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Show iMMwaiMww ""' M """"" Radio Fills Economic, F Op Social Needs of Farm JSfi Programs Keep Listeners Up on Latest Jf" Doings and Aid Work, Marketing; HMiW Music, Plays Welcome Diversion. BHjP By BAUKIIAGE Vpioj Analytt and Commrntator. WNU Service, 1610 Eye Street, N.W., Washington, I). C. When farm folk want to cut a rug. via the radio, they'll do it to the strain of "Turkey in the Straw," not "Chickery Chick." Farmers turn a cold shoulder on hot Jive. However, both the musical gobbler and the syncopated hen play second fiddle as farm radio favorites fa-vorites to the good ojd-fashioned hymns, like "Rock of Ages," and "Onward, Christian Soldiers." But, down on the farm, the all-time top favorite on the radio hit parade is NEWS. The farmer and his wife prefer the news broadcast to any other type of radio program. Old-time piuslcal programs are the farmer's favorite kind of radio entertainment. He eschews "long-hair" music. . . . opera and classical, saying frankly in many eases that he doesn't understand it. And he turns thumbs down on swing-and-sway dance music, and the current Jnke box favorites. In the South where this dislike of (l.i'ier, music is must pronounced, pro-nounced, it doesn't matter whether the person questioned is a portly Kentucky colonel, or a teen - age southern belle. They'll take the old-time tunes any day of the week. The weather once again proves its durability as a conversational topic even on the radio. Naturally, weather reports are "must" listening listen-ing on the farm. It's the same way with farm talks and market reports. Commodity Com-modity reports are about as fascinating fasci-nating to city folk as a lecture on relativity, but the farmer says he finds them a definite and practical help In selling his products. In this respect by giving him weather reports, re-ports, farm talks, and market data, radio becomes a sort of junior partner, part-ner, advisory capacity, in the farmer's farm-er's business. There'$ Room For Improvement Having read this far in the sur- 1 vey, radio executives might be inclined in-clined to pat themselves on the back and figure they've done a good day's work. They've "sold" the farmer, farm-er, haven't they? He likes what they've got to offer, doesn't he? Seems to them the farmer has given giv-en radio an A-plus. or in radio par- j lance, "a Fibber McGee Hooper rating rat-ing " We-ell. not exactly There are some radio programs some farm- j ers don't like, and serial stories are one of them. It is surprising what a hearty dislike 25 per cent of the I farmers (AND their wives) express for some of the so-called "soap operas." op-eras." which ritv folk seem to adore. There is no other type of program toward which there is such divided I feeling among rural radio owners as the serial program or soap op- ! era. While one-fourth of the rural listeners say they dislike serials. 1 calling them "foolish" or "silly," many of these same Deonle (Dar-i These interesting preferences were brought to light recently by a survey published by the department , of agriculture a survey undertaken undertak-en at the request of Uie Federal Communications commission to find out if radio was Important to rural people, and why; and what programs pro-grams rural people tunei In in hope, and tuned out in despair. Rural people are convinced radio Is hero to stay. When asked if he would miss his radio set, should something happen to it, nearly every ev-ery rural radio owner said something some-thing lik this: "It would make an awful difference. dif-ference. It would be Just like going back to old - fashioned light." "We need the radio very much we have a mile of bad road between the house and the mailbox, and sometimes get the mail only once a week." "That would be terrible! lt d be just like having a corpse in the house 1" Of course there were dissenters There always are. And the dissenters dissent-ers weren't backward auoul expressing ex-pressing their unflattering opinio. is of radio. For example: "If it weren't for my family, I'd throw the radio out. it wuulrin t , bother me a bit." "Makes no difference whatsoever. whatsoev-er. All you hear is junk and commercials com-mercials and murder mystery." 3 to J For Radiol But the radio enthusiasts among farmers vastly outnumber the gripers. grip-ers. It's radio three to one as they say in a certain radio commercial. Three out of every four rural radio ticularly the women listeners) say they'd miss the hero and his matrimonial matri-monial mishaps or the heroine and her troubles. It seems that although, in many instances, the listeners don't enjoy or aren't entertained by these programs, they've become used to listening to one or another, and they feel they Just have to find out what's going to happen next. It's interesting to note, too, that the people who dislike serials value radio more for the specific information informa-tion they get from it, and depend less on it for "company" . or to "keep from getting lonely." Also, the critical ones who turn up their noses at the serial story tend to be somewhat older and to have had more education than those who like soap opera. Most farmers shy away from the up-and-coming radio mystery mys-tery meller-drammer. They dislike dis-like finding corpses in their own living rooms, so to speak, and beine forced to sit through harrowing har-rowing screams, creaking doors, hooting owls, and the spooky collection of sound effects which is apt to accompany microphonic micro-phonic mayhem. Some farmers, pvnbiininp- uht- llmv .ii.tit owners attach a great deal of importance im-portance to their radios . . . and only one in eight wouldn't care if Junior took the thing apart and never got it together again. It appears, from this survey, that radio performs a special service for rural people who may live some distance from town and amusements, amuse-ments, or even from the nearest neighbor, and who may often be without access to daily newspapers or telephones. Rural people have four very definite def-inite reasons to explain why radio is important to them: 1. it's a source of news; 2. a source of information, in-formation, other than news; 3. it provides entertainment; and 4. it's become a habit to listen to the darn thing. Their comments are illustrative: "We would feel terribly Isolated Isolat-ed without the news." "Wouldn't know how the occupation oc-cupation in Germany Is coming. I have a son over there, and I want to know what's happening." happen-ing." "You get the news quicker on the radio." "I don't have much time to read the papers or magazines." such programs, say it's because of moral, not morale, reasons. As is usually the case, the survey revealed more likes and dislikes than suggestions. Not even the ones who don't care much for radio at all had any ideas on how to improve im-prove the programs. More than half the rural people who have radios cannot think of any type of pro- 1 gram they'd like to hear more of than the ones they listen to . . and -when suggestions are offered, they are scattered over such a wide 1 field, it's hard to put a finger on any one type of program which is be- 1 ing neglected. In other words, there ! don't seem to be any important 1 specific discrepancies between what ' the rural listener wants and needs ' . . . and what he's getting. ( Commentators, it appears, are the apple of the farmer's eye. Farm audiences are proved by this survey to be faithful to and enthusiastic about news broadcasts and news broadcasters. As we mentioned earlier, the radio announcement, "We now bring you the news" makes farmers sit up and take notice. no-tice. Rural radio listeners rate news tops as their favorite program, and also say it's the type of program pro-gram they'd miss most. Next comes religious music. Rural Ru-ral listeners, especially in the South, could use more of it, and more radio sermons, too. The reason rea-son may be that religious broadcasts broad-casts provide a substitute for attending at-tending church for some inconveniently inconveni-ently located farmers. |