Radio broadcast .. (1922-30)

Should We Name Our Broadcasting Stations? T HE following bulletin was recently sent to all station owners by the National Association of Broadcasters: On many occasions during the past few months, during informal discussions among our members, and occasionally during official hearings, the question of continuing the desig- nation of a station by announcement of its call letters over the air has attracted keen interest. The use of combinations of letters to designate a radio station originated properly in "point to point" communication some years back, and as a natural outgrowth of this, with the advent of broadcasting stations this type of designa- tion has been continued. It was never specifi- cally designed for radiophone broadcasting sta- tions. It is a well-known fact that due to the phonetic similarity of many letters in the alphabet (for example, B may sound like D, E, P or T) the average owner of a radio receiving set makes many mistakes in identifying the station he has tuned, which in turn causes the credit due that station to be entirely misplaced. At this point, those who favor abolishing call letters immediately advance the argument that the sole reason for a station existing is to create personality for itself, and immediately draw the analogy between the station and a boat or a yacht. For official records, the Government designates all vessels under a license form, as, for instance, KX-iog. However, immediately, regardless of whether it is a pleasure or commercial craft, its owner christens it with an ap- propriate name which lends personality to the ship, and the license designation of letters and numbers is never given further consideration except in connection with the license to operate. From this analogy, the proponents of the idea ask, "Why is not an announce- ment, such as 'The Mayflower, Cincin- nati' of more value to the station and easier to identify than the announce- ment 'This is Station WBDT'?" The first is at once suggestive of a personality and entirely distinguishable while the latter is negative and easily confused. The opponents of such an idea point out that hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent, in many instances build- ing up the prestige of a certain combina- tion of letters, which in some cases correspond to the trade slogan of the owner of a station. Undoubtedly such stations would be slow to consider favor- ably the idea of relinquishing their call letters. However, the discussions have been so frequent and active by both sides, that it is with the thought of determining what the real consensus of opinion is that your vote is asked on the enclosed ballot. strous monikers may we not have to listen to! We think the suggestion a highly indecent and immoral one—like giving small, and notably reckless boys, shining, loaded revolvers to play with. Needless to say the broad- casters will jump at the idea; tacking names on things is their meat. What grand and glorious, resplendent and superlative station names may we not expect. Give a look what the gents did back in the days when they were coining slogans for their stations: "Kail For Dependable Magnolene" "Where The Sun Shines Every Day" "Stephens College Where Friendliness is Broad- cast Daily" " Kant Fool Us Long Horns." "The Best Little Station" "The World's Largest Grease Spot" " Kum To Hot Springs" "We Sell Goods Cheaper" "Where Cheer Awaits U" "Where Harrisburg Broadcasts Gladness" "One of Indiana's Most Beautiful Little Cities, And The Home Of The First Automobile" "Watch Mercer Attain Zenith" We tremble. We hold our breath. We pace about apprehensively our pockets loaded with horse shoes. Suppose they decide to do it! What manner of mon- AT WJAX, JACKSONVILLE Isaac Wessell of the Jacksonville Little Symphony Orchestra— broadcast by WJAX —and his old faithful bass fiddle. The press agent claims that it is over two hundred years old and has been repaired in Budapest, Leipsig, New York, Boston, and other places, and that it has been cracked so often that there is hardly a sound spot on the instrument "We Are Never Tired" "Sunshine Center of America" " Known For Neighborly Folks" "Keep Folks Quoting The Bible" Names like the suggested one, "Mayflower," wouldn't be so bad, but there'll never be enough of them for seven hundred stations. Arrived at the second hundred, there will be a terrible struggle to create some appropriate and un- duplicated collection of syllables. Moreover we, the poor listeners, will have to do all the dirty work of memorizing the new names, and it was only at the cost of much travail that we got the multitude of call letters finally straight in our mind. Also we shall have to junk our receiving set cabinets and install new ones with three-foot dials whereon to inscribe the new and lengthy apellations. We submit that letters, or even numbers, are quite as easy to memorize in large quantities as names. Imagine what a boon it would have been if Mr. Pullman had only started off in the dim ages, by christening his sleeping cars with call letters. Have you ever returned from the observation platform at a late hour and at- tempted to crawl into lower twelve in "Grassmere" or "Graymere," only to discover, amidst much feminine shrieking, that you really belonged in lower twelve in "Grassbeer"? If names must be used, let us, f'revvens sakes, have some system about it. Let all the stations in Georgia be lovely ladies, and those in Mississippi, flowers; those in New York, drinks and those west of the Rockies, kitchen utensils, and so forth. Thus would we have an entertaining and easily catalogued roll call of such sta- tions as: "Gertrude," "Josie," "Maizie," "Clarabelle"—"Hyacinth," " Petunia," "Erysipelas," " Plastodolphus" - -"Old Crow," "Tom and Jerry," " Benedictine," " Kummel"--" Rolling Pin," "Potato Masher," "Egg Beater," etc. But we quite disagree with the main contention that call letters can have no personality. To us they have always seemed very vivid personalities. What matter the fact that the personalities of the letters, as we interpret them, seldom correspond with the personality of the station mentioned. WEEI, for instance, is a thin, squeeky sort of a name. It has a long skinny nose which is rather red and which it blows at intervals. It is querulous and complaining and takes its tea rather weak. KDKA, on the other hand, is a robust, high pressure name. It is six feet two, bulging with muscles and wears red, sweaty underwear. It is