Broadcasting (July - Sep 1949)

Respects iContinued from page AO) tween these places. He attended high school in Rochester, where he worked on the school paper and got his first taste of and interest in advertising. He was a precocious young student. He once was thrown out of class and almost expelled from school for arguing a point of history with his teacher. His higher education was taken at Amherst (two years), where he became a member of Psi Upsilon fraternity, and at Harvard {IV2 years). Working during most of his off campus hours, he did not take part in sports nor most other extra curricular school activities. However, he did learn to play a fair game of poker during his fraternity life at Amherst and he admits to some extra curricular activities with the students at nearby Smith College (for women). Mr. Elwood had his first association with utilities in 1915, about the time the Marconi Co. of England was extending its radio empire into the U. S. During that summer vacation he got a job as a construction hand with the Utah Power & Light Co., building lines, dams and other power projects in Utah and Idaho. Young John became a foreman of the crew before the summer's end. He started his career as a book salesman during the following summer. And here again he was connected, indirectly, with utilities. The book he sold was titled Public Utilities Reports Annotated. His mother's health failed in early 1917 and he was forced to leave college. He returned to Van Hornesville, N. Y., where the family ovmed a farm, and settled down to support his mother. But he was soon back selling the utilities reports on a regular basis. The work was more remunerative than farm work. He earned $175 monthly on the job, then a goodly sum for such a youth. That was his situation when he went to General Electric Dec. 17, 1917. For three years his desk was located adjacent to that of Mr. Young's. He considers those years the most valuable in his career. On only three occasion was he not allowed to sit in on all of Mr. Young's business conferences. The three exceptions were calls by J. P. Morgan, C. A. Coffin, chairman of the board of GE, and Gordon Abbot, director of GE. He was present at the historic conference when President Woodrow Wilson, represented by a group of Naval officers, asked Mr. Young to organize a private corportation to promote and develop radio, not as a commercial venture but as an aid to America in international relations and competition. Mr. Elwood left Mr. Young's office when he was named assistant secretary for GE. And when RCA was organized as a result of the ahove mentioned conference, he became immediately active in the enterprise. While Mr. Young was the force and guiding spirit be hind the new organization, the responsibility for operational details in the GE interests fell to Mr. Elwood. He attended all of the European conferences at which the nations jockeyed for position in the international radio field. As early as 1920, following one of the European meetings, he was offered the job of secretary of RCA. But under the press of conferences and other work, he did not officially accept the position until early 1922. He served as RCA's first secretary for more than two years during which time he represented the corporation at Washington. He was the first radio man to appear before the Commerce Dept. and urge establishment of a communications commission to direct and control use of the air waves. In 1923, when RCA acquired the Federal Telegraph Co. of California, Mr. Elwood went to San Francisco as vice president and general manager of that subsidiary. For four years he oversaw the establishment of shortwave communications with China and the Far East. When he took the position he had hoped to be stationed in China. But after four years in San Francisco, and after the communication system was established and working, he began to feel he was losing time. He resigned and returned to New York, where he was named assistant to President M. H. Aylesworth, of the newly organized NBC. Meets Trammell It was while he was in San Francisco that Mr. Elwood met a young man named Niles Trammell. During the years 1923-27, Mr. Trammell was working on the West Coast in various capacities for sales and merchandising subsidiaries of RCA. The two men became fast friends. And shortly after Mr. Elwood returned to New York, Mr. Trammell headed east. After their first meeting in Mr. Elwood's NBC office in New York Mr. Trammell began to sell time for NBC and soon was the top salesman in New York office. Shortly afterward when the position of sales manager in the Chicago office was open, Mr. Elwood was instrumental in getting Mr. Trammell the job. Mr. Elwood says he wouldn't tell this story now if Mr. Trammell hadn't already told it publicly himself. Mr. Elwood's duties as assistant to the president of NBC included, in addition to general executive duties, management of all public affairs programs. This was his first association with radio pro-gramming. But little more than a year later, in the spring of 1928, he was named program manager of the network. His interest in programming, however, was confined pretty much to public affairs programs and the network soon brought in another man to handle the entertainment shows. But policies and formats he developed for public service programs in those days are still followed generally by the network today. On Jan. 1, 1930, Mr. Elwood was named a vice president of the network. A vice president without portfolio, he says. Among his duties, he retained the directorship of public affairs programs — educational, political and religious. The problem facing broadcasters in each of these three classifications at the time, Mr. Elwood says, can best be exemplified by the situation existing with religious programs. The networks and radio stations had started out by extending time indiscriminately to any church leader who wanted to go on the air. This had brought about a deluge of requests for time. With the help of outstanding lay leaders of the' various faiths, Mr. Elwood worked out the present policy whereby a national organization representing one of the leading religious sects puts a program on the network and maintains, generally, a non-sectarian tone. Similar arrangements are worked out on the local level for local religious programs. Thus all religions are represented on the air fairly equally. In 1934, after a shuffle in NBC's top management, Mr. Elwood found himself in considera.ble disagreement and disfavor with the new network heads. The disagreements led, finally, to an open break and he was fired. "On the record that period looks pretty good for me," Mr. Elwood says. "My employment record says I resigned. And the jobs I held during the following years read nice in Who's Who. But I was fired and some of the following years were slirn pickings." On the record, during those "slim pickings" years, he was secretary of the executive committee of the Will Rogers Memorial Commission and the Memorial Fund. He had various public relations jobs during the same time and was eastern manager of the Radio Division of the Republican National Committee. Return to NBC Toward the end of 1939, following another shuffle in NBC top management, Mr. Elwood returned to the network. In 1940 he was named manager of the network's international division. In this capacity he was instrumental in building up America's shortwave propaganda offensive against AxisEurope when war came. He raised NBC's international broadcast hours to 20 a day, in 11 languages, and doubled the power of the company's shortwave transmitters. He later increased the broadcasts to 24 hours daily in 18 languages. These broadcasts were conducted in cooperation with the Rockefeller Institute and the Office of Coordinator of Information. In May 1942 he was transferred to San Francisco as general manager of KPO, now KNBC. When he took it over the station was as much a U. S. war weapon as a local commercial venture and he operated it accordingly. He maintained a 24-hour daily program schedule. He made his station the focal point of shortwave communications in the Pacific War. He managed the building and operation, for OWI, of a new shortwave plant near Dixon, Calif. One ' of the station's four 50 w transmitters was stepped up toward the end of the war to 200 kw, making it the highest powered shortwave facility in the U. S. Under his direction, KPO conducted many public service programs unequalled by any other station in the country. A 24-hour bond-sale marathon, conceived by Mr. Elwood and emceed by Eddie Cantor, sold more than $40 million worth of bonds, a national record. Top Interest Is People Mr. Elwood, on his 54th birthday, is a quiet, round-faced man with almost sad brown eyes framed by dark, horn-rimmed glasses. He is given to wearing grey, doublebreasted suits with colorful, but not loud, ties. He is a modest executive who refuses to take himself or anyone else too seriously. His main interest is people. His home in Palo Alto, a San Francisco Peninsula suburb and home of Stanford U., is a large friendly house set amidst wide green lawns and trees. He lives there quietly with his second wife, the former Lena May Penrose, whom he married in 1931, and his two sons, John Jr., 17, a Stanford freshman, and Niles Trammel Elwood, 16, at Palo Alto High. A daughter of his first marriage, Mrs. Darius Franche, lives in Chicago. After 31 years in radio, Mr. Elwood feels sure that AM broad ! casting is here to stay. He is one of the school of thought that television will have a great effect on radio; will force many changes in radio operation, but will never replace, nor even seriously hurt, radio. He will be engaged in television work soon when KRONTV, NBC's San Francisco affiliate, goes on the air. In addition to his radio work and home life, Mr. Elwood is president of the Downtown Assn. of San Francisco, member of the California State Youth Committee, member of the management committee of the California PTA, associate dean of the NBC-Stanford Radio Institute, vice president of the San Francisco Safety Council, president of the Northern California Alumni Assn. of Amherst, member of the executive committee of the Better Business Bureau, and a member of the Bohemian, Rotary, San Francisco Press and Advertising Clubs. He is a Mason, a Republican and a Universalist. His philosophy of life, also gained through association with Mr. Young: Always retain the long range view and never allow immediate difficulties to becloud the ultimate goal. His philosophy on running a radio station: A local station should serve its community. It should never be a voice directed at the community but rather the voice of the community speaking out in behalf of the citizens of the community. Page 42 • July 18, 1949 BROADCASTING • Telecasting