RADIO and TELEVISION 89 Ulation Has Benefited More from the Advances in Radio Broadcasting Than People on the Land
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RADIO AND TELEVISION 89 ulation has benefited more from the advances in radio broadcasting than people on the land. Radio receivers in the beginning were big and complicated and had Radio and antennas outside the house. They have become smaller and so simple and easy to use that they no longer are the center Television of activity in the living room but are all over the house on desks, bedside Layne Beaty tables, shelves in the kitchen, basement, workroom, barn, milkshed, pickup truck, automobile—sometimes in the tractor and shirt pockets. IF IT'S getting harder to tell the dif- The invention of the transistor, a tiny ference between a farm-dweller and substitute for tubes, enabled manufac- a town-dweller, two of the reasons are turers to reduce the size of receivers so radio and television. that some battery-operated sets now The role of the Department of Agri- fit snugly into pockets and handbags. culture in the development of agricul- Partly because television emerged tural communications through the almost fullblown in the first decade broadcast mediums since the mid- after the Second World War (while it igso's has been to encourage, cooper- took radio 25 years to condition the ate, and supply timely, useful informa- public thoroughly to receiving broad- tion to broadcasters. The cooperation casts), radio has yielded the family had much to do with the progress and gathering places to the television set soundness of our agriculture. and itself has become the more per- Much of the agricultural informa- sonal medium. tion broadcast on radio and television There were 4,142 radio broadcasting originates with the officials, scientists, stations in January 1959 in the United regulatory and service agencies, and States. Americans owned and used market reporting services of the De- more than 98 million receiving sets in partment. homes, 38 million in automobiles, and It reaches broadcasting stations, at 10 million in public places, such as their request, through the Associated restaurants, barbershops, and garages. Press and United Press International We should note here that the broad- and other private news agencies and casting industry in the United States by direct mail and wire. is commercially owned, except for sta- The majority of producers of farm tions owned and operated by educa- products now can receive up-to-the- tional institutions and a few State and minute news of what commodities are municipal governments for educational bringing on the market and what the and other purposes. weather may be expected to be in the Of the stations that went on the air next hour, the next day, the next week. in the first years after the First World War, some still stand out, as they have AGRICULTURAL LEADERS have been through the years, for their contribu- heard to say, "If we didn't have radio tions to agricultural advancement, now we'd just have to invent it." their devotion to the informational Radio has become a workhorse of needs of rural people, and their sup- agricultural communications. It is the port of improved agricultural practices, medium that brings news and informa- community development, and home- tion as soon as it is available on a day- making. in, day-out, work-a-day basis. Station WHA, operated by the Uni- Probably no single group in the pop- versity of Wisconsin, in Madison, and 90 YEARBOOK OF AGRICULTURE 1960 KDKA, Pittsburgh, were among the WHAS, Louisville; WHO, Des first stations to offer market and Moines ;WCCO, Minneapolis ; KVOO, weather reports on a regular basis. Tulsa; KMBC, Kansas City; WOAI, KDKA celebrated its 35th year of San Antonio; WNAX, Yankton, S. market news broadcasting in May Dak.; and WOC, Davenport, were 1956. WHA and the experimental sta- among the early birds. So were WBAP, tion that preceded it in Madison had Fort Worth; WSM, Nashville; WKY, done some market newscasting before Oklahoma City; WEAF (now WRCA) then. New York; WCAU, Philadelphia; Both stations have continued to serve WON, Chicago; WOW, Omaha; farmers with daily broadcasts designed WWL, New Orleans; KNBG, San especially for the farmers of their area Francisco; KFI, Los Angeles; KJR, and have given the Nation some out- Seattle; WTAM, Cleveland; and standing talent. Milton E. Bliss broad- others. cast over WHA a long time before he Now, in 1960, easily a thousand sta- became agricultural representative of tions have some regular farm programs. the National Broadcasting Company In 1958, 1,472 radio stations and 165 network and producer of the 31 -year- television stations were carrying mar- old National Farm and Home Hour. ket new^s information regularly, mostly Frank E. Mullen, once a writer for on a daily basis or oftener. farm magazines in Nebraska and Iowa, Some who listen to these broadcasts got the idea of a network farm program may not realize that the information w^hen he worked for KDKA and, after they receive w^as collected by Federal joining NBC, worked out arrange- or Federal-State Market News services. ments with the Department of Agri- Nearly always arc the radio market culture, which launched this daily news reports adapted to the specific program as a joint effort of the De- needs of the listeners. A city station partment and the network. KDKA may broadcast a report of local whole- included a farm program director on sale prices and prices received by ship- its regular staff until 1957, when its pers for nearby products. A station programs were revised. serving a producing area may report Of the many stations that have done on local prices, prices paid in city outstanding service to agriculture, I markets, and shipments currently mov- cite a few. ing from the area. WLS, Chicago, in the early 1920's These reports sometimes are written tuned itself in on the agriculture of its by a market news reporter or an em- section and broadcast throughout the ployee of an area office of the Agricul- day with the needs and likes of its rural tural Marketing Service. Usually the listeners in mind—programs of farm reports are written by employees of the news from the area and from Washing- station on the l^asis of items furnished ton, farm advice, foot-pattin' music, by the market wire service through markets, weather, sermons, interviews one of the news services. Some radio with farmers, interviews with visiting stations have lines into the market brides and bridegrooms (and regularly news offices for direct on-the-air re- they came, on their honeymoons in ports by market reporters of the De- Chicago, to visit Arthur C. Page and partment. his WLS Dinner Bell Hour every week- Weather information comes princi- day noon). pally from the United States Weather Cincinnati's WLW boomed out mar- Bureau, although some stations em- ket news and weather, farm advice, ploy their own meteorologists, who and results of experiments on its own supplement Weather Bureau data farm on a powerful signal heard over with their own analyses. Many sta- most of the continent in those early tions use private weather services. days of broadcasting. It still does. The United States Weather Bureau, RADIO AND TELEVISION 91 with its forecasting and reporting with the Department in 1928 inaugu- services, was a part of the Department rated the daily National Farm and of Agricuhure from 1891 until June Home Hour on the network, with 1940. It is now an agency of the regular originations in Chicago and Department of Commerce. Washington and live features from Farm broadcasters take a keen in- other places. The Hour later became terest in the weather reports. Partly a weekly program and since 1945 has because of their urging, the Weather been sponsored by a manufacturer of Bureau offered special agricultural farm equipment. The Department has weather forecasts, geared to seasonal cooperated with the American Broad- activity on farms, and inaugurated a casting Company since 1945 ^^ P^^" 30-day forecast. It also began studies senting a weekly network program, of longer-range trends. the American Farmer. It was not always thus. In the early For several years, the Columbia 1920's, when radio stations were less Broadcasting System radio network numerous, some landsmen learned to carried the Columbia Country Journal make their own predictions from more on a weekly basis. More recently, or less sketchy reports they picked up CBS has covered agricultural news on distant stations. along with general news. The Mutual I once got a letter from an old Broadcasting System radio network in- rancher in southern Texas telling of an augurated a daily lo-minute program experience in which he saved his herd of farm news. because over a Kansas City station he Meanwhile, more and more stations heard a mass of cold air was moving added specialists in farm broadcasting down from Canada. In his Model-T to their stafli's. and with the help of an ancient slab- Several of the farm broadcasters met sided steer, whose lofty horns he could in Columbus, Ohio, in 1943, and see at the front of the herd when formed a professional organization, lightning flashed, he maneuvered his which shortly became national in cattle to safety just in time. membership and took the name of National Association of Radio Farm ADVANCES in rural electrification and Directors. These men and women have increased programing of farmer-in- become widely known as "RFD's," terest material have put radio receivers thus capitalizing on the happy coin- in more than 98 percent of the Nation's cidence of initials that already were farm homes. One big reason for the identified with rural communication. rise in the amount of farm broadcast- When farm programs became popu- ing and the number of stations is the lar in television, the organization re- profit afí'orded by commercial broad- named itself National Association of casting.