September 19, 1925.
25
PRESTO
SHEET MUSIC AND RADIO
NATIONAL ADVERTISING
Dealers Frequently Discuss the Expensive
Process of Publicity for Sheet Music and
Usually Arrive at a Definite Conclusion.
From time to time someone starts the question in
the sheet music trade: "Is it not possible to adver-
tise sheet music on a national scale like automobiles,
collegians' clothes and Florida real estate?" The am-
bitious possibility is occasionally raised at unofficial
gatherings during annual convention week, just to
make conversation and national advertising of sheet
music is made the theme of convention addresses
once in a while.
The answer is a frank yes or no by the sheet music
men. One dealer may answer "Yes" if the adver-
tisers should be satisfied with intangible results for a
big investment such as national advertising requires.
The kind of results achieved by the "Boost for
Music" propaganda. Another dealer may answer
"No" if it is specific results he has in mind.
A third may say "National advertising costs enor-
mous sums, and if publishers undertake it the dealers
are sure to pay for it." That is something to set
the dealers considering and give them a new point of
view about the publishers' advertising. The customers
cannot be made to pay more for sheet, music than
they are paying now, and the publishers will not fail
to realize on their outlays, when by creating a de-
mand they have the dealers at their mercy.
In the end it is usually agreed among the interested
dealers discussing a vital topic that to help the sale
of a specific edition or a particular piece of music,
the only suitable advertising would be through per-
formances by artists, through direct mail advertising
and by advertising in the trade papers. All that is
done anyway.
A single-page advertisement in the Saturday Eve-
ning Post, for instance, costing in the neighborhood
of $8,000, would not be sufficiently productive of
profit to justify the expenditure. To carry out the
national campaign logically, the page should be re-
peated a number of times. Even if a smaller space
were used the expense would still be appalling. If
competition ever forces national advertising on the
publishers, it will in all probability tend to raise the
price of music to the ultimate consumer, a thing the
publishers are trying to prevent.
But while the publishers may be reluctant to ven-
To Piano Makers
and Dealers/
For best advertising Song Books for
Fairs, etc., write to the Illinois State
Register, Dept. P, Springfield, Illinois
Manufacturers of
RADIO
Tables
Cabinets
Consoles
Elgin Phonograph & Novelty Co.
Elgin, III.
ture into advertising in the big national magazines,
their advertising budget is a big one. Advertising in
trade papers and musical publications is heavy and
the items of catalogs and incidental circulars also are
big. Until conditions change it will not be a paying
proposition for publishers to advertise in the big na-
tional magazines.
MAY TAX RADIO FANS
License Fee for Privilege of Tuning in on Ether Is
Prediction at Meeting.
Radio set owners may soon have to pay a license
fee for the privilege of tuning in on radio programs.
This was the prediction voiced September 15 at the
annual meeting of the National Association of Broad-
casters held in New York City in connection with
the copyright fight it is waging with the American
Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers.
"The publishers now demand a fee from radio sta-
tions for the right to broadcast popular music con-
trolled by them—and they control most of it—while
the broadcasters say they are willign to pay.
What the station owners are angry about is the
method of determining the fee. At present, they
claim, the publishers have the power to charge what
they please, and if this is not changed by Congress
or the Supreme Court the song writers will virtually
control radio. Such powers, it is said ] will lead
directly to a tax on the set owners.
PORTLAND HAS REMICK CRAZE
Featuring of the Popular Songs of Jerome H. Remick
& Co. in Oregon City Swells Sales.
"Sometime," the new Remick waltz song, is ad-
mitted to be the most popular song in Portland, Ore.,
at this time. The featuring of the Remick songs by
Monte Austin, a Remick artist at the Remick Song
Shop, and at Council Crest Park is a powerful aid to
extend the sales of the numbers he so well exploits.
At Council Crest Park the popularity of the Remick
songs amounts to a craze. In his fine tenor Mr.
Monte sings the Remick favorites, and the audience
howls for encores. "When Eyes of Blue Are Fool-
ing You," "Oh. Say Can I See You Tonight," "If I
Had a Girl Like You," "Isn't She the Sweetest
Thing" and "By the Light of the Stars" are some of
the Remick songs that make up Mr. Austin's highly
appreciated repertory.
NEW YORK'S TWO RADIO SHOWS
Annual Event in Artillery Armory and Another at
Grand Central Palace Keep Fans Busy.
BUYS PORTLAND BUSINESS.
The F. R. Austen Music Co., 311 Fine Arts Build-
ing, Morrison at Tenth street, Portland, Ore., has
been sold to George W. Chilson, who has changed
the firm title to the George W. Chilson Music Co.
The firm deals solely in sheet music, featuring classi-
cal and chorus music and teachers' supplies. Mr.
Chilson is a member of the Portland Symphony
Chorus and his wife and two daughters also are musi-
cians. The whole family sings in St. Stevens choir.
The daughters will assist their father in his new ven-
ture. F. R. Austen, who has been identified with
the sheet music business in Portland for several years,
will move to Olympia, Wash, where he will represent
the Wiley B. Allen Co., which opened a new branch
in that city last month.
The World's Fair at the 258th Field Artillery Arm-
ory, and the other great exhibition at the National
Radio Exposition, which opened September 13 in the
Grand Central Palace and ran simultaneously with
the fair during the coming week, served to focus the
gaze of the entire radio world on the eastern
metropolis for the past six days.
In the presence of 50,000 persons, but within the
hearing of at least 2,500,000, Governor Al Smith of
New York formally opened the second annual Radio
World's Fair in New York City on Monday night
and thereby really started the 1925-6 radio "ball
a-rolling."
The Grand Central Palace, New York's largest ex-
position building, opened its doors September 12 to
a throng of radio fans eager to celebrate the start of
the season of 1925-1926 at the fourth annual National
Radio Exposition. The exposition will close Septem-
ber 19.
The exhibitors number nearly 200 and their ex-
hibits are valued in the aggregate at $2,000,000.
PUBLISH GEN. DAWES "MELODY."
The Gamble Hinged Music Co., Chicago, has pub-
lished Vice-President Charles G. Dawes' "Melody in
A Major," and the number is being issued for almost
every instrument or combination of instruments.
Long before Mr. Dawes became Vice-President he
had achieved fame with this composition, which was
used on all Lyceum and Chautauqua circuits through-
out America.
LEE ROBERTS' NEW SUCCESS.
Lee S. Roberts, now head of the Lee S. Roberts,
Inc., 230 Post street, San Francisco, the San Fran-
cisco Chickering Agency, is again distinctly honored.
His latest composition, "California, to Thee," is the
official anthem of the California Diamond Jubilee, at
San Francisco. It would seem that every scrap of
music from the pen of Mr. Roberts is recognized as
good and counts for something.
RADIO FOR FARMERS.
The address by Maj. Gen. J. G. Harbord, president
of the Radio Corporation of America, before the Ad-
vertising Club of New York Sept. 16, was on "The
Relation of Radio to the Farmer." Gen. Harbord
spent the greater part of his boyhood on a Kansas
farm and has devoted considerable time to the analy-
sis of farmers' social and commercial problems and
their possible solution with the aid of radio.
MOVES IN BOSTON.
Walter Jacobs, Inc., music publishing house, Bos-
ton, has obtained new quarters in the Walker Build-
ing, 120 Boylston street. The house expects to move
from Bosworth street to its new home this month
and will have a score or more of firms engaged in
the music industries in this city as tenants.
E. Paul Hamilton has recently been made manager
of the music department of L. Bamberger & Co.,
Newark, N. J.
The Ferguson Music House, San Jose, Calif., has
published a song, "Dear Old San Jose," composed
by Hal Heides, manager of the Liberty Theater.
REMICK SONG HITS
By the Light of the Stars
Sometime
Got No Time
Oh Say Can I See You Tonight
Sweet Georgia Brown
Swanee Butterfly
Old Pal
Don't Bring Lulu
We're Back Together Again
If I Had a Girl Like You
Everyone Home Is Asking for You
I'm Going to Charleston, Back to
Charleston
When Eyes of Blue Are Fooling You
Isn't She the Sweetest Thing
J. H. REMICK & CO.
New York
Chicago
Detroit
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