50Th Anniversary
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Broadcasting's 50th Anniversary SOL, CONGRATULATIONS FROM YOUR FIRST ADVERTISER! HUBBARD BROADCASTING, INC. .>_,AwlemeribarMaa....4""n vat v..k.../......let.; Welcome to the 5 thAnniversary Club Summit knows what a gol n anniversary feels like. Ours was last year. We ent red broadcasting in 1930 with WSJS-AM in Winston- lem. We've grown with the industry just as Broadcasting has grown. In 1947 we acquired our first FM station. In 1953 we entered the growing Television field. In 1970 our first Cable System became a reality. And now we're into Space. We've just added a new satellite division devoted to business communications. Summit's 50 years in broadcasting have been exciting, and we're looking forward to the next 50. For all those years, we've enjoyed Broadcasting and we've learned a lot. We're looking forward to the next 50 years of Broadcastingtoo. So, congratulations Sol. g thanks. Broadcasting wouldn't have been thela without Broadcasting. wolf W:Nk. NUNZei ii),Lutv$41Kot . 'AIM: 1 i';.;;1 Wittk iv1 7 rm) Um.; traCk Pcio'ksiva. ri.t; e iojkovo, ttc, Reellitk, ti.k, haw it: , Noit<ttVitk, Mt CANtt Otittt.Y% Ga. ttliCatfuots !Salt-Ma ..SattItitc It seems like only yesterday that we put the first issue of BROADCASTING to bed. Now, 50 years later, we're putting the 2,341st issue to bed-the one enumerated Vol. 101, No. 15. That's a lot of printer's ink for anyone's lifetime, and I count myself lucky to have been able to spend so much of it at work and play with the business and the people I love best. This 50th anniversary issue is special in a number of respects. It serves to sum up the year-long history of the industry that BROADCASTING has been publishing week by week for the entire course of this past anniversary year. Somewhat reluctantly, I was persuaded to add my own recollections to those the magazine has put on the record over the years; they appear in the "At Large" interview that occupies pages 119-142. Immediately after that we've assembled a 50-year chronology of major stories and milestones that we believe all readers will find useful in the years to come. It begins with the "Fifth Estate Family Tree" on pages 144 and 145, in which we've tried to capture in one artful embrace all the media we've come to call our own. And then we put the past behind us in a major special report-beginning on page 207-looking ahead to what the world of electronic communications will be like in the year 2001, a short 20 years from now. We hope you'll find that reporting as thought-provoking as we do. This much is sure: It's going to be fascinating to see how it all turns out. So now we're off on the second 50 years. We hope our family tree, and yours, will continue to flourish, and that readers will always have reason to feel about the magazine as we do: that the best issue of BROADCASTING is the next one. Broadcasting Oct 12 1981 117 Congratulations! years of Broadcasting WKZO WKZO-TV KOLN-TV KGIN-TV Kalamazoo Kalamazoo Lincoln Grand Island WJFM WKJF(FM) WWAM KMEG-TV Grand Rapids Cadillac Cadillac Sioux City Broadcasting L nR011 sig.© Broadcasting Chairman and Editor Sol Taishoff "The First 50 Years Were the Hardest" When did you get your start In broadcasting? North American Newspaper Alliance we became competitors but we He was I wrote my first radio story probably around 1925, when I was at remained friends. not married then and had very few the Associated Press doing offbeat things and radio wasn't ties here, and occasionally I would take him home with me on Fri- assigned to anyone. The Department of Commerce licensed radio day for a kosher meal. We started talking about radio needing its on ships at sea-the old safety of life, SOS thing. It wasn't until own Editor and Publisher. The idea of BROADCASTING germinated from those discussions. 1927 that you got a Federal Radio Commission. That was in the late 1920's. By that time Codel had left the North American Newspaper When did the Idea of BROADCASTING magazine first germinate? Alliance to run something he labeled the Radio News Bureau in Washington-special coverage for radio stations and a weekly It probably started when Martin Codel and I were on the staff of newsletter. I was still writing the Robert Mack dispatch and work- the U.S. Daily for David Lawrence, probably in 1928 or '29. He ing for David Lawrence. And the newsletter business wasn't was writing the Robert Mack radio dispatch for the Consolidated doing very well. Press. I spelled him when he was on other assignments, and I also wrote the Mack dispatch. I've forgotten precisely when Codel left How much were you making with Lawrence? the United States Daily, which was the predecessor of the U.S. I was making $45 a week on the U.S. Daily, $35 a week for writing News & World Report but when he left, I immediately began to the column. But on the side, whenever I covered a hearing or write the Robert Mack dispatch on what amounted to a full-time something like that, I might furnish a black sheet [carbon copy] basis, five days a week. When I had a story that was hot or timely for the New York Times or the New York Herald-Ribune. It was over Saturday or Sunday, I would write it for my own byline and nothing to work 12 or 14 hours a day on these things. I was doing distribute it on the Consolidated Press Association wire, which pretty well. I was probably averaging over $100 a week, which David Lawrence also owned. was much better than most news guys in town were doing. After Codel left and went to work writing a column for the The Robert Mack dispatch was a pseudonym owned by David Broadcasting Oct 12 1981 119 AT LARGE Lawrence. I was Robert Mack number three, and Codel was num- BROADCASTING began publication on Oct. 15, 1931, as a semi- ber two. Lawrence also had another specialized column on busi- monthly. ness way ahead of the press associations. I remember he had Were there many broadcasters in the NAB at that time? another columnist whose name was Hardin Colfax, which spelled out "hard and cold facts." He also was one of the early European Quite a few. I think there were probably 250 or 300 people at the dispatch distributors, and, if I remember correctly, he had a 1931 convention that elected Shaw. byline man named Paritonatti. Don't ask me how to spell it, but How long did he retain his 52%? any guy that came along that had back from come Europe and had On March 4, 1932, the first bank in the country to close its a good feature story got the Paritonatti byline. And this was Law- doors-ahead of the bank holiday-was the First National Bank rence's genius. of Waterloo, where Harry Shaw had his money. Harry had put up Who was Robert Mack number one? $5,200 as a 10% down payment on $52,000 for 52% of the stock, A fellow named Bill Sweetzer, who was an announcer on wRc so there'd be no problems about what went where when it finally here and who was assigned to something else. Most of Law- worked out. He told us that his assets were frozen and that we rence's people doubled in brass. would have to forage for ourselves, and that he would regard his a Well, then Codel and I decided that radio should have its own $5,200 as loss. key accounts after a few issues of the maga- trade paper because it was a journalism medium, not a jukebox. We went out to our We began looking around for an angel. But we couldn't get any- zine had been published and asked them whether they thought it body to put up the money. This was the bottom of the Depres- was worthwhile, whether radio really needed a trade paper. The sion now-1930. three networks were included. There were a couple of station rep- Then along came a fellow named Philip Geiselman Loucks, resentatives. There were some manufacturers. All agreed that it who was a lawyer and a good friend of mine-a former United was desirable, and we gave them a 15% discount on their advertis- Press guy. Phil became the managing director of the National As- ing under a one-year contract, which was the balance of 24 issues. sociation of Broadcasters. He was elected to the post, and was We raised another $6,000, and that is all the money that originally given the assignment of raising the money to sustain an office - went into the magazine. And that was the way things went until I drawing $10,000 in pay, if he could raise that much. Phil started bought out Codel in 1944. this thing with two offices in the National Press Building. The Who were the leaders in the industry at the time you started the NAB itself was not located in Washington at the time. It was a magazine? speakeasy in New York. True story. There was a guy named Hap There was Alfred J. McCosker of WOR in New York.