Greener Pastures

In the U. S., radio listeners have to endure quantities of commercial announcements, but the fat fees paid by advertisers keep radio's No. 1 musicians and singers at the microphone. Not so in England.

BBC's popular favorites receive plushy publicity, heavy fan mail, much kudos, little cash. Unwatered by freshets of advertising appropriations, British radio pays its stars out of a sustaining budget, and radio listeners often lose their best performers to the prosperous music halls.

Most recent BBC deserter is Organist Reginald Foort, whose fan-letter pile towers highest in British radio. Foort left a seaman's job to play a piano in a Lyons Corner House restaurant,* became Britain's most popular cinema organist. Organist Foort this week was officially on vacation, actually en route to Manhattan to pick up a new organ for an assault on the big money. He has resigned from BBC, will open in November a music-hall tour which guarantees him $13,000 for a year, almost three times his annual BBC earnings.

Britishers will see him on the stage, hear him broadcast more expensively from Radio Normandie, Radio Luxembourg (continental stations which carry sponsored programs in English). In leaving BBC for greener pastures, he follows the lead of Band Leaders Jack Payne, Henry Hall, Variety Director Eric Maschwitz, many another.

*For last week's Lyons performers, see page 26.

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