Radio: Guinea-Pig Ears

For years, Horace (“Doc”) Schwerin has found it good business to stick his nose in other people’s business. As a buck private, he sounded off about Army life.

His poll of G.I. gripes brought reforms that saved $110,000,000 a year in food costs alone. When he got out of uniform, he popped off about radio. NBC listened. Last week, the network demonstrated the Schwerin System for audience testing and proudly announced that now, thanks to Horace, NBC would know when its programs are no good.

Doc Schwerin uses no by-gosh or by-Gallup polling system. Each Tuesday and Thursday evening, he fills an NBC studio with 300 listeners. Most of them come because of the free tickets, but many show up to speak their minds about radio. First they are screened to match the particular program’s national audience. (Says Schwerin: “There is no such thing as a typical radio audience.”) Then they listen to programs, recording their reactions on a tab sheet. About every 30 seconds they check the “good,” “fair,” or “poor” column. After Jan. 1, testers will use a mechanical gadget called the “reacto-caster,” developed by Schwerin’s father.

It will automatically punch cards recording all reactions, making Schwerin’s system comparable to Audience Research, Inc.’s method of judging movies (TIME, July 22).

Simple as the system sounds, it represents eleven years of research by 32-year-old Horace Schwerin. The son of an electronics engineer, he studied at Pennsylvania’s Lafayette College, then majored in psychology and mathematics at London University. He worked with Columbia University’s Dr. Paul Lazarsfeld and Dr. Frank Stanton, now president of CBS, in pioneer radio research. He always looked for some way to find out what listeners thought of radio, rather than how many had their sets tuned in. But his system is no guarantee of good programing. Says Schwerin: “Research is no substitute for creative talent.”