Radio Broadcast (May-Oct 1922)

226 Radio Broadcast Almost as wide in variety as the suggestions about programmes are the requests regarding operating hours. A woman writes that her husband is a night watchman and does not wake up until 5 o'clock in the afternoon. He has a half hour to listen in at that time and two hours when he cames home in the morning between 8 and 10 o'clock. Couldn't we broadcast then? Dealers and merchants want broadcasting between 12 and one o'clock so that people can listen in on their noon hour, (a good idea). A young man wanted broadcasting after 11 p. m. because he didn't get home until that hour, as he attended night school three nights a week and worked evenings the rest of the time. The idea that still persists among some people concerning radio broadcasting is curious to say the least. The other night I was listening to one of our programmes in the reception room of the factory which is located a short distance from the broadcasting station. The night watchman came in wreathed in smiles and told me the following: "A young lady just called me up," he said, "and said she would like to hear the radio. She said she did not hear anything. 1 asked her what kind of a set she was using and she replied — '1 am just in a pay-station over in Boston. They told me to put a nickel in the slot and call you on the telephone and 1 would hear radio.'" A woman who signed her name and address wrote in and said — "We enjoy your performance very much each evening and always have six or seven people listening. To keep husbands home at night 'Get a Radio,' says 1. Be it said, friend husband even comes home in the middle of the afternoon now to hear your broadcasting." Sometimes people make really alarming requests and are greatly incensed when we are unable to comply. A woman in New England wrote in recently that she wanted us to broadcast some dance music on Friday. "It must be next Friday," she said, "because 1 have got to be out both Wednesday and Thursday evenings." As my secretary says, "You'd almost think they were paying for it." Once in awhile, after an unusually hectic day, 1 wonder if the radio public doesn't think companies who operate broadcasting stations are public philanthropists. A public servant is not a public philanthropist. Another thing. There is a great diflFerence in the report of a broadcast. A man in one town will say he "got the concert clearly and distinctly," while another man in the same town complains of a "hum," "a fuzzy rattle," or a noise "like unloading a tip-cart of bricks." Of course, reports regarding the concert itself vary with the taste of the individual. 1 have been asked about the future of radio broadcasting. I am too busy with present details to have time to think much about its future. Then no one dares prophesy for fear of being reputed to-day a visionary and tomorrow exceedingly short-sighted. However, one thing, in my opinion, is certain besides "death and taxes," and that is some new method must be devised for financing radio broadcasting. Obviously, it is an enormous expense to the operating companies for which they are compensated by the sale of receiving equipment. But other companies can sell receiving equipment which will receive broadcasting programmes as well as those operating broadcasting stations. Far be it from me to mean by this statement that the sale of radio equipment should be limited to those at present operating broadcasting stations, but on the other hand the extra broadcasting expense, which benefits everyone in the business, cannot in fairness to all be borne by a few. Why can't there be a national broadcasting association, under government supervision, to the support of which every manufacturer of radio receiving equipment of a certain capitalization contributes? This is one suggestion. Another is that the government conduct and control broadcasting as it does the mails, or as cities do the water supply. These are merely suggestions and of course only a few of many possible ones. That radio broadcasting in some form will continue and improve and become more widespread is, to those close to this new, epochal industry, as certain as sunrise.