Radio Broadcast (May-Oct 1922)

RADIO BROADCAST v.. )rporation of America. The Radio Corporation bought out the American Marconi Co. It has now under the American flag the biggest commercial radio business in the world. It is controlled by the General Electric Co. and the American Telephone & Telegraph Co. In its formation these companies granted to the Radio Company the right to sell the radio products of the General Electric Co. and the Western Electric Co. which are the manufacturing subsidiaries of the Telephone Company. They also agreed that the Radio Company was to hold the radio patents of both concerns and that both were free to use any of the patents in manufacture. After this was done, the Westinghouse Co., rather than deal with foreign radio competitors or set up a rival concern, likewise pooled its patents and agreed to sell through the Radio Corporation. In this way the maximum American strength was combined to meet foreign competition in the commercial radio field. Then, suddenly, broadcasting aroused the demand for receiving sets. The Radio Corporation formed for entirely different purposes found itself besieged with a demand. It has put forward its utmost energy to get equipment from all its manufacturing connections and the fact that the patents of the American Telephone & Telegraph Co., the Western Electric Co., the General Electric Co., and the Westinghouse were all pooled has greatly facilitated the supplying of the public demand. The results of the pooling of the patents of the big electrical companies makes it seem possible that it might be in the public interest if similar cooperation included the whole field and that the patefit situation in radio were worked out by cooperation rather than litigation. This would in no wise impair competition in manufacture. There is now keen competition between the manufacturing concerns who sell through the Radio Corporation as well as between the Radio Corporation and all other manufacturers. The position of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company is a little different from that of any of the manufacturing companies. It makes no instruments. It is not interested in broadcasting as a means of selling instruments. Its business is selling communication. If a man wants to talk from the mainland of California to Cata. lina Island, the telephone company will give him this service by radio. A similar service is being considered across Albemarle Sound, N. C. Similarly if a man would like to talk to all his neighbors at once and can pay for it, the American Telephone & Telegraph Company will try to equip itself to provide him the service by radio. The company is completing a broadcasting station for the purpose in New York. But it is frankly an experiment. The demands of the public will determine radio's future in this as in all other respects. The most obvious motive for wishing to talk to all one's neighbors is for the purpose of selling them something. The Conference under Secretary Hoover's chairmanship agreed that it was against public interest to broadcast pure advertising matter. The American Telephone & Telegraph officials agreed with this point of view. Their experiment is to see whether there are people who desire to buy the right to talk to the public and at the same time tell the public something it will like to hear. If this experiment succeeds, a commercial basis for broadcasting will have been established. If it does not succeed the public will be left with the free broadcasting of the companies that sell equipment, the newspapers, etc. If the selling of equipment keeps on as at present, the companies that sell largely can perhaps continue to bear the expense of broadcasting. But as the present rate of buying shades down and competition becomes keener and closer, it might not be possible for one company or group to bear the expense of broadcasting which is the stimulant for the demand that all manufacturers enjoy. These problems affect not only the Westinghouse Co., which operates four stations, but the operators of many other broadcasting stations as well. Altogether, according to present available information, there are more than twenty stations which broadcast extensively. The General Electric Company broadcasts at Schenectady; the American Radio and Research Corporation broadcasts from Medford Hillside near Boston; the C. D. Tuska Co. from Hartford, Conn.; the Carter Electric Co. from Atlanta, Ga.; the Precision Equipment Company from Cincinnati, Ohio; the Western Radio Company from Kansas Cit}', Mo.; the Reynolds Radio Co. from Denver, Col. The state universities at Madison, Wis., Austin, Texas, and at Lincoln, Neb., also broadcast, and on the Pacific Coast a number of commercial houses pay the costs of a broadcasting station for the advertising they receive, although the advertising consists of little more than the mention of