Sick Baby

Dorothy Schiff Thackrey has plenty of money (about $8 million) and plenty of mother instinct. In 1939 she had enough of both left over, after amply providing for her own three children, to adopt the undernourished little New York Post (1938 loss: about $1,000,000). In five years she had fed it (mainly with columnists) into a fat, sassy brat (1944 profit: $300,000). "And now," she announced last week, "I have another sick baby."

It was Brooklyn's 1,000-watt, daytime station WLIB, which she had picked up "to supplement the Post," and had ignored until last year, when the station lost over $100,000. Last week she dropped everything and rushed to her baby's side; until WLIB was showing a profit, she would be general manager, full time.

The job demanded at least that much attention. It had all the standard problems of any independent--the unequal struggle with networks for talent, sponsors and listeners--plus the competition of New York's ten other independents. And Manager Thackrey had made an uphill fight steeper by adopting a principle which most radiomen consider a contradiction in terms: "I want to make the station pay, and still make it do a real public service." But she also had advantages which few independent radiomen could match: practically unlimited cash and connections.

Her assets had already given her a running start. In recent weeks she had: 1) applied for 10,000 watts and a 24-hour broadcast day; 2) bought an empty church in downtown Manhattan to give WLIB much-needed Manhattan office and studio space ("You can't get people to go to Brooklyn just for a broadcast"). Program deals already on the fire:

P: Eleanor Roosevelt is trying to work in

a daily broadcast in the fall.

P: Novelist Kathleen Norris is planning a

woman's program with social significance.

P: Left-wing Commentators Frank Kingdon and Lisa Sergio (Mussolini's onetime

interpreter, now a militant antifascist)

are both considering WLIB offers.

"The emphasis," Mrs. Thackrey says, "will be on programs with some real intellectual insides. I know nobody has ever listened to them. But I think they would if such things were done really well and with some showmanship. We're going to concentrate on that. The sponsors will come along when people start to listen. Why, in a year we'll be right back in the black."

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