NAB reports (Jan-Dec 1944)

completely unrehearsed, the networks faced D-Day with their fingers crossed but with a determination to fulfill the destiny to which the growth of their industry had brought them. More than a hundred correspondents were involved in this assignment, aided by several thousand men and women on news desks, at control boards and at shortwave sending and monitoring stations, engineering and communications experts, foreign office managers and local station personnel, all the way back to the last person who helped to get the broadcasts out to the listeners of his station in his area. On the field were additional correspondents of local radio stations, each of whom had his primary obligation to his home transmitter. Ready to pour story after story into broadcast channels were also the hundreds of correspondents of national and international press associations, who serve press and radio alike in the gathering of news. When H-Hour came, in the early morning of June 6th, this giant communications pattern leaped into electrical life across the entire face of the globe. The story as we know it in America need hardly be repeated. Local sta¬ tions everywhere went on the air and stayed on as long as the invasion news went around the clock. All regular programs, commercial or sustaining, were either cancelled or revised to accommodate the flow of programs and bulletins from abroad. Each of the four major networks, NBC, CBS, Blue and Mutual, made more than one hun¬ dred invasion broadcasts during the first twenty-four hours. Not all of these were from abroad. Some of them originated here, to show the temper of the folks at home, to bring prayer and words of comfort to those who lis¬ tened with anxiety. More than nine hundred local news rooms and program departments augmented the network service with news reports received from press-radio wire services and station correspondents and with added features of strictly local interest and value to civic morale. The greatest thing to remember about radio’s coverage of the invasion of Europe is that quality of radio which distinguishes it from all other forms of communication. It is instantaneous. No matter how complicated its gather¬ ing system, no matter how far afield its point of origin, the human voice or other sounds occurring at its nether¬ most end are transmitted instantly to the four corners of the world. Although these impulses pass through a thou¬ sand hands at control points all along the way, they pass through all those hands at the same instant. They are not passed to one and then to the other, finally reaching the end. Consequently these control points must be syn¬ chronized to the fraction of a second, so that a word spoken on the other side of the world may be heard by a man and his wife at home in California. This flawless performance, which enabled millions of Americans to stand by their loved ones in spirit and affection as at no other time in the history of the world, was the contribu¬ tion of radio and its people on D-Day. But let me review briefly another type of contribution which radio has made since the beginning of this war. After flashing the dramatic news of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the broadcasting industry stood well up in line to receive its assignments from a government at war. What it could do was problematical, although its spon¬ taneous cooperation in the projects of national defense were well known and appreciated. Deluged at first with wartime demands, many of which were conflicting and confusing, the broadcasters soon realized the need for co¬ ordination. Consequently what is now the Radio Branch of the Office of War Information, with the aid of stations, networks and advertisers, set up an allocation plan. Under this plan the requirements of all government agencies, civil and military, were presented to the stations in orderly fashion and received business-like treatment cal¬ culated to produce best results. The stations were free to contribute additional time, talent and facilities if they chose, and all of them have, quite generously, but the allocation plan furnished a guide and a systematic work¬ ing arrangement. Recruiting for all branches of the armed forces, War Bond Drives, salvage, blood donor and conservation campaigns, the Office of Civilian Defense and many other vital war activities received powerful stimu¬ lation from the nationwide promotion activities of radio and its advertisers. As a matter of fact, the figure compiled by the Office of War Information representing the number of listener impressions delivered by radio since April, 1942, is almost too big to grasp. Through the OWI allocation plan alone, radio has delivered since April, 1942, listener impressions totaling 54,560,257,000. A listener impression is a message broadcast one time to one person. Over a period of time many different mes¬ sages were broadcast to the same person. Likewise the same people heard the same messages more than one time. Anyone here should be willing to testify to that. The broadcasters themselves frequently wonder if now and then they do not approach the saturation point on war messages. But people have to be told the same things more than once, to produce results. And radio produces results. The 0\\ I figure, 54,560,257,000 listener impressions, means that America’s population, which listens to the radio practically 100%, has been covered completely more than 400 times. Radio has sold this war and its respon¬ sibilities to one hundred and thirty million people more than four hundred times since April of 1942. Rather than slacking up in 1944, the first twenty-nine weeks show a figure of 18,662,713,000 listener impressions, which accounts for a third of the total of the entire period since 1942. This was for recruiting, conservation, salvage, War Bond Drives, blood donors and numerous government cam¬ paigns which any radio listener should recognize by now. You might say, “Why, I'm sure I’ve heard these mes¬ sages ^myself more than four hundred times over my radio. ’ Quite possibly you have. But consider the millions of people in outlying areas, the great diversification of living habits. The value of radio is its ability to reach everybody at least a few times. Radio produced a national consciousness of war which is without parallel in the his¬ tory of the world. _ And it is after all the national con¬ sciousness which wins wars. What enabled this tremendous coverage of our popula¬ tion? Receiving sets, first, so people could listen. Pro¬ grams, second, to keep them listening. The history of receiving set manufacturing in this country is another long story, and an important one in accounting for radio’s conti ibution to the American way of life. Here again the growth was gradual, from the large cumbersome and expensive consoles to the small, compact inexpensive table models. The greatest accomplishment of the radio manu¬ facturers, but typical of America’s sales and distribution system, was the creation and marketing of radio receivers at a price level permitting every man, woman and child to enjoy and benefit from this marvelous medium of communication. We say that we reached the people. Let us see how effectively they were reached. Did we produce results? On the 27th of May, 1943, the War Advertising' Council made a report on the success with which radio had been used in behalf of the war during the year 1942. Permit me to quote from this report : Candidates for Marine Officers schools jumped 40 per cent after two weeks of national radio promotion June 8th through the 21st, 1942. “ ‘Glider Pilots’ were sought for two weeks from July 6th to 20th. Up to this time all efforts to recruit glider pilots had failed because the boys wanted to fly motor¬ ized planes. At the end of this two-week period, howevei , 30,000 glider pilots had been turned up, and every CAA school in the country packed to capacity. “The Coast Guard after a three-week campaign, from July 20th to August 10th, increased the number of ap¬ plications being received for Reserve Officers training at least 40 per cent. “ ‘Army-Navy Nurses’ ran for three weeks, from July 2/th to August 17th. The Army and Navy were callin0, for 3,000 nurses a month, and it looked as if the pool might soon be exhausted unless new volunteers were secuied. At the conclusion of the drive, volunteers were alieady coming’ in at 50 per cent above the pre-drive rate. Several weeks after the conclusion of the drive the number jumped to well over 100 per cent _ and in July 28, 1944 — 251