Radio Broadcast (May 1928-Apr 1929)

JUNE, 1928 THE LISTENER'S POINT OF VIEW 105 WE DO SOME EYEING AGHAST /^\UR objection to the Ballyhoo Hour is precisely, that, while it doubtless does much good for the advertiser, it does nary a bit of good for radio. Furthermore it pains our frugal soul to see so much mazuma spent in such a wasteful way. Wasteful, as far as radio is concerned, because after one of these hours is over nothing remains, except perhaps an unpleasant taste. Nothing has been contributed to the "art" of broadcasting, no new precedent has been established upon which bigger and better developments may be built. Suppose some of the fifty or so thousand dollars that is commonly planked down for one of these programs were used for the employment of talented persons to create something new — such as the Sound Drama we suggested last month — that would be a real step. But such arguments can carry no weight. It is . too much to ask the advertiser to worry about the future of the radio art. We shall have to search another point of attack. Here's one: the novelty of these Big Splurge, Ballyhoo programs can't last forever. Since public interest in them is at bottom simply curiosity concerning the amount of money spent and the magnitude of the names employed, each succeeding big splurge is going to have to outdo its predecessor in order to pique the jaded curiosity of that public. Eventually it will be necessary to bill the crowned heads of Europe and transmit the stuff over jewelled platinum wires costing $9.85 an inch in order to get a rise out of the radio editors. So the Ballyhoo Program will very soon exterminate itself. However, there is still another reason why the commercial broadcasters themselves ought to take steps to eliminate the ballyhoo program and that is that it doesn't serve to increase radio's prestige very much. The Big Splurge program attracts what the storekeeper knows as a Bargain Day Crowd. The merchant, on the day of a big sale, lures a lot of strangers into his store who have never crossed its threshold before. Most of them never will again; but a few of them may observe that his everyday merchandise is of good quality and may become habitual customers. The Big Splurge program sucks in perhaps a couple million listeners who ordinarily disdain radio, refuse to purchase receivers and are only submitting to the pleas of friends to "come over and play a hand of bridge and listen to Such and Such." This is a swell chance to corral these prospective customers and make 'em come back for more. But the Pomp and Circumstance Program is prone to have one or other of the two following effects: A. The program turns out to be merely ordinary as entertainment, thus confirming the transient listener's opinion that radio is a moron's pastime or; B. Great musical artists are lavished with such profusion (as in some Victor Hours) that his follow-up essay at listening is dimmed to nothingness by contrast. A Thursday Evening on the Blue Network PERHAPS our eternal weeping in these columns over the fact that radio so seldom attains great art, and so frequently succeeds in being bad art, conveys the impression that we never get any enjoyment out of it at all. Not so. For instance last night, a Thursday evening in March: Arming ourself against the ordeal with an entertaining novel, we plugged-in kyw, the local vendor of the Blue Network's wares, at 7:00 o'clock, Central Time. Well we didn't get in any reading during the first half hour. O. Henry's story, "The Clarion Call," was being presented in the "Re-Told Tales" series. Our listening was mostly a matter of conscientiousness for the first ten minutes, but after that the thing carried itself along for the remainder of the half hour and stacked up as one of the best radio plays we have heard. A two-character play, making use of a conventionally far-fetched O Henry plot it was "put across" by the expectionally fine voice acting of the villain. Sorry we don't remember his name; the good job of script preparation was done by one Henry Fisk Carlton and the production was directed by a Gerald Stopp. At 7:30 when the Ampico Hour came on we commenced to look for our place in our book — for we have heard some rather dismal Ampico Hours. But unfortunately for novel reading the program opened with some of Smetana's music for "The Bartered Bride" which we like too much to miss. Then Marguerite Volavy, playing the piano both in solo and in concerto, kept our willing attention for the rest of the program. We got in a little reading during the Maxwell House concert, but not much. This program is always craftily arranged and expertly presented. The "Old Colonel March" and the "Indian Love Lyrics" we could have got along very nicely without, but Richard Crooks called for sitting up and taking notice when he sang the "Prize Song" and the Siciliana from "Cavalleria." This grand singer — deservedly popular — -even AT STATION WGR, BUFFALO Nancy Cushman, daughter of Howard B. Cushman, director of the station, confiding to the world that she is two years old. "Microphone fright " does not seem to bother her put beauty in the banal "Little Bit of Heaven." The orchestra kindly included a grand waltz from Komzak's "Bad'n Mad'l'n." The Continental's program followed at 9:00 o'clock. This hour, too, is an ever reliable one, made up, as you know, of opera selections and not exclusively of the hackneyed ones. However, as two hours of attentive listening is enough for anybody to put in consecutively, we at this point took up our book and enjoyed the perfectly swell radio \40ices of Astrid Fjelde, Frederic Baer, et cie., as a rather vague background. THE WBAL ENSEMBLE This group is heard every Friday night from wbal Baltimore. The group includes (left to right): Michael Weiner, violinist-conductor; Leroy Evans, pianist and Samuel Maurice Stern 'cellist. Michael Weiner is the orchestral supervisor, wbal is one of the few stations that takes its music seriously V