Broadcasting Telecasting (Jan-Mar 1952)

allied arts LEO BROOK named industrial and ^ broadcast sales manager, Allied Radio Corp., Chicago. Other appoinments in sales division: DAVE KENNEDY, sales development manager; GORDON HOUGH, inside sales administration; GEORGE KELLY, government sales manager: JACK LIZARS, dealer sales manager; FRED PREHN, Chicago store sales manager; EUGENE CARRINGTON, general product promotion, and JULIAN McBARRON, general account promotion. JOHN H. PAINTER, engineer. General Electric Co., appointed special representative for company's broadcast equipment with headquarters in Wyatt Bldg., Washington, D. C. J. H. Dubois, sales manager of Flax Corp., division of Emhar Mfg. Corp., to Mycalex Corp. as vice president in charge of engineering. V. C. HAVENS, assistant general sales manager in charge of advertising, Crosley Div., Avco Mfg. Corp., Cincinnati, resigns to take up residence on West Coast. BREWSTER MORGAN, supervisor of Fireside Theatre production, Compton Adv., Hollywood, resigns to become independent film producer. AUDIO-MASTER Corp., N. Y., announces publication of new catalog which incorporates latest developments in transcription players, PA systems, three-speed phonographs, recording tape, recordings, film strips of American history and 16mm musical films. JOHN H. ALEXANDER, production department, Alexander Film Co., Colorado Springs, Col., appointed account executive in TV division. JOHN BOESEL, client service executive, A. C. Nielsen Co., Chicago, named assistant to C. G. SHAW, vice president of radio-TV sales and service. WILLIAM CARPENTER, station manager, WLOW Norfolk, Va., named sales representative in that city and Richmond for United Artists Television, N. Y. E. J. BAUGHMAN appointed West Coast representative of General Precision Lab. with office at 350 S. Central Ave., L. A. JOHN M. SIMS, company's sales manager of theatre TV, named to federal legislative committee of Theatre Equipment & Supply Mfrs. Assn. RUSSELL S. TATE Jr., eastern sales manager of Greyvan Lines Inc., named to Chicago client service division of Industrial Surveys Co. THOMAS B. KALBFUS, Hunter-Douglas Corp., to Westinghouse Electric Supply Co., N. Y., as general radioTV sales manager. H. DOUGLAS HADDEN, president and director of Borland International, joins National Foreman's Institute, New London, Conn., as assistant to president. AL RACKIN, publicity director, Roy Rogers Enterprises, Hollywood, returns to desk after month-long illness. WILLIAM L. PARKINSON appointed manager of product service of General Electric Co.'s Receiver Dept., Syracuse, N. Y. HERBERT J. YATES, president, Republic Productions, North Hollywood, Calif., and Vera Ralston, film actress, were married March 15. THOMAS H. FORD, sales and application engineer, Viltner Mfg. Co., to RCA Camden, N. J., as manager of air conditioning activities. SOUTHWESTERN INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS Co., Houston, Tex., announces production of new Model R Voltmeter, laboratory test instrument intended for precise measurement of DC potentials. DAVEN Co., Newark, N. J., announces availability of electronic voltmeter. Type 170-A, a portable instrument for general laboratory and production use built to measure accurately A. C. sinusoidal voltages over a frequency range from 10 to 25,000 cycles and a voltage range from .001 to 100 volts. "Tachnical • • • JAMES CUDNEY, NBC Chicago TV lighting engineer, is father of girl, Elizabeth Lu, Mar. 5. NBC-TV Hollywood personnel, headquartered at Vine & Yucca, moves to new offices at 1549 N. Vine St. Before You Buy iu Cinciunati STOP LOOK BEAD See Centerspread This Issue ON THE AIR EVERYWHERE 24 HOURS A DAY 50,000 WATTS OF SELLING POWEB OBJECTIVES of Radio Free Europe were described at joint meeting of the New England Radio Executives Club and Boston Advertising Club by C. D. Jackson (third from I), publisher of Fortune magazine and past president of RFE. Attending session were (I to r): Robert R. Bradford, former governor of Massachusetts and member of RFE Finance Committee; Edmund J. Shea, vice president of James Thomas Chirurg Co., advertising agency, and REC president; Mr. Jackson, who directed Radio Free Europe activities the past year; Rudolph Bruce, advertising manager of New England Coke Co. and REC secretary; Andrew C. Quale, sales and advertising manager of Walter Baker Chocolate Div. of General Foods Division, BAC president; and W. C. Swartley, manager of WBZ-AM-FM-TV Boston and REC first vice president. THREATS TO FREE SPEECH Elmer Rice Notes Advertising, Other Restrictions AGENCIES of mass communication and special-interest pressure groups are held responsible by playwright Elmer Rice for "new fashions in censorship" in an article he wrote on that subject for the March issue of Survey magazine. The article reviews the situation as he sees it in connection with all the major media. "To sum up the radio and television situation," Mr. Rice wi-ites, "it is the advertiser who pays the piper and hence calls the tune. In this field, creativeness, self-expression and freedom of communication are mere incidentals to the selling of merchandise." Physical control of radio and "its gargantuan baby brother" television, the Pulitzer-prize winner observes, is concentrated in a few nationwide networks with only a few independent stations managing "a hand-to-mouth existence" and effecting only a local counterinfluence to mass control. The FCC licensing system — with the limitations on available frequencies — allows for federal emphasis on public service, he notes, and thus "is largely responsible for such freedom as exists on the air." Asserting that freedom of discussion and "cultural window dressing" are generally limited to broadcasting hours unpopular with advertisers, Mr. Rice concedes wide diversity in music programming, a "relatively non-controversial" field. "News coverage, on the whole, is good," he concludes, so long as the news program is unsponsored. But when there is commercial sponsorship, the reporter is faced only too often with the alternatives of conforming to the opinions of the advertiser or seeking other employment." Decrying the growing practice of minority groups to deny public hearing for anything that runs counter to their beliefs, he cites, as broadcasting examples, attempts by branches of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People to use economic boycott on the Beulah and Amos 'n Andy TV programs. Referring to Red Channels, he says, "due in large part to the activities of small units of the American Legion, scores of well known actors and writers are unable to find employment in radio, television, or motion pictures." Two roads lead to the free speech ideal, he says: "Diversity of outlet (through diversity of ownership and control) and, secondly, noninterference by influential minorities." Evaluating the former as a Utopian goal, Mr. Rice writes, "it remains then for the militant minority groups to modify their demands and to change their tactics." "To anyone who views the whole, picture objectively," he continues, "it must be apparent that the total eff'ect of all these pressures, impinging upon the relatively few focal areas of control, is to restrict freedom of expression in the mass media of communication and to reduce all expression to an innocuous, sterile, deadly uniformity, characteristic of totalitarianism rather than of democracy." THREE-QUARTER hour Al Gannaway's Half-Pint Party, produced byi Gannaway & Morganthau Productions, N. Y., has been started on WCBS-TV New York and is offered at $1,100 per 15 minutes. Show is televised each Saturday. Mac Levy Dance Studios is sponsoring first quarter hour for 13 weeks through Associated Adv. Service, N. Y. Page 80 • March 24, 1952 BROADCASTING • Telecasting