Notable Uses
The network ban on prerecorded material was temporarily lifted on the occasion of the crash of the airship Hindenburg in Lakehurst, New Jersey on 6 May 1937. A recording of the crash made for Chicago radio station WLS by announcer Herbert Morrison was allowed to be broadcast over the network by NBC. This is the well-known "oh, the humanity!" recording, usually heard only as a brief excerpt and reproduced at a speed which differs significantly from the original recording speed, causing Morrison's voice to sound unnaturally high-pitched and excessively frantic. When heard in its entirety and at the correct speed, the report is still powerful.
Transcription recordings from major American radio networks became commonplace during World War II as pressed vinyl copies of them were distributed worldwide by the U.S. Armed Forces Radio Service for rebroadcast to troops in the field. Disc-to-disc editing procedures were used to delete the commercials included in the original broadcasts, and when a sponsor's name was attached to the name of the program, it was removed as well—Lux Radio Theater, for example, became Your Radio Theater. Although the discs were government property and were supposed to be destroyed after they had served their purpose, some were saved as souvenirs and countless thousands of them were simply dumped rather than actually destroyed. Many of the dumped discs ended up in the hands of scavengers and collectors. Often, these discs are the only form in which the broadcasts on them have survived, and they are one of the reasons why recordings of entertainment broadcasts from the 1940s still exist in abundance.
Well-known live broadcasts which were preserved on lacquer transcription discs include The War of the Worlds dramatized as breaking news by the Orson Welles anthology program The Mercury Theatre on the Air, heard over the CBS radio network on 30 October 1938.
Before magnetic tape recorders became available in the U.S., NBC Symphony Orchestra concert broadcasts were preserved on transcription discs. After its conductor Arturo Toscanini retired, he transferred many of these recordings to tape, with the assistance of his son Walter, and most were eventually released on LP or CD.
In the United States, NBC Radio continued to use the 16 inch disc format for archiving purposes into the early 1970s.
Read more about this topic: Transcription Disc
Famous quotes containing the word notable:
“Every notable advance in technique or organization has to be paid for, and in most cases the debit is more or less equivalent to the credit. Except of course when it’s more than equivalent, as it has been with universal education, for example, or wireless, or these damned aeroplanes. In which case, of course, your progress is a step backwards and downwards.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“a notable prince that was called King John;
And he ruled England with main and with might,
For he did great wrong, and maintained little right.”
—Unknown. King John and the Abbot of Canterbury (l. 2–4)