Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1953)

A Landmark in Radio Research PROBAhi_\ no more significant research has been done in the radio field in recent years than the Alfred Politz study commissioned by the 1 1 radio stations represented by the Henry I. Christal Co. Based on 4,985 personal interviews in a probability sample representing the 61,600,000 people 15 years old and over living at the time in tv areas, the Politz study produced overwhelming evidence of the pervasiveness of radio and people's reliance upon it. •A preliminary report of the results was issued last summer and presented in detail in B»T, July 27. The final report is now contained in a comprehensive booklet, "The Importance of Radio in Television Areas Today," which is being given wide distribution throughout the advertising field. What the Politz project set out to do was to find out the reasons that people have radio and their attitudes toward it. How well the Politz organization succeeded is indicated by the observations appearing below. This article is the text of comments by an impartial authority, Alfred Stanford, a veteran and respected advertising man. The comments appear in the booklet. Mr. Stanford was asked by the sponsors of the IN ITS preoccupation with little "measurements" for a quarter of a century, radio has not only dramatically underestimated itself, it has even failed to see itself as a medium. The true nature of the radio medium, at last suggested by this Politz survey, is important news for every advertising man in the business today. The superficial news is that radio, confronted by the competition of television, has retained its enormous vitality. This is quite big news in itself, perhaps. Certainly it is surprising to anyone who has not understood the exclusive role radio has been filling in people's lives. The big new concept of radio as a medium can be stated very simply indeed. Human capacity for multiple attention is one of the basic facts of life. For example, while you drive your car through heavy traffic, you are also likely to be smoking a cigarette and conversing animatedly on a variety of matters with your companion. That is multiple attention. Or you may be having a business lunch in a noisy restaurant. You concentrate on the conversation at your table and don't "hear" the hubbub elsewhere in the room. Yet if someone at the next table speaks your name, your ear at once catches that significant sound. That, too, is multiple attention. Multiple attention is a workable principle survey to write his appraisal because of his experience in various media. He was one of the founders of Compton Advertising Agency, was later director of the Bureau of Advertising of the American Newspaper Publishers Assn., became vice president and advertising director of the New York Herald Tribune, re-entered the agency field in 1951 as director of the plans board of Benton & Bowles. Last May he resigned to publish his own magazine, Boats. NARTB and BAB are participating with the Christal-represented stations in distributing the booklet. BAB is sending 5,500 copies to advertisers, agencies and BAB members. NARTB is sending 5.000 copies to stations that are not BAB members, to schools and libraries. The Christal stations themselves are distributing some 4.500 copies. Other stations that wish to promote the study in their own communities may obtain extra copies at the cost of printing, the Christal company has announced. Stations sponsoring this research were WBAL Baltimore, WBEN Buffalo. WGAR Cleveland, WJR Detroit, WTIC Hartford, WDAF Kansas City. KFI Los Angeles, WHAS Louisville, WTMJ Milwaukee, WGY Schenectady and WTAG Worcester. and a commonplace fact in American life. Now, if America stands for anything, it means busy, busy people. Couple this with the fact that, as another phenomenon of multiple attention, you can listen to radio while you are doing something else. You, at last, have the picture of radio as a medium in busy American life. You have the key to why radio has not been permanently hurt by that great new machine, television. Radio serves a multiple attention need in busy American life. This advantage of radio — that people do other things while they listen to it— has not been well enough understood, in spite of its common observability every day. Actually, this fact establishes the exclusive characteristic enjoyed by radio alone of all media. In busy American lives it is one of the hardest jobs for the salesman to force attention, to get the door open, as it were. But to a fantastic degree, as one peruses this study, we see that radio has always had this door open, no matter what else people are doing. For radio is a constant, friendly companion in people's lives, present almost wherever they go or whatever else they do, all around the clock. This privilege is enjoyed by no other medium. Its values have not begun to be consciously exploited by the advertiser. It is sharply ironical to see, when once a medium like radio lays aside its intracompetitive, quantitative welter of "research" (i.e., program against program) and its intercompetitive preoccupations (i.e., radio against newspapers, television, magazines ) , what new strengths for radio appear. After years of being cheated by underestimation and the failure to understand itself because of narrower, so-called "measurements", radio now at last is revealed in basic new measurements that show its strength as it really is in people's lives. How shallowly spent were the hours squandered analyzing only rating figures at the expense of a clear look at radio in full-length, living perspective! To discover an exclusive characteristic enjoyed by one medium alone, and of which that medium had not actively been aware, should prove a great reward to those men of vision and courage who sponsored this study of radio in television areas. It could well herald a rebirth of advertising enthusiasm for radio and a substantial increase in its use. New Concepts' Importance The deep importance of this new concept emerges ever more clearly as we examine the qualitative details of this study and begin to think in terms of the application of this concept of radio as a constant companion, capable of multiple attention, to our present use of the medium. In detailed findings of this study, which are the subject of running comment as we go through it, we are able to unblindfold ourselves and identify to whom we are talking. What they are doing and where. What an advantage to the advertiser! To the creative radio writer! And what a rich field for further, more detailed qualitative research! If radio was considered a "dead" medium with the arrival of television, so were newspapers when radio bloomed on the horizon. After 15 years of falling-revenues, the newspaper medium was suddenly rediscovered, just as this survey may contribute to the rediscovery of radio. What appears to be true is a rather fundamental law that should not have to be proved again in our business lives. Rather than one medium being displaced or eclipsed by another, a medium that enjoys a special and exclusive usefulness can never die. Finally, in this area of general comment, we cannot refrain from thinking a little about the kind of research we are doing in media. Is it fundamental? Does it illuminate the heart of the matter? Or is it concerned with nits and gnats? We have no time today for nits and gnats. We ought to have outgrown our childish appetite for figures, just as figures, and for Broadcasting • Telecasting December 14, 1953 • Page 97