500,000 Watts

Four years ago the Federal Radio Commission (now the Federal Communications Commission) encouraged an experiment. That experiment, and its results so far, have landed FCC in a tough spot. Under a six-month experimental license the Commission gave Powel Crosley Jr. the right to raise the broadcasting power of his Cincinnati station (WLW) from the U. S. maximum of 50,000 watts to 500,000 watts. Reason: to find out how much radio service the listener might gain (from the power boost) and lose (through interference with smaller stations). Enterprising Broadcaster Crosley spent $396,287 on his 500-kw. transmitter. When he put it into daily operation in May 1934, WLW was heard satisfactorily over 13 States and part of Canada.

First complaint against WLW came before the original license expired from the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission. The 500-kw. power emanating from the Crosley Colossus interfered with a neighboring wave length assigned to station CFRB (Toronto). WLW raised a new antenna designed to control the direction of its broadcasting, turned its terrific voice away from Canada. But in the U. S. a different kind of complaint arose. Although WLW's license continued to be extended for six-month periods, it remained officially experimental. Owner Crosley was, nevertheless, in business -- so much so that he raised WLW charges for air time to a rate surpassed by only one station (CBS's WABC), equalled by only two (NBC's WEAF and WJZ), which serve New York City, most populous U. S. metropolitan area. Competing big stations contended that 500-kw. superpower is too rich a plum to give to one station in a competitive business, asked for equal power. Smaller stations, which could not afford to build and maintain superpower transmitters even if they could secure licenses, feared that the penetration of 500-kw. voices into their territory would steal their business, wanted no station to have such power.

Last June, FCC opened hearings on the superpower question, last month took up the specific case of WLW, last week was told of business plucked from a small station by WLW's giant strength. The hearing closed with another renewal of WLW's experimental 500 kw. till February 1939. But this time the renewal is subject to the final decisions which will come out of FCC's hearings of the last two months. These decisions are likely to be delayed until next year while the FCC digests volumes of argument and thinks about the Senate, where, before the close of the last session, Montana's Burton Kendall Wheeler got an ominous resolution adopted. The resolution: that power in excess of 50 kw. for any U. S. broadcasting station is definitely against the public interest.

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