Subject: [removed] Digest V2014 #110
From: [removed]@[removed]
Date: 12/25/2014 4:18 PM

To: [removed]@[removed]
Reply-to: [removed]@[removed]

    ------------------------------

                                The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                                  Volume 2014 : Issue 110
                             A Part of the [removed]!
                                 [removed]
                                     ISSN: 1533-9289

                                     Today's Topics:

      Free OTR Christmas Short Story for K  [ Joe Stevens <joestevensus@[removed] ]
      Richard C. Hottelet                   [ "Bob C" <rmcblc@[removed]; ]

    ------------------------------

    Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 14:19:36 -0500
    From: Joe Stevens <joestevensus@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Free OTR Christmas Short Story for Kindle

    For those of you who do the Kindle ebook thing, here's a short story based on
    the Classic Phil Harris Christmas Episode. It is free until December 27th.
    [removed]

    ------------------------------

    Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 14:19:44 -0500
    From: "Bob C" <rmcblc@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Richard C. Hottelet

    In 1975, I was a graduate student putting together as a
    special project a five-part series of 30-minute programs to
    commemorate the 30th anniversary of the end of World War
    Two. There wasn't all that much information about radio's
    role back then -- at least, not much being shared in a
    concise way; many of the younger broadcast pioneers had not
    yet retired and written their memoirs, and many of the fine
    radio researchers who frequent this list had not put on
    their green eyeshades and started digging into radio's many
    aspects.

    In a letter to Mr. Hottelet, I naively asked about the ban
    on the use of recordings (why?), his experience with first
    being able to record a report, and the matter of censorship.
    Most of his reply is quoted below the jim-dash (-0-), along
    with a [removed]

    -0-

    23 May 1975

    My impression is that the networks refused to use recordings
    and insisted on live transmissions -- even when failures
    were heartbreakingly frequent -- not because of union
    problems, but because they felt that such use would be
    inconsistent, possibly even destructively [so], with the
    idea of a network. Recordings were seen as something canned
    and old, further as something which could be sent out by
    mail to individual stations, obviating the need for network
    inter-connection. Paul White's book (I've forgotten the name
    of it) may afford a clue. I'm not sure I ever heard the
    reason officially spelled out in those terms, but that was
    the way it came through to me. Nor was it altogether silly,
    because actuality recording was infinitely more cumbersome
    then -- recording meant essentially studio voice recording.
    This could -- and indeed should -- have been done in advance
    when atmospheric conditions made the live circuit too risky,
    but the quality of immediacy was -- and not unjustifiably --
    considered more valuable.

    I have a dim feeling that I made the first in-flight
    recording on a bombing mission -- over France several months
    before D-Day -- and it was done with a wire recorder. It was
    a terrible nuisance, breaks in the wire had to be fused with
    a burning cigarette. There was certainly no tape available
    then. We heard of tape in connection with speeches recorded
    by Hitler in advance which, when broadcast, did not sound
    recorded. And I first saw a magnetic tape and a tape machine
    in Hamburg immediately after the end of the war. If the
    technique was known in the West at that time, I was unaware
    of it.

    Censorship problems: censorship is always a problem and was
    then. I'm not sure there were any on D-Day -- but World War
    II was a situation in which the necessity of military
    censorship was not questioned. When censors did apply it too
    broadly, one did argue with them -- and heatedly. Sometimes
    one changed their ruling.
    ...

    PS -- As to recordings -- we also used a portable wax disc
    recorder which the BBC had rigged up in a jeep trailer -- it
    was like a portable studio and occasionally worked -- but
    strictly for voice. It was too awkward and too delicate to
    move off roads.

    And we used a film recorder -- in which a belt of clear
    gelatin was looped in a figure eight through a recording
    head where the sound signal was incised by a needle -- the
    principle of the wax recording. It never worked -- and the
    man who sent it to us, together with the so-called engineer
    who was attached to it ostensibly to make it work, should
    have been shot for the agonies of effort and expectation
    inflicted on the poor slobs who thought they were getting
    real battle actuality with it.

    -0-

    At some point in my letter, I must have mentioned Ed
    Murrow's "Orchestrated Hell" broadcast -- perhaps I was
    having trouble pinning down its date. Hottelet responded:
    "Murrow's Berlin raid broadcast must have been in December
    1943 -- because I seem to remember being in the office for
    the first time just about then, before joining CBS on
    January 1, 1944."

    I have long since found the date was December 3, 1943. On
    the Internet, I saw that a collection of Mr. Hottelet's
    papers is at George Washington University. I'll be sending
    his letter there to be a part of the collection.

    Bob Cockrum
    Lubbock, Texas

    Merry Christmas!

    --------------------------------
    End of [removed] Digest V2014 Issue #110
    *********************************************

    Copyright [removed] Communications, York, PA; All Rights Reserved,
      including republication in any form.

    If you enjoy this list, please consider financially supporting it:
       [removed]

    For Help: [removed]@[removed]

    To Unsubscribe: [removed]@[removed]

    To Subscribe: [removed]@[removed]
      or see [removed]

    For Help with the Archive Server, send the command ARCHIVE HELP
      in the SUBJECT of a message to [removed]@[removed]

    To contact the listmaster, mail to listmaster@[removed]

    In the event of a major mail problem, please contact the listmaster via
      the web-based contact form available at [removed]
      (on the sidebar) or follow/DM CFSummers on Twitter

    To Send Mail to the list, simply send to [removed]@[removed]