NAEB Newsletter (Oct 1935)

- 7 - indefinitely. The general public will surely become satiated in time with the ex¬ travagant and exaggeratedclaims made for the very ordinary things that are now being sold through broadcasts so extensively at this time. "I think it most unquestionably desirable that our educational stations avoid all commercial entanglements with other stations. In almost no cases could there be any assurance of reasonable permanence in any such agreement. When any change comes the educational side will be the first one to suffer. M At this time and under present circumstances, we may well look with suspicion upon the so-called educational urograms of the large broadcasters. If the time should come that these are not directly profitable and if there should be no more privileges that can be stolen from the school-owned stations, I believe it certain that all progrars of this nature would disappear. Why should commercial broadcasters be expected to conduct schools of the air, unless they had some special object to attain by doing so, any more then storekeepers or manufacturers or bond salesmen? w It is mv opinion that all school-owned stations should remain purely educational and strictly non-commercial, if they can possibly do so; and further I think it desirable and imperative that every real educational station try to keep whatever license pri¬ vileges it now has without regard to how many may be forced out of existence. As long as there is a single school-owned educational station, it has a moral or ethical right to a certain amount of the broadcasting privileges, and I think there are those who can get this fact before a public that will grant a hearing, even if most of the broadcast stations should come under a monopolistic control that will censor anything not pleasing to the owners of the big stations.” TWO LETTERS OF FEBRUARY 23 FROM DR. B. B. BRACKETT, UNIVERSITY OF S0IT7F DAKOTA, ARE .AS FOLLOWSj (l) ”0f course, if the commercial stations take music from the ballroom or a cafe and broadcast it, it makes a most wonderful program. i f they braodcast the most terrible kind of squeals and squawks - the most jazzy of jazz - it is fine, elevating and educating. If they present a mediocre vaudeville affair, it is one of those things that give the imierican type of broadcasting its wonderful 'salesmanship.* Nothing so fine and so wonderful has ever been produced anywhere in the history of the world before* It would seem that the Federal Radio Commission agrees to all the above* '’However,.if any of our group should put on programs like the above, we would be broadcasting the most unsatisfactory programs possible. If we should even approach some of the methods used by the commercial broadcasters, it would be most dishonest for us. ”The claims made by the commercial broadcasters for their own programs are most absurd and most ridiculous. The charges against and the criticisms of programs put on by stations outside their own group are disgusting, unfair and untrue. To me, the most unethical and unfair thing the commercial groups and big chains are doing just now is *The Spider and the Fly* act of pretending a very great interest in educational programs. There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that if the com¬ mercial stations once get full control of all broadcasting privileges, it will not be long before rone of their so-called educational programs will be presented unless paid for at full commercial rates. What is the fundamental purpose of a commercial broadcasting company? To make money like any other commercial organization. What is the fundamental purpose of any school-owned broadcasting organization? To educate as many persons as possible and to disseminate as much accurate and reliable information as it can. The educational stations are not interested in selling cheap medicines and ordinary tobacco products at high prices to a gullible public. We cannot possibly have any interest in misinformation and exaggeration that is so pre¬ valent in the commercial broadcasts.”