Evening star., 1942-01-04
Radio |ndustryCuts
Output for Civilians
To Push War Orders
Entertainment Broudeosts
Expected to Continue
Despite Emergency
BY JAMES NARROW
Iide World News.

NEW YORK, Jan. 3-The Amer
ican radio industry. now OF age Is
giving its full aid to Uncle Sam, VINO
never before had the help OF broad
casting in wartime.
The industry. which has grown
in 81 years to billlon-dollar-a-year
enterprise. expects to produce lar
fewer civilian receiving sets in 1912,
but at the same time to maintain
its entertainment programs.
Out OF this intensive war effort
the industry. which got its inSpira-
ton from developments in the First
World War before voice broadcastlng
began in 1920, hopes to give radio
another boost by the time peace
returns.
A drastic curtailment, however. IN
the production of receiving sets VIII
cause little dismay in America which
has an estimated 100000 of them,
more than all the rest of the world
combined. and more than 300 broad
casting stations.
German Offer Recalled.
Although the United States At
torney General ordered all japanese.
German and Italian aliens in seven
West Coast States to turn their
short radios over to local
police, a spokesman for one OF the
large manufacturers anticipates no
such ban on American citizens VINO
own about 100000 such sets.
Americans" he said, don't pay
much attention to short-wave broad
casts, anyway.
II think a good example of this
came last spring when Germany
offered to pay the cost Of any mes
sage from Americans offering con-
structive criticism on German broad
casts.
"The Germans broadcast that
offer for about a week on short wave
and received approximately IL an
swers. Then the newspapers pub
hshed q story about the German
offer and Immediately Americans
dU NTSIIIldll SOSO~dCluSCd tliS ANd<AHo
with suggestions highly sarcastic"
With 80 to 100 per cent of its
production in many cases going to
defense work and its laboratories
and factories working night and day,
the machinery of radio has never
spun In all its history at such terrific
speed as now.
The Radio Corp. Of America,
typical of the industry which pro-
duced 100000 receiving sets in
l94l for its all-time record, disclosed
drastic reductions for 1912 and
added:
1--WE will cooperate with the Gov
ernment to any point. even to the
elimination of domestic production
altogether
The r. C. AS backlog of orders
is 80 per cent for defense, 20 per
cent for domestic use.
Substitute Materials Used.
The Westinghouse Electric g.
Manufacturing Co.. making state
ment essentially the same as that
of r. C. A., disclosed that 80 per
cent of its backlog orders for radio
equipment units were for defense.
A spokesman for the Philco Radio
& Television Corp. said its produc-
ton of domestic receiving sets would
be cut in the next twelvemonth at
least so or go per cent.
The manufacturers, restrained by
the Office of Production Manage
ment in the use of certain materials
such as aluminum-essential for
defense, have had to develop alter
mates and one of them announced
its research laboratories found 40
substitutes for as many materials.
Because of the secrecy which
NECESSARILY must surround Its de-
velopments worked out for the Army
and Navy probably litt OF radios