Attention, National Association of Broadcasters
Attention, National Association of Broadcasters ON March 7 the Federal Communications Commission scat oat a Ions; and interesting latter to oar broailiastlag stations. Its report, in fact, covers...
...Perhsps some of us never thought of that.' Nobody ever rapped at the door and presented a bill for ths Quia Kids or Lum an' Aimer, so an innocent citixen may get the notion that all the jokes, music, news and singing sales-talks are free...
...If the broadcasting companies would accept my idea, they would have more listeners snd make more money...
...I would deprive neither the FCC nor the broadcasters of suggestions which have been seething in my consciousness for years...
...This ia good news...
...Together we constitute a combination which ean draw about it practically all of the email powers of the world...
...Ia that constellation we shell if representing the principles for which the USA has stood from the beginning...
...The press has left Americans unprepared to weigh the evidence in such a campaign.' The general impression was encouraged in many quarters that the pet waa ealling the kettle black...
...I have two suggestions to make, but first I would like to put over a couple of suggestions concerning my right to testify on this subject...
...Now aupposa thst thsse six chaina make a mutually agreeable arrangement lack one agrees to give equal perioda of time to each classification and they ail agree to arrange pro-grama so that any one of the six sorts of entertainment may be enjoyed at any tune...
...But Station WNYC often gives us our only chance of making a choice...
...By that time the idea should hsve penetrated every circle of Americans thst the peoples of ths British Commonwealth of Nations are of our own sort...
...We ean draw lines and define issoea, We eon swing UNO for the principles' of the Atlantic Charter...
...We all-rgood taste or bad—psy our share of the costs...
...The Attics declaration that India can havs independsncs in or out of the British Empirs came at a dramatic moment On March 28 the UNO Security Council will meet in New York...
...We ate offered tana with slightly different labels but the contents have no variety...
...only a good Idea...
...Down with monotony and dullness) India, the Empire and UNO Prime minister clement attlee's declaration on India dramatiaee the basic issues and the whole flood of charges and counter-charges which now engage ths attention of the world...
...We want variety...
...I don't think the programs should be tailored to suit...
...It is unjust...
...The companies would have mors listeners and could charge higher pricea for their time...
...And it ia just about aa private aa steel or automobiles or oil or...
...Charges of these actions were not answered by denials or any evidence of Innocence bat by counter-charges against the British Empire...
...With these peoples we must take out stand...
...me or my friends or the folks who have my high-class tastes...
...And then suppose that each great city had its own station...
...s chance to develop varied programs to suit all tastes...
...A moment's meditation will serve to show him that, like everything 'esse, he pays far what ha gets...
...I lika practically any aort of thing if it Is fairly good of its kind...
...So far aa ton teeaaaaoaa of the business are concerned, it would be possible to hsve sit aorta of competition...
...It would be juat aa eaay to have six...
...Me for msny it was hut a stsp to the notion that the proper role for the United States la to serve as arbitrator between the pair of tyrannical and eppiaaaiie powers...
...Ws have a city-owned station, WNYC...
...Or the throe of them could divide ths time of one station...
...Their democracy is of a piece'with our own...
...Tats whole literary effort is aimed at checking "advertising excesses" and improving "the quality of program service...
...Too often, you can guess, the good people who would put on the programs would be dull—and dullness is the unforgivable sin...
...Radio ia for ths millions...
...It is becoming progressively clearer to Americans that the ussr stands for rigid control of individuals at home sad domination of helpless smaller states in an expanding "security sphere'' shout its borders...
...And they played...
...But there is one grest difference between life either in Britain or the United States, snd lifs in any country dominated by the USSR...
...The performers were a young man and a young woman from the faculty of one of our schools of music...
...But In moat areas the listeners have no real choice...
...after 'all...
...If during the house-keeping morning hours all the stations deluge ua with the domestic trials of Next-Dear Neighbor or during the evening moat at the stations simultaneously overwhelm as with gag-filled vaudeville, that la not competition...
...This business of selling worda that go out over* the air-wavee is vary much a "private" business...
...Now don't think that I am going to blow my horn for a government-owned system like that of Great Britain or Russia...
...This mav be...
...Now Uers mw many wave-lengths...
...The other afternoon when every other station in this great metropolis was filling the air with stuff for psychopaths, I turned to 81 on the dial, and there came over the air the music of a piano and a violin...
...Let ua make a simple classification of sorts of radio material...
...If Indis sleets for Independence,'' he said in the House of Commons on March 15, "in our view she has the right to do so...
...Congratulations may bs premature...
...And I believe in democracy...
...Very well...
...Is it for this that we nave fought all the wars and paid all the taxes ? What I am about to suggest is not exclusively in my own interest...
...We have, let ua say, six sorts of programs: classical music, popular music (including jazz, swing or whatever is ths most recent name it goea by), news and discussion, drama . (including soap), variety shows and six o'clock kid stuff...
...It is my hunch that the President's commission has little to do with the actual quality of programs...
...Good win* needs na bush, and over-grown bashes inspire nothing bat suspicion...
...One thing that the great companies never seem to learn is that you do not need great names or a hundred-piece orchestra or s howling hullabaloo about every perfumer or number...
...There has been little of it up to now...
...It is because we pay that we have a right to kick...
...All ehsrges have • tendency to stick...
...Or, anyway, enterprise...
...Here in New York we hardly appreciate our good fortune...
...Britain and the United States are the moat powerful champions of freedom of citixens st home and of small notions abroad...
...There is no limit to the concessions which they can make...
...Its report, in fact, covers all of 189 pages...
...So it is to the gentlemen of this sugust Association that I am really addressing myself, if by any happy chance any of them read The New Leader...
...The customers would get what they want...
...And thst should be the object of any directives sent out by the FCC...
...It is like the Russian one-party system...
...In view , of this situation, there is no longer any excuse for pretending that the British Labor Government is continuing the foreign policy of Tory imperialism The New Leader is fsr from spprov-ing of everything thst happens within ths British Empire...
...There is only one ticket...
...soap...
...Ths actions of ths Russian delegation st the London uno meeting were, characteristic The USSR had deprived a dozen nations of their independence and at the time of the London meeting had troops denuding Manchuria and marching into Iran...
...I look at the morning paper snd I see that, whether I like it or not, from 11 to 12 I am practically forced to listen to sosp opera...
...And the music was not smudged with tastelesa encomium...
...And if any limitations are to be placed on the sponsors, they must be set by the National Association of Broadcasters...
...The nature of radio is such that little sects or parsons with esoteric tastes cannot expect to be regularly catered to...
...In our country, there ia always the chance to make the wrong things right In Russia or any land governed by Russia, criticism is answered with death or prison...
...Ufa H«Vw Kami Compatltlo* So far aa this one business is concerned, I am all for competition and individual enterprise...
...What I would like ^o have in this coun--try is a broadcasting system thst would give all of ths great groups of citizens s chance to hear something thst they will like at practically any hour of the day or night...
...It la the only wop of avoiding war, end it is coa> slstont with our policy of building the UNO aa a world government...
...Jest aa the cesseeratie world stood divided before the Hitler threat, there is a tendency to divide it now before the danger of Red imperialism • • • AtTLEE'S statement threw a revealing...
...There would be...
...As long aa tea City Station is on the ah- you can turn to it and got ssmathtng sensible, decent or beautiful...
...Two artista were to play something from Brahms...
...If there arc millions who enjoy reading The Daily New, there must be more millions who think ths soap operas are just right...
...They were not introduced with breath-taking clamor—aa if they were circus performers...
...That is, all the big crowds have this right...
...But the fact that someone down there in Washington is concerned shout what comes in through the tubes which blow out every now snd then is .cheering ss the note of the first robin...
...This week, three nisuibeis of the English cabinet are in India negotiating with the native leaders...
...My point ia mot hare in New York WNYC gives the hag simasserial com-panics real CsmaaHUao...
...All the resources of the Soviet Govern-nsent and of the world-wide Communist movement have been massed to smear the democratic governments snd peoples and to confuse the issues...
...It is tyrannical...
...But the slow and uninteresting programs would soon peas out.' Here and there up-and-coming churchmen or educators or trade unionists would lesrn how to put their stuff over...
...Many who are not at all in sympathy with Russian "expansionism" are inclined to feel that there is not much to choose between that and British "imperialism...
...Ws have four great chaina which cover the country...
...I am the broadest-minded fellow in ths world...
...It gives ammunition to every hitter Angiophobs ami to every narrow Isolationist It was portly due to this smear campaign that Winston Churchill's practical suggestion of military, political and economic cooperation reesivsd such n and press...
...Nothing was ever more public, but in our humorous way we call it private...
...Both the broadcasting companies and the customers would be benefited...
...It is all addsd to the prices of the cigarettes, the soap and the super-aacurate watches...
...Hare in the United States the flood of SJaaeor directed against Britain militates against the granting of the Man which means so much to world recovery...
...A good many things which take place in the United States alas seam to ua reactionary and, unjust Human nature, even where for/centuries it has had every opportunity to move forward, is far from ths democratic Socialist ideal...
...Sap pose that in each area ana wave-length were given to an educational association, one to the churches and one to the trade unions...
...All of the great companies furnish the sams sort of thing...
...flood of light en ths nsture of ths British Commonwealth...
...If you don't liks my classification, make s better one...
...The irrepressible conflict is on between those who- believe in dictatorship and those* who believe in democracy...
...We all pay—so we all have a right to get more or less what we want...
...For it is, dear children, the sponsors who decide what you and I shall hear...
...That was ail...
...And the plan Is so simple that it is strange that it has not occurred to more brilliant minds...
...But how beautiful, how simple, how satisfying it was...
...It ia what I am against...
Vol. 29 • March 1946 • No. 12
