Behind Your Radio Dial: The Story of NBC (1948)

for [Music] [Applause] this is NBC the National Broadcasting [Music] Company that sound is heard More Often by more people than any other sound in America pulsing out from the transmitter Tower into the tubes and coils behind your radio dial whoever wherever you may be it's like a welcome knock on the door and the sound of the familiar voice of an old friend [Music] the welcome voice of NBC speaks many languages music the cross talk of forum and discussion it speaks the clipped and colorful lingo of Sport the many hundred tongues and tones of drama it speaks the language of laughter the Rippling idiom of comedy and it tells the world of how the world spins with the Voice of Truth these are voices of NBC Today versatile and modulated but do you remember more than 20 years ago when radio was learning to talk Secretary of State Charles Evans use defended the Harding Administration course on the League of Nations today when asked whether it wasn't time for the Republican party to give the people an unequivocal statement in regard to its position on the world Court he denied voice was a whisper crackling with static and you stayed up till three scratching a crystal with a wire cat's whisker to log p 50 miles away and then radio moved up from the cellar to The Parlor its earphones replaced by a handsome cone speaker big enough for Dad to get his whole head in as he still tried for distance maybe Cincinnati Direct on a clear evening but it was a magic night late in 1926 when dad switched to his local station and found that it was linked by telephone lines to 19 other stations to form the National Broadcasting Company the creation of this Pioneer Network meant that a broadcast originating from any of these Affiliated stations could be heard clearly in the area served by all the others and always at the same spot on Dad's side now radio was going places and NBC went with it extending its network from coast to coast spanning the nation to bring the on the spot play-by-play report of gram mnam describing the doings in Pasadena's Sunny Rose Bowl to Winter bound listeners in New [Applause] [Music] [Applause] York but millions of widely separated people were still to be turned into Nextdoor neighbors and so the cross-continental chain became a permanent web and the web was woven into a fabric and the fabric covers the nation reaches up into Canada across the Pacific America's number one network more than 170 stations Independent Community stations of which only six are owned and operated by NBC but to Affiliates and key stations alike the industry's focal point is in Radio City the city within a city here at New York's Rockefeller Center is home and half side for the NBC family and here the welcome mat is laid out for over half a million visitors a year friends from all over the world who've dropped in to see what goes on behind their radio [Music] dial the NBC guides would have to be graduate Engineers to answer all the questions that people ask on our regular tours about how a radio show is actually put on the air that was a simpler story in the old days when this antique Master Control desk took only one man to operate but today it requires a whole team to man the panel board from this room programs All Around the Clock are rooted over 16,000 Mi of least telephone lines to radio stations all over the nation this is the nerve center of NBC you know what you hear on the air represents only a fraction of the effort that goes into Network radio the microphone doesn't pick up for example the sound of the teletypes in the Communications Department which connect our key cities and handle the 3,000 messages a day which are necessary to bring your shows in on Q you can't tune in on the traffic department either but without it no telling what you'd get for on this board every minute of the broadcast day is programmed weeks in advance to be constantly checked and rechecked for split-second transmission to the proper station our guests naturally always want to see some of the voices that they hear every day at home so they usually stop in on a rehearsal Studio here behind a soundproof window they can ease drop on a popular daytime cereal getting a final run through before airtime thank you Nurse do you want me to stay doctor no it won't be necessary thank you Nurse yes doctor sit down Mrs Everett please well doctor maybe you found out what's wrong with my husband maybe you can tell me about him all those other doctors uh G that's as well I liked your uh your entry line it was flat and it's good characterization now I want to get too emotion in this last uh speech of yours uh I want to feel on that line where you sit down that you're more nervous about entering a do I think most people generally are and also on the other line in that in that little sentence there make sure that I have the feeling that you are concerned about your husband's Heth it's very serious oh I see is that clear yes I see just those two emotions in that sense all right let's run that scene again from page 18 with the doctor's L sit down Mrs ever please on now all right sit down Mrs Everett I guess people are more current events conscious these days because they always want to see the NBC News room and maybe catch a glimpse of the dean of commentators Mr cenor and that's the news picture as it looks in postwar Europe tonight confused enough to be sure but certainly not altogether hopeless good night well I've just helped turn another day over to history but history has no clocks and has no calendars and that's why NBC has provided a room where history can be recorded eternally That's The Newsroom let's visit it for a bit shall we all night and all day every day in the year these machines bring the world's news to NBC for processing a bell signal will indicate that a really hot news story is on the [Music] wire but usually they just take away the ordinary everyday facts about the daily doings of humanity scarcely pausing between stories on the national debt the international crisis and the national lead it is our job here to sift these facts to analyze and evaluate them bring them into focus with their background and turn them into stories for radio's newspaper the only newspaper which is perpetually going to press radio's magnificent job of reporting the news is a matter of record very little of not has occurred in the last 20 years that hasn't cut a Groove in the wax of NBC's permanent transcription file radio is not just the thing of the moment reserved for all time in its archives are the sounds the words that history made and spoke as they happened while it was actually happening and there's the Winnie may now winging her way in with a new world's record around the world in the record time of 8 Days 15 hours and 15 minutes the crowd's rushing out on the field to meet the ship as it taxis up the runway and from where I am I can't see gy but that looks like Wy post now getting out of the plane I've got the NBC microphone through this crowd and it just Wy will you and Harold still now they've dropped ROP out of the nose of the Jet and uh the passenger Pap lining the window looking down bur get this started get this started it's F and it's it'sing terrible if I am elected president of the United States with confidence in our Armed Forces with the unbounding determination of our people we will gain the inevitable Triumph so help us God and from this room NBC sent you its reports hour by hour and sometimes even minute by minute on the greatest news story of all time the second world war it followed the news wherever it went and sent back eyewitness accounts the tide of global battle sent back the actual sound made by a world coming apart at the [Music] seams and so today NBC News and special events mindful of its obligation to keep America informed has enlarged its facilities so that everyone in sound of a radio has his ear to the ground it is not intended to suspend the decision of the security Council by an understanding that these answers have to be in before we act if you looked closely enough behind your radio dial you would inevitably find people at NBC important people in the mail room for instance the clerk who handle the thousands of letters you write into us every day more letters than are received in many a good-sized post office and the people in the information Department who see to it that every letter is answered for modern Network radio is more than just a man with a microphone it is a thousand men and women performing tasks without which your receiver would be just a silent piece of furniture yes radio is people everyone from the man who tells you who's in studio 8h to the men who make a living slamming doors and breaking dishes radio is also the anonymous standby pianist who on a moment's notice must fill an emergency Silence with [Music] music and it's the director the producer and the composer too people whose voices are never heard on the air but who have made NBC's music department the finest in the radio industry a mass of specialized detail goes into the preparation of a musical program every selection must first be investigated for clearance and performance [Music] rights when the numbers have been cleared for broadcast some are turned over to the composing staff and special arrangements are [Music] prepared the balance of the pro program may come from orchestrations on file at NBC the largest and most complete working music library in the world containing everything from swing to [Music] Symphony rehearsal for the Fred wearing show and the talent of the singer is deftly woven into the pattern of the program it takes many hours of patient practice to tailor the artistic and Technical quality of every note transmitted to your loud [Music] speaker rehearsing revising rewriting time to the Relentless sweep hand of the stopwatch and finally they're on the air red wearing in the pennsylvanians broadcasting today from Radio City in New York I'm here to greet you on this nice Thursday of your host Fred [Music] wearing hello everybody and thanks for coming [Music] [Music] dream [Music] the morning w then may [Music] we NBC New York is also the Eastern Terminus of radio most famous thoroughfare Allen's alley tell me Mr Moody what are your feelings about the radio I don't hold with furniture that talks well you you have a radio no I had one in the hen house yeah one day all the hen Nest would be empty uhhuh next day every Nest would have two eggs into it you mean the hens was listening to double or nothing yeah Co capital of world entertainment is NBC's Western Radio City in Hollywood the names they write in autograph books outside NBC Hollywood are those of the greatest stars in radio and the most in demand for advertising sponsorship got to hurry and pack we'll travel life it's the thing to do these days where are the suitcases right here in the hall the money that advertisers spend to sponsor these shows pays for other programs too non-commercial broadcasts in the public service account for more than 40% of NBC's scheduled time the network makes free time available for roundt discussions and Farm and Home programs it provides regular facilities free and impartially to the three major faiths and it divides the air fairly and without cost so that the voices of Labor Management and agriculture can all be heard but neither Network nor sponsors ultimately decide what you shall hear to determine the most popular types of Radio Entertainment NBC engages in constant research by telephone hello this is the program rating service we are conducting a survey of radio listening were you listening to your radio just now to what program were you listening please by careful attendance to the wishes expressed in letters sent in by listeners all over the world by carefully worked out scientific tests ladies and gentlemen we have invited you here to participate in testing a proposed radio program we want you to register your approval or disapproval at various points in the program on those reaction sheets that you hold as the light flashes on the screen please let us know how you feel about the program by checking either good or fair or poor alongside the corresponding number on your reac action sheet and by direct contact a program You' recommend for your child or your grand grandchilden amusing amusing interesting to the children entertaining for them I think that was very nice for children but I don't believe that a great many grown-ups would care to listen to it how did you feel you've heard these older folks say it's a good program for youngsters how do you feel being young well it was boring at first but then it got a little interesting as it went on in history right you feel perhaps the program a little childish that's right NBC's obligation to its listeners is founded on its basic respect for the American home all material for the microphone is examined in the light of a zealously guarded code the ordinary standards of good taste and public conscience incorporated into the Network's program policy for NBC knows that vigilance is the price that radio must pay for its stewardship of the air it knows that respons ibility is the first obligation of Freedom the freedom of every American to turn the switch on his radio and listen without a license to what he pleases when he pleases and to pay no tribute for what he hears was guaranteed by the Constitution more than 100 years before the first practical sputter was ever coaxed out of the electromagnetic wave the freedom of the air in America is inalienable to extend this American Freedom into new and Uncharted wavelength NBC in 1941 established the first commercial television station in the country began immediately to expand it into a network adding sight to sound it opened an electronic window rang up the magic curtain and ushered you to the first row to the best seat in the house your own Easy chair the more than two decades of NBC radio have been dedicated to the spirit of public service now in bringing television network television out of the laboratory and into your living room NBC rededicates itself in this Same Spirit to provide the greatest medium of mass information and Mass entertainment in the world carved from the Primitive rock crystal of yesterday's radio is the crystal ball of television in which is visible a whole new era of communication in one generation boys and vision have transcended space science engineering and organization have harnessed the ratio between and sound so that radio or television if you look behind your dial that is set at NBC you will find that you are tuned in on today and focus on tomorrow your NBC station is wnbc 660 on your dial