WHY EDUCATIONAL RADIO?

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Your editorial on Educational TV in the October 10th CRIMSON endorses state financial backing to help reach a half-million dollar goal by June, 1953 in order to erect an educational TV station in the Boston area. I would like to know what improvements educational TV will make over those services offered by the Lowell Institute's FM station. Everyone seems to think educational TV is a fine idea, but no one has yet offered what improvements will be forthcoming in program content over Hoppy and the Space Cadets.

I would like to argue for Educational Radio, which is being tried in a few university communities, but largely if not entirely on the FM bands. The resulting area served in most cases is the community which by virtue of the local sponsoring institutions need Educational Radio less than smaller or more remote areas not served by any higher educational institutions.

Cheaper than TV

If Educational Radio were allotted, say, five or six AM stations over the country with a power of around 100,000 watts each, the whole country would have a rock of communication at a cost infinitely less than TV sations, costing many times as much and covering a far smaller community of viewers.

What a person says is conveyed adequate by radio and it makes poor economy to pay about five times a given amount invested in radio just to see what the speaker books like. Harvard professors never win beauty contests, but what they say amounts to considerable sense, generally. Vasco McCoy, Jr. '49