The Washington times., 1931-01-20
Romping Around
Radio Dial

The Children of His Majesty's
Chapel Savoy, London, one Of the
Oldest and finest boy choirs in the
world, will be heard in the United
States for the first time next
Sunday afternoon, January 25.
The program will be broadcast
from Toronto, Canada, over an
NB.C.-WJZ network at AIS p. m.
as a special feature of the Cana
dian Pacific Musical Crusaders; a
mythical tour Of the world.
BY special permission of the
King Of England, the choir is
touring Canada and the United
States. the first time in the seven
hundred years of it's organization
that a unit of the Children of the
Chapel Savoy has left Great Brit
ain. The personnel consists of
twelve boys under the conductor
ship of Carlton Borrow. Their
repertoire includes part" songs
glee numbers and church music.
Do people still write to radio
stations?
"Emphatically yes-more every
year." is the answer of Miss Ade-
laide Piana, head of the audience
mail department of the National
BroadcaSting Company. Accord
ing to figures developed in Miss
Piana's department, 772,483 letters
were cleared through the N.B.C.
in 1923, 1,279,796 in 1929, and
2,181,756 in 1930-a gain of al
most one and a half million let
terS in two years.
No wonder Miss Piana's answer
Is emphatic, for most of these let
ters are addressed to definite
artists or sponsors, and it is the
function Of her department to see
that each letter reaches it's proper
destination.
The eternal sameness of broad
castings popular musical pro-
grams Is the basis for the most
piteous of the listeners plants.
The studio ringmasters are inex-
plicably lax in their efforts to
find a solution for the evil, if, in
deed, they are interested at all.
To the casual audience, it might
seem accidental that we hear the
same new tune done to death in a
single night. To hear a song a
dozen times in the course of a sin
gle listening session signifies to
the uninitiated merely O sloppy
management of presentations.
The fact is that the broad
casters are innocent, if negligent.
It Is a constituencies arrange
ment between Tin Pan Alley and
the orchestra leaders that is re-
sponsible. For popularizing CD
a new song, the maestros earn a
cut into the songs earnings,
hence it Is not surprising that
they plug it whenever and where
ever possible.
The radio executives could
stop this if they desired. The
remedy is obvious. In the theater,
you'll never hear or see the same
number more than once. The
theaterS have show doctors.
Radio has none. What the
studios need are comptrollers
who shall have the authority to
regulate the frequency of song
presentations.
In the network headquarters
you'll stumble over officials, but
among them you'll find not one
who is authorized to WELD the
blue pencil.
Station CFCF, in Montreal,
Province of Quebec, Canada,
owned and operated by the Cana
dian Marconi Company, will be
added to the seventy-three sta
tions associated with the National
Broadcasting Company. The sta
ton joined the network yesterday.
The Canadian station will be
available for service from both
the N.B.C.-WEAF and N.B.C.-WJz
networks. This makes the Sec
ond Canadian unit to become as
sociated with NB.C. as CKGW,
Toronto, has taken the network
programs for a year.