American Radio Library has added a few issues of Radio Topics from the early ’20s.
One article was highlighting services provided by radio. First a bakery was using one-way radio to dispatch its electric trucks:
More importantly, businesses were using radio as a premium in the Duane Jones sense, and sometimes a self-liquidating premium, paying for itself with purchases of radio equipment.
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Farmers within a 700-mile radius of New Lebanon, Ohio, are reaping the benefits of the radio broadcasting station installed by the Nushawg Poultry Farm a few months ago. “Prior to the time we installed our outfit our farm was just about unknown,” says W. N. Nushawg, general manager. “Within the first three months we had over 4,000 inquiries about our products.”
“Rural districts supply 90% of these inquiries, because this station broadcasts information intended primarily for the fanner. On Friday evenings we transmit information on hog feeding, dairy feeding, and poultry culture. Authorities on these subjects supply the information. “On our other two broadcasting nights, Monday and Wednesday, we send information supplied by state institutions and the Department of Agriculture, along with talks on education, art, religion, and commerce. The farmer has been put in touch with cultural forces which he appreciates, but seldom encounters. And he is grateful for our service.
Market reports are vital items to the farmer; the Department of Agriculture sends them over the country by radio. It is estimated that fully a sixth of recent installations of receiving sets have been made by farmers for the purpose of receiving these reports.
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[The Nushawg Poultry station was WPG, but it doesn’t appear to have lasted long. I don’t see New Lebanon in call books after 1922, and WPG was reassigned to a big station in Atlantic City.]
Radio continued serving farmers more than any other specific occupation, even after farmers dwindled to a small part of the population.
Many stations were operated by local stores and businesses as sole-source advertising media:
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Gimbel Brothers, at Philadelphia, have found a more direct way to benefit. Radio broadcasting has developed several tangible sources of profit for Gimbel’s besides the somewhat less tangible value of getting the firm name before people in approximately 10,000 homes daily. The sales of accessories alone have run into many thousands of dollars and have more than paid the cost of rather expensive equipment, according to Ellis A. Gimbel, Jr.
The Gimbel station experimented with the whole range of music. and its
weekly program now runs the gamut from jazz furnished by a popular cafe
orchestra to chamber music.
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Unlike the movie, Gimbels only advertised Gimbels, and the advertising itself was an attractive and useful service, thus a premium in the Jones sense. Gimbels made the premium self-liquidating by advertising radios.
As it happens I’ve featured the Gimbel station WIP before, though I didn’t see the Gimbel connection in the materials I was using at that time. (I renamed it KDV for copyrightish reasons.)
Meanwhile, Bell Tel was trying to bring ALL broadcasting into the model it used for telephone service, with ONE network operated by Bell and broadcasters renting their facilities.
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“It is not our plan to send out any program ourselves, but simply to provide facilities for the use of others at reasonable charges. If the demand for broadcasting continues, there will ultimately be no particular advantage in anyone owning a private broadcasting station, and it seems reasonable to suppose that facilities for broadcasting will be provided thru some common agency.”
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You will own nothing and you will be happy. Fortunately this path was NOT taken. Broadcasters continued buying and owning their equipment, and trying out different ways of using a station. The article concludes by looking to the future:
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But in the meantime, does it pay for business? The experience of the several companies which go to make up this article is decidedly favorable in reply. It has paid royally in profits and increased business. It has been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that radio can be made an effective business tool to improve service and to build up good-will and prestige.
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Through the ’20s many commercial stations were owned by stores serving their own ends. Only a few big stations carried on through the ’30s. KFNF in Iowa served the Fields Seed Company, following the ag tradition described in the article. Doc Brinkley in Kansas used KBKF to push his goat gland clinic. These were the exceptions as most stations became more like newspapers, taking paid ads from all businesses.
Polistra's Mill 