Air Castle

Sick & tired of conventional radio, some 125 Washingtonians* put up $100,000 for a "station for intelligent listeners," hired FCC analyst Edward Brecher (who helped put together the FCC's famed "Blue Book") to run the show. Last week station WQQW began broadcasting according to its owners' lights: P: No plug-uglies or singing commercials; only four one-minute commercials an hour (says Manager Brecher: "We believe that a listener is entitled to a program after every commercial").

P: No patent-medicine ads unless approved by the station's medical advisory committee.

P: No soap operas; instead, a weekday Woman's Magazine of the Air, containing news and features about women, shopping and housekeeping information. P: No children's blood-&-thunder hour.

Added attractions: good "music to listen to--not just to eat to, to talk to, or to shave to"; a chapter a day read from a current bestseller. A medical research program, written by a practicing bacteriologist, and a scientific review are scheduled for once a week. Every Sunday morning The Meaning of Religion will bring talks by Washington clergymen. The first: "Where Now Is Thy God?" by Unitarian A. Powell Davies (TIME, Oct. 7).

WQQW airs 7 5 minutes of news a day--and no editorializing. "We'll never call anybody an s.o.b., we'll just say his mother sat on her haunches and howled at the moon."

Would advertisers help foot the bills? Said Manager Brecher: "If we get the listenership we expect, they'll be glad to," And the audience was even greater than expectations: within two days, WQQW had some 350 letters, 150 postcards, countless phone calls. The most enthusiastic listener: a dentist. The music, said he, soothed his patients while he drilled into their molars.

* Including businessmen, physicians, editors, writers, economists, Government employes, housewives.

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