Electrical transcription
They provided material—from station-identification jingles and commercials to full-length programs—for use by local stations, which were affiliates of one of the radio networks.
Marsh Laboratories in Chicago began issuing electrical recordings on its obscure Autograph label in 1924,[4] but it was Western Electric's superior technology, adopted by the leading labels Victor and Columbia in 1925, which launched the then-new microphone-based method into general use in the recording industry.
[10] One audio historian wrote: "new methods of electronic reproduction and improved record material that produced very little background noise were developed ... by the end of the decade, the use of old phonograph music had largely been replaced by the new electrical transcription ... with the fidelity available, it was difficult to tell a transcription from the original artist.
"[7] John R. Brinkley is generally credited with being the first performer to provide electrical transcriptions to radio stations.
[13][14] Brinkley's use of the then-new technology arose out of necessity when agencies of the federal government prevented him from crossing from Mexico into the United States to use telephone lines to connect to U.S. stations remotely.
In 1940, for example, the station repeated episodes of Glenn Miller's and Kay Kyser's orchestras, The Goldbergs and Sherlock Holmes.
[15] "Electrical transcriptions were indispensable from the mid '30s to the late '40s," wrote Walter J. Beaupre, who worked in radio before moving into academia.
'"[20] A 1948 ad for the transcription service World Broadcasting System contained a letter which praised the company.
An ad in the trade publication Broadcasting asked in a headline if the reader was "finding it tough to sell time?"
[29] NBC's transcription offerings included Aunt Mary (a soap opera), The Haunting Hour (a psychological mystery), The Playhouse of Favorites (a drama) and Modern Romances.
"The spot announcements were easily produced and distributed throughout the country via electrical transcription" as an alternative to network advertising.
[31] World War II brought a new use for electrical transcriptions—storage of audio material for broadcasting to people in the military.
Recruiting shows for the branches of military service arrived on such discs ... the United States Government shipped many programs during wartime as transcriptions.
"[3] During the war, the federal government, in conjunction with the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System, provided "approximately eight 15-minute transcribed programs every week to each of ... 35 college stations.
[35] The Voice of America also used transcriptions, with one disc manufacturer noting in an ad, "A substantial part of these daily programs is recorded ..."[12] 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.
Many long classical works performed live onstage were captured in a succession of transcription discs.
This was due to the large fidelity difference from the variation in circumference on revolutions near the edge of a disc compared to those in the center.
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.
[36] In the United States, NBC Radio continued to use the 16-inch disc format for archiving purposes into the early 1970s.
Also a potential source of confusion are RCA Victor's "Program Transcription" discs, 10- or 12-inch 33+1⁄3 rpm records pressed in shellac and "Victrolac" vinyl in the early 1930s.
By late 1929, instantaneous recordings were being made by indenting, as opposed to engraving, a groove into the surface of a bare aluminum disc.
Only a very few pre-1930 live broadcasts were deemed important enough to preserve as pressings, and many of the bare aluminum discs perished in the scrap metal drives of World War II, so that these early years of radio are mostly known today by the syndicated programs on pressed discs, typically recorded in a small studio without an audience, rather than by recordings of live network and local broadcasts.
Beginning in the mid-1950s, some transcription discs started employing the "microgroove" groove dimensions used by the 12- and 10-inch 33+1⁄3 rpm vinyl LP records introduced for home use in 1948.
Some specialist audio transfer engineers keep a series of custom-ground styli of intermediate sizes and briefly test-play the disc with each in order to find the one that produces the best possible results.
The trade magazine Billboard reported in a November 22, 1952, article, "Transcription libraries have come upon rough times, owing to the fact that records have largely taken the place of the old-fashioned E.T.'s.
Tape's advantages included lower cost, higher fidelity, more recording time, possibility of re-use after erasing, and ease of editing.
