Group K: Chapter 29, 30 & 32

Group K

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Chapter 30 Radio Voices pg 223- 227

What this chapter is about…

• talking about period of 1920’s
• most active advertising agency was J.Walter Thompson Company
• relationship of this agency to dominant network (NBC) à shows workings behind stars/programs soon to be familiar with American public
• talks about negotiation of cultural standards and traditions

• ad agencies slow to see potential in radio for product promotion
• opposition to radio in agencies of early 1920’s existed
• because of connection between ad agencies and print media who feared competition with radio
• although some ad agencies in field were aware of need to demonstrate growing awareness of possibility of new medium
• N. W. Ayer agency made most influential radio show “The Eveready Hour”
• Participated in earliest experimentation in network broadcasting through AT & T
• mid 1920’s continued to experiment with variety of show formats
• William H. Rankin Agency- early users of station WEAF’s toll service in 1922
• Earliest example of Hollywood agency radio interaction- actress Marion Davies gave talk on “How I make up for Movies”
• This first time that premium was offered, an autograph picture of actress to those who wrote in saying they heard the broadcast
• Important because it helped establish radio as effective medium for reaching consuming public
• J. Walter Thompson interested in radio and refused to join protest by print committee opposed to radio advertising but had uneasy feelings about it
• Article in newsletter “Why don’t we use radio?” concluded that radio was a questionable medium to use at this time
• Primary objections about unsettled state of broadcasting in 1925 were…
• Misinterpretation of spoken word
• Impossibility of ascertaining circulation
• Radios indirect method of selling might not be as effective as print
• although it was noted that to JWT clients went on air two weeks later broadcasting household talks for women
• 1927 à JWT formed first official radio department, direction of William H. Endsign (formerly of N. W. Ayer)
• 1928 two new employees added and soon well known companies were added such as shell oil, Goodrich tire company, and Maxwell house coffee
• over next year use/acceptance of radio continued to build at JWT
• 1929 department ready for takeover

• 1929 men/womens group struggle when John U. Reber became head of radio department
• “The Grim Reber”
• he was unsatisfied with limited role of agencies in radio networks
• he was first dismiss radio experts (producers, writers, directors) furnished by NBC
• NBC turned to broadway people for writing and directing experience who assumed the audience were high class people
• JWT (John U. Reber) had something that NBC did not have, which was “showmanship”
• Which resulted from knowledge of the audience and its tastes

• NBC à dual agenda- profiting from commercial programs and maintaining cultural standards before the public

• JWT à realized that it was mass sales that produced advertising profit, and mass sales resulted from attention to the “tabloid mind”
  

• 1923 JWT shows concern of “common” reader (ex. Ladies Home Journal) à which evokes world of those recently arrived in middle class, looking to mass media for ways to assimilate and improve themselves

• 1927 à JWT recognized value of new people who have money to spend and who have very few media to reach them except the tabloids and confession magazines
• they began to create a “lowbrow” approach to advertising”

• from this we see acknowledgment and market empowerment of previously unrecognized social group, and beginning of identifying the medias role of reaching them à particularly in radio

• this approach came together in JWT famous Lux Hollywood star endorsement campaign
• endorsements began to appear in mass-circulation magazines

• Danny Danker was personality of JWT à credited with leading movement of radio production Hollywood, first to realize that star system could revlolutionize radio

• Combined efforts of Reber and Danker ushered in “the Hollywood era of radio” also era of agency dominance

• 1942 JWT claimed to develop more radio stars than any other organization

• by mid 1930’s prime/day time schedules were occupied by programs supplied by agencies on behalf of sponsors

• late 1920’s moved away from musical programs toward fictional drama and serial narrative, which was driven by agencies
• displacing educational and tastful forms encouraged by earlier network practices

• agencies first began to push for use of recorded programs, called transcriptions, for clients who wished to avoid network costs and reach regional audiences for more effective advertising
• this was resisted by networks because it cut them out of the business in favour of other interests in radio à which was powerful stations who could program transcriptions at their own discretion and retain all profit