Broadcasting (July - Dec 1942)

iI^©AIO)€ASTDINI€ anxL Broadcast Advertising MARTIN CODEL, Publisher SOL TAISHOFF, Editor Published Weekly by BROADCASTING PUBLICATIONS, Inc. Executive, Editorial And Advertising Offices National Press Bldg. • Washington, D. Telephone — MEtropolitan 1022 Circulation Manager NORMAN R. GOLDMAN, Business Manager * BERNARD PLATT 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. Morale Exchange IRONICAL isn't it, that the Jack Benny and Bob Hope programs, particularly the latter, transcribed by NBC without commercials and being broadcast regularly over the British Broadcasting Corp., should turn out to be such important morale builders among the wartime British audience? That's what William B. B. Fergusson, managing director of Lord & Thomas Ltd., London, now in New York, reported the other day [Broadcasting, July 13] — and there is much that the information chiefs of this country and Britain can learn from his report. The Bob Hope show, for example, originating as it does from Army camps, with soldiers cheering in the audience, has proved to be "one of the clearest ways of picturing the tremendous scope of the American training program" to the war-bound British Isles, according to Mr. Fergusson. England's curtailed newspapers evidently can't do the' job properly, and apparently there is much still lacking on the British radio so far as informing the people about the American war effort is concerned. It's a great tribute to American radio, to be sure, but the morale builders here and the British Ministry of Information, which recently sent the Hon. Harold Butler to Washington to improve the exchange-of -information arrangement, should know now better than ever that radio is one of the most important implements at hand for the task of winning the war. Caesar's Dilemma ANY DAY NOW, Musicdom's horn-tooting James Caesar Petrillo is going to find himself in court. That's because The Little Caesar, in his latest union thrusts, has misjudged his adversaries. He's battling an indignant public now, aside from several industries that have been so much putty in past set-tos with the AFM czar, and who have yielded on the "made work" issue even though they knew the claim of unemployment in musician's ranks was a hoax. Jimmy has misfired on every front. His ban on recordings for public performance as of July 31, if it sticks, can wreck his union and everything his venerated predecessor, Joseph Weber, built up over nearly a half-century. The better musicians, and the name bands, who record and get royalties, aren't likely to stick to Jimmy when those revenues evaporate. CIO, long anxious to break into AFM's charmed circle, already is working on its own national musicians' union. All Jimmy wanted was more money from radio, perhaps a percentage of station receipts. Instead, he has collided with the people and with the Government. Broadcasters haven't been in to see him to negotiate. And he finds the industry united. Even the Broadcasters Victory Council, for the first time since its organization, is solidly behind the position taken by the NAB. Jimmy's colossal blunder was his muddleheaded command to NBC that it throw oif the high school band concerts from the summer camp at Interlochen, Mich., after a 12-year sustaining run. The wrath of the youth of America, and its parenthood, came down on Jimmy's head. His action provoked sharp criticism in Congress. It brought FCC Chairman James Lawrence Fly into the affray because of the threat to smaller stations attempting to do a real war job. As Mr. Fly said, without transcriptions and records these stations can't survive, and continue to maintain full schedules. What's to be done about this labor czar who has thus run amuck while the country wages its fight for life? Assistant Attorney General Thurman Arnold now will enter suit. He has been deluged with complaints from the people, from the beleagured industries and even from interested Government agencies. Past efforts in the courts to curb labor incursions on the made-work issue have proved futile. But never before has this precise issue been adjudicated. Aside from the aspect of maintenance of public morale in a national emergency, Petrillo's actions strike at the very fundamentals of freedom of expression. Here is a situation where one man commands 140,000 musicians to quit a particular kind of work for reasons not yet clear. He orders a network to cease carrying a sustaining program because it might deprive some union musicians somewhere of some work. He threatens a national strike of musicians on the air because one station in the Midwest couldn't come to terms with its local — terms dictated by Petrillo himself, and allegedly changed whenever an agreement appeared imminent. Jimmy knows probably better than anyone that his whole plan has collapsed. But he's on record. He has face to save, aside from a $46,000-a-year-job. What will Jimmy do when Uncle Sam formally moves in? We'll ven EAR-WITNESS Here is one of the great stories of radio — in the words of a man loho was there ivhen it happened. It is a graphic account of the fundamental part radio played in preparing the peaceful British people for the war. It teas radio, modern miracle of mass communication, that geared every man, woman and child in England for the part he must play ivhen "Hitler's black vultures" swooped from the skies. "Wireless" in England — "Radio" in America — tivo loords loith the same significance — a puhlic service lohich has won the confidence of free people everyivheere. Mr. Masius' account is reprinted from a hrochure hy NBC. By L. M. MASIUS Executive Vice-President, Lord & Thomas I HAVE heard two fateful pronouncements by radio . . . one, on Dec. 8, 1941, when the President declared that a state of war existed between this country and Japan . . . and the other, long centuries ago, on Sept. 3, 1939. . . . It was in an old-world cottage in Sussex, England. It was my cottage, and the time was 10:15 on a Sunday morning. . . . Events had piled up over the weekend, and the loud speaker in every home was the one point of contact with what was happening. I shall never forget the chill of the close presence of Destiny when I heard a voice say, over the air, "No answer has yet been given to the ultimatum sent to Berlin by His Majesty's Goyernment. . . . The Prime Minister will address the Nation at 11 o'clock." I snapped off the radio — it could tell me no more — and went outside into the bright sunlight. Forty-five minutes to go. Forty-five minutes of peace left to the world. In three-quarters of an hour this green countryside, this bright sunlight, would never again seem the same. It is one of the ironies of our civilization, and one of the things most significant of what we are up against, that our enemies chose, for making war, the one day of the week devoted to the Lord and all that He stands for. That 45 minutes passed as relentlessly as any I have ever lived through. And then, Neville Chamberlain was speaking. And when he had finished, 44 million people in the United Kingdom were launched into an all-out effort, launched as one soul. That was the first important contribution of radio to this war. Other equally important {Continued on page 37) ture a guess, but first let's look at the record. Jimmy can't drop his July 31 transcriptionrecord ban simply because of the heat it has engendered. He can't reinstate the Interlochen concerts under the sort of strafing he's getting in Congress, at the FCC and in the nation's editorial columns. And he can't let AFM disintegrate. Our guess is that when the Anti-Trust Division enters suit, one Petrillo will announce to his waiting world that his stewardship has been challenged. He will say that until his name is cleared, all bets are off. In grandiose fashion, he will display his magnanimity by proclaiming that the status quo will be retained pendente lite (pending litigation). There won't be any July 31 recording deadline, nor any national walkout of musicians — and even the Interlochen concerts will be restored. But, if all this happens, where will Jimmy be when the AFM holds its national convention next summer? Maybe, with a wave of his czarist wand, there won't be any convention — in the war interest. Page 32 • July 27, 1942 BROADCASTING • Broadcast Advertising