NBC Transmitter (Jan 1943-Sept 1944)

12 NBC TRANSMITTER Flood ol Job Offers Greets Summer Institute Students • CHICAGO.— The second annual NBCNorthwestern University Summer Radio Institute came to a successful conclusion July 29 with a flood of job offers from the nation's radio stations for the 134 graduates. Seventy-two positions were available on graduation day and more were coming in. The awarding of graduation certificates was the climax of a 6week joint educational effort in which educators of the Northwestern University staff and top personnel of the NBC central division in Chicago sought to pound home the hardboiled facts of radio production, announcing, programming, newswriting, studio engineering and public service. Eighty-five per cent of the students were women and radio stations to which they now go are scattered from Vermont to Texas and from Florida to Oregon. While not the whole answer to radio’s pressing employment situation, the joint educational effort by Northwestern and NBC is being hailed by the radio industry as a very definite aid. Widespread acclaim by the industry is being given to the institute and its co-directors, Albert Crews, chairman of the radio department of the N.U. School of Speech, and Judith Waller, director of public service for the NBC central division. In a close decision, the NBC Scholarship Award for “most outstanding performance” at the institute was awarded to one of the few men in attendance at the school, William Reade, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Kay Dowst, student from St. Petersburg, Florida, also was on the honor list and was awarded the $100 War Bond prize offered by the War Writers Conference for the best radio script developed at the session. ALWAYS ON THE JOB • FORT WAYNE, IND. The latest wrinkle in radio advertising is to live with your sponsor. Harold Clark, continuity writer for Station WGL. Forth Wayne, handles all of the accounts in the 1200 block on South Calhoun Street. Not content merely to call on the sponsors and pick up copy, Clark has moved into an apartment in the 1200 block. PRIZE WINNER.— Albert Crews, chairman of the radio department of the Northwestern University School of Speech, and Judith Waller, director of public service foi the NBC central division, co-directors of the NBC-Northwestern University Summer Radio Institute, present the NBC Scholarship Award to William Reade of Baton Rouge. Louisiana, judged outstanding student at the institute. The award consisted of full tuition for the six-weeks' course which ended July 29. Many jobs awaited the students who completed the Summer classes. NBC Western Stations Hold Meeting in San Francisco • SAN FRANCISCO. — From Montana, Idaho, Arizona, Lhah. Washington, Oregon. California, and from headquarters in New York— National Broadcasting Company and affiliated station executives came to Radio City, San Francisco, August 2, to take part in a stations meeting of the network’s Western division. Niles Trammell, NBC president, headed the list and was chairman of the discussion of stations’ wartime problems. William S. Hedges, vice-president in charge of stations departments, accompanied him from New York. The conference’s host was John W. Elwood, general manager of KPO and NBC in San Francisco. Lip from Hollywood came Sidney N. Strotz, vice-president in charge of the Western division; John Swallow, program manager; Jennings Pierce, manager of public service and station relations; Frank Berend, sales manager; Paul Gale, traffic, supervisor and Henry C. Maas, manager of sales and program traffic. From KFI. Los Angeles, came Earl C. Anthony, owner; William B. Ryan, manager; Clyde Scott, commercial manager, and Roy Spencer. The McClatchy Broadcasting Company, owner of KMJ. Fresno, California, was represented by Eleanor McClatchy, Keith Collins, John Hamlyn and Robert Street. KPO-Stanford U. Institute Presents 3 Air "Lessons" • SAN FRANCISCO. — Radio listeners heard what really goes on behind the scenes and what it takes to put a program on the air, when three special broadcasts sponsored by the Stanford-KPO Summer Radio Institute were beamed out of Radio City, San Francisco. On the first broadcast. July 31, a KPO staff announcer, hidden from view of the students, gave a running description of a typical class in radio production, tuning into the studio itself for portions of the classroom activities. John Grover, announcer and producer for NBC, and KPO “professor” of production, conducted the class. His Stanford colleague was F. Cowles Strickland, director of dramatics for the university, who also acted as overall coordinator of the series. The following Saturday Floyd Farr, chief announcer and assistant to the program manager of KPO, conducted one of his classes in announcing and acting, for the benefit of radio listeners. The final broadcast was a dramatization of a student’s prize-winning play. The Summer Radio Institute, jointly conducted by Stanford University, of Palo Alto, California, and KPO-NBC, San Francisco, was designed to train competent men and women to fill the wartime manpower shortage now facing the industry. It started June 17 and ran through August 14. Classes in “Radio Writing,” “Production,” “Acting,” “Announcing,” “Control-Room Operation,” and “Broadcasting in the United States”— were held both on the Stanford campus and in KPO studios. Members of the university and the KPO-NBC staffs composed the faculty of this 100-pupil school. THOMPSON NEW GR HEAD • NEW YORK.— Theodore M. Thompson, executive assistant manager of NBC’s guest relations department, has been promoted to manager replacing Paul Rittenhouse who left for the armed forces. Thompson came to NBC as a page soon after his graduation in 1934 from Dartmouth College. After seven years in the guest relations and program departments he resigned in 1941 to join the personnel department of E. I. duPont de Nemours Co. Early this year he returned to NBC.