Radio broadcast .. (1922-30)

46 RADIO BROADCAST NOVEMBER, 1925 MANAGER, or other EXECUTIVE DUOOEAM DIRECTOR I I Assistant Musical Chief Assistant Studio Prt^ram Director .Announcer rrcgr<am Director Director adage «• Director incJiiagt of Assistant afuJKifing 4MNMMT *"&*»* PUBLICITY REPRESENTATIVE. Copy Wriler Assistant I Pw<ram Proinun Sdkitor S^jtor Director *v Chief Transmitter Chief Control Chk f Reid Operator Operator Operator . . Twins Irans Trans Control Control Control Field Field Field, initter mitter mitter Operator Opoaior Operator Opr Opr Opr Opr. Opr Opr Jtanmnx«r Announcer Announcer FIG. I "Organization chart" of a typical large broadcasting station. Mr. Dreher explains how the affairs of a typical station proceed — from the inside. A broadcasting station is a business organization, frequently one of some size, but the public knows very little about broadcasting except the impression gained from whatever they hear from the announcer partment of the station. Publicity activities include photographing, of course, this being handled, ordinarily, by a professional photographer who does such work for the station as the publicity representative may direct. A scrap book is also kept, and the publicity representative may hand in occasional reports on the amount of space he has been able to secure, since the object of every station is to be well known, and a good press agent helps in that endeavor as much in broadcasting as in saving souls or governing the country. The program director, like the chief executive to whom he reports, may have come into broadcasting from anywhere. Some of them are ex-concert managers, with a wide acquaintance among musicians. Others are ex-newspaper men. Still others are musicians, theatrical booking agents, actors, clergymen, to name a few of the vocations which might be mentioned. The oldest program manager in the New York district, in point of experience, is a mechanical engineer. What a program manager was doesn't matter; his duties are to keep in touch with the public and its desires, to see that the station gets the best program material available, to mould the programs in accordance with station policy, to coordinate the work of his department, to report to the management and to exercise various other special and executive powers. In a large station, if he saw everyone who tries to see him, he would hold his job about a week before the hospital claimed him. His assistants protect him to some extent. Among these assistants there may be a subordinate program director in charge of soliciting programs. He may have a squad of program solicitors under him, or he may do all the work himself. If so, he is primarily an outside man, going around interviewing prospective broadcasters. He keeps a sharp watch on the newspapers for reports of what may turn out to be "features." If the station is one which sells time, he is a sort of advertising solicitor, seeking customers, aiding them to arrange suitable programs, etc. Just as a magazine gets a certain number of unsolicited contributions from writers, so a good many artists, some very good, some very bad, visit a broadcasting studio to volunteer their services. Hence a musician must be attached to the staff to give these people auditions and weed out the poor ones. He may do this at a time when the station is not on the air, and serve as the accompanist of the station when it is broadcasting. He disposes of the aspirant he cannot use as tactfully as possible, and sends the remainder to the booking agent of the station, who is in a position to arrange for a definite time when they may broadcast. The musical critic should, if possible, be equipped with a suitable microphone pick-up, audio frequency amplifier, and loudspeaker, so that he may hear applicants about as they will sound on the air, for some people with satisfactory concert voices do not transmit well, owing to the limitations of present-day electrical reproduction. The booking agent of the station may be an assistant program manager, or the program director's secretary. He or she must be in close touch with the director in order to carry out his wishes in making up the program, assigning desirable times in accordance with the importance of events, and so on. Generally, the booking official knows pretty well what the program director will approve, and does not have to ask him in the majority of cases. The system of booking programs works with the program book as its basis, which is marked in quarter-hour intervals for all the time the station has on the air. When an event is booked, the appropriate spaces are filled in several weeks ahead of time, as a rule, and the program people can tell at a glance what time is still free. Thus a program solicitor may come to the booking clerk and ask, "What time have you free after 8 p. M. on November 3rd?" if he has something in mind for that date. The booking agent is also responsible, as a rule, for making sure, on the day of broadcasting, that none of the performers have forgotten their dates or will be unable to appear for one reason or another. He has another job — that of furnishing lists of events booked to the publicity man, engineer, and announcers, so that suitable action may be taken, schedules made out, etc. And, every day, the program for the day, correct in every detail, is issued to all the operating and announcing forces concerned. So far we have been more concerned with making up the programs than with broadcasting them. The latter job is principally in the hands of the technical force, and it will be taken up in more detail in our next issue, when we expect to print an article on "Technical Routine in a Broadcasting Station." The operating personnel is headed by a technical man, styled variously as "Chief Operator," " Engineer-in-Charge," "Chief Engineer," or blessed with some other mellifluous title. Sometimes he is a graduate electrical engineer, sometimes he is not; but in any case his function is to see that the amperes flow