Radio age research, manufacturing, communications, broadcasting, television (1941)

Phonograph Records Make Comeback {Continued frotn page 26) erally considered to mean a growth in serious tastes and not a reduction of the popular market. 7. Pop sales are also rising. Earlier, a record which sold a million copies was unusual. Now it's unusual if there aren't many of these million-sellers each year. These high-sale releases are absolutely necessary to the larger companies. Classical, children's, country and western records are the solid base of the industry, but the real earnings are made on the big, low-cost-per-unit "hits." The importance of huge-sale records lies also in the fact that they get more people into the record stores —people who buy other record; at the same time. Also, the sUes level of standard pop tune; is up. 8. A widening of the sales outlet b.ise has played an important part. Chain variety and department stores that never handled records before now find them money- makers. People who might not bother to make a special trip to a record store will pick up a record or two when they are shopping for something else in a five and dime. 9. Children's records, like revivals, are increasing their share of the market. Large-scale production pl.m- ning has a great deal to do with their increased popu- larit)'. RCA "Victor, for example, spent about $15,000 recording the "Alice in Wonderland" album. This is contrasted with the early days when one man on a banjo made a "kidisc" as they are called. The increase goes into better storybook material, better performers and a more thorough production. 10. The most important factor in the revival of the record market is the all-around higher quality of the product. Slower speeds and non-breakable records have reduced two of the manufacturers' toughest problems— the reluctance of dealers to buy large amounts of space- taking, fragile records. The higher fidelity of the new records gives them wider acceptance at all "ear" levels. One sign of the phonograph industry's present state of optimism is the current number of re-recordings of older works such as operas which require tremendous investments. Not long ago, record companies would not consider such an expenditure, but in the last 18 months RCA "Victor alone has recorded three full-length operas with the best artists available. These were "Carmen," "La Traviata" and "Rigoletto." "II Trovatore" is now being recorded at a cost of about 550,000. There is no reason to believe that the record industry will not continue its present healtliy growth. There is a large market to till and new and better products are available to offer the people of the world. Selecting Mood Music (Continued from page 25) for authenticity, at the same time maintaining the mood and keeping the music unobtrusive and in good taste. "We get the script about a week in advance," Miss Snider s lid. "The music programmer, who is assigned a specific group of shows permanently, reads the script, gets an idea of the type of music needed. Sometimes the director marks the places where he wants music in the script. Then the programmer selects music—sometimes pulling out ten times the amount of music finally needed. Helped by the music programmer, tlie director makes the final choices." After the director approves the selections, the music programmer types a synopsis of the visual or dialogue cues for the turn-table engineer, and indicates the record numbers, starting positions (which are also marked on the records in red crayon) and other details; stacks the records in the proper order and arranges to have tiiem delivered to the studio in time for rehearsal. The selection of music is not a programmer's only concern, however. She is responsible for seeing that the music on each program is cleared for copyright, kine- scope rights, tape-recording and other rights. She is co.n- stantly searching for new material and replenishing her stock. "We've just ordered our third dozen of King Palmer's "The Film Opens,' " Miss Snider said. "This is the popu- lar theme of WNBT's 'Eleventh Hour Theater,' and it's played four or five times a day—for station-break an- nouncements—besides being played on the program. "Generally we can make better use of unfamiliar music for backgrounds. Many well-known classics are specifically identified with a composer or a drama. Of course there are exceptions. We made wonderful use of Stravinsky's 'Rites of Spring' in an Indian battle scene on the Gabby Hayes Show. And the works of Howard Hanson, Aaron Copland and Prokofier are excellent standbys for various kinds of backgrounds." II KCA Scholarships Granted Eleven university students from eight different states have been awarded RCA scholarships for the current academic year. These undergraduate students, majoring in various fields of pure science or in branches of engi- neering, have received scholarship grants of S600 each. Since 1945, wiien the awards were inaugurated, more tlian a hundred RCA scholarship and Fellowship grants have been made. 30 RADIO AGE