Variety (December 1943)

Wednesday, December 8, 1943 . P&RIETY RADIO 33 Trammell vs. Radio Control Continued Irora page 29 means work for engineers, architects and artisans, work for lumber mills, textile mills and'other manufacturers —more musicians will be needed, more performers required, more writers, more salesmen and more employment generally will result. These are some of the far reaching potentialities that must be consid- ered in the revision of the radio law. 'Congress must determine.' he con- tinued, -whether the radio industry is to. flourish under a free enterprise system or become a weak and sub- servient tool Of the Government. The questions that arise in these re- spects bear upon the fundamental 1 cannot understand why he would want to place the regulations into statutory form where it would be more difficult to chan_e them than if this discretion is left with the Commission. "Mr. Paley now expresses the be- lief that the recent Supreme Court decision has given.the FCC power to regulate program content and thus abrogate free speech. Mr. Paley, Neville Miller, my colleague, Com- missioner Craven, and others who criticize the Supreme Court opinion as conferring upon the FCC power to determine the content of radio programs apparently assume that philosophy of radio legislation in du- the words 'content' and composition' mean the same thing. They use them termitiing whether radio will creep or will be allowed to walk in post- war development. ■For example,' Trammell added, 'present FCC regulations have al- ready imposed a strait-jacket on the creation of television networks by prohibiting the ownership of more llian three television stations by any one company. Ownership and oper- ation of key stations by networks will be as important, in this new interchangeably 'So far as I know,, no one at FCC, and certainly no member of the Commission itself, wants, or thinks the Commission should have, the power to censor radio programs.' WAEC, Inc., Files ' Albany, Dec. 7. WARC, Inc., has filed papers to service as they are now iti standard operate a broadcasting company with broadcasting. These key stations offices in New York. Directors arc will be needed to create the net-1 s. W. Townsend, Richard \V\ Hogue works' program service and to pro vide the economic basis to meet the tremendous development costs. It is clear that such an enterprise cannot be self-sustaining until millions of television receivers have been sold. Saying that the radio industry stands about where Alms stood 20 years ago when sound first was in tibduced to the screen, Trammell was enthusiastic about the prospects for broadcasting but tempered his buoyancy with the- warning that Government actions -with respect'-to legislation might very well shackle the industry and impede progress for many years. FM Inventor Testifies At Monday's (6) session of the committee considering the White Wheeler bill FM was discussed by.lts inventor, Dr. Edwin H. Armstrong, prof of electrical engineering at Co lumbia U, who predicted his static- free system would be 'the major development in the radio art with television coming along later.' He admitted when questioned by Sen. Burton K. Wheeler, co-author of the bill under consideration, that the FCC gave FM its 'biggest boost' from 1940 on. , Armstrong likewise declared he would have made better progress in getting additional FM wave lengths if 'RCA would have said that I was correct.' . Paley Testimony Hit An attack on William Paley's tes timony before, the Senate committee was featured in the statement made before the committee Friday (3) and Saturday by Ray C. Wakefield, Re- publican FCC Commisioner. 'I would like to talk about the chain regulations ' which seem al- ready lo have come in for an honor- able mention here and there,' he said. 'It is not my contention that they are letter perfect. It is my contention that they provide a sound basis for effective regulation of the industry, subject to whatever changes may prove desirable after experience with them. In addition they, enhance, rather than endanger, the great constitutional guaranty of free speech. 'Mr. Paley's testimony ran some thing like this: First, the regulations themselves were bad. Thus, he says, 'We think, despite the amendments, that the regulations are unsound and destructive.' Yet, he must admit the regulations have been a certainty now since last May and CBS con tinues - to make more money than ever before, and that network busi ncss continues to grow, even since last May. It is also interesting to note that this 'destruction' story is not the same story that Mr. Paley's company' hands its advertisers. 'In a booklet of questions and an ' swers on the. new regulations, CBS tells all advertisers that the rules do not jeopardize their network pro- grams; that they do not cut loose the slatibns.from the network; that they expect no greater rate of turnover of station affiliations; and that the Columbia Broadcasting System def- initely intends to continue its broad | program policy. No Corpus Delicti 'So Mr. Paley's first point is that I the regulations are destructive al- though he did not produce the corpus delicti. Next, he says: If you must have the regulations, then let | ■Congress write them into the statute. If It is true that they are destructive, and Marjoiie Clipp. Hughes, Hubbard and Ewing, Y., were filing attorneys. N M'MiUin to Coast On 'Sardi/ 'Mystery' Shows John McMillin, vice-president of the Compton . agency in charge of radio, leaves Monday (13) for the Coast, to be gone several weeks. He'll confer on the . agency's 'Breakfast at Sardi's' and 'I Love a Mystery' shows originating there, and will look around for available new programs. 'Nero Wolfe' Vice 'Gun' For Elgin Watch on Blue Chicago, Dec. 7. 'Nero Wolfe.' half-hour detective thriller sponsored by the Elgin Watch Co.. hits the airways Jan. 21, 6-6:30 (.CWT) over the Blue Net- work. Show replaces 'Man Behind the Gun,''which will be dropped after the. Dec. 25 broadcast. Biggar, Bentley Back George Biggar, program director of WLW, Cincinnati, and Julian Bentley, news head of WLS, Chicago, have returned from a short visit to England as guests of BBC. James D. Shouse, radio vice-pres- ident of Crosley Corp., Cincinnati, who went to England with them, has not yet returned. Ousted FCC Trio File U.S. Claim In Move to Recover Back Pay Washington, Dec. 7. The Watson-Dodd-Lovett case, which loomed big in the news last July, went into headlines again on Friday 13) when the men sued in the U. S. Court of Claims for back sal- ary; charging that Congress had un- constitutionally deprived them of their jobs. Goodwin B: Watson was chief of the analysis division. Foreign Broad- cast Intelligence Service of FCC, at $6,500 a year. William E. Dodd, son of the former Ambassador to Ger- many, was assistant news editor of FCC, at $3,200,. and Robert Morss Lovett was assistant to the Governor of the Virgin Islands, at $4,000. The trio was charged with belong- ing to 'subversive' organizations by the Dies Committee and later by a special House committee set up specifically to check the Dies charges. As a result, Congress fixed a rider to a deficiency appropriations bill which stated that they had to be discharged from Federal payrolls by Nov. 15 un- less they were renominated by the President and their nominations con- firmed by the Senate in the mean- time. The President signed the bill, since the appropriations were needed for payroll purposes, but he de- nounced the rider as imconstiiu-: tional and based on a bill of at- tainder, since the men did not have an open trial of the charges. Before- reluctantly going along, the Senate had earlier made similar charges against the House findings. The men were all permitted to re- main at work for an extra week past Nov. 15 to give them grounds for the suit that they were being de- prived of their salaries by the Gov- ernment. RCA CUTS COMMON, PREFERRED MELONS Radio Corp. of America declared its first dividend on the common for the year when the directorate met . last week-, although the 20c mclon- cull-ing actually will not be paid until Jan. 20. It goes to all share- holders on record next Dec. 17. RCA also declared the usual 871-4o. quarterly divvy on the first pre- ferred, covering the quarter ending next Dec. 31. This dividend is pay- able next Jan. 1 to stockholders on record Dec. 13. The 20c common divvy is the only one declared during 1943. COVERAGE...fa BUT LOOK AT THAT FIT! No... .YOU wouldn't buy a coat that fits like this one! And »0 it is with radio ... you don't buy a station that, gives you coverage you don't need . . . and you don't buy t station that doesn't completely cover a market. You want a station with coverage that fits! Without paying for excess coverage that trickles over into other miscellaneous markets in which you are not interested, or overlaps other radio stations on your list! Concentrated coverage, saturation oj the nation's 6th largest market, is yours jor the asking. In Baltimore, the station that does just that is WFBR, with a signal that is strong enough and clear enough to reach into the homes of over a million people that live in th? city that is the six largest in the country. RADIO STATION WFBR. A IT I MORI NATIONAL ■IPBISlNTATI v Ei JOHN ilAli A CO.