The irritability it soon stirred up has never been matched on land or water. Earlier contented listeners suddenly exploded and showered us with indignant letters. A proportion of that levy goes for the buying of radio entertainers, and the programs are said to be inferior to ours. I do not mean that foreign countries lack artists entirely comparable to those in the States, but the broadcasts suffer from an absence of competition. Here, large advertisers employ trained staffs to build the best available air shows, and cost means little when vieing with the standards, charm and interest of preceding and following periods.
None can afford to suffer by comparisons.
They pay staggering prices for Metropolitan Opera stars and choruses, symphony and dance orchestras, headliners from successful theatrical productions, tragedians, comedians, punch and punchinello, picked up from coast to coast upon a network of copper wires and brought to millions of firesides. So the American listener, in lieu of touching the nerve of his purse for another tax, rather prefers hearing a few words about some motor car or cigarette as payment for a snappier, better and greater variety of free entertainment. An English visitor in our studios was quite interested that we should keep at hand trained substitutes for expected entertainers who, by some untoward circumstance, might fail to appear. He explained that the British Broadcasting Company would merely shut down and wait. The station merely told us it would turn off until five.