One of the most heinous vengeances of ancient times was the riveting of Prometheus to the rock so the vultures could get at his vitals. Probably the most exquisite torment possible to our day would be to arrange carborundum filings in your enemy's teeth in such a way that he would be forced to listen to radio programs wherever he wandered. For to even the casual ear--provided its owner is someone halfway bright--present-day American radio is an unrealized and lackluster medium. "It is a stench in the nostrils of the gods of the ionosphere," says radio pioneer Lee DeForrest, and columnist Robert C. Ruark contributes these adjectives: "Corny, strident, boresome, florid, repetitive, offensive, moronic, and nauseating." Occasionally big radio wheels like Mr. Stanton or Mr. Paley rise and plunge the dagger in their bressiz by decrying their own low standards. And groups like the FCC and Listeners' Councils are bee-busy trying to urge radio over the 13-year-old level.

The industry weathers it all nicely, though, having found profits like 1944's 90 millions (exclusive of expenses) an effective cushion against the drubbing of its critics. Of course it is occasionally stirred to mouthing sleepy tongue-in-check rationalizations about how soap operas and "ugly-plugs" are the mandate of the people and an affirmation of the democratic mode; but 90 millions is after all a powerful soporific to even the most outsized social conscience.

Many sharp intelligences have worked on this problem of bringing a great industry awake to its possibilities. Among them is Charles Sieppmann. In his book, "Radio's Second Chance," he reminds us that following the wild wave length-pirating days of the 1920's the air was, at the request of the exhausted stations, declared public domain, and licensing made a function of the Federal Communications Commission. This means that the American people are "sleeping partners in the great enterprise of radio" and that through the judicious granting of licenses to the new Frequency Modulation stations the FCC can force radio to approximate standards set up by the listeners' councils which Sieppmann urges. This is all good thinking, and is complemented by the suggestion of Frederick Wakeman, author of "The Hucksters," that stations set up their own programs and offer them for sale take-it-or-leave-it, eliminating sponsor-manipulated advertising agencies. Sieppmann's big thesis is that FM is the coming thing, and that in the process of changing over radio has its second chance and obligation to produce programs bearing some relevance to the industry's announced yearning to serve the public interest.

These critics, however, seem to have overlooked one powerful lever for change. The public might very well go for adult programs if they were advertised more cleverly and expensively. The continuing ability of the Five Foot Shelf and of Mr. Sherwin Cody's Better English Institute to buy full-page ads in the slick publications proves that there is a paying public interested in education and self-improvement. This fact will not forever be lost to advertisers. We have in recent times seen the decline of the supposedly eternal gag type of humor, and its slow replacement by the situation comedy of Morgan and Fred Allen. The quiz shows and soap operas are wearing thin in their turn. When sponsors do realize that the American's concern with his personal inadequacies is not limited to "cathartics and mouth-washes," and turn their shame-on-you technique to exposing airpockets in his education, we can expect a flood of adult programs.

Listeners' councils, voluntary censorship by the industry itself, the setting up of FM stations by disinterested groups, and FCC regulation, are finding that a fight against 90 millions is rough going. But certain it is that radio is one medium that need not yet be written off the books as lost to the Philistines.