NAB reports (Mar-Dec 1933)

The National Association of Broadcasters NATIONAL PRESS BUILDING ***** WASHINGTON, D. C. PHILIP G. LOUCKS, Managing Director NAB REPORTS * Copyright 1933, The National Assoiiation of Broadcasters Vol. 1 No. 35 SEPT. 30, 1933 NAB CODE HEARING Hearings on the code of fair practice for the radio broadcasting industry opened before the NRA with Deputy Administrator Sol A. Rosenblatt presiding. The Deputy Administrator prefaced the hearing of witnesses by announcing that he refused to accept the so-called merit clause of the code which provides for the selection, retention and advancement of employes on the basis of individual merit. Alfred J. McCosker, president of the National Association of Broadcasters, was the first speaker and stated that his Association includes less than half of the total number of licensed stations. He claimed, however, that this membership does over 81 percent of the industry’s total volume of commercial business. McCosker stated that at the White Sulphur Springs convention of the Asssociation early in October, revision of its by-laws would be made to permit smaller stations to join the Association at a nominal cost. This he expected would bring into the only trade association in the industry most of the present non-member stations. Of the 586 American broadcasting stations 397 operate simul¬ taneously at night, McCosker said. More than 50 percent of these stations do a total business of $3,000 a month or less, he said. John W. Guider, special code counsel for the Association, also expressed the view that broadcasting is a small industry from the economic viewpoint. The general depression, he said, found broad¬ casting still in its formative state. Since 1927 annual expenditure by advertisers has increased from $3,832,150 to $39,106,776. In 1931, expenditures for radio advertising time over both networks and individual stations, totalled more than $70,000,000, Guider estimated, but added that the only available statistics indicate that the industry as a whole has not as yet operated at a profit. The complexity of the industry’s problems were indicated by the great number of small local stations, where the addition of only one transmitter operator may mean a fifty percent increase in the station’s technical staff. The local broadcaster also suffers from a lack of financial reserves and his problem is further complicated by decreased revenues. Compliance with the proposed code, Guider said, would increase by 765 the 11,000 employes now on a full-time basis in the in¬ dustry. This does not include radio talent, he added. Guider estimated that total payrolls under the proposed code will be more than double those of 1929 and estimated the total increase at $1,328,000 a year. Mrs. Annette R. Bushman, vice president of Allied Productions, Inc., stated that her organization was a new one in the programproduction field and pointed out that there were no provisions in the code covering radio talent. She proposed that the code should take cognizance of this condition by an amendment providing minimum rates of pay for actors and musicians. J. N. Weber, president of the American Federation of Musicians, presented a brief in behalf of musicians and supporting an agree¬ ment reached with the NAB committee under which musicians are exempted from the code. He was assured by Deputy Administrator Rosenblatt that this agreement would be taken care of in the code. Hoyt S. Haddock, president of the American Radio Telegraphists Association, urged that maximum hours in the code should be 36 a week with not more than 8 hours’ continuous work in any 24. He also recommended double time for overtime. Deputy Rosenblatt elicited from Haddock the information that his association comprised 76 paid-up members and that a majority were marine operators. About 18 percent, Haddock said, were in the broadcasting business. E. H. Rietzke, of the Capitol Radio Engineering Institute, stated that salaries in the proposed code are too low. T. R. McLean, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, stated that the proposed code represents only the business side of the industry. He contended that it is in fact a public utility and is so regarded and regulated in other countries. McLean recommended the same rates of pay for the smaller stations, with $40 a week pay for 40 hours work. He claimed that some stations had a workweek of 84 hours. This practice keeps an employe tied to his station for as long as 16 hours a day, he said. McLean asked that the code authority include representatives of both government and labor. Frank Gillmore, president of the Actors’ Equity Association, said that of the 1,869 actors in the radio industry, 1,078 were members of Equity. Gillmore listed as one of the major abuses of the industry the practice of requiring rehearsals and auditions without pay. Gillmore urged the elimination of free auditions, contending that “this has become a very startling abuse.” Sometimes six or more free auditions are given to prospective purchasers of a program, he said. Gillmore also recommended abolition of free appearances on the radio describing these as simply a means of self -exploitation. Ben F. Goldstein, representing the Chicago Federation of Labor, owner and operator of station WCFL, stated that the code as pro¬ posed would prevent increase of employment in the industry and would concentrate monopolistic control under the big networks and their affiliates. WCFL paid its employes $1.25 an hour, con¬ siderably above the average for the industry, Goldstein said. H. A. Huebner, counsel for the American Record Corporation and Brunswick Record Corporation, asked that it be made an unfair practice to broadcast records without the written consent of the manufacturers of such records. He said that records are being used throughout the United States without adequate com¬ pensation to the manufacturer, who sells these records at only a few cents profit and finds they are broadcast indiscriminately. Their constant repetition on broadcasts greatly reduces the sales value of the discs, Huebner said. He attributed the decline in the sales of records to 29 percent of the average a few years ago largely to their being broadcast constantly. On many small stations, records constitute 100 per cent of the programs, he claimed. Deputy Administrator Rosenblatt asked Huebner, if he had attempted “in any way up to the present time to seek to regulate that so-called evil.” “We have sir,” Hubner replied. “We have placed on our records a notice ‘not licensed for broadcasting.’ ” “I have made a further effort,” he said. “About a year ago I called upon Mr. Loucks, who is present here, and approached him on behalf of the same corporations that I now represent. I told Hear About Broadcasters’ Code at White Sulphur Springs, Oct., 8, 9, 10, 11 • Page 181*