Education by Radio (1932)

EDUCATION BY RADIO VOLUME 2. NUMBER 3. JANUARY 21. 1932 Commercialized Radio to be Investigated The actions of the radio trust in its effort to monopolize air channels and to subordinate education to commercial management have grown so serious that a resolution has been passed by the Senate calling for an investigation of the situation. The Senate Resolution 129, introduced on January 7 by Senator James Couzens of Michigan, provides: Whereas there is growing dissatisfaction with the present use of radio facilities for purposes of commercial advertising: Be it Resolved, That the Federal Radio Commis¬ sion is hereby authorized and instructed to make a survey and to report to the Senate on the following questions: [1] What information there is available on the feasibility of Government ownership and operation of broadcasting facilities. [2] To what extent the facilities of a repre¬ sentative group of broadcasting stations are used for commercial advertising purposes. [3] To what extent the use of radio facilities for purposes of commercial advertising varies as between stations having power of one hun¬ dred watts, five hundred watts, one thousand watts, five thousand watts, and all in excess of five thousand watts. [4l What plans might be adopted to reduce, to limit, to control, and, perhaps, to eliminate the use of radio facilities for commercial adver¬ tising purposes. [51 What rules or regulations have been adopted by other countries to control or to eliminate the use of radio facilities for com¬ mercial advertising purposes. [6] Whether it would be practicable and satisfactory to permit only the announcement of sponsorship of programs by persons or cor¬ porations. [71 Any informa¬ tion available concern¬ ing the investments and the net income of a number of represen¬ tative broadcasting companies or stations. The resolution as passed included the following amend¬ ment proposed by Senator Clarence C. Dill of Wash¬ ington state: [8l Since education is a public service paid for by the taxes of the people, and therefore the people have a right to have complete control of all the facil¬ ities of public educa¬ tion, what recognition has the Commission given to the applica¬ tion of public educational institutions? Give name of stations, power used, and frequency. [9] What applications by public educational institutions for increased power and more effec¬ tive frequencies have been granted since the Commission’s organization? What refused? [10] What educational stations have been granted cleared channels? What cleared chan¬ nels are not used by chain broadcasting systems? [11] How many quota units are assigned to the National Broadcasting Company and the other stations it uses? To the Columbia Broad¬ casting System and other stations it uses? To stations under control of educational institu¬ tions? [12] In what cases has the Commission given licenses to commercial stations for facilities applied for by educational institutions? [13] Has the Commission granted any appli¬ cations by educational stations for radio facili¬ ties previously used by commercial stations? If so, in what cases? In what cases have such applications been refused? Why refused? [14] To what extent are commercial stations allowing free use of their facilities for broad¬ casting programs for use in schools and public institutions? To what extent are such programs sponsored by commercial interests? By chain systems ? [15] Does the Commission believe that edu¬ cational programs can be safely left to the voluntary gift of the use of facilities by com¬ mercial stations? In the face of these specific questions it will be rather difficult for the Federal Radio Commission to whitewash itself of the favoritism it has shown commercial radio interests and the radio trust. Meanwhile, the radio situation was re¬ ceiving attention on the House side of Capitol Hill. Representative Ralph A. Horr of Washington state suggested a congressional investigation of the Fed¬ eral Radio Commission which he called “one of the most extravagant and arbi¬ trary of the government agencies.” Representative Horr cited a Bureau of Efficiency report which recommended an annual budget of $284,060 for the Commission. His statement read in part as follows: In striking contrast to this recommendation Congress, under strong lobby pressure, appro¬ priated $450,000 for the fiscal year 1931, almost double the amount found necessary. . . . This extravagance is overshadowed by other abuses in the Commission. Both in regard to its own personnel and in the allocation of its favors, the Commission has been guilty of high¬ handedness scarcely precedented. Civil Service rules have been violated with flimsy subterfuge. Instead of promoting its trained personnel, it has asked Congress for permission to hire ex¬ perts at large salaries. Often the “experts” turn out to be inexperienced youngsters, or men who received low salaries elsewhere. Attitude on monoply — Favor of monopo¬ listic control is the most vicious tendency of the Commission. This fs evidenced by the hold the NBC and RCA have upon the Commission. Incidents of unfairness which almost amount to tyranny are numerous. Stations have been given increased time and power without even formal petition, when smaller stations whose facilities have been attacked have had to spend large sums of money to retain high-priced counsel and prove convenience and necessity at a hearing. Senator Dill’s amendment to the Couzens resolution is worth re-reading. Its questions are to the point and in¬ escapable. If the questions are an¬ swered completely, they will do much to substantiate the contentions of edu¬ cators who have held that the Fed¬ eral Radio Com¬ mission has been indifferent to the point of contemp¬ tuousness to t h e rights o f educa¬ tional broadcast¬ ing. Such indiffer¬ ence is utterly in¬ defensible in a gov¬ ernmental agency supported by taxes on the people. This photograph from the Washington Evening Star of December 13, 1931, shows the chair¬ man of the Federal Radio Commission sitting between David Sarnoff, president of the Radio Corporation of America Uefti, and Merlin H. Aylesworth, president of the National Broadcasting Company. Aylesworth was formerly managing director of the National Electric Light Association whose effort to use the schools for power trust propaganda was exposed by the Federal Trade Commission. [9]