Ink v. Air

Some years ago among newspaper publishers appeared little sparks of resentment against threatened competition from Radio. Puffed upon constantly by the tradepaper Editor & Publisher, those sparks burst into flame last week at the Manhattan conventions of the Associated Press and American Newspaper Publishers' Association.

The Associated Press meeting, held before the Publishers' sessions, confined its discussion to the broadcasting of news. Publisher Jerome Dewitt Barnum of the Syracuse Post-Standard asked the A. P. to forbid the use of its bulletins both for direct broadcast and for such interpretive deliveries as that of Lowell Thomas for the Literary Digest. To make such a rule effective, it would be necessary to enlist both United Press and International News Service in a boycott. But some of the editors opined that such broadcasts, even by commercial advertisers, actually increase the circulation of their newspapers. Although he did not go so far, Publisher Robert Rutherford McCormick of the Chicago Tribune (which operates its own broadcasting station) did state that Radio's news competition is negligible; that the real battle lies in the field of advertising. Well aware that the latter subject would be the meat of the A. N. P. A. meeting, the Associated Press contented itself with a resolution of "sympathy" toward the publishers' anticipated action.

A. N, P. A, In convention gravely assembled, the publishers delivered themselves of three wordily ambitious resolutions: i) that the Federal Radio Act be amended to subject radio broadcasters to the same stringent regulations against lottery and gift-prize advertisements as now apply to newspapers in the postal laws; 2) that broadcasts of news be confined to press associations and newspapers; and that radio programs be published by newspapers as paid advertising only; 3) that the legality of "Government protected" broadcasting of direct advertising on exclusively assigned wavelengths be questioned as unfair competition.

The convention was spurred to adopting these resolutions largely by the report of the Association's radio committee, headed by Publisher Elzey Roberts of the St. Louis Star. He offered the following figures to the alarmed view of the publishers: 212 leading radio advertisers reduced their 1930 newspaper advertising $22,400,000 below 1929. At the same time they increased their radio time expenditures by $8,500,000.

A part of the difference, it was said, was accounted for by national advertisers who switched from newspapers to radio in order to conduct "contests" forbidden in the newspapers.

Col. McCormick of Chicago was the prime agitator against printing radio programs. Said he: "Everybody wants cheap advertising but the cheapest advertising anyone can get is to buy an hour on the air and get his program published free in practically all the newspapers in the country. Radio itself is not a good buy, but material in the newspapers about radio programs is a good buy. I suggest that we do not allow radio broadcasters to collect cash for advertising we are giving their clients."

But rather than try to hamper radio by means other than withholding free advertising, Publisher McCormick believed the publishers should meet it with a superior product. A week earlier at the meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors in Washington, he had said: ". . . We must meet science with science. . . . Newspaper editors who refuse to meet changing conditions will reach the same end that came upon carriage manufacturers, canal companies, stage coach owners. . . . The greatest expense to all of us is printing paper. The paper we use is wretched. . . . In a world of color . . . we cannot afford to plug along . . . in sombre black and white."

(The last statement he meant literally. Proud exhibit of the Tribune at the A. N. P. A. convention was its development of two-color printing in the body of a regular daily edition, on regular presses. Last year the Tribune sold 25 pages of such advertising; so far this year, 40 pages, to such advertisers as Sears, Roebuck & Co., Colgate-Palmolive-Peet, Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. A few small papers in the West and South have followed suit. Eventually, the Tribune hopes to perfect the system so that four colors may be used.)

Radio's Reply was not slow in coming from Merlin Hall Aylesworth, president of National Broadcasting Co. Addressing a Press conference at Princeton University he answered the charge of radio's usurping the newspaper's role, as follows:

"The public insists on 'hot' news, or news as soon after the event as possible and even while the event is in the making. ... If radio can serve the public with certain kinds of news sooner than the newspapers ... are we to ignore the public's best interest for private gain or more likely, fanciful gain?"

To the program-publicity charge he said: "Radio programs are news, are demanded by readers. . . . While we have no desire to engage in the publishing business . . . certain it is that the public will get its information, if not through the logical medium of the newspapers, then through a new medium created for the purpose."

To the charge of unfair competition for advertising he reminded the Press that $31,000,000 was spent to advertise radio products in newspapers in 1930. "Suppose," said he, "that radio advertising should drop off, largely through the efforts of the Press to suppress radio programs and other radio news. What then? . . . No sponsors, no money for broadcasting ... no radio industry and no income to the Press of $31,000,000."

By-Play. Brightest event of the A. N. P. A. meeting was the dinner of its bureau of advertising, addressed by Funnyman Will Rogers. Twitting the publishers for their fear of radio, Rogers observed sarcastically: "If you hear any peculiar noise on the radio tonight it will be people breaking up their radios after reading a resolution adopted here today. If you really want to stop the development of radio advertising, either find a home-made cure for pyorrhea or murder Amos and Andy. Why, there will still be a radio in every home when people pay 10-c- to see what a printing press looked like! Radio is taking away your news. Television will take away your pictures. All you will have left will be the editorials and the letters from the people objecting to them."

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