Broadcasting Telecasting (Jan-Mar 1956)

NETWORKS CAST EVOLUTI THE exploratory work reported in the previous chapters was begun in an atmosphere of skepticism, and on a pessimistic premise: that while current trends against radio seemed irreversible, at least one could not give up without trying. Now, despite few negative results confirming that original pessimism— for example, that in the field of nighttime entertainment radio is hopelessly outclassed and outmoded — despite such limitations, on the whole the other results seem surprisingly optimistic for radio. It was clearly the intention of television engineers to make radio an outmoded device— that is, to develop something much better than radio for similar purposes — and by all reasonable standards the television engineers have succeeded remarkably well. It is the very essence of science to be cumulative. The new development is not really starting afresh; rather it adds its contribution on top of the best the old could offer. In science, by definition a good offspring outdoes (and therefore usually kills off) his parent. This is the reason why radio's apparently vigorous capacity for survival alongside television seems genuinely surprising. Radio refuses to be succeeded by an improved or more comprehensive version of itself! It is as though silent films persisted side by side with talkies. Not that this hasn't happened before: the horse carriage lived on longer than perhaps any horseless carriage manufacturer of 1910 could have forecast: for example, it was still delivering milk in big cities in the 1940's. And the sailboat will probably survive the motor boat as long as there's a Long Island. Even in a field so rigorously efficient and "up-to-date" as aviation, propellor-driven planes will probably still be manufactured another generation from now. Radio in contemporary America, however, is one of the least explicable of these puzzles because all the standard explanations do not seem to apply to it. None of the historic crutches, on which old practices leaned in resisting the new ones, seems to have been available to radio. Radio is an ideal case of survival, so to speak, without visible means of support. To seek the reasons why humans prefer so-called outmoded devices, it is necessary THE CHANGES that have occurred in radio listening habits since the flowering of television are examined at length in a 156-page study, "Futures for Radio," which Columbia U.'s Bureau of Applied Social Research conducted for NBC. Hugh M. Beville Jr., NBC research and planning director, calls it "a stimulating and provocative probe into the public's use of radio today," even though NBC does not necessarily agree with all of its conclusions. The report itself cautions that the "evidence" on which it is based, although involving more than 200 lengthy "case studies," is so limited, statistically, that the reader "is traveling, so to speak, at his own risk." Despite these disclaimers, the report makes a fascinating and penetrating exploration of the place of radio — and the public's continuing reliance upon it — in a television time. Here, with NBC permission, B«T presents in condensed form the second of two chapters which it deems especially significant. The other ["Radio and the Fight for Time"] appeared in B«T last week. to examine in what respects they actually are outmoded. Or, put another way, what does the engineer do when he "improves" a device? Very often the matter is not rationalized into conscious specifications, but perhaps the engineer might be thought of as trying to produce a device which will ( 1 ) perform some function efficiently, (2) within certain cost limits, (3) under specified conditions, (4) better than some existing alternative (which is the standard or imitated model against which his success is to be measured). It is useful to consider, now, how television "improves" on radio in each such respect. What happens when the technologist succeeds in, for example, improving radically the ability of a device to dazzle, entrance and absorb the delighted attention of millions of Americans? In the case of television this has been a great success, but, at times, too great a success. For example, the largest bulk of the audience in this study prefers the outmoded device, radio, for music. Not many people, except specialists, really want to look at the often ugly source of beautiful music. Nor do they devote their full attention to it. The case is similar with daytime radio soap opera listeners, many of whom would prefer not to see Stella Dallas materialized in the form of a routine studio actress, and many more of whom would not be able to drop everything to watch attentively every day. The addition of pictures, in some instances, takes away something. Others among the listeners treat the greater efficiency of television with proper indifference because, in a quite rational sense, the picture is very often superfluous. When one is being read the news or weather forecast or stock market results, is it important to see the man who is reading? When one is using a broadcast device as a timer, which will wake him pleasantly in the morning, does he really want to see who is waking him up? In such cases, the "improvement" is not harmful, merely irrelevant. There is no question that the picture and voice of Dave Garroway is more entrancing at breakfast than that of the harassed family breadwinner stumbling off to work, nor is there any serious doubt that Dinah Shore is more eye-filling than the family housewife serving the potatoes at suppertime. Nevertheless, among many modern families, there is a profound — almost instinctive — resistance to television at such times. These are times when one doesn't want to be too much seduced by the delights of entertainment, that is, entertainment as a television engineer conceives it. Rather, one wants what would seem to an engineer inefficient entertainment — at most, a non-attractive, non-seductive broadcast service. Merely some quiet music Page 78 January 23, 1956 Broadcasting Telecasting