Radio: The Colonel’s Bet

A network-manager was hired last week as a station-manager. Both the station and the man were outstanding, and both he and the station felt lucky. The manager was young (35), shrewd Lieut. Colonel John S. Hayes, who built and bossed the crackajack American Forces Network in Europe. The station was the New York Times’ s 10,000-watt WQXR, which devotes 80% of its broadcast day to “the best in music,” the rest to frequent news and infrequent commercials.

In Hayes, WQXR got the man who probably knows more than anyone else about the radio tastes of returning servicemen. His problem: how to make a big commercial success of a high-quality station. To skeptics, Hayes says: “How wrong can you be, betting on good taste?”