WQXR

Four years ago John Vincent Lawless Hogan, a plump, soft-spoken radio engineer, got a license to operate a small experimental television station in Long Island City. To accompany his experimental television broadcasts Engineer Hogan used phonograph records. Because he could not think as well to jazz, Engineer Hogan used symphonic records. Not many people were equipped to receive his television broadcasts, but many radio listeners tuned in on his symphonic accompaniments.

Soon little station W2XR was showered with fan mail, commending its choice of programs, asking for more. Engineer Hogan's phonographic broadcasts were obviously reaching a special type of listener whose symphonic appetite was not satisfied by the larger stations. So he decided to expand, took on a partner, acquired larger, high-fidelity broadcasting facilities, renamed his station WQXR.

Last month Station WQXR invited its listeners to submit lists of compositions they would like to hear, designated this month as "request month." Three hundred-odd replies contained 3,286 requests for individual compositions. WQXR's request poll found Beethoven leading, with Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Brahms, Mozart and Bach following in the order named.

Undialable on some old-fashioned radio sets, and heard only within a radius of 75 miles, WQXR today broadcasts more quality music per hour than any other station in the U. S., holds the position of No. 1 station for serious Manhattan music-lovers. Its estimated 53,000 listening families are among the most faithful and regular in the radio field. Of its 74-odd weekly hours of broadcasting about 63 are devoted to music, 40 of them to symphonic and other serious compositions, 17 to light classics, six to popular tunes. Swing bands, comedians, amateur hours and similar big drawing cards of the larger stations are taboo on WQXR.

Two years ago Engineer Hogan and his partner, bespectacled General Manager Elliott Maxwell Sanger, decided to put their station on a commercial basis, invited a limited number of sponsors to advertise. Only products personally approved by Engineer Hogan himself are permitted the use of his air waves, and their announcements are held to a strict standard of dignity and terseness. Typical sponsors have included Random House, the Oxford University Press, the Theatre Guild. Martinson's Coffee, the American Tobacco Co. One of them, the Book-of-the-Month Club, apologizes for taking up the listeners' valuable time. Despite these restraints, WQXR has turned into a sound moneymaker, has already grossed some $40,000 in 1938.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.