Tape Network, 1954-1963 (1954-1963)

-2- Meanwhile, however, the work of the association had to go on. One of the tasks which the members wished to undertake without undue delay was the starting of an exchange of programs which might be considered a sort of experimental mutual network operation. In 1950 this project was started. Tapes of programs were distributed from WNYC in New York, at first, the programs being ”bicycled” from station to station. There were few resources except a box of postage stamps, and a stack of tapes (both gifts), and a great deal of good will and enthusiasm. The number of programs which could be this exchanged was small. Loss and damage were high. Nerves and tempers were frequently frayed. The limits of this sort of operation were soon reached. However, a start had been made. Further meetings were held to refine the plan, which was developing, of what the NAEB and its member stations could do if adequate financing and a central office were available. In this plan it was visualized that, over a five-year period, a network would be launched, a central office for the Association and home for the network set up, and professional, service and research activities inaugurated which would put educational broadcasting on its feet and on the map. This plan and dream found realization in the W. K. Kellogg Foundation grant of 1951. At this stage it can safely be stated that more has been accomplished in this three-year period just passed than even the most ambitious and visionary members of the NAEB Board, or its wise consultants, expected could be accomplished during the first three yerrs of the projected five-year plan. Although accomplishments were far above those anticipated, the size and complexity of the tasks and problems which con¬ tinued to develop and emerge, were even more so, for wireless communications turned out to be the fastest-changing and fastest-developing field in the United States. The financial resources and qualifications of those schools which became FM licensees as the new spectrum space opened up were not of the same order as those of the earlier stations, which had been used as the basis of the projection. Efforts to get them to take over the full cost of the Network were not able to be as accelerated as had been hoped. Too rapid a rate ran the risk of forcing many to drop out because of inability to keep up with too rapidly rising a rate structure. Original plans and ambitions have had to be tempered with realities. Success is now assured, and will be realized in this venture, but perhaps somewhat more slowly than many had hoped, and with a somewhat larger number of fatalities than was expected. The cost of the struggle for channels for education in television (in which the NAEB took a leading part, a former NAEB President becoming the Executive Director of a new Organization, the Joint Committee on Educational Television (JCET), which rallied the forces and organized the campaign which ended in success) and of the services needed by prospective and actual educational TV stations, out of all pro¬ portion to their number, has also proved far higher than anticipated. A larger share of the budget than was earmarked has had to be budgeted for television if educational television was to become a reality, and if the NAEB was to remain the central association of both TV and radio for education. Fortunately much of the material needed was in this context produced by NAEB committees. For out of the Kellogg grant, and one of its most important products, has come what we believe is probably a unique stituation in which much of the work of an Association is actually and economically done by committees, as many of the NAEB's finest and most useful pub¬ lications will reveal.