What's on the air (Nov 1929-Feb 1931)

WHAT'S ON THE AIR Page 39 pOrt5onthe£\iK February 7, 14, 21, 28 FRIDAY Zfy Joseph Ator IT comes cropping up almost every day — this question of sport promoters refusing broadcasting privileges to radio stations. Settled in one city or for one sport, it bobs up immediately somewhere else. The promoters naturally would drop all their objections, raised on the ground that broadcasting hurts gate receipts, if they could sell the broadcasting privileges. With the exception of the late Tex Rickard, who managed to auction off the rights at a couple of his last boxing spectacles, they have been almost uniformly unsuccessful in this. Radio fans can thank the newspapers and their connection with broadcasting for this. Fundamentally, the American public probably isn't any more sport-minded to-day than it was twenty years ago. But the ever-expanding sport pages have kidded it into thinking that it is, with an enormous increment of gravy to every one connected with sports, including a whole passel of "amateurs." So more than one promoter, about to order the non-paying microphones outside, has suddenly changed his mind when reminded of what a devil of a fix he would be in if the newspapers, which own some of those same mikes, should suddenly start charging him for all the hooey they print about his shows. The battle front is constantly changing. No sooner did WLW convince the management of the Cincinnati Reds that broadcasting would be a good thing in that town, than the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Tech denied broadcasting privileges at their football games to KDKA and other stations, to judge for themselves if putting the games on the air actually hurts the gate. Every other promoter in the city naturally became microphone shy. Paddy Harmon, arch-foe of broadcasting, is tossed out of the management of the Chi cago Stadium, and the next week Phil Ball, of St. Louis, goes down to the annual meeting of the big leagues and wants them to ban microphones from their ball parks. (Phil, by the way, sells the privilege in his.) CFCA at Toronto has solved the difficulty in the case of several recalcitrant promoters by putting on the broadcast, but withholding the advance announcement of it. WCAU, Philadelphia, was refused broadcasting privileges by college football teams, turned to the professional Frankfort Yellow jackets and was given credit for increasing their attendance. The University of North Carolina refused broadcasting on its football last fall, and alumni in distant cities were sore over the fact, reports WPTF, Raleigh, N. C. KYDL, Salt Lake City, won a boxing promoter over after he had omitted the broadcast of one of his shows as an experiment. KOA, Denver, has had a hard fight to broadcast college football, yet the biggest attendance in the history of the Rocky Mountain Conference was at a game last fall which was broadcast over the Denver station. It might be well at this point to look into the situation where broadcasts and sports are more or less under unified control — at those colleges which maintain radio stations. College professors may be visionary fellows, but the gents who run college sports can see a nickel as far as any one — witness the flapperlike dimensions of the hot dog for which you pay a dime or fifteen cents at the average football game. And the consensus at the colleges seems to be that broadcasting doesn't hurt, and often helps attendance* "The question was brought up, but the decision was in favor of broadcasting," writes WSUI, at the University of Iowa. "The athletic council decided broadcasting did not reduce attendance," reports Bucknell's station, • Black and Gold Room Orchestra © The Pepsodent Program (First is min.) 0 The Jameses Amos 'n' Andy. Comic sketch of American family life with © Dixies Circus Percy Hemus. Bob Sherwood, circus stories and novelty © Whyte's Orchestra (First 15 min.) Direction, Smith Ballew. Announcer, Marthin Provensen. Pauline Haggard (Last is min.) Contralto soloist and pianist. Announcer, band. Announcer, Ralph Freese. Milton J. Cross. g677 V 30 • 30 EASTERN TIME X M|X|X \ rVGR BUFFALO 1 N.Y. N D| DM 1 SVKBW BUFFALO 93 © © 1 © 1 *WMAKbUFFAL0 36 01© © VABC NEW YORK 32 rVEAF NEW YORK 12 0 © © o © iVJZ NEW YORK 22 N D o W D WHAM ROCHTER 61 "WHECrOCH'TER 90 X C D WGY SCHEN'DY25 o © © © *WFBL SYRACUSE 36 © WBT CHARL0T 54 N.C. 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