Evening star., 1939-01-22
Battle of the Short Waves
Is Waged in South America
Private Z. S. Companies Are Giving Propaganda
Experts of Totalitarian Nations Stiff Fight
Over Broadcast Channels
BY T. ". Sandifer.


mail response from listeners indicates
that our policy is successful"
Thus N. B. c. is broadcasting 63 hours
weekly to Latin America, and shortly
is to go on an operating schedule to the
southern countries of 112 hours per week.
OF this 63 hours, the Latin American
| gets hours per week of news in Spanish
and 312 hours per week in Portuguese,
compared with Germany's present sched-
ule of 312 hours of news in Spanish out
of a total of 56 hours per week. and
! Italy's hour and As minutes in Span
ish out of total Of hours and 55
| minutes.
| Schedules Compared.
The American schedule, as represented
by this one company alone, compares
favorably also with England's total week
ly broadcast of 10 hours and 40 minutes,
of which / hour and As minutes is in
Spanish, or with Japan's weekly total of
hours, of which 80 minutes each are
devoted, respectively, to Spanish and
Portuguese.
company in it's own operations, further
devote total of AZ out of SO hours per
week to Spanish language programs. This
total includes the news broadcasts al
ready mentioned by this one witness.
The other companies have not been
heard, so that similar details of their
broadcasts have not been made public.
Taking this company's practice, how
ever, as reported by Mr.. Mason, the
Latin American programs include, be-
side Spanish, IA hours per week in
Portuguese and only hours weekly in
English. This compares with Germany's
20 hours and As minutes per week in
German, Japan's hour and 10 minutes
in japanese and Italys 2 hours and 20
minutes of Spanish, hour and 10 min
utes of Portuguese, S hours and Is
minutes of mixed Spanish. Portuguese
and Italian and hour and 10 minutes
of Italian.
The other nations broadcasting to
Latin American audiences, France, Hol-
land and England among them, similarly
mix their program languages. This Gus
tom of European broadcasts in mixed
languages, Mr.. Mason said, is not believed
in the United States studios to be
satisfactory His own company had
found that the Latin Americans prefer
to listen to programs entirely in their
own languages, and further. not all
listeners are able to follow any other
types of program.
1t is the assumption in Washington
that Japanese language broadcasts must
be intended almost exclusively for the
considerable number Of Japanese COL
onists found in some of the southern
countries since an obviously insignificant
number of other South American lis
teners would understand them.
Mail Response Watched.
Proof of the correctness of American
practice is found in the infallible mail
bag that all broadcasters watch daily.
Mr.. Mason testified that mail response
from Brazil dominates this reaction
index, but in recent months almost half
of the mail response from the companys
shortwave programs to all countries,
including European, comes from Latin
America. French listeners rank second
and German third.
The N. B. c., 1t was stated, conducts
extensive broadcasts to European audi
ences, and the mailbag from such coun-
tries as Germany offers an interesting
clue to the real state of sentiment. Sig
nificantly, many of Mr. Mason's exhibits
Of response from German listeners were
void of the sender's name or address.
These were omitted by the company to
protect the writer, since some of the let
ters were surprisingly frank.
News broadcasts attract the widest
following, Mr.. Mason found, and are the
backbone of the international programs
AS evidence of the Importance of this
feature, he cited the fact that his COM
pany's news broadcasts to Latin Ameri-
can countries in Spanish are picked up
seven nights weekly by station in
Buenos Aires, to be rebroadcast through
out Argentina.
A considerable portion of this news
concerns economic factors, such as COM
modify prices of interest to wheat grow
ers or ranchers in the Argentine, or coffee
shippers in Brazil. The news also covers
other American activities. His company
repeatedly sends more news over the
air in Spanish to Latin America than
comes from any other country In the
international broadcasting field, Mr..
Mason reported.
The international staff of this one
company, responsible for shaping and
sending such broadcasts, appears to COM
pare favorably with anything available
in competing nations. While much has
been charged against American sales
manship, in all its aspects, In South
America, the big broadcasting companies
IN the United States seem to have avoid
ed the dangers so frequently mentioned.
In the case of N B. c., the commission
was told, the International Division is a
no-picked aggregation of men with in
'efhatlonal background and experience,
representing among them personal &C.
quaintance with 100 foreign countries
citizens. ' ''~' '->'''