From Sugato to Scarlett

Seven months ago, Japanese radio was shackled and archaic. It was pushed around by militarists, staffed with incompetent kin and courtiers of the royal family, and as traditional as Bushido in its programs. But once unbound by the Allies, it soon paced the campaign for a democratic Japan. Last week, to help it stay on its own feet, the Broadcasting Corp. of Japan had a new, liberal president: an unobtrusive mathematician, Kinnosuke Ogura.

Ex-Professor Ogura could put what he knows about radio in a slide-rule case without removing the rule. But he has a good ear for democracy's voice, and like the new 17-member radio advisory committee, he was selected for his opposition to militarism. He and the committee will axe away BCJ's bureaucratic deadwood, hire talented personnel, up wages (the best announcers now earn about $13 a month).

Overseeing the new BCJ administration is Brigadier General Ken R. Dyke's civil information and education section (CIANDE) of Allied Headquarters. Three days after the occupation began, Dyke, a former NBC executive, began clearing the BCJ air. By strict censorship and appointment of the advisory committee, he freed noncommercial BCJ of government domination. He also ordered Japan to build some three million new radio sets to replace worn out sets or those destroyed in the war.

One of BCJ's three networks went to Armed Forces Radio Service for entertainment of occupation forces. A second was eventually used by 30% of Japan's schools, where button-eyed moppets listen keenly to discussions of current affairs, history, politics and labor, instead of reading army-inspired and propaganda-filled textbooks.

The third and largest network, for general listening, was overhauled from ground to aerial. This included station JOAK (Radio Tokyo), whose 150,000-watt transmitter is one of the world's strongest. Out went the untimed, slipshod samisen strumming; the tedious Kodan--storytelling; the poetry on the co-prosperity sphere. In came popular music (current hit: a romantic tune, Song of the Apple), comedy shows and precisely timed modern, democratic plays (John Drinkwater's Abraham Lincoln). The most popular storyteller, sad-faced, bowlegged Musei, dropped the tale of Sugato Sanshiro, the legendary judo champ, and picked up the Arabian Nights, Aesop's Fables, Edgar Allan Poe and Robert Louis Stevenson. He even did a five-night version of Gone With the Wind.

Under CIANDE, 50% of the broadcast day is devoted to fun; 30% to education, 20% to information. Interviews with "the man in the street" encourage listeners to speak freely. The Truth Box program calls for questions from the radio audience. It not only gets them (450 a day); it also finds how little the Japs were told in wartime. Sample questions: What is the truth about the battle of the Coral Sea? Will you tell us how American forces landed on Saipan and explain the progress of fighting there? What happened to all the fighting ships of the Japanese Navy?

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