File:Bell telephone magazine (1922) (14569423799).jpg

Identifier: bellvol25telephonemag00amerrich (find matches)
Title: Bell telephone magazine
Year: 1922 (1920s)
Authors: American Telephone and Telegraph Company American Telephone and Telegraph Company. Information Dept
Subjects: Telephone
Publisher: (New York, American Telephone and Telegraph Co., etc.)
Contributing Library: Prelinger Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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ican Telephone and TelegraphCompany. This is the newly published Com-mercial Broadcasting Pioneer: theWEAF Experiment, 1922-1926,by William Peck. Banning. In thisfine work of research and interpreta-tion, the author has not onlv set forth the facts about the A. T. and T.Companys creation and operation ofWEAF, but he has so displayed themagainst the contemporary scene thattheir social and economic as well astheir technical importance becomesclear. The author, as many who willread the book already know, was amember of the A. T. & T. Com-pany Information Department for24 years, and for 17 of those yearsbefore his retirement in 1944 heserved as an assistant vice president.He was a keen observer of many ofthe events he describes and was ac-quainted with many of the principalfigures concerned in the rapidly ex-panding enterprise. Personal recol- William P. Banningat work on the manu-script ofThe WEAFExperiment^ at hishome shortly after hisretirement from theA. T. & T. Companyin ig44
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268 Bell Telephone Magazine lection thus aided the exhaustive in-quiry which makes the book an au-thoritative document. It is Mr. Bannings conckision thatthe A. T. & T. Companys four-yearexperiment with WEAF aided thedevelopment of radio broadcastingin three unique, constructive, and im-portant ways. The first of these, he believes, wasin the scientific and technologicalfield. Basic contributions here wereto be expected from an organiza-tion which had transmitted one-wayspeech through the ether to Parisand Honolulu as early as 1915.Among them was the establishmentof network broadcasting. The second, the author feels, wasthe emphasis on a high standard ofradio programs. The third was the determinationof the means whereby radio broad-casting could support itself: tollbroadcasting, as it was first termed.This concept of making broadcastingfacilities available by selling time onthe air was the contribution of A. T.& T. President Walter S. Gifford—then executive vice president—

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