HEAD OFFICE, MONTREAL, JULY 1949

RADIO AND SOCIETY

FIOR a time after radio was born its sheer noveltywas enough to win and keep the attention oflisteners. People sat tied to their receivers by

the earphone cords, spellbound for no other reason,than that there was something to hear.

The number of listeners swelled to millions, and thenumber of broadcasting stations grew to thousands;the variety and pretensions of programmes spreadbeyond the bounds of our imagination. It is with thatdevelopment, its consequences and its prospects, thatthis Monthly Letter will deal.

Conflict has arisen in the radio field on many points,from the type of programme to the means of broad-casting. Some listeners are completely satisfied withradio as it is; others believe the structure to be unsound.

Then there is the producers’ side. How would you,the listener, like to be responsible for filling 18 hoursa day with a different show every 15 minutes? To gainan appreciation of the station’s difficulty, just writedown the titles or nature of 72 programmes -- oneevery quarter hour from 6 a.m. to 12 midnight, everyone fitted to the audience that will be listening at thatparticular time of day.

Control oJ Radio

Behind the programme worries is another: who is toown, operate, or control the stations? In Great Britainthe British Broadcasting Corporation operates undera Royal Charter which comes up for renewal every.fiveyears; in the United States the Federal CommunicauonsCommission reminds radio companies that they haveresponsibilities to the public as well as to their pro-gramme sponsors; in Canada, the operations of theCanadian Broadcasting Corporation come up annuallyfor review by a parliamentary committee.

Canada’s system is designed to overcome the prob-lems posed by great distances, a scattered population,two official languages, six of the world’s 24 timezones and an extra time division in Newfoundland.

Those who attempt a comparison of programmeshere and in the United States are comparing incom-parable things.

Consider the matter of cost. Our 131/6 million con-sumers compare poorly as prospects for advertiserswith the United States 140 million. This huge marketmakes possible the high salaries paid artists: ArthurGodfrey, the comedian, received $440,500 last year;Lowell Thomas, the commentator, $420,300 and TomHoward, comedian, $219,000. Place alongside thesethe fact that there are fewer than 100 persons in allwalks of life in Canada receiving incomes of $100,000or more.

The Canadian System

Canada’s capacity for compromise, so often com-mented upon in connection with her foreign affairs,evidenced itself when the original agreement on radiodivided Canada’s ether into spheres of influenceallocated to the CBC and local private commercialstations.

The networks and some stations are operated bythe CBC, with the result that radio is carried to partsof the country where commercial exploitation wouldnot be feasible; on the other hand, private stationsprovide variety and competition. The middle-of-the-road plan has been upheld by every successive Par-liamentary Committee on radio.

The principal argument of those opposed to publicoperation and control of broadcasting appears to bethat the CBC is in competition with private stationsand at the same time makes the rules of the competition.

A brief submitted by the Canadian Association ofBroadcasters last year asked for a board (perhapssimilar to the Board of Transport Commissioners)which would have power to grant and cancel licencesand regulate the licensees, including the CBC.The briefsuggested continuation of the CBC as a nationalbroadcasting system without power to regulate itscompetitors.

The Parliamentary Committee, after consideringthis brief, reported: "The functions of the two types ofradio service are different; one, the private stations,being designed to serve community interests, and theother, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, designed

to serve the whOle of Canada by chain broadcasting;and these two types of radio service should be com-plementary to each other."

Advertising

An expert on the subject has said that there is adirect conflict between the desires of the listeners andthe sponsors. The listeners, he says, are not interestedin advertising, while the sponsors are interested inentertainment only insofar as it attracts people to hearthe advertising message. This is only a part truth.People are alert for advertising, as was evidenced inthe case of a big Canadian newspaper whose circula-tion dropped alarmingly when a dispute with a depart-ment store led to withholding of the store’s advertise-ments.

The time given to advertising.is not, in fact, veryextensive. Canadian rules of the air say that the advert-ising content of any programme shall not exceed intime ten per cent of the programme period. In theoperating year 1947-48 the CBC networks carriedonly 17.7 per cent commercial programmes, comparedwim 82.3 per cent sustaining programmes.

If the criticism of radio advertising does not arisefrom the amount of it, then the cause must be sought inthe nature of it, and here, perhaps, is where commer-cial sponsors fail to get their money’s worth.

Many broadcasts are developed on the plan of theold time medicine show, using amusements and tricksto catch attention and then slipping in a sales talk.Others use a lot of money for a show that is up-to-date,full of charm and humour, written by experts andperformed by wonderful talent: but when it comes tothe commercial announcement they change their tech-nique. The sales message bears no relation to whatwent before or comes after. It fits into the show, in aphrase used in a New York Times article, "the way ariveting machine would fit into a symphony orchestra."

We may assume that advertisers would not contin-uously spend millions of dollars if the sometimesstupid and almost always unmusical ditties with sillywords supplied them by their writers did not attractpurchasers by the hundred thousand. But radio is notat its best in the face of such pathetic poverty ofimagination, coupled with such a low view of thepeople’s intelligence standard.

Still a Juvenile

Much criticism of radio, in both its advertising andprogramme aspects, leaves out of account the tolerancethat should be accorded its youth.

It is just half a century since the first radiogramcrossed the English Channel, and only 47 years smceMarconi selected Cape Breton for the first trans-Atlantic wireless station. Canada’s first broadcastingstation was set up in Montreal in September 1918 bythe Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company, with thecall letters XWA. That was just 31 years ago.

Yet radio has been saddled with one of the greatestresponsibilities ever assumed by any invention ofmankind. Taken at first for a curious toy, broadcasting

has become a vital force in the political, social,economic, religious, educational and cultural patternsof human life.

The gem of prose-poetry delivered by AbrahamLincoln at Gettysburg was heard by 15,000 persons.President Roosevelt’s "dagger-in-the-back" speech atCharlottesviUe produced a programme rating of 45.5,which means that about 21,000,000 radio sets weretuned in. No one can count the millions throughout theEmpire who listen on Christmas day to the King’sgreeting.

In Canada alone there are 2,870,000 radio homes,providing a potential listening audience of 11,335,000.These listeners are served by 115 privately ownedCanadian stations and 17 CBC stations. The domesticprogramme of the CBC alone costs $61~ million ayear. (The CBC’s funds are derived in this way:Licence fees $4,798,291; Commercial broadcasting$1,842, 558; Miscellaneous $95,914. These are figuresfor the 1947-48 year.)

Choice of Programmes

What do all these listeners want to hear, and whatdo the stations do to fill their needs?

Radio’s answer is the medley of programmes onegets by traversing the dial from end to end, supposedto provide satisfaction for any listener’s mood of themoment. There are more than 22,000 different prog-ramme offerings in the United States every day: 8million every year.

There is food for thought in the latest publishedreport of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.Musical programmes accounted for 56.6 per centof the year’s sustaining network programmes, with43.4 per cent devoted to spoken word programmes.The sub-division of these is interesting:

One of the great difficulties associated with a surveyof radio comes when we start asking "Is that what thepublic want?" and, still more provoking, "Is that whatthe public should have?"

In the first place there is no "public ’’m there aremany "publics." Some may like both symphonyorchestras and baseball games, but for the most partthese programmes appeal to different audiences.Critics say it is the duty of radio to turn one kind ofpublic into another kind of which they approve morehighly.

Broadcasters, on the other hand, think this is aresponsibility rather startling in its impllcations,

¯ ~ particularly since they are not nearly so sure as thecritics are of what the "public" should like.

Filling the Dial

Radio fills up every second of the broadcasting day.The British believe that an occasional intervalof silenceon the radio is no disgrace; in America the show mustgo on m and on R and on. This split-second timingbecomes a nuisance to discriminative listeners. A songis cut off in mid-stanza because the big studio clockannounces it is 7:59:40, and that leaves just time forthe station announcement before another song startson another programme at 8:00:00. Or the last bars ofa piece of music composed by a master and playedby a superb orchestra are faded out so that the stationname and the time may be announced--as if thelistener cared about either in the presence of suchmusic!

This is summer, and the same number of hours turnup every day to be filled to the brim with radio broad-casts.

Sure to turn up in the hot weather is a vocalist whowill rocket to radio fame with an inane verse about achoo-choo, an ill-rhymed quatrain about how "Shewasn’t at the dance Saturday", each set to a nurseryarrangement of four or five notes. There will be"Give-away" shows, too. Last year the four majorUnited States networks distributed a total of$4,297,557 worth of prizes. Singing mice, preachingparrots and syncopating coyotes; sneezing contestsfor hay fever sufferers and yowling tests for hog-callers m all these will bludgeon our ears.

But for every bad programme that’s been on the airfor years there are, according to Henry Morgan, theradio debunker of radio, five good ones that had to betaken off because nobody listened to them, or, if theydid, they didn’t write to the studio saying so.

News and Commentary

News reports get a high radio rating. Women seemto prefer hearing the news read to reading it for them.selves. But persons who have a deep interest in eventscontinue to read the newspaper because there theyget the whole story and not a fifty-word highlightversion.

The stream poured out in a fifteen minute newscastdiscourages a pulling-together of events from pasttime into a whole for contemplation, though as every-"one knows the past is needed to interpret the present.

How strong is the suggestive power of the radio hasbeen shown in several instances. The Orson Wellestid-bit about an invasion from Mars is well-remember-ed. It was repeated recently by a South Americanstation. Troops had to be mobilized to quell the mobthat marched out to meet the imaginary invaders. Whenit realized it had been hoaxed, the mob wrecked theradio building.

It is not only in deliberate hoax broadcasts that thepower of suggestion is seen: at the time of the NovaScotia mine cave-in which buried three eminent menalive for several days, a broadcaster played "NearerMy God to Thee" as a fill-in between news bulletins.It was after midnight, but almost instantly everylight on the switchboard went on, because listenersassociated the hymn with the Titanic, and assumed thatthere was news of the death of the buried men.

"Highbrow" Programmes

This suggestibility of radio audiences raises thethought that broadcasters might, by little and by little,lead listeners into appreciation of better than today’srun-of-mill programmes. As Mr. J. W. Barnes, whois chief instructor in radio arts at the Ryerson Instituteof Technology, said not long ago: "Give the peoplewhat they want to the extent that they’ll keep listeningwith interest; but slip in some things that they wouldn’timmediately choose to hear, in an effort to open newvistas of experience and enjoyment."

Response to the CBC pioneer effort in broadcastingHandel’s The Messiah and The St. Matthew Passion byBach demonstrated beyond doubt that there is aworthwhile number in Canada interested in suchthings. The CBC Opera Company won so high praisefrom listeners that another five operas will be present-ed next season. The Sunday night t*Stages"ofthe CBCwere five years old in January. During that time theypresented 169 different plays, of which 119 were neworiginal works. "Forgotten Footsteps", woven aroundCanadian historical episodes, won an immensenumber of complimentary letters.

Latest addition is "CBC Wednesday Night." This newventure in North American radio is designed to giveCanadian listeners programmes of unusual interest inthe realms of drama, music, talks and readings, withworks by Canadian composers high on the list. Anarticle in the New York Times gave this programmehigh praise, and remarked that it is attracting attentionof United States listeners.

Television

Television is the most dramatic of the wireless in-ventions. It adds motion to the pictorial content offacsimile, and vision to the immediacy and intimacyof sound broadcasting. Having extended his voice andhearing to the ends of the earth, man seems about tomake his eyesight all-embracing.

Announcement was made this spring that Canada isto have a television system of its own. Montreal andToronto will be the producing and transmittingcentres. Although this first effort is to be a CBCproject, financed by a loan of $4 million from thegovernment, independent stations are eligible forlicence and have been preparing for years.

Television shows are expensive. Of the 55 stationsoperating in the United States in spring, only 3 hadbroken even on the cost of operation, and these hadnot yet started to get back their capital outlay.

But there are great possibilities. Business men anddreamers alike agree on the large-screen programmeas a winner, when it comes. Theatres will be crowded,they say, with people watching events, transmittedinstantaneously from all parts of the world. Six WestEnd London theatres are being equipped. A NewJersey theatre has added a television lounge, where aprojector throws a clear picture six feet by eightfeet. In Canada, plans have been shaped for utilizinga system which involves the recording of the televisionimage on film. The picture can be picked out of theair, processed within 60 seconds, and screenedimmediately.

The Power oJ Radio

History is not only written in words, it is made withwords. Witnesses could be called readily from theranks of great and good men, but let us look first atwhat was said by a vicious man who nearly broughtour world down in ruins around us: "The power whichset sliding the greatest historical avalanches of poli-tical and religious nature was, from the beginning oftime, the magic force of the spoken word alone."That is Adolf Hitler, in Mein KampJ.

If evil men recognize the power in words, the goodthat can be done by words is also amply demonstrated.A competent leadership well expressed has oftenraised group thinking and actions to a high level.When Winston Churchill told the British people:"I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears andsweat," he aroused a seemingly defeated nation tofight on. That speech was one of the resources of theBritish Empire, along with its men, guns, planes andships.

One of the greatest benefits to mankind, and oneessential to democracy, is to teach people to think mwhich is the opposite of passive acceptance -- and toreason, which is far removed from being led supinelytoward someone else’s objective.

Perhaps another subject should be added to theschool curriculum: teach children to demand evidence.Teach them to ask their parents "Why?" When they aretold spinach is good for them and late nights bad.Teach them to challenge advertisers to say plump andplain how good their goods are, adding emotionalappeal if they like, but never omitting the basic truths.Teach them to challenge what they hear on the radioin the way of news, comment, analysis, and informa.tion: is it objective, or is it loaded?

Our Brains are Buzzing

Our brains are buzzing more than the brains of menever buzzed before, and the scale of events around ushas assumed a gigantic size. The buffer area betweenindividuals and between nations has shrunk, everyman feels called upon to react to the total environmentand to every incident that affects his neighbours at thefar side of the earth.

The radio enters this picture as an additional com-plicating force, because it distorts further ourpicture of the world by diminishing our opportunityto select and isolate the things to which we shall give

attention. We grow accustomed to the weirdest ofjuxtapositions: the serious and the trivial, the comicand the tragic. The idyllic report of a princess holiday-ing on Capri is followed in a split second by a twenty-word record of the fall of Shanghai. Here is a collapseof values, a fantasia of effects that resembles the debrisleft by a storm.

We do not blame radio for it all, because much ofour inability to comprehend is caused by failure of ourmental capacity to keep up with our physical progress,but we do, surely, need all the help radio can givetoward simplifying for us the chaos to which it, itself,contributes so much.

One way of assistance might be by placing emphasisupon the facts which underlie the problems of the day.Another effort might be directed toward raisingstandards of criticism and choice.

Shadows on the Wall

We are not discharging an undoubted responsibilityby adopting a scornful-eyed attitude. Educators whoorganize radio programmes have told us that there isnothing more difficult than to persuade people whoare fully qualified by background, education, exper-ience and standing in the community to speak cons-tructively on subjects which others, less qualified butmore vocal and energetic, are attacking destructively.

The radio is a tool one of man’s latest inventions.Just as the first tool, a digging stick, was so readilyconverted into a club with which to fight, so radio isin danger of being perverted from its possibly highpurpose.

This is not a time for watching and waiting in ivorytowers. A day may come when man can go back intosilence again and be no less great on that account;think more, bear his own company better, settle hisproblems more honestly and more wisely. But justnow he must make his contribution toward buildinga state of affairs in which such an existence will bepossible.

Everything that any man can do in managing radioor in using radio to clarify the thinking of people issuch a contribution.

We recall the celebrated figure of the cave given byPlato. There were prisoners in the cave, chained withtheir backs to the entrance so that they could not turnaround. Upon the wall before them were cast theshadows of persons and animals passing the mouth ofthe cave, lit in daytime by sunshine and at night by ahuge fire. All they knew of life was gathered from theflitting distorted shadows.

The function of educated, experienced people,surely, is to interpret the shadows if they cannot turnthe audience around. It could be one of the greatfunctions of radio to supply complete, accurate anduncoloured information about what is happening tocast the shadows upon the wall; to discriminatebetween what is a significant movement and what istrivial; to show that the distorted shadow world is notprecisely a reflection of the real world.

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