From the new Cunarder Mauretania on her maiden voyage last June, MBS staged a special ship-to-shore broadcast, during which MBS's special features director, George Wilfred ("Johnny") Johnstone, who crossed on the Mauretania to conduct the broadcast, jarred the air waves by referring to the new ship as Aguitania. For this slip, Johnny Johnstone took a round kidding, especially from Variety's puckish Radio Editor Bob Landry. Last fortnight, however, Editor Landry had occasion to be thankful for Johnny Johnstone's Mauretania boner.
War caught Editor Landry vacationing in England. When he finally got passage home, he was forbidden to cable his family or his paper what ship he would arrive on. So he cabled Johnny Johnstone: ERROR YOUR LAST CROSSING CORRECT. Johnstone got the idea instantly, passed the word along that Landry was on the Aquitania.
Most urgent news Editor Landry brought to Variety's showfolk readers last week was that war had completely stalled Europe's $3,000,000-a-year commercial broadcasting business, conducted mainly from Luxembourg and Normandy for British audiences, who get no commercials from their BBC. Big day for Radio Luxembourg, Radio Normandie and other "outlaw" stations has been Sunday, when the prim BBC goes completely Sabbath. On Sundays, the "outlaws" used to pour forth musical and variety programs acted and recorded in London and air-expressed to the foreign transmitters, briskly dinning Britishers with radio commodities like Alka-Seltzer, Lux, Pepsodent, Kraft Cheese. For a Sunday hour, Luxembourg had recently been charging $2,500, the highest single-station rate in the world.
Radio Luxembourg, whose transmitter in the little grand duchy is within sight of the German border, subsided at the outbreak of the war, has not been heard since. Radio Normandie, like all other French stations, has been put under military supervision, now devotes most of its time to propaganda, none to merchandising. To supply both stations with sponsors and commercial material, U. S. agencies like J. Walter Thompson, Blackett-Sample-Hummert, and Erwin, Wasey have for the last several years been doing brisk London businesses.
Last week in London talent and adman alike twiddled, hoped that once war got in the groove, radio might again be able to sing for its supper. Radio Normandie has a snug little building around a corner from BBC's showy (and now sandbagged) Broadcasting House. Like everybody else in London, Radio Normandie's outpost dug in, fitted up a sub-basement air-raid shelter complete with telephones, desks, transcription machinery, eating, sleeping, toilet facilities for its staff of 200; a phonograph for dull hours.