Radio and television today (Jan-Dec 1940)

APR 18 19^0 ©C1B 4 5175 KEEP GOVERNMENT OUT OF RADIO MERCHANDISING ! EDITOR, Orestes H. Caldwell; PUBLISHER, M. Clements; Managing Editor, Darrell Bartee; Merchandising Editor, H. L. M. Capron; STAFF, N. McAllister, G. H. Mayorga, William E. 'Moulic, M. H. Newton, R. A. Neubauer, J. A. Samborn, B. V. Spinetta. R. Y. Fitzpatrick, 201 N. Wells St., Chicago, III.; CALDWELL-CLEMENTS, INC., 480 Lexington Ave., NEW YORK, N. Y. Telephone PLaza 3-1340 Copyright 1940. Member Audit Bureau Circulations. Vol. 6, No. 4. April, 1940 Every man in the radio business will be stunned at the full implications of the new government policy by which the FCC chairman presumes to dictate how and when radio merchandise shall be sold — and even addresses the public with advice not to huy radio products which lack his approval! Of course, as everyone knows, there is today a patent struggle involved at Washington. At this time, the radio industry's engineers cannot agree on uniform recommendations for future operations. With the radio industry thus divided, government officials have seized the opportunity for an outrageous assumption of authority to meddle into merchandising— an attack that concerns the future of every manufacturer, every distributor, every dealer and every serviceman. USE AIR TO BLOCK SALES If such a policy is persisted in, we may see the FCC demanding further air-time from its helpless broadcast licensees, to publicly interfere with the merchandising of radio receiving sets, combination-phonographs, and other associated products. Servicemen may hear a Washington voice coming over sets they have just fixed, advising Mi's. Jones against purchasing the very tubes they have just installed. Dealers making receiver demonstrations may suddenly hear bureaucrats counselling their customers to buy no push-button sets or no FM sets, because "still newer things are ahead" in the bright future of radio. Or, the capricious and political-minded Commission, today officially approving FM, may 30 days later be cautioning the public against the new system because it will obsolete 45 million existing receivers! SPEECH HURT RADIO Already such FCC interference with the radio trade's normal flow of merchandise has begun. On April 2, the new FCC chairman (with experience in radio limited to only a few months), did the whole radio business a disservice when, amazingly, he demanded and got a 125-station hookup to talk nationally on television in a way that will hurt radioconsole sales the country over, for months to come. As we go to press, reports from all parts of the country show an immediate slowing up of radio receiver sales following the Fly television outburst, which should have been confined to the metropolitan television area. Jobbers, dealers and the public all over the nation were given premature notice for the first time that "television is now ready to go forward," as the chairman put it. BUREAUCRATS BORING IN Yet, conversely, in the television areas where such promotion would have been pertinent, the Commissioner ordered television advertising and selling stopped. This was done on pain of license modification, the "Papaspank" threat that hangs over every broadcaster and transmitter licensee! The FCC was created to serve as traffic cop of the wavelengths only. There it is needed and is unquestionably boss! But when its autocratic arm reaches over into the homes and stores and service-benches of America and attempts to order or advise what shall be purchased and what shall not, it is time the whole radio industry and trade united to shut bureaucracy out of our end of radio ! THE BIG ISSUE Every dealer and every distributor should clearly understand that the issue now involved is no longer television alone, but the sale of radio sets and supplies — your business ! The trade must realize that government through this approach, is creeping in on the $400,000,000 radio business itself, from which 200,000 families derive their support. So the whole radio industry, whatever its temporary internal differences of opinion, must keep alert to the greater danger that besets each individual business through government meddling. It is time for all radio interests to unite in demanding that in the merchandising of radio the government keep Hands Off! APRIL. 1940