Education by Radio (1933)

EDUCATION BY RADIO VOLUME 3. NUMBETR \-2. SEPTEMBER 28. 1933 ■ ^ Conference Increases International Difficulties Armstrong Perry Director of the Service Bureau of the National Committee on Education by Radio No broadcasting station in the United States has any protection against interference from any other country except Canada. That was the situation at the end of the Mexico City conference, held July 10 to August 9, 1933. The danger was great before. It is greater now. Latin Americans have seen the United States boldly maintain her right to use as many channels as she wants. They maintain that they have the same right. Canada based her national system on the minimum needs for service to the listener — not the advertiser — and long ago she voluntarily limited herself to a reasonable number of channels. Like Canada, the Latin American countries consider public service the major func¬ tion of broadcasting. They protect their publicly-owned stations. They will not let rampant commercialism monopolize the air. They are ready to answer the bombardment of advertising from Amer¬ ican stations with programs from more powerful stations. Commercialism overreached — Every dollar invested in American broad¬ casting is in jeopardy as a result of an overreaching by greedy commercialism. The American delegation unsuccessfully tried to defend an indefensible position forced upon it by the same commercial group that has demanded uncontroled censorship of everything broadcast; denied the right of governments to control education by radio; attempted to take channels away from the navy, army, shipping, and aviation; interfered with the service of govern¬ ment laboratories necessary to the defense of the country; and fought the idea that it should pay for the public radio facilities which it uses for its own purposes. The representative of a radio trade association stated, in de¬ fense of the American position, that if the other countries were granted all that they asked, the United States would have had only one clear channel. On the other hand, if the United States broadcasters had been granted all they wanted, nine other countries never would have had one clear channel among them. The failure to work out a continental alloca¬ tion on the basis of service to listeners has caused the loss of all clear channels to all countries. Any American station, at any moment, may encounter a powerful interfering wave from some country that refused to sign away its birthright. This wave may cut down or destroy the station’s coverage, stop its revenue. Plans are underway in Latin America for the erec¬ tion of stations so powerful that they will be heard thruout the greater part of the continent and will interfere with recep¬ tion everywhere. American stations could shoot back at them, but while our stations were doing a thousand dollars’ worth of damage in Latin America their stations could do a million dollars’ worth here. Latin Americans offer coopera¬ tion — The conference opened with the Latin American countries willing and anxious to cooperate in working out a scientific allocation for the whole con¬ tinent, based on service to the citizens of all the countries. They recognized the fact that there are not enough radio channels to satisfy the demands of all who wish to exploit the listeners. They were willing to negotiate on the basis of minimum needs. The conference closed with the United States standing alone, her one ally having withdrawn to a neutral position. The demands of her delegation were considered entirely un¬ reasonable, out of harmony with recently expressed desires of President Roosevelt for friendly trade relations, and contrary to the attitude of the American people. An outside story — This is an out¬ side story of the conference. Only offi¬ cials of the participating governments were permitted to attend its sessions. Some of the statements are unofficial but all are believed to be substantially correct, since the report was submitted to all governmental delegations for cor¬ rections, yet no inaccuracies have been reported. Representatives of commercial radio concerns and of the National Committee on Education by Radio had been invited by the United States Department of State to attend the meet¬ ings preparatory to the conference. At the suggestion of a government official our Committee had provided the services of Commander T. A. M. Craven, who served with distinction thru the long series of preparatory meetings. These represen¬ tatives were referred to as “outsiders.” It was not until after the “outsiders” had purchased their railroad and pullman tickets that they were notified that the Mexican government deemed it inadvisable for anyone except government officials to attend. There is evidence that the Mexican government yielded, somewhat tardily, to the point of view of the United States government in this matter. The “outsiders,” altho not invited, went on to Mexico City. On invitation, they attended the opening session of the conference, but were dismissed after the response to the address of welcome and were outside the rest of the time. WI. Griffith, director of radio station ♦ WOI, Iowa State College, Ames, Iowa. Under his competent direction this noncom¬ mercial station has become not only one of the most powerful but also one of the most effec¬ tive of the educational stations. It is an addi¬ tional tribute to Professor Griffith that WOI is rated as one of the most popular of all the Iowa stations. [45 1