Variety radio directory (1939)

FEDERAL RADIO REGULATION— Continued merce, the licensing authority under the Radio Act of 1912. Broadcasting, as an agency of mass-communication, touches most of the public so intimately, is so little understood on its technical side by the layman, and furnishes so tempting a vehicle for publicity, that it has ever been the easy prey of plausible theories, claims, and alarms. Because of differences of opinion as to the merits of radio regulation under the Radio Act of 1912 and distrust of the licensing authority on the part of certain Senators, enactment of an adequate statute was delayed two or three years beyond the date when it was imperatively needed. When, under the Radio Act of 1927, a five-man commission was appointed, the same differences and distrust led to confirmation by the Senate of only three of the five nominees and the failure by Congress to make any appropriations for the first year. Shortcomings on the part of the Commission in fulfilling the highly conflicting expectations of members of Congress led to virulent criticism on the floor of both Houses, severe inquisitions of members of the Commission by Congressional committees, and legislation in March, 1928, cutting the terms of the Commissioners to one year and prescribing a rigid and technically impossible standard for the geographical distribution of broadcast stations. The criticism, it must be conceded, was largely deserved since, during its first year, the Commission had done little more than temporize with pressing allocation problems and, in some respects, made matters worse rather than better. The onslaught was, however, repeated in March, 1929, when, after further severe inquisitions before Congressional committees and a filibuster which threatened to extinguish the Commission entirely, the terms of the members were cut to one year and the original jurisdiction of the Commission was limited to a 9-months' period expiring December 31, 1929. Yet, it was during this stormy period, the real equivalent of which has not yet been witnessed by the present Commission, that the standard broadcast allocation of November 11, 1928, was prepared and adopted by a bare majority, largely through the courage, expert technical knowledge and tireless energy of former Commissioner O. H. Caldwell,* assisted by Acting Chief Engineer J. H. Dellinger. This allocation was sufficiently sound to stand unaltered in its essential features for over 10 years and is now being only slightly revised to become the basis for allocation for all of North America. It was also during this period that the present allocation of the high-frequency (short-wave) portion of the radio spectrum from 1500 kc. to 30,000 kc, then newly opened to practical use, was devised by the Commission's Assistant Chief Engineer, T. A. M. Craven, now a member of the Federal Communications Commission. It, too, has not had to be greatly changed and, in substance, has become the basis for allocation in the entire Western Hemisphere and, to a large extent, in the entire world. The action of Congress at the end of 1929, placing the Commission on a permanent basis, was due in no small measure to recognition of these accomplishments. They stand as enduring monuments long after the timorous apprehensions of the minority of the Commission, and the resounding criticisms against the majority by outsiders have sunk into oblivion. During the next few years, further crucial situations developed from time to time but, until the past three years, did not rival the furor of the earlier * Who had been confirmed by the Senate in 1928 by a vote of 35 to 34 and who never could have been confirmed in 1929, when he retired from the Commission, urging on Congress that the Commission be relieved of its original jurisdiction as the licensing authority. 909