A Decade of Radio

Radio Record, Volume V, Issue 13, 9 October 1931, Page 3

A Decade of Radio

Ten years ago trade was in the throes of a serious depression, but radio came and brought prosperous times. And now all eyes are focussed on Radio and its sister, Television. Do they hold the solution?

By

Dr.

Julius

Klein

ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF COMMERCE FOR THE U.S.A., being the subject matter of a talk, delivered recently from New York over the Columbia Broadcasting System.

AMILIARITY with the accustomed operation of the radio can never entirely dull for us its wonder, its romance, and its mystery. Yet it’ is not the fascinating phases of it which I intend to dwell on, but rather the hardly less important growth of its newer business aspects. Let me get rid of some figures first -to get an idea of the surprising dimension gf this still youthful prodigy of modern 1 vietry.

gh My friend Martin Codel, whose recent book, "Radio and its Future," has become a standard text in the field, "estimates that the American radio industry has retailed more than £600,000,000 worth of receiving sets, valves and parts during'the first decade of radio broadcasting." That is just the same as the amount invested in the much more venerable, widespread soft coal minine industry: and it

also equals that invested in national shipping and canals. So this ten-year-old youngster is, to say the least, an amazingly husky lad with lots of promise. That was a decade of fantastic confusion, bewilderingly swift advances of radio tech- { nology, millions made and lost hectic promotion ‘schemes-but with it all, a net gain scarcely to be matched by any other industry in a similar brief span of years. _ In fact, it is probable that, as an industry, radio has only half grown, if ‘that. Just at this time the possibility of its expansion has a lot to do with the

recovery of business. Here is the reason: after each serious business depression of modern times, the opening and development of some new industry has contributed markedly to the restoration of prosperity. After the collapse of the 1870’s, it was the rapid growth of our railway network which supplied the stimulus for speeding recovery. In the early 90’s came the expansion of the bicycle industry. After the 1907

slump, and particularly after that of 1921, it was that amazing young giant, the automobile business, which helped take up the business slack. To-day, clambering as we are up from the 1930-31 chasm in the business curve, it would not be at all unlikely that new household electrical specialties like the radio may supply the extra spark-pluigs to accelerate the industrial machine for the upward climb.

I said we could label this industry as only half-grown; let me offer you some data to prove it. The Census Bureau is just finishing up the first national count of radio sets in use in the U.S.A. Preliminary figures show that about 10,000,000 homes, only one-third of all those in the country, have been equipped for radio reception. So we have a lons way to go before that far-off point of saturation is reached,

though I grant that in walking down the streets these warm summer evenings, you get the impression of a 100 per cent. saturation of the ether waves; you are tempted to believe that every single house has not only its quota of one set, but a whole flock or litter or swarm or whatever it is that radio sets come in.

Here is’ an interesting fact brought out by these new figures -the radio sets are most irregularly distributed. Little Rhode Island has 57 per cent. of its homes equipped, and her neighbour, Connecticut, almost the same. In Wisconsin and

Michigan, sets are found in about 51 per cent. of all homes, while in Iowa the figure runs above 48, in South Dakota 44, and in Nebraska 47 per cent. But.in some of our other States homes with radio service number as little as 5 or 6 per cent. of the total. Perhaps their people are waiting till the sets get better, or the programmes improve, or sorne of the present radio speakers and announcers (Continued on page 11.)

A Decade of Radio

(Continued from page 3.)

die off! These figures resemble strikingly those of the early days of auto-~ pioeinoniile ownership, and I think we can look for industrial history to repeat itself, These gaps will be closed up, and with 20 million homes still there as a potential market, to say nothing of replacements, extra sets, portables, etc., there still seems to be a broad market here at home, even without considering the enormous field abroad. And there are a billion people in the whole world within the range of broadcasting stations now established. That is the potential market. On the basis of five listeners to every set, it would require 200,000,000 sets to provide facilities for all of them to tune in the programmes available. That is about eight times the present supply. And new stations are constantly being put up as well. One short-wave transmitter of great power is working away out in Kenya, in what used to be Darkest Africa. And then there are those illions of motor-cars, some of which t least ought to be-shall I say "serviced with static’ ?-to drown out their

other squeaks. The Hditor of the J ournal of the National Education Association, certainly not an extravagantly-minded periodical, makes the prediction that individual radio receivers for each member of the family will be with us soon, and points out that the use of the instruments in education is only beginning. Millions of youngsters will presently be having some portion of their lessons from nationally famous master teachers.

We can test as well the growing oversea popularity of radio by the recent increase in its exports. You know, of course, that international business in general has been woefully cut into by . depression this year; most of our ' manufacturers lost 40 or 50 per cent. of their normal export volume. Yet in the first quarter of 1931, the number of new American radio sets marketed abroad was 70,000 against 41,000 in the same period last year. The world is obviously supplying itself with a new kind of luxury which is due to become almost a necessity. Probably: 26,000,000 sets are now in service all round the globe. Nearly half of them are here, a quarter are in Nngland, Germany, and France taken together, and the rest are spread from Cape Horn to Kamehatka. But, of course, the best way to estimate the popularity of radio in any region is to figure out the sets in operation in proportion to population. In this respect, Denmark, with

68 sets for each thousand people, is second to the United States with its 88 per thousand, and Sweden shows an almost equal interest with 60 per thousand.

With a young industry such as this it would be natural to expect a swift succession of startling new developments in its early stages. And so we have in prospect the perfection of tele-vision-the time when the radio will bring its message to the eye as well as to the ear. It is still far from perfect, of course, and I do not want to get myself too far into its scientific problems, but the experts tell me that within a year or two the display of current events in vision and sound will be rather generally practicable.

so many unbelievable things have come true that it takes a lot of nerve to challenge the promise of such new wonders. This brings me to the other side of the radio picture-the broadcasting industry. We have in the United States now 600 radio broadcasting stations. What a growth in this brief period of a little over ten years! It was only on the night of November 2, 1920, that the first lone station went on the air with many sputters and crackles, to give the Harding-Cox election results to a band of valiant souls (about 25,

I am told), frantically jiggling their earphones and crystal sets. And now the provision of programmes and power for the broadcasting end of the industry alone, to say nothing of your receiving sets, entails an annual expenditure in the United States of £380,000,000. This amazing feverish growth makes us consider very seriously one vital phase of the industry, namely, the advantages of American traditional insistence upon individual freedom and initiative. In most other countries radio broadcasting is a Government monopoly, sustained usually by some form of special license tax on receiving sets. There is no more warrant for a Government radio system in the United States than there is for a Gov-ernment-controlled chain of newspapers all over the country. At best, the Governmental systems lean to heaviness and lack of variety in programmes; while at worst, they degenerate-unconsciously or other

wise-to propaganda mechanisms drugging the popular mind with the pet ideas of some controlling bureaucracy. Radio presents a great field, over which I must skip rapidly in the time which is allotted me. You all re-

member how last month President Hoover, struggling with the German crisis, was able to utilise the facilities of the radio telephone, never losing touch with his assistants in Paris and London who conducted the difficult and delicate unegotiations-

which would probably have been almost impossible without radio. Instances of its marvellous service are innumerable. An American banker in London recently on an important financial mission needed to get honoured a cheque for 1,000,000 dollars. There was no copy of his signature in Hurope; banks are naturally careful about the payment of so large a sum, When the situation was explained over the trans-Atlantic radio telephone, an authentie copy of his signature was transmitted by radio, and the cheque was duly paid. A ship at sea, bound for Philadelphia, sustained an" accident which necessitated the replacement of one of its mechanical parts. Plans of the ship were in England; but the blueprint design for construction was radioed across the ocean, and by the time the vessel limped into the Delaware River, a new section was ready for immediate installation. ‘The aeroplane on voyage to-day is never out of touch of ground, is fully apprised of weather, work, and course by the radio beacons and messages. Do you know of the Radio Relay League, that organisation of amateurs, thousands of whom are working their own telegraph and telephone sending and receiving stations, exchanging messages clear around the world in their own code? We hear only once jn a while of their wonderful, extemporised feats of communication. It is never going to be possible in the future for disaster to cut off appreciable groups of human people from the help of others again. No matter what stress of storm, flood, fire, or earthquake it is which breaks wires and cables as it overwhelms habitations (Concluded on page 28.)

UDESEAEUTSUUEETESONUCEGAUDELERUSNUTNNLETTE SUP TELL TGME SOI FTAN TSCA DUTELIEOHLET A Decade of Radio (Continued from page it.) and wastes wide areas, the amateur station is always to be found, surviving somehow, manned by boys not alone willing and eager. but expertly able to take up the burden of restoring emergency communication, recounting the tale of damage, and guiding the efforts of salvage and restoration. The radio is certainly putting into history another exhibition of all that is admirable in human intellect and character, which reveals men dreaming of ways to break the bonds of space and time, of striving to make dreams come true, until in the outcome we have their success enriching the lives of all mankind. My own appreciation of that accomplishment is high just now. Because of it I have been able to make chat with you of the radio audience in informal fashion-free of all the starchy limitations which hedge about a lecture platform-pérmitted to share the friendly intimacy of your homes, perhaps to join you momentarily by the glowing campfires of your summer vacation, or in less happy surroundings, the drug-scented wards of hospitals--even, according to some of your letters. behind the grim steel bars of prison cells. One shortcoming it has had, from my point of view-the talk has been all one way. Perhaps that is just as well for me, since you cannot throw anything.