Radio Revolution?

Little by little, with gingerly audacity, CBS has been edging toward a radio revolution, based on the radical assumption that listeners--even housewives-- have brains.

Among CBS's recent innovations: > Chapter One, an experiment by the Columbia Workshop (CBS, 2:30-2:55 p.m. E.W.T., Sundays). In the belief that much good writing is also good radio, Workshop workmen attempt to transfer a chapter of a book to the air without adapting (i.e., rewriting) it. The first broadcast-- the opening chapter of Antoine de Saint-Exupery's Flight to Arras--followed the book faithfully, slipping from narration to dialogue with a minimum of theatrics or sound effects.

The show was at its best when Actor Vincent Price (Angel Street) read Saint-Ex's meditation on the Battle of France. ("Victory is a thing of action. . . . But defeat is a thing of weariness, of incoherence, of boredom. And above all, of futility. . . .") First reaction to Flight: favorable. Possible result: other chapters of other books on a new weeknight program.

> The Radio Reader (CBS, Monday through Friday, 9:15-9:30 a.m. E.W.T.), another bookish experiment. Invitation to Learning's sensible Mark Van Doren (TIME, Nov. 24) started the program by reading The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, which offered housewives a change of pace from other sin-and-suffer programs, gave bedfast patients in hospitals something worth listening to. Van Doren makes no attempt at Dramatic emphasis but reads articulately and quietly. He opens with a summary of the dramatic situation, reads 14 minutes (without skipping), stops when his time runs out. If listeners like the program (first day's mail--55 for, 1 against), other books will be read, not all by Van Doren.

> Are You A Genius?, a weekday afternoon program (Mon. through Fri., 5 p.m. E.W.T.), is highly unusual for that time of day: it is aimed neither at the little woman nor at the children, but at the whole family. It is unusual for any time of day in that it invites listeners to use their heads. Instead of being paced )by a panel of experts, listeners get out pads and pencils, attempt to answer, in 30 seconds each, questions for the learned, questions for the kids, questions for everybody (e.g., "What is it that a left-handed man always does with his right hand?"*).

Each question counts five, ten or 15 points, and a score of 90 or better rates a listener as an "associate genius," 75 as an "assistant genius." CBS credits this genial program to President William S. Paley, who has doubtless observed that too many radio shows require only half an ear.

* CBS's answer: Shakes hands.

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