Radio doings (Dec 1930-Jun1932)

Page Twenty RADIO DOINGS December, 1930 KADI© MEWS FLASHES Movies Prepare for Television When television reaches the commercial stage, the movies may be transferred from the theatre to the home. Just now the film producers are strengthening their hold on the radio chains and marking time until visual broadcasting leaves the laboratory. An inter-change of stars between the radio and the screen has been disappointing to both the broadcasting and the motion picture industries, to say nothing of the public. Only occasionally has an entertainer been found with enough of a variety of talents to please both visual and auditory audiences. Even such outstanding radio stars as Rudy Vallee and Amos 'n Andy could hardly be called successes on the screen despite the large box office receipts of the first pictures, an interest bolstered by a desire of listeners to see the men they had been only hearing. Likewise there has been no movie actor or actress who has achieved any signal success on the air. The nearest approach has come from the ranks of the musical revue, which was in turn taken from the legitimate stage. Just as the talkies revolutionized the motion picture industry, so will visual broadcasting likely change the radio for the two will of necessity be linked. Radio Commissioner Harold A. Lafount realized the potentiality of the movies with regard to television when he said: '"It is only natural that the motion picture interests, with their vast reservoirs of talent, should be interested in television. The 'movies of the air,' for that is what television is destined to be, will require the acme of showmanship, and there is no group better qualified to supply than the motion picture producers." * * * Half of Stations Making Money Only half of the larger broadcasting stations are making profits, while the other half are losing money, according to a survey of 20 of the leading broadcasters by the Federal Radio Commission. All of those questioned operate on a cleared channel with 5,000 watts or more power. The average profit for ten of the stations was found to be $29,000 annually, while the losses of the other ten average $54,000 a year. The average investment in a 5000 watt station is $189,000, while the cost of installing a 50,000 watt transmitter is $250,000. Yet 26 stations have applied for such permission. Only 30 per cent of the programs carried over the 20 stations was paid for by advertising sponsors, the analysis showed, the other 70 per cent being free entertainment. The advertising rate per hour averages $310 for night broadcasts. The monthly income from advertising averages $21,500, while the aggregate total income is $23,500 for the same period. . Operating costs amount to about $22,000 a month. Of this $12,500 goes to talent, while the other employees get $6,400. With 5000 watts the average service area of a station is 35 miles, the survey revealed, and all applicants estimated that they could more than double this with the maximum power. These tabulations grew out of questions asked at the recent super-power hearings. Sees "Million Watt" Radio Stations The million watt broadcasting station is just ahead in the rapid development of powerful radio transmitters, O. H. Caldwell, former Radio Commissioner and now an editor of radio publications, predicted here this week in an address before the Institute of Radio Engineers at the Franklin Institute. "Already experimentation has been successfully carried out with 250,000 watts, and now a 400,000 watt experimental station is under construction," he said. 'And this is not the end. The next step ahead will be the million watt broadcaster — the 1000 kilowatt unit. "One thousand kilowatts or 1300 horsepower does not seem like a prodigious amount of power in ordinary everyday life. Among engineers today such power is quite commonplace. Soon, also the million watt broadcaster will be a regular thing. Already we have a single radio tube capable of delivering 200,000 watts; so it is not a far cry to grouping the necessary number of these to develop 1,000,000 watts." The former Radio Commissioner took a rap at the present Commission for "delays and dallies with the applications of 27 leading independent broadcasters seeking to increase their station powers even to 50 kilowatts in order to serve better the people in their regions. "The Commission apparently is collectively afraid to make up its mind about granting 50 kilowatt licenses, as the engineers all recommend, until it learns what the political masters in the Senate want it to do," he concluded. * * * Supreme Court to Rule Upon Ether Property Rights The question of "vested rights" in the ether is almost as old as the radio art itself. A case involving all the arguments pro and con will be heard by the United States Supreme Court in the week of December 1, the outcome of which will help determine future radio legislation. The eyes of the whole industry will be focused upon this hearing, the first involving this question to reach the high court. Should the Supreme Court decide that there is such a thing as "vested rights" in the air, the powers of the Federal Radio Commission would be curbed and the existing legislature would require re-writing. Station WCRW, operated by Clinton R. White, in the city of Chicago, is the broadcaster involved. The station was on the air before the law of 1927 was passed, and bases its claim to the wave length it then occupied upon this fact. WCRW argues that a radio broadcasting station established prior to the enactment of the Radio Act of 1927 acquired a property right, within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment, in the continued operation of the station with power sufficient to reach the territory it has served. The station further charges that if Congress has any authority over radio broadcasting, it is the power to regulate broadcasting as interstate commerce. Such authority must be exercised under constitutional limitations. The power to regulate does not include the power to destroy or confiscate private property. Depriving an owner of the use of his property (in this instance, the wave length) is a taking of that property as much as if the actual physical property were taken.