The Blue Begins

Since it acquired papers of incorporation (TIME, Jan. 19), Blue Network Co. has been trying hard to live up to its divorce from NBC (though they still cohabit Radio City as RCA subsidiaries). Last week there were several tokens that a sort of selfhood had come to the Blue.

> Dorothy Thompson became a regular Blue news commentator (Thurs. 8:45 p.m. E.W.T.), thus reinforcing that essential service of the successful broadcasting company, a staff of reputable world-scanners.

> A fanciful stroke of the Blue was noted by The New Yorker: a Chinese class for Blue announcers, who have done so well at beginning the day with Buenas dias! that they are now learning how to say "Good morning" in Mandarin (tsao shun).

> A new Blue program series, The Ontario Show, was piped in from Toronto (Fri. 7 p.m. E.W.T.), presenting Colonel Stoopnagle, in the interests of U.S.-Canadian good will, cutting up with heavenly Madeleine Carroll and a nice Canadian contralto. Another, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.'s Sur les Boulevards, began on the Blue last Thursday (8:30 p.m. E.W.T.).

> The Blue publicity department, after many weeks of sore perplexity, devised felt-lined metal jackets bearing the legend BLUE to slip over NBC microphones when photographers are in the offing. New mikes, made of war-precious metals, are not to be had.

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