NAEB Newsletter (Jan 1958)

Scanlon and G. D. Wiebe. Considerable time was spent in closely studying the matter of effects, and the seminar felt that “there is a very real danger of considering only those effects which correspond to the intentions of the broadcast¬ er.” It was also aware that there exists a broad range of “unintended or incidental effects which will merit investigation.” Specifically, the participants considered the effects of educational broadcasting under the following categories: action, psycho-motor skills, involvement, cognitive behavior, affective be¬ havior and ancillary effects. Many pertinent suggestions came out of the week-long discussions. These are now being edited by Dr. I. Keith Tyler, who was chosen by the NAEB Research Committee as best qualified' to handle this phase of the, work. Some of these recommendations may be mentioned at this time: the appointment of a full-time NAEB director of research, the soli¬ citing of assistance and cooperation with all govern¬ mental and non-governmental agencies which might contribute to the national advancement of research in educational broadcasting, and the enlargement of the present research committee to include outstand¬ ing specialists from the other disciplines. NET WORK NEWS —Bob Underwood With January of the new year well under way, a look at the past year is in order. We here feel that 1957 was a pretty good year for the network, and perhaps a few statistics will make the point for us: during 1957 the network made some 1,373 programs avail¬ able for broadcast; the total time of these programs came to 586 hours and 25 minutes, and, by figuring the orders received for the programs a fair guess would be that the American public heard approxi¬ mately 16,799 hours of NAEB Radio Network pro¬ grams during 1957. Last year also found a great deal of new equip¬ ment coming into our office: a new Ampex, some new speaker systems for checking tapes, many new mail¬ ing boxes to protect the tapes in the, mail, and numer¬ ous instruments for checking the efficiency of our equipment. All of these have contributed to the gen¬ eral improvement of network services. Also, I feel that the quality of network programs (technically and content-wise) maintained a stand¬ ard of intelligent programming for which the network has become known. This is borne out by the marked increase in inquiries as to the availability of network programs for both classroom use and public service broadcasting over commercial stations. Also, as an¬ other story in this issue indicates, network programs are assisting in bringing the true “American story” to peoples far removed from our shores. So much for last year; how about 1958? From what I have seen, I believe 1958 could be our biggest year program-wise. The future series scheduled for distribution this year are very promising. Many grant-in-aid series will be made available, but they cannot fill our schedule. That is why we need sub¬ missions from all member stations. Don’t feel dis¬ couraged if your first submission is rejected. Go out and produce a better series, and then submit that one! We must have better tape returns during 1958. Since our recent memo to all stations regarding tape returns, we have been amazed by the response. How¬ ever, this response must continue on a year-round basis, not for a few weeks. Please keep the tapes coming regularly, we do. One final note: we have a new telephone number. Our number now is: EMpire 7-6611, Extension 3394. If you will use this number it will help speed up long distance calls to us. Thanks for the many Christmas cards, and a Happy New Year to all. PUBLICITY AND PUBLIC RELATIONS —William Bender, Jr. WZJOM, University of Michigan This launches a new, possibly regular, column in your Newsletter. Generally, we shall cover publicity, pro¬ motion and/or public relations, but the particular content of each column is going to be determined largely by what you have sent in when the monthly deadline arrives. We therefore start with this invitation: Send us your favorite case histories of effective publicity or public relations activities — stunts, stories, tech¬ niques, campaigns, etc. that have worked for you. Write them as concisely as possible, and' we shall print them in this column. In this way we hope to start a long-needed information exchange devoted to our specific situation as educational broadcasters. It has been suggested we also devote some space to examining our common problems in promotional work. But what are they? Lack of manpower to pro¬ duce station publicity? Newspaper editors that hate 4 NEWSLETTER