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Turning to the broadcasters, he spooked them thoroughly by referring to a station as a "project." It had been seen that McNinch had no qualms about taking power by the ell, so when he began talking about investigating radio time rates, the broadcasters got the scare of their lives. Not long ago, however, Chairman Mc-Ninch came to realize that it is the advertiser who pays the rates, that advertising is an unregulated industry and that there is no way to be sure that lower rates would be passed on as price reductions to the consumers of the products advertised.
While Chairman McNinch is still very much inclined to read the fullest social & economic implications into the FCC's limited authorization to license radio stations according to "public convenience, interest or necessity," he does not scare broadcasters anything like as much as he did last year. He is now recognized as no Tom Corcoran of the air. After all, his most alarming (and most repeated) shibboleth is "Keep radio democratic!"
Investigations. To keep radio democratic, the FCC is engaged in two investigations : into superpower and monopoly. The man most interested in superpower is enterprising Powel Crosley Jr., who holds for station WLW in Cincinnati a temporary license for experimental purposes for 500 kilowatts, ten times the power of any other commercial American broadcasting station. Around the 831 ft. WLW antenna at Mason, Ohio, the 500,000 watts charge the neighborhood with enough electricity to light an electric bulb with nothing but a wire stuck into the ground. And they cast an audible signal over 13 States. Crosley now wants the FCC to license his "experimental" 500-kilowatter as a commercial station, although WLW has been broadcasting commercially with 500 kilowatts for four years. Fifteen other stations have applied for equal power. Hearings have been set for June 6.
Last fortnight the FCC issued the rules & regulations which are to be the basis of the hearings, setting 50 kw. as top power for a commercial broadcasting station. FCC considers 500 kw. completely proved as an engineering possibility, holds experiments no longer necessary. It is now up to Experimenter Crosley and other applicants to prove that further 500 kw. coverage will not damage many low-power local stations in their capacity as media of local self-expression. The big broadcasters are already divided on the superpower questions. CBS has withdrawn its one super-power application, put in for station KNX (Hollywood) by a previous owner. KDKA (Pittsburgh) and WBZ (Boston) have also withdrawn their applications. The Commissioners who will conduct these hearings are George Henry Payne, a fan-letter collector who does a lot of very public complaining about blood-curdling children's programs; Rhode Island's one-time Governor Norman Stanley Case, a gracious and imperturbable New Englander; and Tunis Augustus MacDonough Craven, ex-Naval officer and the Commission's one technical man.