Cure-Ail

Many doctors have diagnosed radio's ills; few have prescribed a cure. Last week, educator and critic Charles Arthur Siepmann (TIME, Oct. 6, 1941) readied a remedy. In a 276-page book (Radio's Second Chance; Little, Brown; $2.50), he told radio how it could get well if it only half tried.

Like any competent physician, British-born Charles Siepmann, former BBC director, Harvard lecturer and FCC consultant, began with a documented case history of his patient. For many a suffering listener, it was the best analysis yet of radio's excesses:

After a lofty resolve to limit advertising to the bare mention of a sponsor's name, radio forgot its good resolution, went after advertising that has multiplied radio's receipts 60 times since 1927. Programming was concentrated in network headquarters, control and responsibility abdicated to a small group of advertisers. Says Siepmann: public service continued to diminish while profits soared. Example: in 1944, radio's net return before taxes ($90,000,000) was more than double the depreciated value of all its tangible property.

This financial debauchery was such fun, he reports, that the patient became proud of it. For proof Siepmann cites last year's president of the NAB, J. Harold Ryan:

". . . If the legend still persists that a radio station is some kind of an art center ... then [our] first official act . . . should be to list it along with the local dairies, laundries, banks, restaurants and filling stations."

A "miracle" of science, Siepmann believes, has given radio a second chance for health. The discovery of FM opens channels for 3,500 to 5,000 new stations, which should force improvement through competition alone. To merit this second chance, says he, radio should try some voluntary reforms. Then Siepmann suggests a potion of his own concocting: a national listeners' advisory council representing the U.S. audience. Its job: minding radio's manners, reporting the industry's shortcomings to FCC.

Professor Siepmann's brew was one cure-all that was not likely to get a radio sponsor.

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