Radio today (Sept 1935-Dec 1936)

If dealers need an extra crop of outside salesmen, -whose contacts already have a direct and personal quality, filling station men may fit in perfectly. Together they fall There is certainly some question about how effectively organized groups of dealers can keep the filling stations out of the radio business. In large groups, they can tell their jobbers what to do, but what about radio manufacturers whose set-up is such that they have no responsibility at all to such groups. Point is that if the filling stations really want "into radio" they can get in. No amount of organized squawking to the jobbers of leading brands will make any difference. The outfit is dynamite, any way you look at it. Hour is late If radio dealers get together on a general outlet clean-up, which perhaps they should to avoid the fatal direction of things, they will be faced with the fact that it's rather late. Some distributors have refused to sell to off-color outlets just to invite the OK of legitimate radio dealers. Then other manufacturers stepped in and sold the outlets. Dealers did positively nothing about it, and the thoughtful jobbers got no credit, no loyalty whatever. Organized groups of radio dealers will discover, too, that a certain per cent of their own members could not be classed as "legitimate." Their ruthless price-cutting tactics mark them as more foul and unfortunate, declare the gas men, than any filling station could ever be. ON A BANNER ABOVE US * Radio Today has not needed a slogan, but it happens that we came across one which would do very well. We suppose that some two dozen concerns will recognize traces of their motto-art, but that's OK with us. (If there's room), here's our personal ballyhoo : "Only Radio Today Has It; The Magazine of Tomorrow — Today; Always a Tear Ahead; America's Most Copied Publication; Sound Editorially; Put Rhythm In Tour Reading; Win In A Walk With Radio Today; Since Broadcasting Began; All on the Air in a Column Square; Recreates The Industry In Tour Store ; Watch RT in 1937; The Editorial Instrument of Quality; Step With Eadio Today!; Radio Headquarters; There's Nothing Finer Than a Radio Today." WHAT AILS THE TUBE BIZ? — dealers name the snags in today's market — type-weary servicemen suggest changes • ALL-AMERICAN squawk about the condition of the tube business is not without its real ideas for prompt improvement. A survey just made by Radio Today, cooperating with E. T. Howard Company, gave dealers and servicemen in all corners of the country a chance to speak up. Major headache, they said, had to do with price-cutting and the manufacture of too many types. And they had some advice for the trade — suggestions that take form only after you've faced the public for a number of years across the tube counter. Collected advice started off with an old refrain: Sell the public on the idea that only by having good tubes in their radios can they take full advantage of all the fine programs that are being given. 'rice tangle Maintain price. Allow no department store cut-price sales. Send circulars, stickers and mailing cards. Build advertising and dwell on the fact that tubes are the heart of a radio set. Sell good tubes as well as give good helpful service. Run a small advertisement occasionally in local newspapers with dealer tie-in. Quit price cutting and raise prices in general. Control prices and render service — public now able to buy the tubes at price I pay. Develop a tube that holds initial efficiency longer, and then goes quickly to a cut-off point. Accent window trimming, cards, etc. Offer more advertising material and sales helps. Sell only to legitimate accounts — any one can buy at dealers' discounts. Demand for price stabilization is repeatedly re-stated among the recommendations from the field. This and other ways in which the leaders may help continue in the dealers' own words : By maintaining compulsory list prices. Building the tube whereby we have the least come back — eliminating noises in tubes, and liberal replacements. Assist in purchasing tube testing equipment. Use best tubes with trade name and break others instead of creating market for cheap tubes through chain stores. Cut prices should be avoided. Keep tube testers up to date or furnish new ones at low cost. Provide price cards. Continual radio announcements and advertising. By continuing to make a good tube and not sacrifice quality for price. Manufacture the best tube possible — provide a chart showing the location and type of tube in all radio sets manufactured. Give us some real post-card type ads, imprinted and ready to mail except for names and addresses, so we can keep plugging at our own customers with high-grade and goodlooking ads. Provide selling helps and competent tube testers that can be used and priced reasonable. Guarantee tubes longer. We are charged with the time they are in sets before we get them. By consignment of at least the more expensive and slow selling numbers, so that we always have the tube the customer asks for. TELEVISION ANNOUNCER! When RCA put on its first television shows, this month, it initiated this pleasant new type of announcer. November, 1936 17