Radio: Gifts

Of all WPA projects, the one most lavishly encouraged by private enterprise is the Federal Theatre Radio Division. For none of its 44 series has the F.T.R.D. ever paid the radio broadcasting systems any time charges. Obligated to fill unsold air time with entertainment and edification, networks and radio stations have handed F.T.R.D. rich slices of the ether. Free time contributed to the project in two years is valued at more than $3,000,000, almost ten times the project’s actual cost. And the project has succeeded in returning about half its actors to professional stage, screen or radio jobs.

In making gifts of broadcasting rights to F.T.R.D., authors have been equally generous. James Truslow Adams gave them his The Epic of America for an MBS series, Mary Roberts Rinehart her Tish stories for CBS broadcasting. Most lavish gift of all came from Medical Crusader Paul de Kruif, who has turned over his radio rights to Microbe Hunters, Hunger Fighters, Men Against Death, Why Keep Them Alive, The Fight for Life. Dramatization of all these books in order went into production this week, will be a CBS coast-to-coaster Thursday evenings at 8 beginning June 30. NBC’s projected Federal show is U. S. Secret Service, dramatizations of closed cases; MBS’s is Command Performance, 13 famous plays chosen by audiences and radio critics.