NBC Transmitter (Jan 1943-Sept 1944)

NOVEMBER 1943 7 TRAMMELL AND ROYAL IN ENGLAND ON FIRST LEG OF WAR FRONT TOUR; PLAN BIG WORLD PROGRAM SCOPE GLOBE TROTTERS-NBC President Niles Trammell (left) and Vice-President John F. Royal. (Story at right.) WGKV's Education Programs Get Response in W. Virginia • CHARLESTON, W. VA.-Designed to augment studies of current events by junior high school students, “You And The News,” a weekly feature, has been introduced by WGKV. The programs, which are being piped to the schools as well as broadcast, deal with contemporary affairs. The schedule is being co-operatively presented by WGKV and the Junior Radio Board of Charleston, a group fostering progressive education through the use of radio. “Musical Pictures,” a novelty in radio education, recently began its second season on WGKV. The programs, broadcast weekly, are designed to correlate music, art and literature, The purpose is to stimulate imagination, creative ability and expressive thought. Twenty-seven thousand pupils participated last season over a period of three months. During each broadcast, students gather around receivers in their respective classrooms. At the conclusion of each presentation they are encouraged to draw a picture, do a pencil sketch or write a poem or story that would best express their impression of the program’s music. Most outstanding piece of work will be awarded a scholarship for 12 weeks of study at the Mason College of Music and Fine Arts in Charleston. • NEW YORK.— Niles Trammell, NBC’s president, and John F. Royal, vice-president in charge of international relations, were in England (when this issue went to press) on the first leg of a tour of the war fronts that will make radio history. While abroad, they will make plans for the reopening of NBC offices in the occupied countries as quickly as these countries are freed by Allied troops. Trammell and Royal arrived in England after a transoceanic plane trip and set up headquarters at the Hotel Claridge in London. After England, the itinerary calls for stops in Algiers, Cairo and other points in the Middle East. Not only do Trammell and Royal hope to complete arrangements for international broadcasting on an unprecedented scale, but they also plan to set up the framework by which NBC will bring its listeners the deliberations of any international meetings or conferences of news value held abroad. One of the principal objectives of the tour will be to study the possibility of increasing the schedule of broadcasts from the Soviet Union over NBC facilities. Trammell pointed out that once the suffocation of Nazi occupation is dispelled, NBC correspondents now on the front lines will bring us the full story of the war from countries now closed to them. “Our educational and religious programs and similar broadcasts from other countries will break their present bounds and extend into the far corners of the world,” he added. “Programs like those of our Inter-American Lhiiversity of the Air will have classes not only in this hemisphere but in Europe, Asia and Africa. “And who today can foretell what a profound effect the rapid development of television will have upon all these plans? “NBC thinking today is on an international basis. When these great strides in radio progress come we will be prepared. “We inaugurated the first radio exchange program in the history of broadcasting. We made the first exchange agreement by an American broadcasting company with the British Broadcasting Company. Before this war ended such agreements, we had an exchange agreement with every country in Europe. “As soon as Allied victories make it possible, we hope to reestablish these agreements and resume these broadcasts on a much greater scale. Trammell said he hopes to conclude definite arrangements for the reopening of the former NBC bureaus in Paris. Berlin, Rome, Cairo, Vienna, The Hague, Brussels and other countries following their reconquests by the Allied armies. It is hoped that the Rome Bureau can be reopened first and within a few months. Wherever possible, NBC correspondents w ill return to their former posts in European countries. An attempt will also be made to study the possibility of setting up an international organization similar to the International Broadcasting Union, of which NBC was a member along with the principal countries of Europe. Nazi restrictions have more or less nullified the work of the I BU since the war. A main objective of the TrammellRoyal trip is to visit as many as possible of NBC’s war correspondents now with the Allied armies and navies on virtually every w ar front. Upon his return, Royal w ill visit the affiliates of NBC’s Pan American network in Mexico and South America to give them a first-hand report of these post-war plans. It was largely through Royal’s efforts that the Pan American network was established. Thought is also being given by Trammell and Royal to the possibility of a similar journey to the Pacific and Far East when the reconquest of those areas is somewhat further advanced. WGKV Nan a Columnist • CHARLESTON, W. VA.-Julian Glass, WGKV promotion director, now writes a regular weekly column in The Charleston Daily Mail entitled “Strictly Business. Content of the column deals with personal notes about WGKV, NBC and Daily Mail advertisers. Glass has been named to the board of governors of the newly organized Press Club of Charleston.