Broadcasting (Oct - Dec 1950)

Mr. Lewis 1939 (Continued from page 116) not to be mentioned on the air. By fall a dozen or more stations were broadcasting AP news under sponsorship, but the 25r''f assessment kept it from being truly competitive with UP, INS and Transradio Press, in the radio news field. In July, radio galleries were inaugurated in the houses of Congress, an official recognition of broadcasting's place in the news reporting field that came only after a protracted fight led by Fulton Lewis Jr., Washington commentator for MBS, who was elected first president of the Radio Correspondents Assn. Developing its spot news coverage technique to an ever-improved level, radio, particularly the networks, in the early months of 1939 brought the listening public on-thescene reports of such events as the crash of the Imperial Airway, seaplane Cavalier, the coronation of Pope Pius XII, the sinking of the Navy submarine Squalus and the visit to the U. S. of England's King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. Methods of reporting and interpreting European political and military moves inaugurated during the Anschluss and Munich crises of 1938 were improved and tested during Germany's annexation of Czechoslovakia in March so that radio was ready for the critical period that was opened Aug. 21 by the announcement of the GermanRussian non-agression pact. "At NBC, CBS and MBS headquarters in New York, special events departments engineers and traffic crews went on 24-hour duty," Broadcasting reported, adding: "Commentators and newsmen moved into the studios, sleeping on cots between desks, eating sandwiches from nearby lunchrooms, drinking coffee brewed on the spot . . . "Commercial programs were ruthlessly cancelled or cut into to make way for on-the-spot-of-theminute news. Transmitters stayed on the air all night, broadcasting hourly summaries and intermittent bulletins with music in between, or, if the stations did sign off, were kept warm and ready to start again at a moment's notice." After a canvass of responsible government officials, Broadcasting's editor, Sol Taishoff, allayed industry fears of censorship, or worse, by reporting that even if war should break out in Europe "there is no present disposition on the part of the U. S. Government to molest normal commercial operations of most stations. On the contrary, the government attitude appears to be that of maintaining a 'hands-off' policy, realizing that broadcasting will serve a singularly useful purpose in informing and maintaining the morale of the people." The only immediate change foreseen was whatever might be necessary to comply with regulations certain to be adopted to preserve this country's neutrality. War News Plan Submitt'ed to Commission As crisis turned to war and broadcasting returned from its round-the-clock news job to more normal operating schedules, top executives of the three networks di-afted a plan for handling war news and submitted it informally to the Commission, not for approval but merely to keep the FCC informed. Basically the plan called for "temperate, responsible and mature" news broadcasting, with every effort made to "avoid horror, suspense and undue excitement" so far as the news itself would permit, with the source of the news — observed fact, official statement, responsible source, rumor or propaganda • — clearly identified to help the public evaluate the news it heard. Programs were to be interrupted for news bulletins as infrequently as seemed consistent with good operation and all war propaganda was strictly forbidden "in either commercial announcements or the context of commercial programs." Newspaper-radio rivalry was forgotten as radio augmented its staff men in Europe with special assignments to correspondents from newspapers and associations whose oral reports often reached American listeners hours before their written dispatches appeared in print. William Henry of CBS and Arthur Mann of Mutual, the first radio correspondents ever assigned to front line duty, left London Oct. 9 for the war zone, NBC's accredited correspondent being in this country at that time. Annual Report to FCC Is Established Harrassed by exhaustively detailed questionnaires from the FCC, which expected them to be filled out and returned at almost a moment's notice, the broadcasters, through NAB, held numerous conferences with FCC accountants and worked out a procedure whereby the information needed by the Commission would be supplied on an annual basis, forms being mailed to stations in the fall for return by March 1 covering the previous year's operations. Expressing himself "thoroughly dissatisfied with the present legal framework and administrative machinery of the Commission," President Roosevelt had bills introduced calling for replacement of the seven-member FCC by a threemember body. Sen. Wallace White (R-Me.) countered with a proposal for expanding the number of Commissioners to 11. Industry arguments against hasty action prevailed and the measures were soon shelved and forgotten. In March E. 0. Sykes, who had been a member of the original Radio Commission, retired after 12 years' service, with Frederick I. Thompson, publisher of the Montgomery (Ala.) Journal, succeeding him on the FCC. Paul A. Walker was reappointed for a new seven year term in July and in September the Commission got a new chairman, James Lawrence Fly, who had made a notable reputation as general counsel of Tennessee Valley Authority. He succeeded Chairman McNinch who retired because of ill health. How far the FCC should and could go in considering economic issues in granting licenses for new stations was a hard-fought question during 1939. Reversing FCC new station grants in a number of communities where established station operators had complained that additional stations could not be supported without undue hardship on those already in business, the Federal Court of Appeals of the Mr. Thompson District of Columbia vigorously espoused the opinion that the Commission was duty-bound to take economic matters into consideration in making station grants. The Commission premise, presented with equal fervor by its general counsel, William J. Dempsey, and by William C. Koplovitz, assistant general counsel, was that Congress had not intended to create a "protected monopoly within the broadcasting field" and that the FCC's regulatory interest is limited to granting licenses, not in how much advertising a station sells or its ability to withstand the competition of other stations and other media. If broadcasting is a private business, the FCC argument ran, it merits no protection; if it does require governmental protection then it is not a private business but a public utility and subject to regulation of rates and limitation of profits. This dispute was the basic issue of three cases pending before the United States Supreme Court at the year's end — the so-called Pottsville, Heitmeyer and Sanders cases, covering new station grants in Pottsville, Pa., Cheyenne and Dubuque. Meanwhile, in November the FCC Law Dept. saw at least a partial acceptance of its views by the Federal Court of Appeals, which ruled that loss of revenue by existing stations is not sufficient grounds for protesting a new grant, but that the complainants must show that such competition would be truly ruinous. New Rules Put Into Effect On Aug. 1 the FCC put into effect broad new rules stemming from the allocations heai'ing of the previous summer, at the same time extending the broadcast license period from six months to a year. Salient provisions of the new rules were : Reclassification of stations from clear, regional and local to Classes I (clear), II (duplicated clear), III (regional), IV (local), with upper and lower brackets, based on power limitations and interference protection, for the first three classes. Establishment of 26 channels as unduplicated clear within the continental U. S. Increases for Class III (a) regionals form 1 kw maximum nighttime power to 5 kw fulltime and of Class IV stations from 100 w to 250 w, on application where engineeringly feasible. Ban mm.-mmm 1939 BROUGHT an international crisis that put network staffs on 24-hour duty. LEFT PHOTO: NBC workers lunching (i to r): Graham McNamee, announcer; Art Feldman, Ed Heaker, special events; Bill Spargrove, George Putnam, announcers; Milton Burgh, special events, and (background) J. Harrison Hartley, special events. RIGHT PHOTO: Viewing the new form, facsimile, at WOR New York's transmitter are (I to r): Herbert L. Brucker, Columbia U.; Charles Singer (face visible), chief of WOR transmitter operations; Prof. John B. Russell, Columbia U.; Dexter Purinton, architect of WOR plont; Dean Carl W. Ackerman, C. U., and J. R. Poppele, WOR chief engineer.