Cloth and Chains

Sixty-two broadcasting clergymen, paced by Manhattan's Harry Emerson Fosdick, last week denounced FCC's antimonopoly rulings against the radio chains, put God squarely on the networks' side. Wrote they to Franklin Roosevelt:

"The Federal Communications Commission report, if put into effect, would, in our judgment, greatly curtail the opportunity for ... nationwide [religious broadcasting] service, and would jeopardize cultural, educational, musical and religious broadcasting in general. . . . The action proposed by the Federal Communications Commission seems to us hasty, drastic and ill-considered."

This word from the Cloth came opportunely for the chains, belabored by attacks by FCC Chairman James Lawrence Fly made in current hearings before the Senate Interstate Commerce Committee. In response to FCC's charges, the networks have assembled a battery of high-priced lobbyists, and rallied women's clubs and educators to their defense on the ground that a threat to them is a threat to their unsponsored cultural features. CBS has even printed 800,000 copies of a defensive "White Paper."

The line-up at the hearings is somewhat confusing. Supporting FCC are Senators Wheeler and Tobey, who have no use for Franklin Roosevelt; opposing it is Senator White, a Roosevelt supporter on foreign policy, who wrote the resolution calling for an investigation of the Commission's rulings. Firm in its support of FCC is the No. 3 network, Mutual, which numbers among its big shots hard-bitten Bertie McCormick and his anti-Administration Chicago Tribune.

Although NBC's President Niles Trammell and CBS's William Paley have made incidental comments during hearings to date, the networks as yet have not presented their full-dress defense. Mark Ethridge, onetime head of the National Association of Broadcasters, vice president and general manager of the New Dealish Louisville Courier-Journal and Times, who was expected to produce damaging evidence against FCC, was "reluctant to go into cases." When Bill Paley took the stand only three members of the 21-man Senatorial committee were around to hear his remarks.

Chief FCC testimony against the networks :

> The usual form of contract between a network and an affiliated station provides that the network may cancel the contract on one year's notice, but the station must live up to the full five-year period.

> If a network affiliate sells time to a national advertiser at less than chain rates, the network penalizes the outlet by reducing its compensation.

> The networks' annual return on their investment is 69%.

> Because NBC and CBS refuse to let their affiliates plug into other networks, the people of various States are deprived of many a program. Example: the 1940 World Series, aired by Mutual, which failed to reach listeners in some parts of the country, particularly the South and Southwest.

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