NAB reports (Jan-Dec 1944)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

If radio had gone to war around 1930 only a Paul Bunyan could have accomplished anything to compare with present day coverage. Paul Bunyan, the Giant of the Forests, might have strapped a radio tower on his back, hooked a ten-ton transmitter to his belt, plugged into an electric power system and broadcast in stentorian tones an account of the pigmy struggles of mankind a thousand feet below his bearded countenance — or buzzing in tiny planes like flies around his brow. Radio might have done it in some fashion in 1930, if radio’s unwieldly and immobile equip¬ ment of that period could have been set up in flawless perfection at the scene of battle. In comparison, the pack transmitters, wire recorders and superlative equipment which accompanies radio correspondents into battle today resemble the tiny portable receivers alongside the huge pieces of furniture which were radio sets of a decade ago. Radio, in every sense, grew up to its responsibility of covering this world war. Some years ago, the first at¬ tempts to use portable equipment in covering events that occurred beyond the reach of regular facilities were crude and experimental. Forward looking radio engineers built small short wave transmitters which broadcast over short distances to their home stations. What was received was then rebroadcast over standard facilities. Receiving an¬ tennae were built on the roofs of studios or at station transmitters. Some of the short wave transmitters were mounted on truck beds, their power generated by small gasoline motors. One short wave transmitter, a smaller, improved model, using a battery for energy, was installed in a baby buggy for the purpose of covering a champion¬ ship golf match. Thus from America’s peaceful fairways radio engineers, announcers and studio control operators learned the methods which someday would transmit the scream of shells, the roar of planes and mechanized equip¬ ment on the beachheads around the world. The Magnetic Wire Recorder, one of radio’s most valu¬ able front line reporting mechanisms, is a wartime devel¬ opment. Light — an easy load for one man — this equipment permits recording on a spool of wire. No needles, no fragile records — this rugged recorder absorbs an accu¬ rate sound picture of the heaviest combat, explosions and all, as the reporter tells his running story of action at the front. Rushed back to transmission headquarters, the battle description is ready for broadcast immediately. The forerunner of the Magnetic Wire Recorder, how¬ ever, was the recording truck used by the radio station in your town to obtain interviews and descriptions of public events in that area, which were later broadcast. Extended practice over a period of years paved the way for the streamlined war model and trained the industry in the use of recording mechanism and recorded programs, so that their vital role in 1944 communications was supported all along the line by skill and experience. Some of the most vivid radio reports of this war owe their existence to the Magnetic Wire Recorder. Then there are the thousands of words of news which come to the listeners in America every day by radio. These are spoken words. They cannot be the same words that are used on the printed page, although they tell the same stories. They must be addressed to the ear. They must follow the rules of oral delivery. This is what we call the style of radio news reporting. Early day radio news men were not born with the gift of a radio news reporting style. They had to develop it and then to teach it to others. The process required years and is still the subject of much planning and effort within the industry. From a beginning marked by difficulties, restricted sources and even distrust of radio news, the industry has schooled an army of news reporters, achieved numerous world wide news sources and won for itself accredited correspondents wherever things are happening. It was this smooth working machine that maintained an unbroken flow of information on D-Day and continues to supply its listeners with stories and bulletins from every part of the globe. Training of radio personnel is a broad topic which oc¬ cupies an important place in the history of broadcasting. Putting all the elements together which make up a full day’s broadcast schedule requires specialists in many de¬ partments, specialists who have learned by years of hard work how to be at ease and proficient in their jobs. July 28, 1944-250 Teai’ing up and rebuilding a complete day’s schedule, to accommodate emergency broadcasts and programs of great public interest, is no assignment to give newcomers in the radio field. When the managers and employees of stations and networks went home on the night of June 5th, their programs for the following day were all lined up in orderly fashion, as they had been for days, months and years before. But they were called from their beds to put stations on the air in the middle of the night and give invasion news precedence over everything else, revising and rebuilding their programs as they went. This was D-Day behind the scenes in radio and it made a new kind of veteran out of every experienced hand in the business of broadcasting, no matter how well he knew his job before. I hesitate to suggest what might have happened to the reports from abroad if these loyal people had not been trained to fill their posts capably and keep the show going here at home. But they could be depended upon and they had at their disposal the finest equipment that money could buy. Inevitably we get down to the question, “Who paid for all this?” Who paid for this slow and methodical experi¬ mentation down through the years? Who bought equip¬ ment, used it, discarded it, then bought new and better equipment to do the same job all over again, only a little better? Who paid the salaries of station managers, pro¬ gram directors, continuity writers, announcers, salesmen, engineers, musicians, traffic managers, news men and hun¬ dreds of secretarial and clerical employees? Every one of them had to learn or be trained in the idiom of radio. All had to develop subconscious natures adapting them to their work. A radio employee was, and always has been, a considerable investment. The mere granting of licenses by the government to operate radio stations is not like granting rights to mine government land, for example, where gold lays in abundant quantities. Radio held for its licensees only so much as they, by their ingenuity, money and devotion to public service, could make of it. That wasn’t much in the early days of radio, and before it could really get started it was plunged into the depression which began in 1929. But its owners put up money and more money and sustained the industry until finally it became self-supporting. And here we should say a word for the companies who invested their advertising dollars and their faith in an untried medium, testing this method and that method, receiving inevitable disappointments and yet coming back, again and again, until broadcasting as a medium for the sale and distribution of products was proved to their satis¬ faction. The record is full of instances in which adver¬ tisers started out with announcements or programs, guessed at the right kind of continuity, the right kind of program content, the right time of day or night, and were joined in this guessing game by radio peonle who were just as new to the business as the advertisers. Some advertisers guessed right, many guessed wrong, but they came back with determination. They continued to back up their judgment with their hard-earned American dollars and ultimately earned dividends on all that they had spent in proving the medium of radio. Radio’s advertisers are part and parcel of the American system of broadcasting which they helped build. Advertising money is responsible for_ the excellent sys¬ tem of networks which connect our stations and their mil¬ lions of listeners on a national and international basis. The idea of radio networks originated in 1926. Stop and think how different would have been the story of D-Day without the network system which placed every radio home in America in instantaneous contact with foreign shores ! Theirs is a record of accomplishment which points up the whole story of radio achievement on D-Day. Late in 1943, six months before the Day, with trained correspondents already at strategic points, the networks began preparations for coverage of the invasion which was sure to come. They had to correlate every step in secrecy with the military planners. They charted the possibilities of good radio coverage in the same manner as the armed forces calculated the success of the actual invasion. Equipment, transportation, manpower were in¬ volved. Familiarity with all branches of military service was a necessity, both allied and enemy. Largely untried,