Radio Round the World

Radio Record, Volume XI, Issue 1, 10 July 1936, Page 3

Radio Round the World

N a magnificent studio of radio city. New York, the Harl of Listowel was making his first broadcast speech. The lights went out. He waited while the members of the orchestra fished in their pockets for matches, and within half.a minute resumed his speech and finished it by matchlight. The control room explained that-a power station had short-circuited, and New York was jn darkness; trains stopped, telephones off, ‘lifts between floors, and N.B.C. officials. walking all. the way down to try to buy candles at nearby grocery stores. But the transmissions continued on the emergency equipment; a studio pianist played a Chopin study

from memory, and the engineers worked with stop-watches, because all the electric clocks were out, to get the programmes on schedule. MERICAN broadcasters use the electricity supply to calculate the audience for broadcasts; thus, when the New York Edison Company explained that listeners used 35,000 kilowatts more

power when Al Smith attacked the New Deal on January 15, it meant that "at least a quarter of a million more re ceivers than usual were turned on in New York for the broadcast." They say it’s the same when the President broadeasts, and that altogether political speeches have bigger audiences than any other kind of radio entertainment in America.