Radio: Half Year Box Scores

In 1936 The Literary Digest mailed a questionnaire to find out whether U. S. citizens preferred Roosevelt or Landon. The answer was Landon, who carried Maine & Vermont. Prominent among those grilled: telephone subscribers. Nobody knows whether telephone subscribers are similarly at odds with the rest of the people in their preferences for radio shows. The radio industry thinks not. It depends for estimates of the popularity of its programs largely upon the Cooperative Analysis of Broadcasting, which gathers material for its statistical studies solely by telephone queries. Last week radio bigwigs pored over a C. A. B. semi-annual report which offered a box score for the period October 1939-April 1940. Some of C. A. B.’s findings:

> Most popular program was that of Edgar Bergen, with a rating of 40 per 100 set-owners polled. Runner-up with 39 was the unctuous Jack Benny, with Lux Radio Theatre, Fibber McGee & Molly and the Kraft Music Hall trailing along after him.

> Again, variety shows were the audiences’ favorite class. Second place went to classical music, third to aerial dramas. Close behind were serials, which make up 84.9% of daytime programs. Also in the van on the C. A. B. books were the audience-participation shows, with Kay Kyser’s College of Musical Knowledge and Pot o’ Gold listed among the first 15.

> News broadcasts climbed mightily, sports shows fell off. Popular music (as represented by Fitch Band Wagon) was listed among the 15 leading programs for the first time in three winter seasons.

> Biggest recorded audience for any program was that attracted by Franklin Roosevelt’s “dagger-in-the-back” speech from Charlottesville, Va. It rated 45.5 in the C. A. B. chart.