Evening star., 1933-01-01


regarding current radio revenues
made available from any source.
1t is generally believed that If
local time sales by individual sta
tions were added, the aggregate
annual revenues of all American
broadcasters would run 100000
900 or over, though the Federal
Radio Commissions estimates this
year from a QUESTIONABLE to all
stations indicated the gross re-
ceipts figure in 1891 was ST.
100000.
That year gross expenditures
ran $77,995, 900, indicating a net
loss in the operation of broadcast
ing as whole. The expenditure
column listed about $20, 900 900 for
talent, $4,000, 900 for regular en-
ployes, $5,000,000 for equipment
and $36,000,000 for miscellaneous
items.
A parvenu industry, radios 1881
total receipts compare with 81
l67 ,621 1876 reported by the Census
Bureau for the publishing and
printing businesses in 1881. News
paper advertising that year ran
1856, ,428 ,584, the census report
shows. Newspaper revenues from
subscriptions and sales ran $423,-
24O, ,468 during the same year.
y
IMINETY-SEVEN American
~ broadcasting stations are
either owned by or directly
and indirectly affiliated in cor
porate capacity with newspapers.
In Canada there are Is newspa-
per-owned radio stations. Mexico
and Cuba have one each.
These figures reveal a marked
trend in American broadcasting.
Hardly week passes without one
or more applications to the Fed
eral Radio Commission for trans
fers of station ownership to news
paper interests or for authority
sought by newspapers to erect
new stations.
Latest of the newspapers to ac-
quire their own stations by pur-
chase are the Greenville (S. Co.
News-Piedmont, which has pur-
chased WFBC, in that city; the
Norfolk (Va) Ledger-Dispatch,
which has purchased WTAR,
there; the Rock Island Gill; Ar
gus, which has bought WHBF.
there, and the Rochester On. vi
Democrat and Chronicle and
Times Union, whose owners have
taken over WHEC, Rochester.
Or the 500 or more stations in
the United States, about half have
news tie-ups with local newspa-
pers. These relationships, how
ever, are rather loose by compari-
son with the news relationship
between radio and those news
papers owning their own stations.
The list of newspaper-owned sta
tionS shows that some of the most
important newspapers in the coun-
Try nave been pioneers In broad
casting.
The trend toward newspaper
ownership and control Is ali the
more marked at present when 1t is
recalled that a few years ago GER
tain newspapers owning stations
Invested themselves of their radio
properties, only to see them de-
Veloped In other hands. Notable
ex mples are XIII, formerly
owned by the Los Angeles Times
and WJR, formerly owned by the
Detroit Free Press.
The newspaper-radio log reveals
several newspaper publishers own
ing Two or more stations. 1t also
shows newspapers owning radio
stations who publishers, until they
themselves went into radio, were
among the severest critics Of radio
as a competitive medium. A no.
table example Is the Gannett
group, which now not only owns
WHEC, Rochester, and has an in
tereSt in WOKO. Albany, but also
recently has taken over the op-
Grafton Of WESG, licensed to Cor
snel University, under a leasing
arrangement.
THREE cardinal crimes in every
= day, and especially in radio.
speech, were specified by Miss
Dagmar Perkins, president of the
National Association for American
0PCccu: 1ley are III 1a1lure to
open the mouth widely enough,
CD ignorance or carelessness in
diction and CD too much imita-
ton of the English.
What we want is pure and
beautiful American speech, un-
trammeled by affectation and
careless usage" she declared.
THE English language lends
itself to clarity and euphony if
properly spoken. Lucidity should
be the first aim of good speech.
No speech is good unless it con-
veys to the hearer what it was in
tended to convey by the speaker"