Education by Radio (1933)

To these associations, the relinquishment of the state’s radio rights as an economy measure by the new and sorely tried legislature would be a blow. It is not a choice between paying or not paying for radio service. It is the choice between paying for radio service directly [1.5 cent per citizen per year for the operation of the state chain] and then controling the service, or paying thru the noose of private commercial censorship and taking what the advertisers choose to give. British Adult Education Listeners have been heard to express the opinion that it / might be difficult in the future to maintain the high standard set by last winter’s “Changing World” program of talks, in providing stimulating and controversial subjects for treatment in broadcast talks; but such doubts will surely be set at rest when particulars of the new series of talks ar¬ ranged for the first three months of the New Year — which were approved in principle at last week’s meeting of the Central Council for Broadcast Adult Education — are published. We are promised, indeed, a bold treatment of some of the most fundamental topics of discussion and controversy of the pres¬ ent day. For example, we are to have on Sundays a series of talks surveying the whole problem of “A Future Life.” The method of treatment is to be partly historical and partly analy¬ tical. The first six talks will review the gradual evolution thru the ages of man’s conception of life after death. Then will follow six individual “Points of View,” in which the agnostic and the sceptic will come to the microphone as well as the representatives of positive belief, both in its Christian and non-Christian forms. Other red-letter days for the listener who delights in controversy will be Wednesdays, which are to be occupied by an examination of modern ideas about the state, the individual, and the social groups which lie mid¬ way between the two. Here, again, the method of treat¬ ment to be followed is to be also partly historical and partly analytical. Six informative talks on the history and develop¬ ment of the organization of society, given by an eminent po¬ litical scientist, will be followed by a symposium of six debates or discussions in which individual speakers will put forward their own theses as to the best basis for society and will answer pertinent questions addressed to them by critics. Since this symposium is to include speakers who will put forward expo¬ sitions of Fascism, Communism, Imperialism, international¬ ism, and constitutional government, it is likely to be extremely illuminating and thot-provoking for the listener who has not made up his mind which, if any, of these theories com¬ mand his allegiance. But these two courses of talks by no means exhaust the stimulating fare which we are promised after Christmas. For instance, twelve talks are to be given on “Makers of the Modern World,” among whom are likely to figure such centers of controversy as St. Thomas Aquinas, Luther, Darwin, Karl Marx, and Nietzsche. Each of these great men will be expounded by a speaker who is in sympathy with the ideas which he represents. Finally, we are to be offered also a series on “The Application of Psychology and Biology to Social Life” which raises as many burning ques¬ tions as any economic or political subject. Under this heading will probably come such topics as the psychology of the sexes and of religion, problems of race and eugenics, and the con¬ nection between biology and politics. On the face of it, it ap¬ pears as tho there ought to be a rich crop of wireless dis¬ cussion groups in the early part of next year, for never yet have such groups had a better opportunity of suiting their needs or a wider choice of subject and speaker — The Listener , British Broadcasting Corporation, October 26, 1932, p584. Radio Listeners Interest an inventive radio listener has fitted up for his own use A. a device which permits him to cut off the receiver, no matter in what part of the house he may be, whenever the announcer begins the advertising. This listener has simply carried to a little greater length the action of countless thousands of set owners who by habit now either cut off the set entirely or detune it during the period when the announcer is extolling the merits of coffee, break¬ fast food, gasoline, patent medicines, cigarettes and such like. Unfair tho it would be to program sponsors, a perfected device to take the advertising completely out of radio would undoubtedly find a big market in the United States today. It is a fact which radio executives would do well to face that while millions of persons are listening to their programs infinitely fewer set owners are hearing the oftentimes offen¬ sively lengthy advertising spiels. It is noteworthy that Americans who have studied Euro¬ pean radio programs invariably make favorable comment on the widespread absence of the advertising tie-up which features the system as employed in the United States. While few go so far as to recommend seriously the complete abandonment of the American plan, there is almost universal agreement that radical changes must come in the length of time allowed for advertising in proportion to entertainment rendered, as well as in the character of the announcements. Observers have made the significant comment that, ap¬ parently, the poorer our programs in entertainment value, the greater is the proportion of time devoted to sheer and blatant advertising. Such programs of course represent an absolute waste of money insofar as the advertiser is concerned, be¬ cause listener interest is at an irreducible minimum. It is recalled that the presentation of a large and splendid symphony orchestra was accompanied by the simple announce¬ ment, at very infrequent intervals, of the name of the spon¬ soring company. Needless to say, such a program gained a tremendous audience and one wholly sympathetic to the ad¬ vertiser. None will gainsay the justice of giving favor to the com¬ pany or individual sponsoring a wholesome period of radio entertainment. But companies or individuals should recognize that in overdoing the advertising tie-up they defeat their own and definitely reduce listener interest. It can be revived only by a reversal of policy. — Editorial in Christian Science Monitor, December 5, 1932. Education by radio is published by the National Committee on Education by Radio at 1201 Sixteenth Street, Northwest, Washington, D. C. [40 ]