Back to Melody

Radio Corp. of America owns or has virtual controlling interest in RCA Communications, Inc. and Radiomarine Corp. (communications), RCA Photophone Co. (sound-film recording and receiving equipment), Radio-Victor Corp. (radio sets and talking machines), Radio-Keith Orpheum Corp. (vaudeville circuits and theatres), RKO Productions, Inc. (cinema production), National Broadcasting Co. (broadcasting). Recently it acquired an option on the patents for the Theremin "ether wave" musical instrument, which is played by moving the hands in the air above it. Entertainment, therefore, and particularly musical entertainment, is Radio Corp.'s forte. Last week it went further into music. National Broadcasting Co. announced that with music publishers Leo Feist, Inc. and Carl Fischer it had formed a new publishing house: Radio Music Corp., capitalized at $6,600,000. NBC owns one-third of the capital stock. RKO Productions, Inc. therefore, like every other important cinema company, will have its own music publishers. And Radio Corp. will now be financially interested in practically every phase of public entertainment.

Obviously if sound movie producers use a song published by somebody else, they get no royalties, may have to pay some. Example: Warner Bros, purchased "Sonny Boy," published and written by De Sylva, Brown & Henderson, with lyric changes by Al Jolson. Estimated royalties were upward of $750,000, of which Warner Bros, received not a cent. Warner Bros, learned a lesson, purchased Witmarks Inc. for approximately $5,000,000.* Radio Corp. seemed last week to have learned that lesson too. A contracted composer for Leo Feist, Inc. is Mabel Wayne, composer of "Ramona," and considered the best Feist music writer. Confidently last week cinemen predicted that RKO Productions, Inc. would soon produce a sound movie with a Wayne theme song. And, they pointed out, royalties from the sale of copies and records would go not only to Fischer and Feist but also to Radio Corp.'s NBC (actually Radio Corp. owns 50% of NBC, General Electric owns 30%, Westinghouse owns 20%).

Radio Music Co. has another function. It intends to discover new music, encourage new composers. It is tired of jazz, wants melody. Its President Edwin Claude Mills/- last week said: "We are not interested in 'reform.' We are not trying to get ourselves into such a rarified atmosphere that nobody could live in it with us. . . . We have had perhaps too much of jazz and it seems about time for some one to assume leadership in a movement away from the cacophony of most music of the day. I think we should get back to melody."

Radio Music Co. intends to form a board of musical judges. The classical will be represented by such men as Walter Damrosch, Tin Pan Alley by such connoisseurs as Feist's Edgar Bitner. Anybody who has written a musical composition may submit it. To ensure unprejudiced judgments the board will be kept in ignorance of the composer's name. If a composition is accepted, Radio Music Co. will publish it, NBC will broadcast it, RKO Productions perhaps may make of it a theme song, Radio-Victor will make records of it. But in all cases Radio Corp. of America will profit thereby.

*Similarly Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer made a contract with Jack Robbins Music Co.; Paramount Famous-Lasky Corp. formed Famous Music Co. as a subsidiary to the established firm of T. B. Harms, Inc.; De Sylva, Brown & Henderson now supply all songs for Fox.

/-To become president of Radio Music Co. he resigned the presidency of the American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers. The society's chief duty is to see that its members always get their due royalties. To it WJZ and WEAF pay a blanket $25,000 yearly for use of musical numbers copyrighted by its members. The fee is then prorated among the society's members.

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