U. S. Radio (Jan-Dec 1961)

Robert Trout, veteran CBS newsman, is at the microphone at the network's Cape Canaveral headquarters. Dan Bloom (left), managing editor, CBS Radio News, was producer of the network's broadcast and project coordinator. the story no other way. Moreover, while radio and tv shared portions of the coverage, radio was the only medium that kept up with Commander Shepard's exploits once he was out of camera range. Typical of the plaudits handed to radio was this comment on the following morning by Jack Gould of the New York Times: "The occurrence of the flight in mid-morning brought radio very much into its own on networks and independent stations. With so many persons away from home at that hour, it was the older medium that brought the news probably to as many millions as tv." How was all this accomplished? Who were the personalities involved? The nature and extent of the broadcast coverage was such that the four national radio networks and three tv networks agreed to pool their facilities for the basic story. The job of coordinating and directing the pool effort was assigned to Roy Neal and Jim Kitchell of NBC, following a drawing of names. They worked with the crews of ABC, CBS, MBS and NBC. The coordinated radio coverage was fed simultaneously to all networks, but each was free to exercise its own individuality in the handling of the commentary and news presentation. Once the astronaut was in flight, Colonel John Powers, information director for Project Mercury and official spokesman for the National Aeronautics & Space Administration, provided listeners with audio-only bulletins every two minutes. Operating from Mercury Control, brain site of the entire space experiment at Cape Canaveral, Colonel Powers provided progress reports on Commander Shepard's journey into space. Radio was also present at the two key locations when the astronaut returned to earth. The first effort was spotted with one of the destroyers near the site where Commander Shepard was picked out of the water. Mutual correspondent Fred Vandeventer coordinated this portion of the radio coverage. The second location of radio's operation was Grand Bahama Island, where the astronaut was taken for preliminary examination. Charles Batchelder, also of Mutual, handled this pool assignment. All the pooled facilities were fed to a main switching center, a unique control facility that is the equivalent of an entire network master control room contained in two 35-foot trailers. The center was constructed specifically for the pooled coverage of Project Mercury and Eor similar presentation of developments in the future. The center was designed, according to assignment by the pool, by technical supervisor Warren Phillips of NBC, and was constructed by network engineering personnel using NBC equipment. Here's how the individual networks handled the presentation of the space story: ABC Radio's Arthur Van Horn was the network's radio anchorman at the site. The first special broadcast over ABC occurred at 10:22 a.m. EDT. The network then stayed with the story until the astronaut had successfully completed the space flight and had been picked up by the helicopter in the Caribbean and flown to the carrier U.S.S. Lake Cham plain. The network later interrupted its programing at about 11:48 a.m. EDT to carry various reports and comments regarding the successful flight and the physical condition of Commander Shepard. Several hours later in the afternoon, ABC kept up with the Project Mercury story and presented a recapitulation of the astronaut's flght and a tape recording of his arrival on the aircraft carrier. U. S. RADIO/June 1961 39