RADIO NEWSPAPERS
By J. A. STEVENSON Ottawa, 7une 21st.
ABRIEF recently submitted on behalf of the Canadian Daily Newspapers' Association to the Radio Committee of the House of Commons here throws into high relief the serious importance attached by the newspaper publishers of Canada to "Facsimile," the new type of broadcasting process, through which papers can be produced by radio inside the home. A newspaper at one's bedside in the early morning without the intervention of printing presses and delivery boys has now passed beyond the visionary stage and a new concept of journalism has been opened up.
Printed matter and photographs have been transmitted by wire and radio for many years, but there have now been evolved a simple transmitter and receiver which will print miniature news- papers in the home. The copy ready for transmission is fastened to a revolving cylinder and, as the copy revolves, a small beam of light from an electric eye plays upon it, translating the highlights and shadows of the lettering into "frequency modulation" impulses, which are sent over the air to the receiver. Tuned to the proper frequency, the receiving-set picks up the signals and reconverts them into electrical impulses, which bombard and deposit minute marks upon electro-sensitive printing paper. The copy then pours out in a continuous sheet from a slit in the top of the receiver.
A Facsimile receiver occupies a very limited space and can be attached to an ordinary radio set. Sheets of the facsimile newspaper are at present 911 by 12 inches in size, but there is no technical obstacle to their enlargement to the size of a normal newspaper page. Four standard sheets are usually fed out in each broadcasting period of 15 minutes, but receivers can turn out copy at the rate of soo words per minute, which is more than twice as fast as a radio announcer can speak intelligibly. At present the quality of home facsimile print does not compare favourably with that of the average good newspaper and it is apt to be blurred ; the reproduction of p:ctures is much better. But the print is quite readable and inventors hope to improve it by designing more radio-genic type-faces.
A receiving-unit which is due to come into production in the near future will cost about the same price as an ordinary radio set with a phonographic attachment, and it is predicted that, once mass-production gets under way, the cost will be reduced to the price of a good typewriter, which would put it within the react' of quite moderate incomes. The cost of operating a receiver is quite low. The newsprint cylinder on the machine carries about 403 linear feet of paper, which costs about $4, and since this supply lasts about a month under average operation, the cost of the news- paper produced works out at about quarter of a cent per page. At present the orthodox newspaper format is retained by most facsimile newsheets, but eventually columns will probably be dis- carded and a design better adapted to the new medium will be adopted. Advertisements are carried on the facsimile papers but they have to be very brief.
Facsimile newspapers are to-day being published in New York and other places in the United States. Colonel McCormick, the publisher of the Chicago Tribune, is rated one of the arch-conserva- tives of the United States, but months ago he was having a specially prepared copy of his great paper transmitted every day by Facsimile to his country estate at Wheaton in the countryside of Illinois. In New York a paper called the Air Press is steadily gaining circula- tion and Mr. J. S. Knight, the owner of a chain of newspapers, has got the new device in operation in Florida. One of the leading pioneers in Facsimile development, Mr. John V. L. Hogan, the founder and operator of Radio Station WUR in New York, predicts that within a few years 500,000 Facsimile receivers will be in operation in the New York-New England region alone. To accelerate the progress of Facsimile he has established a research organisation called "Broad- casters' Facsimile Analysis," which is financed by a group of radio broadcasters, some of whom have affiliations with important news- papers like the New York Times and the Hearst chain. Mr. Hogan maintains that Facsimile will help the daily newspapers rather than hurt them and that enterprising publishers will soon be employing
it as an agency for transmitting any big news which breaks between editions, competing thereby with the radio news-bulletins.
At the moment Facsimile is operating under the handicap that the Federal Communications Commission, which exercises a general supervision over radio activities in the U.S., refuses to permit "fax- casting," as it is popularly called, over standard or A.M. stations except after voice-casting hours. But F.M. (Frequency Modula- tion) stations can broadcast Facsimile 18 hours per day if they so desire, and the superiority of the F.M. method is so marked that many stations are expected to change over to it in the near future. Another disability of Facsimile is that so far its range of trans- mission over F.M. channels is limited to about 30 miles, and there- fore it is being used exclusively in the urban areas where it is least needed and has its benefits denied to dwellers in the country, who would get the greatest profit from it because the early delivery of newspapers to them is often impossible However, it is anticipated that this drawback will be eliminated at no distant date.
It is therefore quite obvious that Facsimile has come to stay, and very few newspaper publishers in North America share the view that it will not affect their fortunes. To-day the cost of establishing a fresh newspaper in a large city is virtually prohibitive, but an F.M. transmitter costs only between $5,00o and $1o,000 and a Facsimile transmitter about $1o,000, and anybody who aspires to be a publisher and can command $25,000 capital can embark upon the home-facsimile newspaper business. He has no problems about delivery and need not worry about newsprint quotas, because the reader buys his own paper. So it is little wonder that the terms of the brief presented on behalf of the daily newspapers of Canada reveal a certain anxiety about the implications of Facsimile. It pro- pounds the view that since Facsimile represents an alternative form of printing and distributing newspapers, the daily papers should be permitted to employ and develop this new method without any more restriction and interference from any outside authority than now exists—which means with complete freedom. It argues that without this assurance not only is their economic future endangered but the whole cause of the freedom of the Press is placed in jeopardy. For this reason the newspapers support the demand of the private broadcasting organisations of Canada that the control over broad- casting, which is now vested in the State-owned Canadian Broad- casting Corporation, should be transferred to an independent body.
The fundamental flaw in this position is that the broadcasting of Facsimile requires a broadcasting frequency and therefore a radio station. But the number of frequencies is limited, and so the problem arises of the allotment of the available frequencies and the basis on which it is to be made. Clearly the public interest demands that the State should retain some check upon the operations connected with the broadcasting both of sounds and of printed matter.
Previous page
