Radio broadcast .. (1922-30)

Who Will Retail Radio? Is the Phonograph Dealer or the Electrical Dealer Going to Prove Best Qualified to Provide Sales and Service for Broadcast Listeners? "Is it electrical, Mister Eckhardt?" No, it's musical, Mister Elt%!" You have probably heard, and possibly taken part in, discussions relative to the proper agency for distributing radio apparatus to the public. Do you believe that electrical_experts will be needed to sell intelligently, and to keep in repair, the sets we shall be using a few years from now? Or do you consider that the broadcast receiver will be primarily a "musical instrument," and therefore best sold by organizations developed for the handling of musical instruments? At any rate, you will be interested to know what a representative of each of these trades has to say on the question. — THE EDITOR. Radio Sales and Service by the Musical Trade By W. L. ECKHARDT President, General Radio Corporation RiDlO as a business is destined to compare favorably with the largest commercial enterprises of all time as soon as experienced business men realize the tremendous possibilities in applying the same principles and policies to the radio business that have been paramount in the development of the automobile and phonograph trades. RECEIVING SETS CLASSED AS MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS THE time is rapidly approaching when no home will be considered complete without its radio receiving set, loud speaker and all that goes for satisfactory reception of the broadcasted programs — the important topics of the day, speeches of our great statesmen, and other worth-while features. Therefore, a thing of so great importance in our daily lives requires to be properly merchandised, and should be attended during its original installation by a thorough servicing. It is, therefore, only reasonable to assume that the merchandising of receiving sets will be very readily adopted by that line of trade to which it is akin; and in reviewing the situation carefully it will undoubtedly be appreciated that, first of all, radio must be classed as a musical instrument. 1 do not mean by this that it will take the place of some other musical instrument, but rather that it occupies a position entirely its own, properly located in the musical instrument field, and fortunately so, because in the writer's opinion no other agency is quite so well qualified to undertake the job as is the music dealer. PRESENT SITUATION SIMILAR TO EARLY PHONOGRAPH DAYS IT WAS a long time before the piano and musical trade realized the important part to be played in their businesses that was to come through the medium of the phonograph. In the early days of the phonograph many of the principal musical houses of the country hesitated to take it up, feeling that the phonograph would detract from their piano sales. Back in the late 90*5 and the days from 1900 to 1905, many of to-day's largest phonograph merchandisers were only luke warm to the possibilities of the phonograph. These same houses have followed somewhat their early impressions in this respect, with reference to the radio receiving set, but on all sides we are now learning of new additions to the radio business in the phonograph and musical trades. These firms are adequately equipped, with suitable show-rooms, demonstration booths, sales organizations and service departments, to install and service the merchandise after installation properly. They make it their business to follow up every sale for a definite period to insure perfect satisfaction on the part of the purchaser. Prior to 1900, just as to-day in the radio business, it was quite an exception for a talking machine to be sold on the instalment plan; but by 1904 it was generally accepted by all leading merchants that the sale of phono