Radio Broadcast (May 1929-Apr 1930)

OF THE • • • Personal Notes Stuart Mahanay, formerly radio editor of The Country Gentleman, and of the sales department of the Roister Radio Corporation, is now managing editor of our contemporary, Radio News. R. W. Bennett has recently joined the Trav-Ler Mfg. Corp., St. Louis, Mo., as vice president in charge of sales and advertising. For the past two years he was vice president and general manager of the A-C Dayton Company. SARNOFF AND HARBORD REPORT BEFORE SENA TE COMMISSION Edward K. Mac Ewan has been appointed secretary of the RCA-Victor Corporation. He was formerly a Victor official. Francis S. Kane (formerly of RCA) is assistant secretary. Paul W. Morency has resigned as manager of field service of the National Association of Broadcasters to become general manager of the Travelers Broadcasting Service Corporation, owners and operators of station wtic, Hartford, Conn. O. F. Jester, formerly assistant sales manager, Radio Division, Stewart-Warner, has been appointed sales manager. He succeeds R. H. Woodford. S. M. Doak is now general sales manager, United Reproducers. Mr. Doak was formerly Western district manager for Sonora. , Bethuel M. Webster, Jr. and Paul M. Segal have resigned as general counsel and assistant general counsel, respectively, of the Federal Radio Commission. Both attorneys will enter private practice of law in Washington. ' Thad H. Brown, of Ohio, chief counsel of the Federal Power Commission, has been appointed general counsel of the Federal Radio Commission, it was announced recently. Mr. Brown, a former secretary of state of Ohio, succeeds Bethuel Webster, Jr. Irma Lembke is the first television program director, according to the Jenkins Television Corp. Miss Lembke will have charge of the Jenkins radiovision programs flashed from w2xcr and w3kx. Corson Kneezel has been appointed advertising manager for the Roister Badio .Corporation. Mr. Kneezel was associated formerly with Evans, Kip, and Hackett, Inc., of New York, and previous to that with the Foster and Kleiser Company. Carroll Van Ark, publicity manager for Roister for a number of years, has resigned. The royalty payments due the RCA from some of the thirty-eight set manufacturers now licensed are in arrears $561,621 said David Sarnoff, executive vice president of RCA, before the senate interstate commerce commission on December 14th in Washington, D. C. The committee is holding hearings on the bill introduced by Senator Couzens to establish a communications commission. Mr. Sarnoff went on to say that although there is no definite policy as to the licensing of manufacturers, the practice is not to license any additional ones because there "already is overproduction in the industry, we don't want to extend the licenses any more." On the whole, he said, the industry "is in fairly good condition" although certain licensees owe royalty payments to the extent of $561,621. Mr. Sarnoff admitted that the retail receiving-set business of RCA showed disappointing returns. "The Corporation," he declared, "has earned a smaller profit than its licensees have earned on their sets, after they have paid their royalties." Describing the formation and growth of RCA, General Harbord, president, said during the course of his appearance before the senate committee: "As conceived and organized in October, 1919, RCA was a communications company. The great commerce in the entertainment field had then no existence. During the corporation's first year, 1920, radio in the entertainment field was the plaything of amateur operators. In that year RCA's sales amounted to $500,000. During the next year broad The famous pre-war German trans-Atlantic radio station at Sayville, L.I. has recently been modernized by the Postal Telegraph Company and is being usedfor transcontinental telegraph service. The operator's control table is shown in the above picture. • FEBRUARY 1930 • casting had small beginnings and sales were $1,500,000. HOW SALES HAVE INCREASED "In the seven years I have served the corporation," continued General Harbord, "its sales of radio apparatus have mounted from $11,000,000 in 1922 to $87,000,000 in 1928. Not radio telegraph devices but broadcast devices have brought about this vast increase. Radio telegraphy, its field originally conceived, has been responsible for a fraction over 9 per cent, whereas merchandising radio receiving sets, the field newly developed since RCA was created, has been responsible for over 86 per cent, of the corporation's total revenue from its organization up to June 30, 1929." Saying that RCA's licensees have prospered, General Harbord declared that their sales in 1927 totalled $46,000,000, in 1928 $128,000,000, and during the first six months of 1929, $64,000,000. "Some whose voices were once loudest in the chorus of denunciation have since become licensees, and their denunciation ceased with their licensing. Some remain but the goal they seek is not the remedy for which they ask you but licenses under the very patents they decry." Speaking further of the license situation, General Harbord continued: "Under patents acquired and developed at vast expense, the Radio Corporation has elected to license many radio manufacturers, insisting always that an apparent ability to serve the public well should be a condition to the granting of a license. License fees are but the reasonable contribution of those who pay them to those whose efforts and money brought about the development and purchase of the inventions, joint use of which must be made in the manufacture of modern radio devices. "Let this patent unification be at an end tomorrow," concluded General Harboard, "let each organization use only the radio patents it actually owns; let licensees operate only under their own inventions, and not use those licensed to them by others, and on that day will topple the whole structure of service which radio is rendering for the benefit and entertainment of the American public." NATIONAL UNION MERGER Discussing the recent formation of the National Union Radio Tube Corporation, Mr. Sarnoff said at the same hearing that RCA had acquired an option on the company's stock to the extent of 12 per cent. The corporation comprises four independent tube manufacturers now operating under an RCA tube license. The organization was arranged through bankers. These companies, Magnatron, Sonatron, Televocal, and Marathon, Mr. Sarnoff said, agreed to take a license under RCA patents and avoid litigation. Subsequently a loan of $2,000,000 from RCA to the new (Continued on page 236) 23