Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-02-01
Ado broadcasting by the
American plan - that is,
broadcaSting conducted on

~ American plan - that is,
i broadcaSting conducted on
a business basis by private
enterprise and supported by adj
vertising revenues-is taken Sc
verely to task for allegedly cater
ing to "the level of the 13-year-
oldS" in an article bearing that
title contributed to the January
Atlantic Monthly by William Or
ton, professor of economics at
Smith College.
Extremely dubious about the
soundneSs, from a cultural view
point, of the American broadcast
ing structure, Prof. Orion, a for
mer British army officer, who
served in the British ministry of
labor before coming to America
to teach, sees far more cultural
and educational value in the type
of broadcaSting conducted by the
government owned and operated
British BroadcaSting Corporation.
In England, as Chairman Saltz-
man of the Federal Radio Com
mission pointed out in a recent
radio address, the broadcaSting
organization furnishes the listen
erS what it thinks they ought to
have rather than what they may
want. In the United States, &C
cording to Prof. orion, "the main
business of the 600-odd stations
now licensed is simply to make
i1oOYooU for. thniY. 0uTnorc -
Americas conception of mass
appeal to the audience majority,
with programs largely sponsored
by advertisers, suffers odiously by
comparison with the British idea
of treating people like grown
ups" in the professors view. Yet
he finds that American programs
are not bad. ION the contrary"
he writes, many of the preSen-
tationS, both sustaining and COM
mercial, are very good, and both
are getting better.
1.-The trouble arises on ground
much more fundamental than
that; 1t springs directly from the
commercialization of broadcast
ing itself. The wholesale ex-
ploitation Of sound in the various
perverSionS of money getting is a
far worse thing than the deSecra-
ton of the countryside by bill
boards. In England, this week
in which write, I could obtain at
least one full orchestral program
every night, including whole eve
ningS of Bach, Beethoven, Wagner
and modern work. I could hear
the Mozart Festival and the Vienna
Philharmonic under Baumgartner.
I could listen to Eugene O'NeillS
'Ile,' to f1rst-class debate on the
international language question,
to various lectures, including Dean
Monkey on Christian theology and
Francis Birrell on the cinema, to
two or three recitalS of modern
chamber music, to couple of re-
vues (complete), to say nothing of
dance music, political addresses,
educational programs, news, sport,
humorous features and the vari-
Gus local offerings"
There seems to be an urlwonted
bitterness in the criticism of a
visitor to these shores when he as
SertS:
"No other first-class power has
so callouSly sold it's heritage of
technique for such a mess of pot
tage. Compared with other ma
lions In it's use of the new means
of communication, the land Of OPP
portunity looks more like the land
Of lost opportunities"
The American people are blamed,
the Government is blamed, the
broadcasters are blamed, the radio
manufacturers are blamed and
the educators are blamed (the
latter for being 10 years too late
in coming to recognize the poten-
tialities of RADIO, each in turn,
for the alleged degradation of
American radio, albeit many of
| it's presentations, both sustaining
and commercial, are very good,
and both are getting better"
Where, then, lies the real trou-
BILE and what are the remedies?
Prof. Orion pursues no single
course of criticism, laying the
blame here, there and everywhere,
Offering the British scheme as an
alternative, but failing to take
cognizance of the floods of pro-
test against the frequent dizziness
and drabness of British Broad
casting Corporation programs (es-
pecilaly on Sundays, for Sir John
Reith, president and dictator of
the B. B. c., is a very religious