A friend recently sent me a photocopy of the following newspaper article:
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The Sunday Oregonian, Portland Oregon, August 26, 1923
BROADCASTING STATIONS AND MUSIC PUBLISHERS AT ODDS
Broadcasters Maintain That Stations Help Musical Composition Rather Than Prevent Public From Buying -- Contest Will Determine Influence That Wireless Has Had Upon the Music Purchases of Country
By Saul Emanuel
Does radio broadcasting help to "make" a song or is it really detrimental to the sale of a new composition in the form of records or music rolls?
Several months ago the claim was made by the music publishers and authors that the use of their compositions by the broadcasting stations was proving disastrous to the welfare of their trade. According to Arthur A Freistadt, president of United States Music Company of Chicago, the radio fan who can listen to a musical composition with an inexpensive radio set has no desire to buy the sheet music, piano roll, or phonograph record of the selection. Freistadt is for this reason entirely opposed to the radio broadcasting of music, especially of the popular variety.
Royalties Are Asked.
To offset this alleged decrease of their business, the publishers now demand the payment of royalties form the stations and declare that they will go to court to enforce such payment. One of their legal advisers recently made the statement that such royalties could also be extracted from certain receiving sets installed in commercial establishments for advertising purposes.
The broadcasters contend, according to H. Gernsback, editor of Radio News, that broadcasting of these compositions could have but one effect upon them, an increase of popularity with an according increase in sales. Several instances are cited by Gernsback in which certain songs making an appreciable headway through the usual methods of exploitation were almost instantly popularized when they were sung from several of the large broadcasting stations. The sales of these compositions immediately jumped into the hundreds of thousands, declares the editor of Radio News.
Fans Deny Charges.
The controversy is attracting the attention of the radio public, now counted in the millions. Letters are being constantly written to different broadcasting stations from listeners who say that they would never have heard of such and such a song had it not been sung from that station. In many cases the listener wrote that he or she purchased a copy of the composition the following day to try it out on the piano. Others bought records of the song, they wrote.
The broadcasters have no intention of being held up in this bold manner, according to statements from many of the stations. In fact an organization is being promoted among the stations to boycott the compositions of the musical trust and to broadcast only those from independent authors and publishers.
Contest to Prove Point.
To prove that radio broadcasting is the most powerful advertising medium for the popularizing of music, the Radio News has stated a contest for the two best compositions written before October 1 of this year. These selections, one of which is to be a march and the other a "jazz" piece, will be chosen in an open competition and promoted entirely by radio.
Three hundred dollars in prizes will be awarded in the contest, one half for the best composition in march time and a like amount for the best composition in "jazz" time. The winning contestants will also be paid a generous royalty so that two new popular song writers will also be "made" by radio if the plan of Radio News is successful.
Conditions Are Given.
The conditions of the competition, as mentioned in the September issue of Radio News, follows:
- Each composition to be not longer than the usual four pages.
- Contestants may send in more than one competition. There is no restriction as to number.
- All compositions to be executed in ink in the usual manner, using the usual musical symbols.
- Compositions to be entitled "Radio March" or "Radio Jazz" as the case may be.
- Authors unable to write down music themselves may have a musician do this for them.
- All manuscripts to be submitted flat, not rolled.
- All manuscripts not accepted will be promptly returned to the owners at the conclusion of the contest, provided that sufficient postage is enclosed with the manuscripts.
- All prizes will be paid upon publication.
- The contest closes in New York on October 1, 1923.
- Address all compositions to Editor, Radio Music Contest, Radio News, New York.
Those who will judge the contest will be Hugo Reisenfeld, conductor of the orchestras of the Rialto, Rivoli, Criterion theaters of New York; Ted Lewis of the well-known Ted Lewis band and Ted Lewis frolics; Vincent Lopez, director of the Hotel Pennsylvania orchestra, New York; Milton J. Cross, announcer of radio broadcasting station AJN, New York, member of the Institute of Musical Arts and of Paulist choristers; Leo R. Riggs, musical director of the Hotel Astor bands, and H. Gernsback, editor of Radio News.
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The name Milton J. Cross, one of the judges in the Radio News contest, caught my attention. Perhaps a few other elderly TD readers remember him as the "Voice of the Met" from 1935 to 1974.
The same page of the Oregonian also contains an article COCKADAY CIRCUIT GIVES EXTREME TUNING SHARPNESS and even includes a schematic diagram (one triode) and instructions for winding the coils (excerpt: "The antenna coil L-4 is wound on another paper tube 3 1/4 inches in diameter and consists of 43 turns of No. 18 tapped every seventh turn."). Apparently then, as now, newspapers reported the latest techno-geek fads.
Neal McLain