Education by Radio (1933)

Advertising Securities by Radio Mr. President, just a day or so ago, before the Committee on Banking and Currency, it was developed that Halsey Stuart & Co., one of the greatest houses of its kind, if not the greatest, in the United States, had hired a professor out of a university to talk over the radio to the people of the United States. I have heard him, and I suppose all senators have heard him, telling how to invest money. They call him “ the Old Counsellor.” He was a professor from a university. They paid him, I understand, $50 a week. He did not prepare his addresses; Halsey Stuart prepared them. They got them up for him, and all he did was to read them, and that is one of the ways they operate. That looks a good deal like the methods the public utilities companies have used to control the public during all the years that have passed. Here were men and women with some money, savings, per¬ haps the proceeds of a life-insurance policy to a widow from a dead husband, wanting to invest the proceeds, and they were talked to by "Old Counsellor,” hired by Halsey Stuart & Co., paid by them, talking their words, not his, over the radio, giving this advice. They would naturally suppose he was a pro¬ fessor in a university, an economist, an honest man, and that he was giving his own ideas. When simmered down, the advice was that the securities they were advised to buy were securities which Halsey Stuart & Co. had for sale and which afterwards became practically worthless. — Senator George W. Norris of Nebraska, Congressional Record, February 23, 1933, p4928. Utopian Radio It is a striking fact that the radio should be such an abject failure in the one field where the greatest success was once prophesied — news broadcasting. One reason is that during much of the day, time on the air is completely sold to adver¬ tisers, so that it -takes much effort and long advance notice to clear the airways. Yet the most important news, by definition, is that which is sudden and unexpected. Again, the broadcast¬ ers deliberately slight this function in the endeavor to keep the goodwill of the daily press and get its announcements of pro¬ grams printed. The newspapers are already rather hostile to radio, which is an extremely important competitor for the advertiser’s dollar. It is now apparent that on the basis of present inventions, radio will never be a substitute for the daily paper, which can be read at your convenience, with complete selectivity, at any rate of speed you wish, and can be filed for reference. In Utopia, of course, radio would be infinitely more useful than it is now. There would be about four stations, each of which would broadcast one type of material only, all day long — news from one, serious talks from another, light music from a third, good music from a fourth. But that is Utopia! — The New Republic, March 15, 1933. Opposes Radio Advertising At the present time, I am opposed to radio advertising . from two quite definite points of view. First, from the listener’s, whose reaction to the program would naturally in¬ fluence my second, the advertiser’s point of view. If I buy a wireless set, 1 pay an annual license fee to be entertained, not instructed as to what goods I ought to buy. Were a canvasser or a commercial traveler to force his way into my house and thrust his goods upon me, I should consider it an unwarrantable intrusion. But I consider it no worse than that I should be expected, when I switch on my radio receiver to hear the entertainment to which I am entitled, to have to listen to a similar salesmanship. The obvious argument is that I have no need to listen. I can switch off. But why should I? What have I bought a radio for? What do I pay a license fee for? Not to “switch-off” but to “switch-on,” to whatever form of entertainment appeals to me. Another small, but nevertheless irritating, detail — I do not wish to hear a program “by the courtesy of” anyone. I don’t want it given me as a favor when I know very well it is my due. With the listener holding this point of view, it is hardly to be expected that the advertiser’s verdict will be a favorable one, as every listener is a potential customer. The advertiser or the advertising agent, who if possible must be still more careful in choosing his media, has neither the guarantee that the sales talk, which follows the “sponsored program,” will be listened to [it is more than likely that as soon as it begins, the listener will switch off], nor the knowledge that the people who do happen to be listening are the people to whom his product appeals, nor the assurance that even if they are, they are not being antagonized by the method of approach. — Sir Charles Higham in British Broadcasting Cor¬ poration Year-Book, 1933, p59-60. Personally, i feel that radio is rich in possibilities as an educational instrument in the schoolroom. The greatest handicap to its usefulness is the possibility that the broad¬ caster, if he is not a thoro educator, may be satisfied to put on the air, for the schools, the kind of programs that he would prepare for adults. It is absolutely essential that the programs mesh into the curriculum of the schools. — W. W. Charters in Education on the Air, 1930, pl34. A commercial broadcaster who recently sold his station and went to Europe to visit stations there writes: “I listen-in all hours of the day and night and am more than pleased at the music one can hear. The best music seems to come from Holland, Poland, and Prague, but it’s all so much better than the rotten ‘jazz’ and ‘blah-blah’ in the United States that there’s no comparison.” The commercial monopoly chains, after the practise had been established by the educational stations in the various states, were obliged to make some such provision for the discussion of public questions by the national legislative body. In making such an arrangement one company selected an hour unfavorable for listening on the eastern seaboard which is the center of our population and turned over the responsibility for program making to one of the local Washington newspapers. [ 22 ]