Broadcasting (Oct - Dec 1950)

1935 (Continued from, page 92) vided power for the town movie in the afternoon and evening and in the morning ran the newspaper's presses. Stations Render Special Flood Service WNBF Binghamton and WESG Elmira delivered equally meritorious performances during the New York floods in July, remaining on the air uninterruptedly for days on end to guide relief workers and keep the public informed, and KFAB Lincoln and KOTN Pine Bluff, Ark., also won praise for emergency service in their areas. In the fall, when a tropical hurricane hit Florida with unusual force, WDAE Tampa broadcast warnings and reports until its power supply failed, the staff staying on the job throughout the night to answer queries by phone. Engineers at WQAM Miami, when its tower was blown down, braved the storm and worked through the night, getting the station back on the air by morning to continue its reports on the progress of the storm. WIOD Miami also lost its tower but managed to stay on the air through the danger period. Sarnoff Reports Facsimile Is Ready Facsimile transmission by radio, both point-to-point and broadcast service, was technically ready to be put to use, David Sarnoff, RCA president, told stockholders in March. After demonstrations in New York and Washington, RCA discussed broadcast use with news paper publishers but no definite plan was arrived at. In February, a British Commission on television reported it ready for public service and BBC began preparations to begin telecasting the following year. RCA announced plans to spend $1 million on TV broadcast experiments, hoping to start test video transmissions the following year, with pictures of 343 lines and 30 frames interlaced. Philo T. Farnsworth demonstrated his 240-line TV system July 3 in Philadelphia. Transcription Library Field Expands Also in 1935: Associated Music Publishers, NBC and Standard Radio entered the transcription library field. Muzak Corp. tried out wired radio program service in Cleveland. American Society of Recording Artists attempted to collect license fees from stations for broadcasting phonograph records made by its members. National Assn. of Performing Artists filed suit in the name of NAPA President Fred Waring against WDAS Philadelphia, asking injunction restraining the station from broadcasting Waring recordings without his permission. Elsie Janis musical comedy star, became NBC's first woman announcer. Major Bowes' Amateur Hour, after gaining sensational popularity in New York on WHN, moved to NBC in Sunday night spot, sponsored by Standard Brands. Princess Pat started a world-wide radio campaign, placing records of its NBC show on stations in every English-speaking country in the world where paid programs were accepted. Clark ^^^^^^^^^^^ p r o t e c t CFRB Mr. Hooper Toronto from int e r f e r ence by WLW's 500-kw signal. World Broadcasting System and Free & Sleininger arranged for stations represented by F & S to get WBS transcribed spot business for only one 15% in addition to a agency commission. The government ruled that transcriptions were exempt from the tax on phonograph records. ANA, AAAA and NAB set up a tripartite 15-member Joint Committee on Radio Research to create a cooperative reseai-ch organization to serve radio as Audit Bureau of Publications served publishers, NBC and CBS pledging $30,000 to pay for preliminary studies. Broadcasting in February published its first annual Yearbook. Yankee Network underwrote development of a device to measure radio listening by recording dial turnings of receivers, invented by Professors R. F. Elder and L. F. Woodruff of MIT. Agencies and advertisers grumbled about station-break announcements as unfair to program sponsors. Chevrolet Motor Co. was the largest spot advertiser of the year, using three quarter-hour transcribed musical programs a week on some 300 stations. Western Electric Co. introduced a round unidirectional microphone, immediately nick named the 8-balI mike. Ford Motor Co. sponsored the World Series broadcasts (on all three networks) for the second consecutive year. Prof. E. H. Armstrong on Nov. 6 demonstrated "staticless radio" by new system of frequency modulation broadcasting to IRE. Dr. C. B. Jolliffe resigned Oct. 30 as chief engineer of FCC to become technical head of RCA; Lt. Comdr. T. A. M. Craven, consulting engineer since leaving the Navy in 1930, succeeded him at FCC. NBC reported a 400% increase in time devoted to world affairs in 1935 compared to 1934. Paul B. West, managing director of ANA, became its first salaried president; Ken R. Dyke, advertising manager, Colgate-PalmolivePeet Co., was elected chairman of the board. Canadian Radio Commission banned sales talks on Sunday broadcasts, permitting sponsorship but with advertising limited to institutional promotion. Deciding suit brought by KVL Seattle, Federal District Court ruled that Washington state law taxing gross sales of radio stations was illegal as interfering with interstate commerce. NBC dedicated new Hollywood studios Dec. 7. Gross Time Sales Go 20% Ahead of 1934 Broadcasting gross time sales hit another new high of $87,523,848 in 1935, 20% ahead of 1934 gross. CBS President William S. Paley was highest paid man in radio, collecting $169,097 from network in salary and bonus. RCA sold control of RKO to Atlass Corp.; M. H. Aylesworth, formerly president of both NBC and RKO, became RKO board chairman; Lenox R. Lohr was appointed president of NBC, effective Jan. 1, 1936. 1936 GROWTH was the broadcasting keynote of 1936, with more stations (675 in December, highest number since the gold-rush days before the enactment of the original Radio Act of 1927), more networks, both national and regional, and more business, gross time sales topping the $100 million mark for the first time in radio history. NBC started the year with a new president, Lenox R. Lohr, former Army engineer who had risen to national prominence through his astute management of Chicago's Century of Progress. His new broom had swept out some 200 NBC employes in a thorough reorganization before the world's great gathered in Radio City on Nov. 9 to salute NBC on its 10th birthday. NBC also entered the new year by adding a second Mr. Lohr chain of Pacific Coast affiliates and aligning the heretofore almost indistinguishable Red and Blue outlets into two transcontinental networks. In April CBS bought Guy Earl's 50 kw KNX Los Angeles for the unprecedented price of $1,250,000 to serve as key station for a new CBS West Coast line-up to replace the Don Lee Broadcasting System when its CBS contract expired at the end of the year. Mutual Begins Its Expansion Project Mutual, which from time to time had added other stations to its basic four-station hook-up for commercial programs, in 1936 began expanding through more permanent station affiliations, some of them with stations already affiliated with NBC, whose stations contracts, unlike those of CBS, included no ban against dual affiliations. By the year's end, Mutual, too, had become transcontinental by adding New England's Continental Network and the West Coast Don Lee group to its individual station affiliates. Network scoreboard at end of 1936, which also saw many switches of network affiliation by major stations, stood: NBC 114; CBS 97; MBS 38. Of about a dozen regional networks started in 1936, the most ambitious and one of the shortestlived was Affiliated Broadcasting Co., 20-station midwestern network headed by Samuel Insull Sr., former utility magnate attempting a comeback via radio. Starting in April with 16 hours of daily programming from its lavish Chicago studios, Affiliated by the year's end had lost its president and practically all other personnel and was dependent on its affiliates for most of its radically reduced program schedule. Newspaper-Owned Outlets Rapidly Increase Dropping their belligerence toward radio, many newspaper publishers in 1936 switched to an "if you can't lick 'em, join 'em" philoso phy, swelling the number of newspaper owned, operated or corporately affiliated stations to 171 at mid-year, 194 by Dec. 31. In the forefront was Hearst Radio, whose acquisition of four Southwest Broadcasting System stations in March brought Hearst's station total to 10. Roosevelt Joins Hearst As Vice President It also brought Elliott Roosevelt into Hearst Radio as vice president. An affiliation of Hearst's two California stations with the four McClatchy newspaper stations in that state produced a new regional, the California Radio System, which named Hearst as its representative. Scripps-Howard Newspapers upped their station ownership from two to four when they acquired two Memphis stations, WMC and WNBR, through their purchase of the Memphis stations, WMC and WNBR, Howard, son of the chairman of the newspaper chain's board, was sent to WCPO, the S-H station in Cincinnati, to add radio experi(Continued on page 96) Page 94 • October 16, 1950 BROADCASTING • Telecasting