Radio dial (May-Dec 1931)

RADIO DIAL. SATURDAY, MAY 23, 1931. ^?* Weekly RADIO DIAL Writing a Radio Fan Letter Published every Thursday by the Radio Dial Publishing Co., 22 East 12th St., Cincinnati, Ohio. Contents copyrighted. VOL. I MAY 23, 1931 NO. 1 ". . . 8:00 p.m. dialogue (N) 9:00 p.m. talk (C) 10:00 p.m. dialogue (N) 11:00 p.m. talk (F). . ." RADIO is the cheapest and best entertainment offered to you today. Even the gentlest and laziest mortal can get more variety in his own home by twisting one little dial than Caesar ever got with hi; armies or Cleopatra ever captured with her graces. Do you want to know what's doing on the air to night ... or what feature is being broadcast at any hour next week? Do you want the opportunity to hear majestic, sweeping symphonies, or breathless news events that are just happening, or snappy orchestras? If so, we hope you will allow Radio Dial the privilege of telling you each week the complete official programs of Cincinnati and vicinity radio stations. And, of course, all the features of the big chains will be included as well. Bless your heart, you don't have to read Radio Dial. There are plenty ways to select the program you want to hear without resorting to our complete official guide. But, as a reasonable person interested in getting the most for your money for the least bother, we do believe Radio Dial will fill the bill. Make it a point to read the next few issues. They will materially increase the pleasure of your evenings. We hope to count on you as a friend. You can meet us next Thursday at most any good news stand. I VIRGINIA GARDINER Miss Gardiner never thought of acting until she turned to radio. She was a concert singer. She has a half-doxen different speaking voices, however, which counts more with the radio audience than her pretty teeth and dimples. She played with Empire Builders last year. Now you hear her in the Cuckoo Club, Colliers' Hour, and many other NBC dramas. WROTE a letter to a radio station and I've never heard a word from them since." In one mighty wail that disappointed cry goes up to the gods of Etheria and Kilocycha from enthusiastic radio fans who never will write another radio letter because their first attempt at epistolatory applause didn't produce results either in the form of the autograph of a favorite entertainer, or a package of Grandma-Finklebarber's-Fairite-Wart-Cure sent free on receipt of a postal card or letter to the radio station to which you are now listening. 'What's the big idea?" these disgruntled pen scratchers ask each other. "These radio stations are alwavs suggesting that we write letters, and then they never pay any attention to the mail." As one who has seen 50,000 or more letters arrive at WLW every week, with twice that many when a sponsor is offering a radio gift that sounds like a gold brick, I have picked Up a great many useful tips on how to write and how not to write a radio letter. I know how many of those 50,000 or more letter^ never reach their destination. T know how many of them have to be returned to their senders marked "No such person," or "Opened by Mistake." And I know how manv have to he sen' to the Dead Letter Office because neither envelope nor letter carried any return address. Believe me when I say that these orphan letters are one of the chief worries of the harried directors of radio stations. They don't cast your letters lightly aside without making every effort to see that they are delivered or answered. I have seen thousands of letters addressed to someone unknown to WLW but sent in its care. I have seen these envelopes taken the rounds of all the office force of the station in the hope that some one may have seen correspondence mentioning the addressee. I have seen the members of staff orchestras questioned as to possible acquaintance with the one sought for. I have seen the search continue until all the orchestra members of all the orchestras playing at down town hotels have been questioned. T have even talked in my sleep about these undeliverable letters for I've heard people "crab" when they've written letters to radio stations and have been an By Natalie Gidpings swered with the silence of the grave, Unless your radio fan letter is addressed to a specific individual and is marked "personal," it probably will be opened directly when it reaches the mail receiving desk. Here it will be read hastily to see what it is about. If it is a letter requesting one of the hundred and one articles being given away by radio advertisers, it will be Tiut in the mail box of the sponsor whose program is mentioned. MORTON DOWNEY Morton Downey's high tern is so sweet that CBS features him as competition .to Amos n Andy at 7 p. m,, four nights a week. Like Rudy Valle he's a busy boy, forever dashing about from one job to the next. He directs the Hotel Delmonic orchestra, sings at the Paramount, broadcasts and writes songs — "Wabash Moon" et al. Ex-Pug Is Announcer. Time was when CBS announcer Harry von Zell earned his living with his fists instead of with his vocal chords. At eighteen Harry was a promising lightweight in boxing circles on the Pacific Coast. He fought five bouts, won four, and then decided that there were easier ways of making a living. Nifty. After one of his recent Tues day evening programs over the Columbia network, Richy Craig. Jr., the Blue Ribbon Malt Jester, was discussing the country club where he had been a golfing guest that morning. "Ritzy said the Jester, "I'll say it's a ritzy club. Why, they have swivel chairs in the dining room just so the members can turn their hacks on one another !" Over-Overstuffed. Then there's the problem of George Beuchler's new overstuffed club chair. When truckmen found the chair too bulky to be carried through the halls of the announcer's apartment house, they hoisted it by block and tackle and swung it into the apartment of Bert McMurtrie, CBS production man. Windows, which had to be removed in order to admit the chair, were then replaced, and the truckmen attempted to carry the chair from McMurtrie's That's where the first difficulty arises. Too many fan letters mention too many programs, and can't be sent directly to a single sponsor, but must be recopied so that it can be sent to each one mentioned. Let this be your first rule for a radio letter then : Mention only one Radio Program in a single letter. Here's the reason for this cardinal principle : Simnose you write a letter to your favorite announcer who happens to be Ted Husing. "Dear Mr. Husing," you say, "I have been listening to you for several years and I certainly think you are the best announcer on the air. I would like to have one of Peggy Winthrop's radiosurprise packages. I am also enclosing four labels from Libby Pineapple cans and I would like to have one of the Hawaiian seed bead necklaces they are giving away. I certainly shall be looking forward to hearing you announce the Atwater Kent hour next Sunday. I would also like to have one of the pictures Arthur Chandler, Jr., is giving away, for I always listen to his organ programs." You'd send that letter addressed to Station WLW to begin with. You have addressed the salutation to Ted Husing, Columbia announcer whom you have heard. You mention Peggy Winthrop's program, and the Libby program which are NBC features that WLW broadcasts. At first reading, it looks as if your letter mentions only NBC programs and an announcer, so the mail opener at WLW probably would toss your letter into the NBC letter box to be sent on to New York City where the NBC mailing department can bother about sending a copy to someone, and the advertising agencies that handle the Libby, McNeill and Libby, the Peggy Winthrop, and the Atwater Kent programs. But what about that picture of Arthur Chandler, Jr., that you want? He's a WLW staff member. When your letter gets to the National Broadcasting Company, they will think that the Chandler request already has been taken care of, and they'll not worry about it. All the same, you won't get your picture of Chandler and you'll ever after nurse a grudge against him because you think he's ignored your letter. From your first rule comes this second one: Address your letter to the person or program for which you intend it. In that typical letter I showed you above, each program sponsor and each entertainer should have had his individual letter. Husing and Chandler should have been iddressed personally. Each program sponsor should have been addressed in care of WLW or the National Broadcasting Company either by the name of the program or the name of the company paying for the broadcast. Don't tell me you can't tell who sponsors the programs, sponsors aren't that modest. Never ask a radio announcer or entertainer to deliver a message for you. That's the third rule to guide your radio letter writing. Be sure of this. If a radio announcer gets a compliment from you in a letter, he cherishes that letter like a lock of baby's hair. You can include in that letter a message to a brother announcer that his long-lost uncle has died in Tibet, willing him a half interest in the New York Stock Exhange, and the one who got the letter first never will tell him. The only chance the heir has of finding out about his legacy will apartment into Beuchler's. But the chair was too large to go through the doors. And by that time the block and tackle had been hauled down. The movers left matters there. McMurtrie has the chair and Beuchler has the satisfaction of knowing that he owns it. Baffling Every Sunday evening at 9 :00 o'clock there is another in the [ series of Scotland Yard Detective Dramas broadcast from the ( studios of WFBE. Young aspir-, ing thespians prominent in| Greater Cincinnati dramatic cir-i cles are cast in these productions.!