Sponsor (Nov 1947-Oct 1948)

FM TAKES ITS PLACE (Continued from page 95) invented method of transmission and reception which the consumer recognizes and appreciates most readily. While FM as a better form of broadcasting has had a continuously difficult existence, three by-products have been developed during the past year which can be of major imp<jrtance to advertisers. These are transitradio, storecasting, and commercial FAX. All of these three forms of broadcast advertising are relatively new. transitradio (the reception of news, advertising, and music on street cars and buses) is possible only because FM stations can transmit programs without the static normally developed by street cars and bus motors. Tests have proved that riders on buses and streetcars enjoy the specially-programed entertainment, just as automobile riders enjoy radios in their cars. With a transitradio tie-up FM stations deliver not only the home radio FM audience but thousands of people who use the transit systems in the towns served by the FM station. The idea started in Cincinnati with Hulbert Taft, Jr., of WCTS (FM affiliate of WKRC), who made tests in conjunction with the Cincinnati transit system. In the Queen City area, transitradio has gone beyond the trial stage and contracts have been signed between the stations and the transit companies. Similar plans for Baltimore, Washington, and Wilkes-Barre (there are Taft interests in this Pennsylvania town also) are well under way and FM should be serving the traveling audiences in these territories shortly. What happens in these four trail-blazing towns will determine the future of this new form of broadcast advertising. Ever>' survey of the riders on broadcasting in buses and streetcars indicates that over 80% like it. Storecasting during its early stages has been operated almost entirely over telephone lines. Philadelphia and New England storecasts have not only been successful for advertisers but have increased sales in the giant markets by as much as 209( . The linking of stores to a studio by land lines is expensive. The special programing which has to be transmitted over the lines further runs up costs. Distances between stores has frequent 1> made it uneconomical to include certain giant markets. Transmission of program material to the stores by FM stations instead of land lines has been the answer to this barrier of cost. Stanley Joseloff, head of Storecast Corporation of America, was the first to sign up a big grocery chain, the National Tea Company of Chicago, for FM-transmitted storecasting service. FM station WEHS will transmit the programs in Chicago. As in the case of servicing transit riders, FM storecasting delivers to advertisers a group of listeners thus far not delivered by any other broadcast facility. Third unique facet of FM broadcasting, FAX, received its commercial green light in June. Until standards* were set it was impossible to manufacture receiv ing equipment which could be placed upon sale to the consumer. Now with standards decided upon and commercial operation okayed, sets are being rushed by manufacturers and will be available in limited quantities this fall. The standards set are roughly those under which most FAX transmitters and receivers have been operating experimentally and this fact will speed up commercial operation materially. • ♦ • *Ttierr n^re gnnie FAX prnp .ncnln it/ui uvinUd the tizf of Ifw prifitrd page received in the home ■'V./ instead of Ih^ H ■: uUirh 'he FCC ..knved This Isn't a Political Question, But . . . What Is the Tie-up Between Washington D. C. and Kansas City, Mo.? / \ Wfiy it's KOZY (FM) and WASH (FM), the two FM stations that are Really Producing Results for Their Advertisers. If you want to TEST FM Sales Impact try both of these stations in two of the Nation's BEST MARKETS. Kozy WASH KANSAS CITY, MO. Robert WolFskill, Msr. WASHINGTON D. C. Hudson Eldridge, Mgr. "Villard Stations" 98 SPONSOR