Encyclopedia of Radio and Television Broadcasting
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Encyclopedia of Radio and Television Broadcasting The man behind the microphone ROBERT ST. JOHN Encyclopedia of Radio And Television Broadcasting (The Man Behind the Microphone) By ROBERT ST. JOHN Cathedral Square Publishing Company Cathedral Square Milwaukee, Wisconsin iv Copyright ©1967by Cathedral Square Publishing Company. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the publishers, except in the case of brief quotations used in critical articles or re- views. For information or permission write Cathedral Square Publishing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 53202. Printed in the United States of America. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number67-17803 CNICA40 PUBLICLIIRARY MAY 14 1968 M Preface Close by the Capital in Washington there is a building with a misleading name - the Library of Congress. Actually it is our National Library. To this building flows, from all corners of the country, a torrent of books, for the public laws of the United States state that in order to obtain a copyright on any work of fiction or non-fiction, two copies must first be dispatched to the Library of Congress. That explains why, the last time a count was taken, there were found to be 12,752,000 different titles on the shelves. For each title, a 3 x 5 card is made, out and put into the proper place in drawers that stretch as far as the eye can see. The drawers are 17 inches deep, with 98 cards per inch, except that so many people thumb through these files \\ that the upper right corners of the cards gradually acquire a film of grease and dirt. As a result, after a time itis possible to get only 97 cards to the \ inch. Thatmeans 1,649 cards to the drawer and there are 21 drawers of cards devoted to the single subject: RADIO. Those 34,629 books on radio cover every conceivable aspect of the subject. There is, for example, an entire book just on the fluffs, goofs and boners that have been made on the air by professional broadcasters. There are other books devoted exclusively to such specialized subjects as why the radio audience years ago panicked over a play about an invasion from Mars, and how to make people laugh if you are a television actor, and how to store sound recordings. Then there is a book just listing other books on radio - a bibliography - put out by the National Association of Educational Broadcasters, which discloses that books on the non -technical aspects of radio are being written and pub- lished at the rate of almost a thousand a year. If a young man set out to read the Library of Congress's mountain of books on broadcasting and were able to read three a day and worked at it 365 days a year, by the time he was 50 years old he would still be reading. In the face of such statistics it may sound presumptuous to claim that this Encyclopedia is unique. Better to say, modestly, that its aim is to do something that none of those other books has yet done. Every single subject treated herein has been dealt with more exhaustively vi in other books, long before now. There are whole shelves of books, for example, on microphone technique alone, or on writing news stories. What this volume has set out to do is to cover in these few hundreds of pages the wide range of subjects that are of intense interest to the young broadcaster - to give him a sense of the excitement of the broadcasting business - its problems, its thrills, its sorrows, its rewards - and at the same time to pass on to him some practical advice on "how to do it" - it being anything from how to get the best use out of a tape recorder and how to use the human voice for all its worth, to how to delve for truth and how to acquire knowledge. For those who want to go deeper into any one subject, a Reading List in Section III recommends many fine books on specialized matters. In other words, no claim is made that this is a definitive book on any single phase of broadcasting. Some of its readers will use it as a textbook, yet one aim in writing it has been to keep it from sounding like a textbook.Section I, especially, is meant to be read with enjoyment. Therein are stories about some of the most momentous broadcasts ever delivered - broadcasts that helped to change history and channel the course of human destiny. Some of this section has been lived by the author. The rest has come from observation, from the stories told by colleagues during moments of reminiscing, and from research. Samuel Johnson, who had the distinction of making the first dictionary of our language, once wrote: "A man will turn over half a library to make one book." Months and months have been spent doing research in the Library of Con- gress, checking facts, figures, dates and statistics. Section II has been written with the help of professional broadcasters in both radio and television, who have been unselfishly eager to pass on to a younger generation what they have learned - in most cases learned the hard way - by trial and error, because in their young days good schools of broad- casting did not exist. Section III is a book in itself.It is designed to serve as a ready -reference library, always close at hand to answer questions about dates, spellings, pro- nunciations, code regulations. The Encyclopedia has not been written for any one group of broadcasters or prospective broadcasters.It is for the man who is already at work in front of a microphone, as well as for the aspiring broadcaster who is just beginning to learn the fundamentals of the business. The hope is that it will interest, entertain, inform and be of instructional value to those who have chosen for their life -work the fascinating business of broadcasting. Robert St. John, Washington, D.C., 1967. vii Acknowledgements Facts,figures, photographs,statistics and suggestionsinpreparingthis volume have come from many quarters. Those to whom especial thanks should go are: Ben Gross, Daily News radio -TV critic, New York. Bud Rukeyser, Public Relations, NBC, New York. Gene Walsh, Trade Publicity, NBC, New York. Enid Moore, Public Relations, CBS, New York. Gail Plautz, Photo Unit, CBS, New York. Joe Cook, Public Information, ABC, New York. Dick Connelly, News, ABC, New York. Gerald Goldberg, Public Relations, Westinghouse Broadcasting. Casey Cohlmia, Promotion Manager, WFAA, Dallas, Texas. Carl Staska, Asst. Promotion Manager, KDKA, Pittsburgh, Penns. Ralph W. Beaudin, President, WLS, Chicago. Jon Caudle, Promotion Director, WSOC, Charlotte, N.C. Bernard Ruttenberg, Public Relations Director, WNEW, New York. Robinson B. Brown, Public Relations, WCCO, Minneapolis, Minn. Rolfe Peterson, KCBS, San Francisco, Cal. John Cameron Swayze, outstanding radio and TV commercial announcer. Bill Randle, WERE, Cleveland, Ohio. Fran Allison, Don McNeill's Breakfast Club, Kukla, Fran and 011ie. Milton E. Magruder, Public Relations, NAB, Washington, D.C. Henry Elson, Secretary, Pacifica Foundation, Berkeley, Cal. Westbrook Van Voorhis, internationally known narrator. John P. Cosgrove, Broadcasting, Washington, D.C. Robert Crowell, Thomas Y. Crowell Co., Publishers, New York. Earl Gillespie, Sports Director, WITI-TV, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. James F. Bender, Ph.D., Ade1phi University, Garden City, N.Y. Paul C. Johnson, Editorial Director, Prairie Farmer, Chicago. Ulmer Turner, founder of ABC News, Chicago. Del Shields, Executive Vice President, NARA, New York. George M. Shirey, Advertising Research Foundation, New York. Howard Miller, WIND, Chicago. , ix Contents SECTION I: THE STORY OF BROADCASTING 1. What Is Communication? 1 2. What Is a Broadcaster? 5 3. This Is How It All Began 17 4. Radio: The Young & Lusty Years 27 5. Radio: The Mature Years 53 6. Television: The Dream Come True 79 7. Broadcasting's Most Significant Hours 91 8. How Broadcasting Learned a Lesson 105 9. Critics: Amateur & Professional 113 10. P.R.O.=P.A.=P.T. 127 11. Supervision and Ethics 131 12. How Audiences Are Measured 143 13. Educational Television 157 14. FM, CATV, COMSAT, CONELRAD, PAY -TV 165 SECTION II: THE TECHNIQUES OF BROADCASTING 15. The Human Voice, a Wondrous Apparatus 173 16. The Voice: How to Use It 185 17. Announcer Techniques 195 18. Television Announcing 205 19. Words in Action 213 20. Reporting the News 225 21. Writing and Broadcasting the News 247 22. International Reporting 263 23. The Disc Jockey, Modern Music Master 273 24. Concert Music 283 25. Emceeing 289 26. Women in Broadcasting 297 27. Children on the Air: Danger or Delight 309 x 28. Sportscasting 315 29. Weathercasting 335 30. Commercials Pay the Rent 345 31. Fluffs, Goofs, Boners, Slips, Butchs, Bloopers 355 32. Knowledge: How to Acquire It 361 33. Management 369 34. Programming 375 35. Truth: How to Delve for It 381 36. Editorializing 387 37. From Automation to Vice 393 38. A Job in Broadcasting: How to Get It 405 SECTION III: THE REFERENCE BOOK OF BROADCASTING 39. The NAB Radio Code 413 40. The NAB Television Code 421 41. Mass Communications Chronology 431 42. Abbreviations Every Broadcaster Should Know 437 43. Guilds, Unions and Associations 441 44. Periodicals of Interest to Broadcasters 445 45. Suggested Reading 447 46. Pronunciation Guide 463 a.Diacritical Markings. b. Words Frequently Mispronounced c.Place Names Often in the News 47. Musical Dictionary 491 a. Terms Used in Music b. Musicians Names c.Musical Compositions 48. Dictionary of Broadcasting Terms 503 Index 533 Section I. The Story of Broadcasting - 1 /. What Is Communication? In the north of China, in prehistoric times, when an ancient man called Homo Erectus Pekinensis (the Erect Man of Peking) indicated to his wife by grunts what he thought of the meal she had just spread before him on the dirt floor of their cave .