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130 SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION
and operation of new radio stations since that time. Many hundreds more of
applications are now before the Federal Communications Commission. Best
informed radio leadership predict that within five years there will be from
three to five thousand radio stations in America. Radio will, therefore, inevitably
occupy a more influential place in American life in the immediate future.
The explanation of the increasing number of stations is in the fact that the
frequency modulation station makes it possible to increase the number of stations.
Frequency modulation also produces clarity in reception, and can be
built and operated at a low cost which the standard stations cannot meet. Thus,
every community can now have its own radio station, and indeed in many of
the larger communities groups and special interests will own and operate their
own stations. Southern Baptist pastors and other leaders should so identify
themselves with and integrate themselves into the erection and operation of
every FM station, wherever practical, as to open the way for regular broadcasting
of the gospel message at good hours. In the near future the Radio
Committee hopes to offer a practical pattern for such cooperation.
It is also a fact that in the radio picture of the immediate future television
will occupy a larger place. Many of the best radio authorities predict that
within a very brief time television will be bringing picture and sound into the
family living room with a reality never enjoyed in human experience. This new
development will produce the same revolutionizing results in the field of radio
that the talkie produced in the moving picture industry within the last two
decades. Wisdom demands that within the very near future the Radio Committee
be enabled to build and equip a television studio and prepare itself to
produce television programs on a par with commercial programs. Earlier than
we can realize, Southern Baptists must meet the responsibility of this new open
door in radio. We should get ready for it.
Such television studio and equipment will be easily adaptable to the production
of sound-pictures, thus enabling Southern Baptists to produce their own
visual-aid pictures rather than having to use what other faiths and no faith
produce for us.
Increasingly, broadcasting by shortwave is being perfected. As evidence,
in World War II the American Government commandeered every shortwave
radio station in American life and used these stations in a war of ideas. Thus
by this method all the nations of the world are brought into immediate proximity
to our own land and people. Not only so, but as shortwave is perfected
it will become a more powerful factor in our own national setup, as well as
internationally.
Indeed, many radio engineering experts tell us today that present radio
methods may become outmoded by newer, better, and less expensive methods
of broadcasting within a short time.
Regardless of developments in the field of radio and of what form the
radio picture may take, it is an inevitable fact that human life and action in the
century into which Southern Baptists now enter will be tremendously affected
by radio. Thus, there rests upon the shoulders of Southern Baptists the
tremendous responsibility of using this new and comparatively inexpensive medium
of communication for the propagation of the gospel.
The report to follow will reflect what Southern Baptists are doing and wil
suggest new lines of development in this radio program of today and tomorrow.
II. THE BAPTIST HOUR
1. SECOND SERIES OF 1945—APRIL-JUNE
The Baptist Hour was on a southwide independent network covering practically
all of the South for six months of 1945, and again for six months of
1946. Report was made last year of the first quarter of the 1945 Baptist Hour.
The second quarter of the 1945 Baptist Hour covered the period \pril through
June.
(1) Subjects and Speakers
The subjects and speakers for this period were:
April 1—"The Risen Lord" Dr. Robert G. Lee
April 8—"What Shall I Do With Jesus?" Dr. C. Oscar Johnson
April 15—"Christ is Able" Rev. Garland A. Hendricks