Radio showmanship (Jan-Dec 1944)

^hat is radio goitig to do after the xoar? Radio is going to D^ISTRIBUTE as it has never distributed before. To distribute what? To distribute the product it Jias ahuays distributed: IDEAS. Ideas about goods and services, as usual. More sensible, more plausible ideas, because radio techniques have improved during the war. And radio will talk about more different products and better products too, for the number of improved goods and services which will slowly and steadily emerge from the war are incalculable. s ervice . . . As Usual by PAUL HOIUSJER, oke presiderM, Co\i\mb\a Broadcast'mq Si^stem DL'T beyond the dislribiilion ol ideas al)oiit goods and sei\'ices, radio can teach and clarify the basic idea of the interdependence of the national economy; the fact that without wages there won't be money to buy goods, without jobs there won't be wages, and without all-out buying there won't be receipts to pay wages oi' needs for goods-made. Making that simple economic-circle clear to all the people is a man-si/ed job. It is a task long o\erdue. The sooner in(hisir\ and laboi (ombine to teach that simple arithmetic on the ail, with the conviction radio offers, the more certainly they insure their nation against post-war panic and its cancerous cleavage of classes. Radio has found new (eduiicjiies of simple, graphic, memoiable, emotional exj)osilio)i which irarrsccncl any previously known. Radio, if professional educators reali/e it. can put glass walls on their schools and (ollcges and nni\'ersilies and lei ihc nation and the world in on ihcii (loisuicd sec ids. Radio already draws clunch audiences ol huge proportions; some day the men of Cod will real ize that, and they will master radio's technique as David mastered the sling-shot. If radio can (as it does today) beam simidtaneously identical woids in both Spanish and Portuguese describing music to both Mexico and Brazil, radio is ready to beam the similar or divergent ideas of a Chinese and a farmer from Honeyl^rook, each in his own tongue, and to enrich the ideas which are similar, and to compose those ideas which diverge. If radio can (as it does any Sunday morning) transport the population of America into a fishing \ illage in Cornwall, or transport the population of Britain into Mason City, Iowa, to hear some 6,000 army turkeys being fed. radio is ready to try broader and even more specific jobs of hinclling all the barriers the selfish isolationist in any nation has ever set up. Radio is not alone in aiming toAvards far broader post-war residts. Motion pictures are discxnering new educational as well as emotional demands and technicjues, and the pictorial and graphic arts may well bring new vigor to radio, as the arrival of sound brought new vigor to the screen. The ageold marketing practice of trial-anderror operates in radio with peculiar efficiency: the acceptable is swiftly tried oiu, heard, judged, and becomes a regtdar part of an expressed waiu of the peoj)le; the luiacceptable is rejected as instantly, and there is not e\en a cinder of waste left to mark the failure. rile steadx rise of .\merican radio to its t()da\-i)oint has been such a clexc'lopmeiU, such a ce)nt inning projection of successful trials wholly inulerwritten by the 1 isk-insiinc t and incinable scicntilie cnriositN of private enterprise, iurtlui noinial and rai)id progress in radio can be expected only so long as it heli)s and i)leases the :;ii,.'^)()0,000 families who depend on ladio four houis a daw 188 RADIO SHOWMANSHIP