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EARLY RADIO – FURTHER NOTES

Rape of Radio has a good history of the emergence of commercial radio from pages 494-496 – should help add some much-needed context to the first body section (thus far it is little more than a smattering of ideas)

Radio Writing’s second chapter is devoted to a short history of radio. Once again, could be good to source for the first body section. It makes the point that the concept of writing for radio began in 1925, well after the medium had hit the American scene.

SCIENCE OF SALESMANSHIP – FURTHER NOTES

T.H. Pear, Voice and Personality (1931)

Pear = Professor of psychology, University of Manchester

- tract about the power of the human voice – could be good for a snippet or two – it’s from a British perspective, however, so it’s not terribly good for anything but generalized statements…

(24) quote from Professor Edward Sapir (American professor of sociology) – “If we make a level-to-level analysis of the speech of an individual, and if we carefully see each of these levels in its social perspective, we obtain a valuable lever for psychiatric work. Intuitively we attach enormous importance to the voice and to the speech-behavior that is carried by the voice.”

(153) application to radio - “The voice is a sensitive and delicate form of expressive behavior which has the advantage—from the present standpoint—of being noisy. The noises are interpreted as indicative of the speaker’s experience. The voice is notoriously affected under strong emotion, but often indicates very subtle changes of mood.”

- “Some time ago, listening to a broadcast talk, I seemed to smell the speaker’s cigar and see his fur overcoat. I inferred that on Savoy Hill there waited for him a neat, unassuming, but very efficient comfortable car, which he would handle expertly. Be that as it may, his voice, matter and manner were packed full of thoroughly healthy, unmistakably English prejudices. Was such a guess idle? I do not know.”

Peter Dixon, Radio Writing (1931)

(vii) “In writing this book the author has been in the position of a reporter attempting to dictate a running story of a three-ringed circus. So many things are happening in the broadcasting studios at the same time that concentration on any special incident means that something else which may be of equal importance has been overlooked. Radio broadcasting moves forward at a tremendous speed. It has reached its present important position in the world in ten years. Radio writing has developed as rapidly.”

(3) “The reason the announcer is able to speak so confidently and so concisely is that he reads what he has to say from a printed sheet which he holds in his hand. It is his ‘continuity,’ and every word he utters is written by some other man. This writer’s name is never mentioned on the air. He gets very little publicity and as a rule he isn’t highly paid. Yet he has become one of the most important persons in the broadcasting studios.”

(5-6) “The curtain in a theatre can be five minutes late without causing more than a few grumbles. If the curtain on a radio program is five minutes late, not only is the entire network schedule upset but also the network organization is almost sure of losing a very profitable contract with some national advertiser. If a program exceeds its allotted time as much as five seconds, a report is made, and if it is fifteen seconds off schedule, there is an investigation.”

(6) “It is a curious craft—writing for radio. There is little glory in it, for present network regulations forbid mentioning the name of the author of a script or an elaborate continuity on the air. This rule is broken only when the broadcasters engage such widely known writers as Theodore Dreiser or Lulu Vollmer.”

(7-8) “The importance of radio writing must increase as the power of radio increases. The listeners will grow more critical. The present system, which is little more than hack-writing, will be discarded, and radio will begin to create its own literature. Just as good books may be read time and time again, so will radio dramas be repeated at intervals in response to a listener demand.”

(52) taboos – “Humorously inclined writers have a difficult time. Jests at the expense of prohibition are frowned upon. Plays upon the names of nationally known food products are absolutely forbidden. You can’t hunt lions with a Flit gun—unless Flit is paying for the program. Your characters may rush from place to place in an inexpensive automobile, but not in a Ford. It isn’t good advertising to say you bought it at the five-and-ten. That is giving free advertising to Mr. Woolworth or Mr. Kresge. Nor may you mention such institutions as Macy’s or Sears, Roebuck—unless such institutions pay the regular space-rate on the air.”

(54) directness – “When you twist a dial in your living-room and settle down to a half-hour of broadcast drama you must accept it in faith. It hasn’t been reviewed and discussed in the newspapers, nor has it been advertised as ‘daring and frank.’ Therefore it must be suitable for the home atmosphere.”

(55) “Adherence to this ideal of purity has cost the networks money. Contracts have been broken with both sponsors and entertainers because of alleged use of suggestive lines or situations. And the broadcasters have refused to sell time on the air to manufacturers of such products as bathroom paper, hygienic products for women, and laxatives.”

(58) radio audience – “What is that mysterious unseen host known as the radio audience? What does it want? What will it like and to what will it listen? Does it prefer jazz or classics, and does it want Broadway humor or the plays of Ibsen and Shaw?”

- “To attempt to consider as a whole the radio audience with its likes and dislikes is the utmost foolishness. There is no such thing as a radio audience. There are many radio audiences, just as there are thirty or forty theater audiences on Broadway every night.”

(59) listeners - “Offhand I can think of but one type of program that would receive the undivided attention of the nation of listeners. An example of such a program would be a ten-round boxing match between President Hoover and Rudy Vallee. And as such a program is impossible under existing conditions—even though it were arranged for the benefit of the Salvation Army—it is rather a problem to determine just what will please everybody. A problem, that is, to the serious-minded radio sponsors who have visions of such an achievement.”

(60-61) “Remember, when you write for radio, this family group. Remember, that what you write is to be heard in the living-room. Remember that you are a guest in the home… that you must not violate the canons of good taste… that you must not use profanity… that you must not be vulgar. You aren’t writing a play to be produced in a theater—you are going into a home where you want to make a good impression and where you want to be invited in return.”

(61) “If you wish to be recognized as a daring, sophisticated writer, throw this book away. You are not interested in radio as a medium of expression—not under existing conditions. Perhaps the time will come when there will be a field for rather broad humor and somewhat sexy farce on the air. But that time is a long way off.”

(142) writing for children – “Your modern child is interested in what Bennie Bear has to say to Willie Wolf, but the same child is also interested in other things. And too much Bennie Bear and Willie Wolf is just as nauseating to the modern child as it is to his elders. Possibly more so, because the child is expected to enjoy it.”

- “The worst mistake any radio writer—or any writer, for that matter—can make is to attempt to write down to children. They not only resent it but they also develop a positive dislike for the writer. Children like simple stories but they will not tolerate slush. They are, perhaps, more critical of superfluity of adjectives than the adults are. Knowing little about style and less about what is art, they are mainly interested in what it is all about. Tell them the story and they are happy. But be sure you have a story to tell.”

Katherine Seymour and J.T.W. Martin, How to Write for Radio (1931)

(196) “In the United States, radio entertainment is free. There is not a cent of tax on the owner of a radio receiver. Through the medium of radio, the greatest artists and actors, the most distinguished educators, the most famous orchestras and musical organizations have become a natural part of the home life of every family.”

-“Even the wealthiest individuals could not afford to support the radio stations of the United States; if radio were government owned, it would require an extremely high tax on radio receivers to present the diversified programs which are heard throughout the country today.”

(198) “Advertising has for the first time entered the entertainment field. For the first time, advertising is employing not the printed page, the car poster, and the billboard, and other familiar devices of the past, but instead is employing musicians both vocal and instrumental, and actors and entertainers.”

- “What then is the primary aim of the radio advertiser? It must be to obtain good-will for his product. This can only be acquired through presenting an entertaining program; it cannot be obtained by presenting a half-hour program in which ten minutes are devoted to music and the other twenty devoted to repeating the name of the sponsor and his product and describing its advantages and uses in detail.”

(200) technical details and statistics ineffectual over the air – “rarely retained by the listener unless they are repeated several times and this oral repetition is not feasible”

(201) “Do not assume that radio listeners have been waiting breathlessly for a week to hear your broadcast. In every weekly broadcast always greet old listeners and at the same time welcome new ones, and then tell the new listeners briefly what your program hopes to accomplish.”

(201-202) “Strive to make all your broadcasts interesting and entertaining, and you will obtain far greater good-will for your product than if you devote half your broadcast to telling the audience what a stupendous program you are presenting and what a miraculous product your program represents.”

(203) placement of advertising message in ad – brief mention at the beginning, with further elaboration in the middle if the ad – at the end … “The closing announcement is the only logical place to expand the merchandising story of a product – and even here, it is strongly recommended that the copy be made as concise and simple as possible.” … (204) “The closing announcement is as ‘heavy’ commercially as listeners will tolerate. The experienced radio advertiser has learned that the good-will resulting from a radio program increases in inverse ratio to the commercial announcements included in the program.”

Good example of crappily-paced ad on page 204 – invocations of product’s name sloppily placed throughout a poorly worded ad

(218) types of programs w/ advertising

- dramatic sketch whose characters, setting and plot have been established for a particular sponsor; a radio show whose atmosphere is that in which the product is normally used

- “straight” musical programs whose selections and style of announcements typify and suggest the product to be advertised

- planning a half-hour to appeal primarily to potential users of a product – z.B., programs sponsored by cigar or smoking tobacco manufacturer would likely be written to appeal to predominantly male tastes

Arthur S. Garbett, The Technique of the Radio Broadcast (1933)

Garbett = Director of education, Pacific division, National Broadcasting Company

(3) “No matter what effort may be made in the broadcasting studio, the final criterion of the worth of a radio program is the product of the receiver or loudspeaker. The program is at present addressed to the listener’s understanding through the ear exclusively. It is addressed to thousands of people but they are scattered over a vast area and are out of sight. Moreover, they are best considered as single individuals, unmoved by crowd psychology.”

- “Thus the element of art enters into all programs. Whether the program is actually an artistic production, as in the case of music or drama, or is an informative lecture, artistic craftsmanship is still necessary in its preparation and production.”

- “Thus a radio program is not sound along, but more than that: it is sound in motion. Its movements must be foreseen as climax and anticlimax, arsis and katharsis. A good radio program, in fact, is a flowing series of mounting climactic moments, the last of which is most significant.” [THIS CAN BE USED AS A MEANS TO LINK THE NEW SECTION ABOUT RADIO AS A SHOW TO RADIO AS A DIRECT MEDIUM]

(5) “One effect of printing for the eye has been to put a premium on condensation. We can afford to be cryptic in print because we can glance back and read again what the mind has failed to grasp.”

(7) writing for the radio – “The choice of words, the feeling for rhythm, the use of imagery common to all good poets, give to their writing incomparable beauty which does not fully reveal itself until their poems are spoken aloud. With the coming of radio the need for euphony of speech returns.”

(8-9) interesting section analyzing the function and fault of poets like Milton and Shakespeare as far as their writing’s applicability to being spoken is concerned

(10) “Writing for print one can be rapid in developing an idea, even elliptical. The reader can always refer back to some previous passage of elucidation, or can pause a while till understanding comes. The radio-listener can not do this. Hence the unfolding of ideas through broadcasting needs to be slower-paced. The journey from the known to the unknown, from the familiar to the unfamiliar, needs to be made in close sequence, step by step.”

- “Radio paragraphs need to be paced slowly. Points of special importance should be dwelt on deliberately so as to give them greater emphasis in comparison with matters of less significance.”

(11) form of radio broadcast more important than any other factor – “The present writer once heard an international broadcast by H.G. Wells. Mr. Wells has a throat affection which made his talk anything but satisfactory to the ear; and his lecture was punctuated by static so that many of his words were blotted out. So admirably was the sequence of his material arranged, however, that he was interesting all through, and left no doubt in the listener’s mind at the end of the lecture, as to what he was talking about.”

(20) “Music is a powerful aid, but its appropriate use is limited. When the plot-development actually calls for music, its aid gives charming variety to speech, but otherwise its appearance on the scene is somewhat artificial.”

- “They have a double value: first, their use from time to time, re-arrests the listener’s attention which is apt to wander if voices alone are used; second, they add realism and background.”

Robert West, So-o-o-o You’re Going on the Air! (1934)

West = Director, Radio Arts Guild of America

-a bit of info related to the history of radio advertising.

(90) “The American Telephone and Telegraph Company, which owned Station WEAF, was the first to appeal for voluntary contributions from listeners to support its broadcastings. Responses were so meager that the contributions were returned.”

- 1924 – American system of sponsored programs inaugurated w/ a ten-minute talk over WEAF, devoted to boosting a real estate development in New York City – clothing company the next to buy time, then followed endless #s of commercial programs

(91) “However, he is still struggling with the unknown formula of perfect radio entertainment. Agencies have added special staffs to develop what is called ‘showmanship’ in advertising. Programs are welded together for ‘sure-fire’ effect. Witness the success of Amos ‘n’ Andy who boosted Pepsodent sales to such a degree that their contract is reputed to have called for a percentage of profits in addition to their salary.”

(92) Sept. 1926 – NBC organized by the General Electric Company, Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company and the Radio Corporation of America, with WEAF as the key station – first two manufactured radio equipment and the third was engaged in marketing these products

-chapter “The Ear of the Public”

(135) “There never was a time in the history of this country when the power of speech could sway public sentiment in the interests of national progress as much as in this generation. Politcs and trends of government have been made the intimate concern of every citizen through the agency of radio, which transmits the simple, unadorned word of the candidate or man-in-power to the home and hearth of every man and women in the land, with a directness and dispatch that leaves no room for misunderstanding.”

- “Speakers of the old school were leather-lunged word-hurlers who depended on stentorian power to carry their voice to three countries at one time. They relied on theatrical gesture, ranting, brow-beating, and other tricks of the stump to impress constituents. Volume of sound took the place of reasoning.”

(135-136) “All this has changed. Relays of political speakers on the radio still use the hokum of the olden days, but listeners are learning to apply the acid test of common sense. The gesticulation, the tumult and shouting of the platform have given way to logic and argument.”

(136) “Gilbert Chesterton refers to the microphone as a curious thing with a curious name. ‘It is the Greek for ‘the Little Noise’ and it is really true that it is not very suitable to the ‘Big Noise.’”

(137) “The most important element is that speech be delivered with a note of sincerity no matter how impassioned or oratorical. A good formula would be more calm and less wind, more logic and less storm, more sincerity and less preaching. A radio speech because it is political or highly patriotic, need not sound like a bombardment.”

(138) “The greatest orators on the radio today are not orators in the ordinary sense of the word. President Roosevelt’s speeches are as the conversation of one man of the people to another.”

- “Like the reassuring voice of a great physician, he affirms that our case is not so desperate after all. He does not despise wit nor discard humor. He speaks in a winning conversational manner, without the bursting uproar of the agitator, or the rampant oratory of the soapboxer. In a vocabulary that to the average man is perfectly transparent he gives listeners plenty of time to catch the meaning of his unhurried phrases.”

(139) Stanford prof. Lee Emerson Bassett – “No one could say he comes from the South, the East, or the West. He is just an American citizen who uses English well. His is an example of what speech can and should be—the speech of an educated and cultured man.”

--radio pronunciation section

(171) “America is a crazy-quilt of dialects. A large percentage of Americans speak a polyglot still influenced by their mother tongue. There are vast numbers who rarely hear correct English spoken and for whom the radio and movies are the only sources of ear-training … The present problem is to make more certain that those privileged to address the nation through the microphone will make their speech free from defects which exert the wrong influence on the style and mannerisms of those who listen and come to rely upon radio speech as a model, or ape it through idolatry.”

(172) “Radio, therefore, has a twofold mission in language. First, to convey correct speech; second, to present models of diction and style. Radio can elevate the speech standards of the country in the same way that it has raised its musical taste.”

-problems in vowel pronunciation

-errors in articulation – “artic” snows, “idennical” moment

(176) “A foreigner may pronounce every word in English correctly, but the rhythm of his speech will betray him. English has a distinct rhythm and melody of speech which denotes purpose and intention. If the important ideas are given a natural emphasis, the voice will rise or fall without any effort. The greater the emphasis on words, the more definite the rhythm. The tune and melody of speech is caused by inflections that vary with the thought.”

Kenneth M. Goode, What About Radio? (1937)

Goode = no idea what this guy’s qualifications are, except that he seems to have written a lot about radio. Thus, I classify him a “radio scholar.”

(1) “Advertising by radio is like sailing the Atlantic Ocean. There’s room for everything. Plenty of profits for even the smallest craft that catch favoring currents, tides, and trade winds. Reefs and breakers for even the mightiest that disdain the charted channels.”

- radio advertising invests more money into less time than any other medium yet devised

(1-2) “Radio does offer advertisers a colossal opportunity … Of radio’s ubiquity there’s no doubt. Nor question! In its cosmic vaudeville, Boston shares symphony with Banff. Hollywood gossips with Saskatchewan. From Boston to Hollywood a dozen cities join a giant variety show for Admiral Byrd at the South Pole. These cities, in turn, hear, jump by jump, their Irish Sweepstakers lose at Aintree.”

- chapter classifying the various tics of the radio audience – symptoms of “radiodosis” – psychological assessment that the audience is crazy nutso and loaded with a short attention span

(35) “Conscious, intentional radio listening, as we noticed a few pages back, contends not alone against physical distractions by other people, but against mental distractions through the interruption of other thoughts. Unless relief intervenes, deliberate or accidental, even the average person in listening his average stint of three or four hours daily must either (a) be faithful to himself and fight off the radio, or (b) be faithful to the radio and fight off everything else. Attention fatigue follows almost inevitably.”

(36) “Dr. Foster Kennedy of Bellevue Hospital told [New York] Mayor LaGuardia’s Noise Abatement Committee that measurements showed the pressure of the human brain raised as much as 400 per cent by the mere explosion of the blown-up paper bag … Even as more modern psychologists are pondering on the effect persistent overuse of the radio is having on American powers of concentration, so inquiring American physicians may someday be asking the same question about American nerves.”

(37-38) “The American advertiser, for the moment, is keenly concerned not with the weariness of the program builders not the irritation to the 10,000 strings of Corti’s organ, but only whether enough irritation may be accumulated to cause in the all-important listener a real sense of relief when at last the radio is turned off.”

(143) once again, importance of music – “Music, admittedly, is the backbone of radio. One department store, absolutely open-minded as to a program, found that nearly four-fifths of its customers preferred musical programs.”

(149) repetition – “Knowing that repetition is inelegant only when unintentional, the trained writer repeats deliberately strong words for strong emphasis. Similarly the wise orchestra leader fearlessly plays and replays those tunes that peculiarly fit his program. Or his individuality. Those planned repetitions reinforce his theme song. The only danger in the constant repetition of the same songs, or the same class of songs, is of giving his program, unintentionally, a reputation for something or its lack.”

(151) importance of songs with renown – “I never heard a single New Yorker—except taxi-drivers who parked there for fares—mention The Great Waltz as a great hit, yet for months and months its weekly take doubled the current Broadway sellouts. Probably none of us think of the Bible as a ‘popular’ book. Yet it sells 80,000 copies a day—beating probably every day, year in and year out, the combined sales of any twenty best sellers currently popular on any given day.”

(154) indirectness of radio applies to music – “for its utmost effectiveness, radio music has certain peculiar requirements not at all essential where singer or orchestra is seen. Successful radio music, in contrast, may demand an almost instantaneous attention catching-and-holding quality in the way of simple, easily and quickly grasped quality of rhythm and melody which provokes immediately and holds throughout an increasing desire to hear an easily and definitely anticipated repetition.”

(158-159) “Radio, these days, is no longer a show. Nor even a series of shows. It is a flow. Therefore, extra money spent arranging and rehearsing something known and designed particularly to interest—and SELECT out of that flow—a KNOWN GIVEN audience will seldom be entirely thrown away.”

(197) respect for audience – “Jack Benny and Phil Baker, to repeat, are notoriously meek. They keep the jokes on themselves. They never patronize their audience. More radio experts than you know realize that the amazing success of Amos ‘n’ Andy comes largely from the fact that they keep every listener completely comfortable, flatter the ego of the most ignorant.”

(224) “Given a fountain pen, five hundred women college students were asked to write: 460 of them—more than nine out of ten—wrote their own names. Shown a map of the United States, 447 men in 500 looked first for the location of their own home town. In radio this, of course, is equally true. Self-expressive reaction—not the comparative merit of his program—makes or breaks the commercial broadcaster.”

(227) speech given in Cincinnati by Chris W. Browne – “People do not buy things at all. They buy uses. They don’t buy soap, they buy the skin you love to touch. They don’t buy lipstick, they buy kissable lips. In shoes they buy wearing qualities and style and in washing machines they buy easier and quicker ways of doing work.”

(235) “In my opinion, the whole history of advertising has never exploited a hypothesis more pathetically naïve than early radio’s delightful faith that sheer gratitude to the ‘sponsor’ of a particularly pleasing show would, of itself, bring in sufficient business to pay for the broadcast.”

(241) “Advertising over the radio is much like a day’s fishing. Even when you don’t hook any fish it’s a pleasant way to spend your time.”

Ralph Rogers, Dos and Donts of Radio Writing (1937)

- Rogers = President, Associated Radio Writers, Inc., Director of Radio Courses at Boston U.

- taught course “Radio Writing” at Boston U. since 1934

(preface) “After more than ten years’ experience in the writing, producing and selling of network and local shows, the writer is firmly convinced that the majority of radio scripters find it more difficult to sell than to write.”

(7) “The playwright who can produce one show a year is generally heralded far and wide as a genius. The radio playwright who cannot write at least one or more programs a week is rarely ever classified as a successful script writer.”

(8) advertising agencies producing copy - “Already the listening audience is tired of hearing the same artists over and over again. Soon they will demand air show that compare more favorably with the successful plays of the screen and stage. The day of SHOWMANSHIP in radio is here. A small fortune awaits any writer who can build this type of program—a program that will win and hold a capacity listening audience over a period of fifty-two weeks or longer. The radio shows of the future must be plans to ‘wear in, not out.’”

(11) “Nothing is more important to the success of a radio playwright than a knowledge of the likes and dislikes of the radio audience. One must always keep upper-most in mind that, although the theatre of the air seats millions, this vast audience is broken up into small family groups. Many successful stage playwrights have failed to win success in writing for radio because they failed to recognize that radio acting differs in many respects from stage acting.”

- theatre audiences pay for what they see, and are in the mood to be entertained. They’ll remain in the theatre even when the performance is pretty bad

(55) “Is it any wonder that the average writer is puzzled and baffled when he, himself, attempts to sell his material in the radio market? Most writers are not salesmen. They are accustomed to selling through agents who make a business of selling material. Radio, due to its rapid growth, has produced only a very few reliable and successful agents.”

(56) “There is plenty of gold in ‘them thar hills’ of radio, and one lucky ‘strike’ generally means a small fortune. However, the ‘prospector’ who expects to find ‘nuggets’ on the surface is going to waste a lot of time, money and energy. He must dig hard and deep.”

(72) example of how ads are incorporated into programming:

“Socony Vacuum challenges you! Challenges you to solve THE STUYVESANT CASE, one of Austin Ripley’s famous MINUTE MYSTERIES. This popular newspaper, magazine and moving picture feature is now presented by Socony Vacuum as a series of authentic crime dramas and a novel, falling radio game.”

Katharine Seymour and John T.W. Martin, Practical Radio Writing (1938)

(251) “In addition to attracting and holding listeners, these programs must also interest a certain number of those listeners in the ideas or the products of the sponsors. This must be accomplished by the commercial credits embodied in each broadcast. The success or failure of the whole program depends upon the effectiveness of these commercial credits—upon the skill with which they are planned, written and delivered.”

(252) “American listeners are willing, for the most part, to pay moderate attention to the commercial credits included in any program which interests them, provided the credits are succinct, intelligent and in good taste. It remains for the writer of commercial credits to make his material conform to these three qualifications.”

-two types of credits

(253) institutional credits – “Commercial programs of an institutional nature are planned primarily to create good-will for a commercial concern, a service, a brand name of a series of products or one particular product. Such programs use institutional credit announcements wich range from interesting stories about a process of manufacture to informal talks concerning commercial policies presented by a representative of the sponsor.”

- merchandising credits – “Commercial programs planned to create an active buying impulse on the part of listeners embody merchandising credits. These are usually adaptations of printed advertising copy, although broadcasting has developed new forms of presentation. The air of such credits is to create a desire for the product on the part of the listener.”

-types of announcements

1) straight – announcements sprinkled throughout an advertisement – appeal directly to the consumer – example of “Big Ben Chime Alarm” advertisement

2) dramatized – characters acting out the virtues of a product

3) testimonials – people explaining how a product helped their situation

4) dialogue ‘mentions’ – product worked into the copy of an actual program

5) demonstrations – exactly what it sounds like. A product demonstrated over the air.

6) spoken trade marks – jingles, signatures used to open and close programs in a commercial radio series – slogans, et cetera

7) theme songs – exactly what it sounds like

(263) more material re: disgustingness in radio – “Keep commercial credits in good taste. This hint may sound unnecessary – but the writer must bear in mind that the feelings of some radio listeners are easily injured. You are not addressing a mass audience, but small groups, gathered in their own homes. A mere mention of some part of the anatomy, or some disease, may offend a great many members of the listening audience.”

-“Make commercial credits simple. This advice applies both to the content of the announcements, and their verbiage. Don’t try to cram too much information into any one announcement. The average listener can’t – and won’t – absorb it. It doesn’t sound important to him – even though the writer may think it is important.”

(264) “Keep commercial credits conversational. Write them in the manner you might use if you were telling two or three friends about the product or service in which you are interested. Talk to listeners – never up to them, or down to them. Forget about the rules of syntax. Use plural verbs with collective nouns when the result makes an announcement sound more conversational.”

(264) amendment to Federal Radio Act in 1938 – “The term ‘false advertisement’ means an advertisement, other than labeling, which is misleading in a material respect; and in determining whether any advertisement is misleading, there shall be taken into account (among other things) not only representations made or suggested by statement, word, design, device, sound, or any combination thereof, but also the extent to which the advertisement fails to reveal facts material in the light of such representations or material with respect to consequences which may result from the conditions prescribed in said advertisement, or under such conditions as are customary or usual.” – commercial credit must be honest to fulfill requirements of amendment – it is also up to the writer to understand the actions and ethics of business bureaus being advertised

(278) direction – “It is the director who must make the script come alive. He is probably the most important single factor in radio today. Outstanding radio directors are always in demand. Salaries and fees vary, of course, with the importance of the programs that directors are handling. But in every classification, good radio directors are always well paid.”

(287) time w/ direction – “The successful radio director is complete master of the minutes and seconds at his disposal; he is master, too, of every element of the program and he is capable of quick-witted, instantaneous judgment in handling unexpected situations which arise occasionally in even the most carefully prepared and rehearsed program.”

John S. Carlile, Production and Direction of Radio Programs (1939)

- Carlile = Production Manager, Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc.

From Part 1: “The Program and those who produce it”

(1) “Radio has been called everything from a cultural influence to an annoying noise. It is clown, singer, actor, thinker, musician, lecturer, politician, scientist, teacher, salesman, commentator—the list is as endless as the ideas capable of expression by man.”

- “Whether participating in actual programs or not, the audience is in control. Every effort is made to discover the will of the people.”

(3) “While they know that radio has long since outgrown that stage in its development when the mere broadcasting of sound was enough of a miracle to hold the listening public’s attention, they are not unmindful of the fact that radio is sound and not sight. They know that the listener ‘sees’ only with his mind and his ear.”

- four things that can be done w/ radio: sing, talk, whistle or play an instrument

(4) once again, division of programs into sustaining and commercial

(14-15) “Many presentations fall short, not only in radio but in the concert field and on the stage, either because there was no definite idea in the planning of the presentation or because the idea was a mere label which the subsequent production could carry out only halfheartedly.”

- diatribe against purposeless transmission of sound – confusion in planning will be transformed into confusion on the part of the radio audience

(18) awesome metaphor re: using a baker’s oven without any idea as to what to bake – illustrates notion that the listening public will not react kindly to advertisements that do not function as entertainment – use this one in connection with advertisements put into the middle of a program in an entertaining context

- “clambake” – program for which preparations are filled with uncertainties, reshearsals w/ errors and constant changes, usually destined for bad performance and consequent failure

(20) idea of radio director being a showman – not just the announcer himself – showman in the context of being a ringmaster, a person who runs the whole show toward the pleasing of an audience perceived to be smart as a whip

(21) “Showmanship is more important to the successful program than salesmanship, science or technical skill, because it understands these things and puts them all to use. We find it in stage productions, in movies, and in good radio shows. Some of the best showmen are in the circus, or selling colored water at a dollar a bottle from the back of a van. On many occasions, both in the theatre and in the radio studio, nothing would be more welcome to the director than to have a circus showman at his side, who would point with uncanny insight to those parts in a show which would entertain and those likely to be ineffective.”

(22) “Showmanship is necessary in all work, for its purpose is to impress the public. A good newspaper man is a good showman. So is a good advertiser. The make-up of an advertising page, a billboard, or the label on a can of sardines requires it. There is showmanship in the copywriter’s use of words, in the making of books, the writing of stories, the forming of a slogan or sentence to capture the attention and excite the imagination of readers or hearers.”

- radio based on good craftsmanship – a good director is a good craftsman

Ch. 8 – “The Musical Audience”

(111) “The predominance of music is natural, since radio’s approach is limited to the sense of hearing. It follows that the exclusively auditory art holds first place among all programs.”

Ch. 11 – “The Announcer”

(147) “To the average listener, all that seems to be required of the radio announcer is that he stand before a microphone and read a prepared statement with a reasonably good voice. And many a lad throughout the country is sure that his voice is pleasanter than the one he hears through the loud speaker.” – notion that radio announcing is easy – untrue

(148) “An applicant may possess the most beautiful voice quality yet not be able to handle all phases of the announcer’s work. For the voice of either speaker or singer is only an instrument, a means of expressing personality. Through his voice the young aspirant reveals whatever education, true culture, and broad experience he possesses.”

(151) words easily mispronounced (drawn from over 400 broadcasts from half-dozen important stations during a 4-month period in 1938): gubernatorial, Catalan, comptroller, temperature, camera, query, inquiry, mistrust, results, Sierra, join, American, premiere, library, obstetrics, nothing, deluge, soviet, sixpence, sonata, integral, fantasy, ruins, forward, bulwark, repercussion, European, contrasting, president, alimentary, envoy, Venezuelan, cholera, stomach

(154) piece-de-resistance of ad copy to determine the worthiness of an announcer – three paragraphs filled with some of the most difficult possible names to pronounce (this would be interesting to include – selection of announcer about diction, about poise, precision, education, worldliness)

- test carried out not only to test his knowledge of hard-to-pronounce words, but to see what he does with words that he doesn’t know – it is not expected that announcers would know the pronunciation of every single word in the world’s languages, but it is expected that he have a base knowledge of how to pronounce them

- many announcers got hold of the test beforehand and produced a stilted, studied performance, while others who didn’t practice displayed a background of listening experience – ability to roll with the punches and get to what’s real

(165) interesting bit about ad lib announcing – don’t show any opinion whatsoever of any guests on one’s program – don’t thank them, and don’t assume that the listener has enjoyed what he or she has just heard

William Freeman, Hear! Hear!: An informal guide to public speaking after dinner, on the lecture platform, over the radio (1941) – adapted for an American audience

Freeman = authority on speaking and writing in England, as well as “an effective public speaker on his own” – author of a number of books on the subject

(155) “Radio calls for two different kinds of speaking technique, depending on what kind of address is being given. There is the public address which also goes out over the air and there is the radio address written and delivered for radio listeners only.” - technique of fireside chat versus technique of the radio address

- law requires that all speeches delivered on the radio be read from a manuscript (!) interesting … the only things that can be ad-libbed are forum discussions

(156) “No matter how many people may be listening to you over the air, you are not talking to an audience of massed millions. You are talking to countless small groups of individuals.”

- “Listening to Elmer Davis or Raymond Gram Swing is like listening to a pleasant friend who has dropped in for a chat in the evening. Their style and delivery are informal, personal, conversational. They make themselves at home in your living room or in the front seat of your car. It is a pleasure to have them there.” – both newspapermen who knew how to talk to small groups of people, which is the key to successful radio salesmanship

- public address a different story – (157) “Here the radio style of President Roosevelt offers the perfect model. He has mastered every trick in the box, and all those mannerisms we now associate with the President’s delivery are precisely the mannerisms that every effective radio speaker must learn. God gave the President his voice; Groton and Harvard gave him his accent. To that extent he is inimitable.”

FDR’s tricks: 1) emphasizes, underscores certain words and phrases, 2) introduces frequent dramatic pauses, 3) expresses self in short sentences, 4) never forgets the personal touch (USE CLIP OF FDR IN THESIS)

(158) favorite phrase of Roosevelt’s – “You know and I know”

(162) “Above all, be interested in what you are reading and you will sound interesting. Don’t worry about talking too fast. If you are naturally a rapid talker, don’t try to change your pace. But if you do talk fast, pause frequently and take care to phrase the same idea in several different ways. Otherwise your listeners will not be able to keep up with what you are saying.”

(166) idea of repeating names all the time to accommodate listeners who have just tuned in

(167) “Radio has created a new style of public speaking, even for mass audiences. This is the age of Franklin D. Roosevelt. [William Jennings] Bryan is dead.”

Robert West, The Rape of Radio (1941)

West = Director, Radio Arts Guild of America

- book mostly a lamentation on the corporate nature of radio in that particular day and age – also a good resource as to how this corporate nature influenced the science of salesmanship

(20) “Networks today will not consider an announcer unless he is a college graduate with at least two years’ experience with at least two years’ experience at a small station. He must be adept in ad libbing as shown by a test ranging from five to a fifteen minute talk on some topical event. A knowledge of continuity writing and production will be expected of him, and he must speak at least one foreign language. It is not everyone who, like Andre Baruch, can speak fluent French, Spanish and Italian, and in addition, creditably strike the native ear in Dutch, Flemish and Portuguese.”

- age of “specialization of the announcer” took root over the course of the 1930’s – emergence of announcer from anonymity – listeners slowly learned how to identify voice characteristics peculiar to the speakers

(26) “Radio is slowly building up the tradition that the announcer shall unmistakably impress the listener as a man of true culture. The listener becomes conscious of the presence or the absence of the sign of refinement and good breeding. The sign is the voice.”

(27) notion of “American speech” – “American speech is not a local speech. It is the composite tongue of a country whose borders stretch three thousand miles east and west. Many regions have their own peculiarities of speech. There is the sharp twang of New England, the gusty style of the West, the languorous open vowel drawl of the South. An announcer whose speech smacks of the peculiarities of any region may be perfectly understood in that region.”

(28) division of announcer into three classes – culture, pseudo-cultured and uncultured/vulgar – in other words, the amount of culture that an announcer’s voice conveys is the primary ingredient to his success

(31) !!! section on importance of announcer in “Show Boat” – “I have to be master of ceremonies, announcer and actor. The master of ceremonies on a program like Show Boat must lend color to the whole hour, blend it together, with only his voice to help him.” (USE AUDIO SAMPLE FOR THIS!!!)

(33) announcers must command respect while still coming off as informal – “The chief point about the announcers is that they are all too slick—they all sound too respectable. I think one of the great problems is to reduce this over-refinement. There is no person in this world ho sets his face against this so-called Oxford accent more than I do.” –Prof. Lloyd James, linguistic advisor to the British Broadcasting Corporation

(117) music – “Gloomily it was predicted ten years ago that the broadcasting of jazz would corrupt the public taste and that good music would be abolished from the earth. Good music has an immortality and the electrical arts could only perpetuate proving that it takes all kinds of minds and all kinds of people to make a world. The truth is that musicians have completely captured radio and stimulated popular response to good music undreamed of in this generation.”

(123) “The sponsor is the new patron of the Arts comparable to kings and emperors of the middle ages. He oversteps his mark often in his advertising talk but he brings great music into the home and widens artistic appreciation of the best.”

(124) “Music has always held first place in broadcasting because it is the one act that has universal appeal. Radio music today can mould the taste of tomorrow. The destiny of music lies largely in the hands of the dictators of broadcasting. Music has penetrated every section of the civilized and uncivilized globe, because music expresses emotions which are felt by the general run of people everywhere.”

(136) “The hillbilly seems to have taken permanent root in radio. Hillbilly songs predominate on the air.” (137) “In the Ozark region, without movies and without a radio, the mountaineer finds a means of expression in the homely melodies he plays. Most every cabin contains at least one guitar, and on this instrument, which is as common as the hoe or shovel, every member of a mountaineer family can strum, easily carrying a tune in the minor key.” –importance of familiar, simple melodies from simple origins – possibly connect to jingles, repetition of familiar melodies e.g. “If You’re Happy and You Know It”

(287) notion of propaganda – “Commercial propaganda is more of a science than ethical and political propaganda. Sponsors have become experts at selling goods over the air. They know the value of repetition. They play on the snobbish instincts of humanity, emphasize the importance of buying to meet the demands of social conformity. They play on fears of every kind—fear of halitosis, fear of obesity, fear of financial loss, and disease.”

- “Commercial propaganda is agreeable to the masses because it encourages people to satisfy their cravings and offers them a possible escape from their physical pains and discomforts.”

(294)“Advertising is the oldest form of propaganda. Is has developed concurrently with the rise of the press and the expansion of commerce, but the methods of propaganda are employed in other fields today, especially in politics. The devices are borrowed from commercial advertising.”

PUBLIC RESPONSE – FURTHER NOTES

Ventura Free Press, The Empire of the Air (1932)

(43) “This invasion of the home was made easy by the general bias in favor of private enterprise. The Old World, which has followed a different policy, is not cursed with the appalling nuisance of salesmanship by wireless. From the outset her leading nations refused to prostitute the radio art to advertising.”

(54) “The standard set up by the Radio Act of 1927 for the guidance of the Radio Commission is that of ‘public interest, convenience and necessity.’ The Commission also might well have laid to heart the declaration of Herbert Hoover while he was still Secretary of Commerce and in charge of radio regulation. ‘The question of monopoly in radio must be squarely met. It is inconceivable that the American people will allow this newborn system of communication to fall exclusively into the power of any individual, group or combination.” – directed against the Federal Radio Commission and its alleged control over radio(?)

(67) “From the dawn of broadcasting there have been those who saw in radio such an agency for popular education as the world has not known since the invention of printing. But the educators have worked against increasingly heavy odds.”

(67-68) tells story of WEAF being forced by the National Broadcasting Company to “jazz up” their programming for the sake of satisfying advertising needs

(74) “Advertising is King of the Air. It is the advertisers who can buy costly entertainment and thus attract the largest audience. The size of the audience being the test, the commercial stations get the desirable assignments from the Federal Radio Commission.”

Ralph Rogers, Dos and Donts of Radio Writing (1937)

(13) “Study your fan mail carefully. A criticism from one listener who takes the time to write may mirror the reaction of many who will never write. Of course, ‘nut’ letters can be ignored.”

John S. Carlile, Production and Direction of Radio Programs (1939)

(25) “The haphazard days of radio are over. The mere fact of having a great star or a fine play title is no longer sufficient. The function of the director is being recognized. Broadcasters now realize this. Newspaper critics who until recently devoted their space largely to a gossip column of radio personalities, have in their turn responded to radio’s coming of age.”

Robert West, The Rape of Radio (1941)

(502) good information about radio being the peddler of patent medicines, et cetera – “The weapon of the charlatan is palaver. He fills the imagination with seductive words. True, the radio listener is not compelled to believe everything he hears. But the average listener has no scientific background for distinguishing between true and false. He does not check with his physician to determine the truth of the promised miracle.”

- cites existence of Food and Drug Administration, Post Office Department and Federal Trade Commission – claims no other agencies exist in radio that parallel their fact-checking role

Anthony B. Meany, America Handcuffed by Radio C-H-A-I-N-S (1942)

(excellent picture between pages 48-49)

Interesting argument in general – that the existence of radio advertising is hurting the American economy during the war years through the promotion of idleness, unemployment and monopoly [LINK THIS TO A SEGMENT ADJACENT TO READER’S DIGEST]

(10) “On this thesis, the author maintains and will prove that radio, our latest world-wide method of communication, as presently employed, has been the greatest contributing factor toward the economic distress of the past decade.”

(49) “The main reason, however, that they refrain from handling this type of [intelligent] material, is subservience to their advertisers. In other words, more attention is given to the demands of a small group of space buyers than to the millions of their readers. What has become of the once great power of the pen, always considered more powerful than the sword? Where is the courage of these editors that are in possession of this power and yet afraid to wield it?”

(51) “Most sponsored programs have two opposite and conflicting aims—one sells the product, the other provides entertainment and diversion. One describes the commodity, the other reduces the potential need of it. One suggests going outdoors to use or obtain the product advertised—the other decreases the potential time for doing so by providing attractive programs stimulating the desire to stay indoors. It is plainly seen these are two separate, distinct and hostile schools of thought, opposed to each other, but emanating from the same source.”

(52) “What a blessing radio is now to the salesman of patent medicines. Formerly to reach the nation’s hypochondriacs it was necessary to purchase a mailing list of names supplied for any given area or section through a service which sold the names and addresses of these people by the thousand. These lists contained ‘sufferers’ from arthritis, heart disease, lumbago, constipation, liver and kidney ailments, or what have you? Today, radio places the entire nation as prey to this ‘money back’ group.”

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