Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1956)

LETTER from the EDITOR-PUBLISHER Dear Reader: M OST people are allergic to "special issues" of trade magazines, and with good reason. Too often the special issue is a self-serving device to entice compliments and extra advertising. This is a special special issue. It is fat, but not because advertisers were bludgeoned into using space. It is fat mainly because it contains, in addition to all the news of the past week, a running story of a miracle quarter-century of broadcasting as reported in this 25-year-old magazine. The running story is not, however, about Broadcasting • Telecasting. It is about all of you who have created the magnificent arts of radio and television; you who started from scratch with no precedents to guide you; you who later entered this evolving field in which pioneering never ends. Our assignment has been to gather, report and interpret the events of these 25 exciting years as accurately and swiftly as our own competence and the machinery of printed journalism allowed. We have tried in our news columns to be fair, objective and comprehensive. We have tried on our editorial page to advance the causes of responsible broadcasters and good broadcasting. MOL. 1 , No. 1 of Broadcasting, the Newsmagazine " of the Fifth Estate, made its bow Oct. 15, 1931, when the big depression was scraping bottom. The lead editorial said: To the American system of free, competitive and self-sustaining radio enterprise, this new publication ... is dedicated. Some of our old friends know the story of our birth. Others may be interested. We began publication with a $5,200 bank account advanced by the late Harry Shaw, then the owner of WMT Waterloo (now Cedar Rapids), Iowa, and afterward president of the National Assn. of Broadcasters. That $5,200 was 10% of the $52,000 Mr. Shaw had pledged to angel this risky venture at a time when the mortality rate among new publications was better than 90%. The balance of the pledge never came because Mr. Shaw's funds were frozen in a bank closure — one of the many which preceded the FDR-ordered bank holiday of 1933. There were three stockholders at the start, Mr. Shaw, Martin Codel, who now edits the successful Television Digest, and I. Mr. Shaw retired from our struggling enterprise in 1932, relinquishing his publisher's duties to Martin. I moved from managing editor to editor. During the eventful years from the start in 1931 until 1944 when I purchased Martin's half interest the magazine never swerved from its pledge to defend radio's free charter and to cover the news. Many broadcasters, agency and advertising executives, as well as government officials, saw the need for an authoritative trade journal in broadcasting and gave us a hand in those challenging days. Many of them are still active, most having risen to great prominence. Broadcasting turned the economic corner in 1937. It could not have done it without the drive and imagination of Martin Codel and the loyalty and energy of a small, hard-nosed staff of editors, reporters and salesmen. Many of them are with us still, in responsible positions. Our staff has grown from 6 to 60 (now the biggest by far in the field), our offices from one to five, our circulation from scratch to a press run exceeding 19,000 (this issue it's 19,500). We have grown in tempo with the remarkable field we serve. When we began, total radio billing was $60 million. This year radio and television will be well above $1.5 billion. IJkf ITH this issue we start on our second quarter" century — as eagerly as we started on the first. We are excited by the wide prospects of the future in radio and television and by our opportunity to record the adventures yet to come. Perhaps to celebrate the occasion, we give you a new B • T cover with this issue. There are more improvements immediately to come, in appearance and content of a magazine which must keep pace with the arts of radio and television. And with this issue we make a significant announcement— our membership in the Audit Bureau of Circulations. We are the only magazine in our field to qualify for ABC — a fact we will tell you more about in the near future. So we grow and, in growing, change. In one way, however, B • T will never change. We will never deviate from our Vol. 1, No. 1 pledge to support and defend the American concept of free, competitive and self-sustaining broadcasting, dedicated to the public interest. Faithfully, Broadcasting • Telecasting October 15, 1956 • Page 15