Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1955-09-04

OF Lnel&o.0 mililon nave q tele-
vision receiver, but no other
radio.
As decorative as radio sets
have become, it still seems
reasonable to assume that
some Of the purchasers of
these 1872 million receivers
bought them with. the idea of
listening to them. Some of
the buyers undoubtedly are the
disillusioned. who used to COM
plain about the banality OF q
high percentage of the radio
fare. now driven back to radio
by the banality Of much of Tv.
No Welcome
So far, the radio broad
casters have not done much to.
tidy up the place and make 1t
more attractive for the
returnees. The trouble. per-
haps. Is that no one is quite
sure how many radio listeners
there are outside the group
that can be measured by
audience surveys
They are out in the kitchen,
down in the recreation room,
Oh up in a bedroom listening
to the radio while the man in
the living room is assuring the
audience poll that TVS
$4,000 question is occupy
ing that household. Or, they
are out driving. not holding
still to be counted. There are
more than 20 million automo-
bile radios now.
In the debate over the ef-
fects of television some serious
charges have been made.
There is a considerable body
Of opinion, for instance, which
holds that TV is making our
young illiterate or delinquent
or both. and our adults vege-
tables who sit transfixed by
mediocrity night after night.
1t could be an even more
serious effect Of TV If radio
is allowed to succumb before
its onslaught. For there still
are many areas where, to par
aphrase Cor mangle) the song,
anything radio can do, tele-
vision can not do better.
News. Music
The most obvious of these
are news and music. In the
former field radio is, or ut
least has the inherent faculty
to be. superior to its glamor-
Gus offspring. It has mobility
and it can get an on-the-spoJ
report TO you while the TV
cameraman is exposing his
film.
Television here completes
not with sound broadcasting
but with the newsreels: it
brings the pictures to you as
soon as they are available,
rather than making you go out
to a theater next Tuesday to
see them. You see precious
few news pictures while they
are news on teleYision, unless
a fire breaks out across the
street within range Of the live
TV cameras.
A great amount of news
deals in ideas, too, as well as
with events. Man long ago
discovered that pictures were
insufficient for the transmits
sion of ideas and invented
words to do the job. Watching
a newscaster at work does not
give television any superiority
over radio. And if the TV
news program veers toward
the pictorial. then availability
of pictures rather than news
value becomes the editors
guide.
Television has done some
fine things in the musical field,
but not in overwhelming num-
bers and only systematically.
This probably is just as well.
since the average television
directors penchant for physi-
cal movement if no other kind
is available is likely to prove
distracting to a man listening
to a symphony. The music
lover probably uses his radio
a great deal more than he
uses his television set.
Special Interest
In radios struggle for sur
vival, it is likely to turn more
and more to the special needs
Of special audiences, such as
these music lovers. Radio
Station WGMS here seems to
have done we'll by catering to
them, and others seek out
other audiences. In 'the sec
ond largest city in Maryland"
for instance. WGAY, Silver
Spring. and WIDOW. Wheaton,
aim at community service.
Some stations aim directly
at the 20 million radios in au-
tomobiles. Particularly during
the morning and evening rush
hours, programs are sprinkled
with traffic and weather infor-
mation-and shot through. of
course, with commercials
aimed at the presumably we'll
heeled motoriSt.
At the network level there
does not seem to be any def
mite opinion on radios future
course. Only one major at
tempt to shake radio up and
bring some new life to it has
come to fruition. This is the
National Broadcasting Co.'S
Monitor" a program which
runs from Saturday morning
to midnight Sunday.
This is based on something
of the same theory as that