Evening star., 1934-12-16

and diSllkeS, and lots OF them,
II out there is one place where
i they shake hands and agree
men announcers are more to
be desired than women. Out OF the
laboratory of the psychologist this
conclusion has Just come, reinforced
with figures indicating that 95 per
cent of listeners want their announc-
ers to be members of the stronger
sex.
According to studies conducted by
the Harvard psychological laboratory,
and reviewed by Douglas McGregor,
a graduate student writing in the
Harvard Alumni Bulletin, the pSychol-
oeists learned a lot of interesting
facts about the 65,00O,0 900 persons who
lend their ears to the loudSpeaker
with more or less regularity.
They not only discovered the Oft
suspected preference fV male an
nouncers. but went three or four
steps further into the anatomy of the
radio audience and dissected there
from the reasons why this should be
the case.
Take the manner of delivery, for
example. The proberS into the habits
of radio listeners soon discovered that
women are inclined to put on airs
when they realize that a good sized
audience is taking in their verbal
offerings. In the language of the
laboratory technlcians, women speak
ers are inclined to affectation.
80 Quick to See Affectation.
Right there the psychologists de-
toured into another interesting con-
dition. They found that people are
quicker in discovering affectation in
the voices of their own sex than in
the other sex. Obviously, then, wom-
en- listeners will see through the af-
tectation disguise of feminine an
nouncers faster Than the opposite sex.
But there are still more reasons
back of the preference for male an
nouncers and the university doctors
dug them out of the piles of facts
and tancies that groups of listeners
turned in after they had served both
as subjects and objects of expert
ments. They brought to light the
conclusion that male announcers are
liked better because their voices are
pitched lower, and therefore more per-
suasive, especially since they carry
better over the air, into the radio
set, and on out to the listener.
Lest any one figure that women
are total loss. the probers into the
radio audiences inner mind want it
to be known that there are two sides
to the question. The other side, it
seems, is that despite their compare
tive unpopularity, women announcers
have more attractive voices than their
brothers of the opposite sex. From
this the experts deduce that it isn't
the quality of the voice that makes
for popularity, but the characteristics
referred to few paragraphs ago.
And with more factual basis than
chivalry, the scientists brought to
light the radio audiences preference
for women when poetry and abstract
material are broadcast, a choice be-
lieved to be due to the inherent ro-
nance that lies behind the feminine
voice.
Obtained average Group"
On the other hand, male speakers
are preferred for programs which in
clude weather and news reports, po-
litical talks or advertisements.
In conducting its experiments, the
Harvard Psychological Laboratory,
which has been pioneer in this type
of radio research, set about to get an
average group" of radio listeners
with the idea of watching how they
reacted to different types of broad
casts. For example in one of the eX-
periments 30 people were engaged to
spend an hour day for seven days
in the laboratory.
These 80 served the same function
as the medical students mice or
guinea pigs, and they sat in a hall
listening to loudspeakers carrying
programs from another part of the
building The material included
everything from advertising matter
to poetry. Each of the subjects had
little book which contained printed
questions and when each experiment
was concluded, he wrote answers to
the questions.
nROMISED as one of the radio de-
I velopmentS of the new year for
listeners in the Middle West is
new network, to be keyed from Sta
ton VIGIL, Chicago, operated by the
Chicago Federation of Labor Afflli-
ate Radio Networks Inc, is the name
adopted by the organization, which
claims line up of IS stations, and
which plans to inaugurate its chain
service about January l. serving Illi-
nois, Wisconsin and Indiana at the
outset.
During 1884, two networks, both
regional and coverage, got under way,
one OF them with Nationwide aspira-
tions. One was the American Broad