Radio: Roosevelt’s Rating

Franklin Roosevelt’s Labor Day (anti-inflation) speech rolled up a Hooper rating* of 50.3 (or 37,362,400 adults), outstripping commercial radio’s alltime high —Charlie McCarthy’s 41.2.

Response to the President’s speeches has followed a saw-toothed graph. Two days after Pearl Harbor the President’s Hooper rating skyrocketed to an alltime high of 79.0. Last fortnight, when he spoke over as great a hookup to the International Student Assembly, his Hooper fell to 19.0.

* Like the Crossley rating, Hooper’s is based on a check of listeners by telephone: Hooper phones during a program, Crossley later. Crossley distributes calls by income groups; Hooper phones at random.