NAEB Newsletter (May 1935)

NAEB-May-5. an educational broadcast is given, thus giving permanent form to what has beon said, "Tuesday evening at the banquet all three speakers were very well selected and had very positive ideas about *Radio Broadcasting in the Future,* which was their topic, "Stanley High, news commentator, NBC, said that radio*s prime purpose was for enter¬ tainment; that we should get our facts from educators and loave the showmanship necessary for successful broadcasting to the broadcasters; that radio will continue to become more perfect mechanically, but that radio itself is on edge—it is still jittery, he said. The big idea in large broadcasting stations is not to plan ahead, but to produce each day and let tomorrow take care of itself; that they work on a hand-to-mouth basis. He cited the experience of ono broadcasting studio which spent |10,000,000 on new equipment only to find when it was completely built that it was entirely obsolete. He suggested several boards of review; that there would eventually bo a board of review for advertising on the air to determine the kind of products which should be advertised and to determine the way the product is adver¬ tised; that there would be eventually a plan department for programs of the future , "Raymond Gram Swing, editor of the Nation, had a voice, sense of humor, and manner of delivery very much like Alesander Woolcott, He said the groat mistake most people make in broadcasting is that they forget to be conversational. One must remember that the radio is a door handle into a living room. Broadcasting is an art. The art of being personal. Ideas must be expressed simply and clearly, and broadcasting should be done by excellent broadcasters, not by persons who speak because they are authorities on certain lines. He knows of only one person who has a perfect radio personality, who is not a professional broadcaster, and that is Sir Oliver Lodge, Through all the talks it was evident that the main thing to watch for in radio broadcasting is a human interest appeal. If the material lacks this human interest, it will be unsuccessful on the air. "The techniques clinic Wednesday morning showed very definitely the need for pro¬ fessional training on the part of educators." (A number of records from educational schools of the air and from CBS and NBC were played) "Certain definite principles may be established from this demonstration. That it is more important for a student to develop culture and good taste rather than to increase his knowledge of facts. Facts are soon forgotten, especially those facts learned in a classroom, A toacher’s moral influence upon a student in development of his character has been proved to bo more important than the subject matter she teaches. Therefore, it seems to me that the type of broadcasting we as educators must do is the kind that will contain few facts and have human interest as the paramount idea, "In trying to determine how much time should be spent in preparation for radio broad¬ casts, I talked with Joe Reis, educational director for WLW, who was originally a teacher in the Indianapolis schools and who has had direct charge of all of the Ohio School of the Air programs over WLW. He said that WLW allowed him twenty hours for writing a half hour broadcast. This they counted as half a week*s work. I told him that I had estimated that it took me ten hours to write fifteen minutes script for our family series, and he said that it would take longer in proportion to do a fifteen minute program than a thirty-minute program because condensing material was more difficult on a fifteen minute program. He would estimate about thirteen hours. I asked him how much of the success of the broadcast depended upon a well written script and he said perhaps 90%, that is, after the script has been rewritten until it is in perfect form for broadcasting. Most of their programs require three readings after which the script is rewritten each time, and a final dross rehearsal takes place an hour or so before the broadcast,--