 4115 • S. J. PAUL HOLLYWOOD OFFICE: 1509 N. Vine Street, Telephone GLadstone 7353 • DAVID H. GLICKMAN WEST COAST ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVES: DUNCAN A. SCOTT & CO. San Francisco, Mills Building • Los Angeles, Western Pacific Building Subscription Price: $5.00 per year— 15c a copy • Copyright, 1942, by Broadcasting Publications, Inc. This Is Radio's War RADIO GOES to its first wartime convention. There is plenty of Army brass and Navy braid in evidence at the Statler in Cleveland as the 20th Annual NAB Convention gets under way. A year ago, in St. Louis, there were military titles too, but no uniforms. That was before Pearl Harbor. Uniformed or not, broadcasting is mobilized for the duration. Every station, every man who appears before the mike or who handles air copy, is enlisted. His is a responsibility entrusted only to a select few in this nation of 130,000,000. He maintains a direct link with the people as a deputy of Government — a human, swift, intimate contact. Such Federal war agency leaders as McNutt, MacLeish, Price and Lewis, and such military and naval figures as Surles, Hepburn, Hershey, Beaumont-Nesbitt and Lovette, will address the convention. That is indicative of the esteem in which broadcasting is held in the war elfort. There are problems of Government, economic along with military, that are vital to every broadcaster. The answers, to the limit to which they can be given under the imponderables of war, will be supplied by the spokesmen for Uncle Sam delegated to consult with the industry. Every broadcaster who has any doubts about Government policy — on censorship, Government programming, equipment shortage, selective service inroads, interceptor command disagreements, or whatnot — should be prepared to submit his questions. That's why these important personages have taken time out from Washington's seething war activity to attend the convention. Behind these Government headliners, there are other jobs to be handled at Cleveland. War has tended to throw the economics of the industry somewhat out of kilter. Price ceilings and commodity rationing will disturb the sales balance. Taxes, present and impending, will increase the overhead spiral. All these require intensive scrutiny and such action as may be possible now. Musicians, copyright and a dozen other perennials must be coped with and sifted. The war hasn't stopped the regulatory pressures either. Then there's industry politics. No one in radio can ever forget the nightmare of St. Louis a year ago. We hope that FCC Chairman James Lawrence Fly's "dead mackerel" of unpleasant memory is buried for good. A repetition or revival of that episode is unlikely inas Page 72 • May 11, 1942 much as Mr. Fly will not be a convention speaker and apparently will not be in Cleveland. There has been dissatisfaction expressed over the conduct of the industry's affairs by the NAB. There has been an outcropping of other industry groups as a direct result. There are those who charge that any broad reorganization would be a showing of weakness and of subservience to Chairman Fly, who is unrelenting in his opposition to the present structure. As in the past, there is the clarion call for a "united front." There can be no doubt that teamwork was never needed more than now. Whatever is done should be accomplished by the broadcasters themselves. There should be no outside influences, from Government or from any other source. The questions of reorganization, of network membership, of personnel, should be met calmly, dispassionately and objectively. Family quarrels should be kept in the family. There is only one basic issue: How can radio best perform its function in winning the war? If that thought is kept ever-present, solution of the purely intra-industry problems will tion of intra-industry problems will be simple. WITH this issue, Broadcasting adverts to white cover stock. The grey cover which has adorned your trade journal since the beginning of 1937 is a casualty of the war. We hove you like the change. All Together COHESION — and lots of it — dominates a collection of advertising industry views appearing on another page of this issue. The views are representative of networks, advertisers, agencies, audience analysts. It is a cohesion arising from the mutual appreciation of the fact that all branches of American business and industry must devote themselves to the war-winning job. In advertising, the need for unity is keenly appreciated. The industry is far along in its conversion to wartime economy and its joint effort to mold the public into a fighting machine. As to the future, these key figures refuse to be drawn into the oracle role. But they express confidence that broadcast advertising will meet its problems as they arise. Anyone who reviews broadcasting's adjustment to the role of wartime news dispenser and public servant will share their belief that future adjustments will be made with equal ease. The Rush Study SINCE THAT eventful day a year ago when the FCC smuggled the so-called chain-monopoly report out of its star chamber, there have been repercussions in the courts, in Congress, in the j FCC and in the industry. Regulations that :i were to have become effective in August 1941 have been revised, re-revised and postponed a half-dozen times. But during this protracted legal, legislative, regulatory and intra-industry tumult there hasn't been any unbiased, outside appraisal — until now. In this issue appears an analysis of the whole issue by Richard H. Rush, young Harvard economist. It is based on a year's work, made possible through the grant of a Littauer Fellowship by the Harvard Graduate School of Public Administration. He was awarded his doctorate last week. Mr. Rush's findings are of interest to everyone in broadcasting. His study was objective. He embarked upon it with no preconceived notions. He arrived at his conclusions independently. His academic background and business experience (including two years as marketing analyst for Tide Water Associated Oil) equipped him well for the undertaking. From the very outset, we have contended that the FCC majority far exceeded its authority in delving into purely business aspects of broadcasting. We have argued that the majority, in effect, tossed its investigation record overboard, and arrived at conclusions best suited to its ends through the selection of an isolated phrase here and a sentence there, plucked from a million-word record. In an entirely different, and far more scientific and erudite fashion, Mr. Rush arrives at virtually the same conclusion. His is not a diatribe against the FCC, but rather a calculating vivisection which leads him to the conclusion that the FCC majority acted capriciously. But beyond that, he finds that matters which must be investigated to arrive at a conclusion as to whether there should be more or less networks, more or less regulation of them, and more or less network programs, are outside the FCC's jurisdiction. Our contention consistently has been that it is up to Congress to chart the course of its creature, the FCC. Mr. Rush's conclusion, reached by the application of recognized principles of government and economics, is "for Congress to outline a policy for the regulation of network broadcasting". Significantly, Mr. Rush holds that to call the FCC's report a "monopoly report" is a misnomer. All of the theory of monopoly and competition is concerned with price, he emphasizes. The majority's report, he finds, makes no mention of price, no attempt to determine what the cost of network broadcasting is, or even who pays the cost of network broadcasting. Mr. Rush's analysis is timely. Hearings are in progress before the House Interstate & Foreign Commerce Committee on new legislation to govern the FCC. The so-called monopoly regulations, among other of the FCC's "power grab" edicts, provoked these hearings. The network rules themselves are in litigation before the Supreme Court, but only on the question of jurisdiction, at this time, of a lower tribunal. The committee, it seems to us, might well acquaint itself with Mr. Rush's findings. BROADCASTING • Broadcast Advertising