NBC Transmitter (Jan-Dec 1937)

2 NBC TRANSMITTER NEW BUSINESS MANAGER OF PROGRAM DEPARTMENT C. W. FITCH, manager of personnel for NBC since September 1, 1936, has been appointed business manager of the Program Department to fill the position left vacant by the promotion of Alfred H. Morton to the managership of the NBC Operated Stations Department. Mr. Fitch already has assumed his new duties, which consist of handling the personnel, budgets and all problems connected with the administration of the Program Department. At present, he is spending several days with each division of the department to acquaint himself with their various activities. Before joining NBC, Mr. Fitch resigned as assistant director of the Housing Division of the Public Works Administration, a post he took in 1935. From 1930 to 1935, he was associated with A Century of Progress in Chicago as director of exhibits and assistant to the general manager. THE SAINT PAUL CARNIVAL The Saint Paul Winter Carnival which is being revived after nineteen years at a cost of approximately $500,000 will be broadcast over the NBC-Blue Network Saturday, January 30, from 10:00 to 11:00 P.M., EST. Announcers will describe the Carnival Parade, the Dog Derby and the Skating Races which will mark the opening. The music of fifty bands and dozens of glee clubs taking part in the carnival also will be heard. i i i Don't forget to send in your entries for the next Photo Contest before February 12. BRAZIL JOINS ARGENTINA IN COMMERCIAL BROADCAST OF METROPOLITAN OPERA SERIES Radiobras at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, began broadcasting the regular Saturday matinee performances of the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York, on Saturday, January 23, under the sponsorship of the Radio Corporation of America. Radiobras is the second major South American broadcasting company to inaugurate a series of commercially sponsored radio programs from the United States in less than a month. Radio Splendid at Buenos Aires, Argentina, began broadcasting the Metropolitan Opera on January 7. Thus, South America’s two largest nations are receiving the first series of commercial programs ever sent from this country to a foreign nation other than Canada. The opera programs are transmitted to Radiobras and Radio Splendid, by arrangement of the Radio Corporation of America, through the facilities of RCA Communications, Inc. Announcements and commercial credits, in Portuguese by Radiobras and in Spanish by Radio Splendid, are added to the broadcasts at Rio de Janeiro and at Buenos Aires. In addition to these RCA commercial broadcasts to Brazil and Argentina, noncommercial broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera ai;e relayed through W3XAL’s new directional-beam antenna to other Latin American countries. * * *• As we go to press the Program Department announces the completion of negotiations to add Uruguay’s El Expectador to the South American companies now receiving the commercial broadcasts of NBC STUDIO TOURS HIT A NEW HIGH Radio City, headquarters of the National Broadcasting Company, is New York City’s most popular point of interest among paying sightseers, it is revealed in a comparison of figures for the year 1936. Only one other sightseer’s mecca in the entire country charging admission exceeds the broadcasting studios in popularity and that is Mount Vernon, Virginia, the home of George Washington. In 1936 there was an increase of more than eleven per cent over the number of persons who took the studio tour in 1935. The following figures show the tremendous increases of paying guests from year to year: 1933 (Nov. and Dec.) .... 30,000 1934 437,431 1935 470,068 1936 528,322 Total 1,466,794 The figures above do not include the number of non-paying guests which totals 70,657 for the corresponding years and which is about four per cent of the total of 1,466,794 paying guests. Commissions earned by the NBC Guest Relations Division from the sales of sightseeing and tower tickets for Rockefeller Center Tours were doubled in 1936 as compared with 1935. A systematic checking of the guided tourists at Radio City indicate that eighty per cent of them are from out of town. the RCA Metropolitan Opera Company series, heard each Saturday afternoon during the current opera season. The broadcast will be relayed from New York to Montevideo through Buenos Aires. ON THE SHELF The books listed in this column are recommended as pertinent literature on radio and allied subjects. They will be found in the General Library on the NBC Transmitter Shelf. OLD WIRES AND NEW WAVES by Alvin F. Harlow. Mr. Harlow tells the story of communication from the first signal drums, and beacon fires of savage tribes to the present-day miracles of television and scrambled radio telephony. Written colorfully and with humor, replete with fascinating anecdotes. 525 pages. If you can’t read the whole book there are several chapters you should not miss— but once you start you will probably want to go right through. CAREERS IN ADVERTISING by Alden James. Nine chapters in this all-inclusive book are devoted to radio. They are written by such folk in the radio know as Arthur Pryor, M. H. Aylesworth, H. K. Boice, John F. Royal, E. B. Foote, W. S. Hedges and others. BROADCASTING IN THE AMERICAN DEMOCRACY. In an address before the National Conference on Educational Broadcasting, Mr. Sarnoff presents broadcasting’s contribution to educational development in the United States and upholds the American system as esssential to Democracy.