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Show Let's Face Facts Coming Big Expansion Of Radio Broadcasting Opens Exciting Vistas By BARROW LYONS I WNO Staff Corwpondent ' WASHINGTON, D. C. A new idea of what radio will mean after the war was given to me the other evening ppwwnwr'1 at supper by a sk"'"" man who ought to - know. His ingenu- ' ? , Ity has played an i $lfA Important part in ' -jf " i Improving t h e :' fU quality of radio J broadcasting dur-tofi dur-tofi Peace, and he ff . 1 is today playing V Sf I an important part 1 ' i m winning the Barrow Lyons war bv helping to keep our radio and radar development one jump ahead of the enemy's. The man was John V. L. Hogan, special assistant to the WPB office of scientific research and development, develop-ment, and president of the New York radio station WQXR, which has presented exceptional programs. pro-grams. Commercial radio, he said, stands on the threshold of tremendous tremen-dous expansion and improvement. During the war great technical progress for military purposes has been made In radar and television, but also important advances have been effected in sound transmission by ether waves. When the war ends this technical progress will be transferred to commercial com-mercial broadcasting by freeing our vastly expanded manufacturing facilities fa-cilities and releasing thousands of technicians. Mr. Hogan believes this will mean not only improvement in the programs pro-grams offered to owners of radio and television sets in and near the large cities, but that daylight broadcasting broad-casting of better programs to the most remote sections of the country will become a reality. It is not generally known that at present about one-eighth of the people peo-ple who live in the country areas get no radio service whatever in daylight hours, even from the most powerful broadcasting stations. During Dur-ing the daytime only the "ground waves" can be transmitted by the ordinary radio station, and these have an effective sending radius of only 100 to 150 miles. When the "heavyside layer" is formed in the upper atmosphere after darkness, radio impulses are reflected from the larger sending stations for about 750 miles. Powerful Stations in Cities Even then, not all parts of the country are well served by the big, clear-channel stations, because these are located mostly in big cities. Today there is controversy as to whether the number of high-powered stations should be increased, with a consequent decrease in the number of small stations, or whether there should be more small stations to emphasize local news and advertise local commercial interests. At present, pres-ent, more than 500 of the more than 900 commercial radio stations In the United States are in metropolitan areas with populations over 50,000, while only 17 stations are in towns of under 5,000 people. Federal Communication commission commis-sion officials are deeply concerned with this situation. They point out that the rapid growth of radio in the last decade has meant more varied and additional service to city listeners, listen-ers, with little improvement in small-community and rural radio service. Yet the economic and social so-cial interests of the farm and small town business are enormous. Viewed from the political standpoint, the country areas send to congress almost al-most two-thirds of the representatives. representa-tives. Nevertheless, the unprofitable economics eco-nomics of small-station operation have been demonstrated repeatedly. Of the 300 stations which were just about breaking even, or were operating oper-ating at a loss, in 1942 the majority were small, independent outlets, most of them located in communities communi-ties with no other radio station. The books of 194 of these 300 borderline border-line stations show them to be actually actu-ally operating "in the red." Break for Small Communities The FCC in April, 1912, relaxed its wartime freeze policy on the use of critical materials for civilian radio ra-dio construction to encourage expansion expan-sion of radio service to small communities. com-munities. It also reduced telephone line charges to broadcasting stations, sta-tions, which made it easier to obtain network affiliation. In August, 1943, the FCC adopted an order permitting the use of idle equipment to construct new local-channel local-channel stations of 100 to 250 watts power in. communities where no sta-tion sta-tion was located, or in communities which did not have good service from nearby metropolitan center. A partial solution probably will be found in the development of frequency-modulation (FM) stations for local areas, while some of the local channels may be cleared and given to high-powered stations. FM gives considerably improved reception Some half-million sets are now equipped to receive it. It operates in higher frequencies than the present pres-ent commercial broadcast bands. Mr. Hogan pointed out to me that a new system of relays has been developed which could hook up FM stations to each other, with the ef feet of creating new networks I |