Broadcast Advertising, May 1929 (Volume 1, Number 2)
The second issue of Broadcast Advertising, a Chicago monthly.
What it is
The second issue of Broadcast Advertising, a Chicago monthly. Publisher G. W. Stamm asks whether radio circulation can be calculated, rejects the rule that a station's radius in miles equals the square root of its wattage, and concludes that only a costly, continuous listener census would work. Frank A. Arnold of NBC sorts program copy into five types and describes the family group as the ideal audience. E. C. Rayner explains electrical transcription by matching records to newspaper plates and mats, with costs per disc. R. S. Kinkead prints a full Oscar Mayer script set at a Black Forest May festival. H. A. Bellows attacks the zone system in federal radio law. A newspaper publishers' committee reports that most papers print radio programs reluctantly. R. E. Dearmont shows how Henry Field grew seed sales from $600,000 to $2,500,000 a year through his station KFNF, quoting prices on air.
Why read it now
Stamm's essay is the most useful piece. He says plainly that reach cannot be read off a map or a power rating, that station popularity shifts fast, and that mail counts mislead because one premium offer can flood them. Audience measurement still struggles with exactly these problems, and his warning that inflated audience claims hurt the whole medium applies to platform metrics today. The Henry Field story is a counterweight to the era's advice to hide prices: a seed seller who spoke to one market, farmers at mealtimes, quoted prices on air and found that avoiding them made listeners suspicious. Current evidence on price transparency in considered purchases supports him more than the price-shy view. Kinkead's point that a script written without knowing its world sounds false is the case for research before copy. Dated: Rayner's hardware, the zone dispute, and a filler line claiming women's voices fail on radio, which later broadcasting disproved. Use: when a platform sells you reach, ask how the audience is counted, and test a clear price in your ads.
Passages worth keeping
Aggressive salesmanship on the part of some radio stations embodying unfounded claims as to the size of their radio audiences has done much to curtail the use of radio advertising.
مبالغة بعض المحطات في حجم جمهورها أضرت الإعلان الإذاعي كله، لأن المعلن الذي يخيب ظنه يحكم على الوسيلة لا على المحطة.
A single broadcast in which a valuable premium is offered may swell a station's monthly mail all out of proportion to its advertising value.
عدد الرسائل لا يقيس قيمة المحطة، فهدية واحدة مغرية قد تضاعف البريد دون أن يعني ذلك جمهورًا أكبر أو أفضل.
it was quite apparent that the continuity writer had never been in the army and that he had not taken the trouble to consult some one who had.
كاتب النص لم يعرف الجيش ولم يسأل من يعرفه، فخرج البرنامج زائفًا وأحرج المستمعين، والصدق في التفاصيل يحتاج إلى بحث.
Henry Field believes that if a thing is worth talking about there's no reason to be ashamed of what it costs.
ما دام المنتج يستحق الحديث عنه فلا داعي لإخفاء سعره، والمستمع الريفي يريد أن يسمع الجواب عن سؤال: كم يكلف؟
It was early discovered that the radio audience would not permit the sponsor of a program to talk unduly about his own product, even though he was paying for the entertainment
الجمهور لا يقبل أن يطيل الراعي الحديث عن منتجه حتى لو كان هو من يدفع ثمن البرنامج، والأثر الأفضل يأتي حين يُعرّف بنفسه بطريق غير مباشر.
The scanned text has OCR errors. The passages are quoted from it, with only obvious slips fixed.
What it teaches best
Read the original worldradiohistory.com
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