Radio age (Jan-Dec 1926)

32 RADIO AGE for June, 1926 dred miles. But a super-power station, reaching from coast to coast, finds itself presenting a program of serious music at the dinner hour at the center of the nation, while at the Atlantic Coast, it is an hour later and people find a diversified program more interesting. At the same time, away out on the Pacific Coast, where the sun is just beginning to sink, the romance of the twilight hour is reflected in the desire for ballads and lighter music. Hence a program pleasing to local listeners might prove less interesting to two-thirds of a station's audience in different sections of the country. To please all, really becomes a difficult problem that studio directors must face. And then again enters the big factor of the type of program that enjoys the best reception at a distance and would prove to be of interest to the distant tuner who only stays with a station for a few moments and then moves on to the next. Perhaps this national perspective of radiophone broadcasting has not occurred to the average listener who listens to the programs of a local station and sometimes questions the judgment of the operators in presenting a particular quality of program. The great number of radio stations in America, are serv ing at the present time as an enormous laboratory for the experiment of the most pleasing programs. WOK is exciting a great deal of interest from all over the country by a plan conceived by George Allen. This plan is an innovation in radio broadcasting and tends to draw aside the curtains of a few years to let us glimpse the probabilities of the future. Allen goes on to say, "I firmly believe that before radiophone broadcasting is much older, stations will be specializing in certain classes of programs to the exclusion of others and will be nationally known and tuned for a certain kind of program. It seems a logical view when analyzing the congested programs that Chicago, the center of radio in the world, pours forth, most of them duplications of each other, and each with its following. In tuning from one station to another, the same kind of program is encountered and one despairs of finding the class of program desired. With a systematized organization in which each station has a particular field, the listener would be served to a real advantage, and radio would become the tremendous educational and recreational factor that it is bound to be in American life, without the hinderance of cluttered and glaring commercialism that takes little cognizance of the value of programs to Operating and Control Roorrb— Station WOK The Magazine of the Hour the listeners, but considers chiefly its own income." Dance Numbers WORKING upon this basis, Director Allen carries on his experiment by presenting from WOK a three and one half hour program of straight dance music from 10 p. m. to 1:30 a. m. Central Standard Time, featuring three of the best dance orchestras which Chicago boasts. These bands are placed upon a fixed schedule, to play at definite times, one after the other, all being controlled from the general studio in the Chicago Beach Hotel, and there is rarely a time a studio selection is called for unless it is to grant some special request. Direct signal communication is carried on by telephone and a system of lights so there is no delay by the orchestras. These orchestras are situated miles apart and there ^s no announcer at any place except the orchestra leader himself. When the broadcasting starts at 10 p. m. everybody is checked up to see that all watches are beating in unison. The program for the first orchestra is taken over the phone, announced at the Chicago Beach Hotel Studio, the switches are thrown, the orchestra leader signalled by a flash in his light, and you immediately get dance music, several miles from where you heard the announcement. At the end of each number the orchestra leader announces through his "mike" that you have just listened to his orchestra broadcasting through WOK. One After Another IN the meantime, the next orchestra has been called by phone and their numbers lined up. As soon as the first orchestra has finished playing, they are cut off, the second one switched on and you again hear music broadcast several miles from where you heard the first program. And so it goes throughout the entire evening. Smooth, precise control at all (Please turn to page 61)