JUNE IN
THE GOLDEN AGE
Unless otherwise noted all
times are Eastern Time Zone
For current dollar
equivalents consult: www.usinflationcalculator.com
JUN 1 1930 John Kunsky and George
Trendle buy WGHP/Detroit which will become WXYZ, originating station for
The Lone Ranger, The Green Hornet and Challenge of The Yukon.
(See
The Lone
Ranger.)
JUN 1 1932 Federal Radio Commission orders stations to
announce, “This is a mechanical reproduction,” every 15 minutes
during transcribed programs and, “This is a phonograph record,”
whenever records are broadcast.
JUN 1 1932
WXYZ/Detroit drops its affiliation with CBS to become an independent
station. (See
The Lone
Ranger.)
JUN 1 1932 Blue Network
affiliates WLW/Cincinnati, WGAR/Cleveland and WJR/Detroit hold out for full
card rate, (WLW, $1,150, WGAR & WJR, $300 each), to carry network programs,
declining Blue’s offer of $50 per hour.
JUN 1 1934
National news service Transradio Press absorbs Midwest regional rival Radio
News Association.
JUN 1 1934 The Minneapolis
Tribune and St. Paul Dispatch join forces to buy 1,000 watt
WRHM/Minneapolis.
JUN 1 1934 Transradio Press opens
its news service to 125 stations that refused Press Radio Bureau
restrictions. (See The
Press Radio Bureau.)
JUN 1 1934 NBC
reduces the time allotted for station breaks between programs from 20 to ten
seconds, virtually eliminating any time for locally sold commercials.
JUN 1 1935 Transradio Press sues CBS, NBC, Associated
Press, United Press, International News Service and American Newspaper
Publishers Assn. for $1.7 Million, charging unfair competition.
JUN 1 1936 Lux Radio Theater hosted by veteran movie
director Cecil B. DeMille, 54, opens its 18 year run from Hollywood on the
CBS Monday night schedule. (See
Lux…Presents Hollywood! and
Monday's
All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 1 1936
General Mills budgets $1.0 Million to begin sponsorship of four consecutive
weekday quarter-hours on CBS from 10:00 to 11:00 a.m. beginning with soap
opera Betty & Bob and concluding with Hymns of All Churches.
JUN 1 1936 The networks broadcast spot coverage through
the day of S.S. Queen Mary’s first arrival in New York Harbor.
JUN 1 1936 A Rochester, New York, carpenter sues Walter
Winchell and NBC for $50,000 claiming Winchell ridiculed him in reporting
how he fell from a tree after sawing off the limb where he was sitting.
(See
Walter
Winchell and
Sunday's
All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 1 1936 A Los
Angeles Appeals Court reverses a lower court libel decision that awarded
$2,501 to KNX/Los Angeles from The Los Angeles Times regarding an
opinion the paper expressed about the station’s newscasts.
JUN 1
1937 The Al Pearce Gang leaves New York on a 35 city tour
of Ford dealers, doing its Tuesday night CBS show from Detroit, Chicago,
Denver, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
JUN 1 1937 All
stations in Oregon agree to prohibit beer and wine advertising before 10:00
p.m. PST.
JUN 1 1939 Coca-Cola increases the number of
markets where it sponsors the 15 minute transcribed Singin’ Sam
shows from 150 to 175.
JUN 1 1939 Shortwave station
WIXAL/Boston begins transmitting two hours of Mutual network programs every
morning to Europe and South America.
JUN 1 1939 CBS
estimates there are 900 television sets in New York City with 5,000 more
expected in 1940.
JUN 1 1939 NBC’s W2XBS(TV)/New York
City presents the first televised boxing match: Lou Nova's eleventh round
TKO over former Heavyweight champ Max Baer.
JUN 1 1940
United Press and International News Service invoke the “War Clause” in
their contracts and access subscribers an additional 15%, citing increased
costs in covering the war in Europe.
JUN 1 1942 The
Armed Forces Radio Service, (AFRS), is organized with 21 outlets.
JUN 1 1942 U.S. Supreme Court sends the FCC’s Network
Monopoly regulations back to Federal District Court for a full review -
considered a victory for NBC and CBS.
JUN 1 1942
General Mills signs with NBC for the fifth consecutive year of its weekday
afternoon Gold Medal Hour featuring four consecutive quarter hours
- Light of The World, Arnold Grimm’s Daughter, The Guiding Light
and Hymns of All Churches or Betty Crocker - all sponsored
by the company. (See
Soft Soap
& Hard Sell.)
JUN 1 1942 WNEW/New
York City begins daily broadcasts from the BBC in its Meet The Londoners
campaign.
JUN 1 1943 Explaining, “So people will
know it’s the same thing,“ CBS changes its system cue on sustaining
programs to, “This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System.” The
commercial program system cue remains, “This is the Columbia
Broadcasting System.”
JUN 1 1944 Failing to get
the expected support from the Senate and broadcasting industry, Senator
Burton Wheeler declares his Communications Act Amendments of 1944 to be, “…all
but dead.”
JUN 1 1945 Radio stars Freeman Gosden
& Charles Correll, (aka Amos & Andy), Ed Gardner, Frank Sinatra and
Bob Hope with Jerry Colonna all prepare to leave in June for overseas USO
tours. (See
Hope From Home
and “Professor”
Jerry Colonna.)
JUN 1 1947 Disc
jockey Martin Block debuts on KFWB/Los Angeles with a party from his home
featuring live talent headlined by Jimmy Durante, Jo Stafford. and Woody
Herman’s orchestra.
JUN 1 1947 ABC announces its
daytime programs are sold out and acquiring $12 Million in new business
during the first six months of the year.
JUN 1 1948
Red Skelton, 35, is diagnosed with nervous exhaustion and ordered by
physicians to several months of complete rest. (See
Tuesday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 1 1948 Gulf
Oil sponsors the first AM-TV simulcast of a prime time program - We The
People on CBS Radio and WCBS-TV/New York City.
JUN 1 1949
Lawrence Welk begins his band’s eight year sporadic run on ABC Radio as
summer replacement for Groucho Marx‘s You Bet Your Life. (See
Big
Band Remotes and
Spotlight
Bands.)
JUN 1 1949 NBC-TV issues its
first network rate card charging $7,600 per prime time hour for its 21
interconnected stations plus $3,300 for its 13 non-interconnected
affiliates.
JUN 1 1950 Mark Woods, ABC Vice Chairman
and President of the Blue/ABC radio chain since 1942, resigns.
JUN 1 1951 NBC rules against originating any sustaining program
unless 25 affiliates agree to carry it.
JUN 1 1951
Jimmy Durante, 58, signs a new five-year contract with NBC guaranteeing him
an income for 15 years. (See Goodnight,
Mr. Durante...)
JUN 1 1951 U.S. Court
of Appeals rules music and commercials on municipal buses and streetcars
unconstitutional and orders WWDC-FM/Washington to cease its Transit
Radio broadcasts.
JUN 1 1951 Connecticut Senator
William Benton proposes limiting broadcast licenses to one year and creating
an eleven person “National Advisory Board” as a watchdog over
commercial radio and television.
JUN 1 1951 General
Tire & Rubber - majority stockholder in Mutual - buys KFI-TV/Los Angeles for
$2,500,000 - stirring rumors that Mutual will anchor a new television
network with WOR-TV/New York, WGN-TV/Chicago, WNAC-TV/Boston and KFI-TV.
JUN 1 1952 Singing band leader and comic Phil Harris, 47,
leaves Jack Benny‘s cast after 16 years with the show.
JUN 1 1952
Colgate President E.H. Little files a vigorous complaint with NBC-TV over
"questionable" material in Sunday’s Colgate Comedy Hour starring
Herb Shriner after Colgate reps had objected to the sequences beforehand.
JUN 1 1953 KFI/Los Angeles extends its NBC affiliation
contract for two years, ending speculation that the network intends to buy a
station in the market.
JUN 1 1953 WWDC-FM/Washington,
D.C, and WKRC-FM/Cincinnati suspend their Transit Radio service to city
buses.
JUN 1 1953 NBC-TV reports its fall prime time
schedule is sold out.
JUN 1 1953 Ziv Television
Productions reports that its six-month sales equal all of the previous year
at $13.0 Million. (See
Fred Ziv - King of Syndication.)
JUN 2
1932 CBS prohibits its male employees from
working without jackets if they wear suspenders.
JUN 2
1939 WMPS/Memphis staff vocalist Kay Starr,
17, graduates from high school and joins Bob Crosby’s band for its NBC
series beginning on July 11.
JUN 2 1940
Each network grants limited time to the American Communist Party for
segments of its national political convention nominating Earl Browder for
U.S. President.
JUN 2 1941 General
Mills renews its weekday Gold Medal Hour for 52-weeks on NBC’s
afternoon schedule comprised of four quarter-hour shows, Valiant Lady,
Light of The World, Mystery Man and Arnold Grimm’s Daughter. (See
Soft Soap
& Hard Sell.)
JUN 2 1942
FCC Chairman James Fly orders all foreign language stations to
submit full particulars of all programs they carry, identify the persons
involved and their relationship with the station.
JUN 2
1942 WRJN/Racine, Wisconsin, broadcasts the
first German language program series heard in the Milwaukee vicinity since
the outbreak of World War II, sponsored by the Wisconsin Federation of
German-American Societies, a strongly anti-Nazi group.
JUN
2 1942 Campbell Soup cancels The
Bob Burns Show when the rural comedian refuses to reformat his
program. (See
Bob Burns.)
JUN 2 1942 Trumpeter and
singing bandleader Roland (Bunny) Berigan, featured on many Network
Radio shows, dies at 35 of an intestinal disorder.
JUN 2
1943 NBC’s network line breaks near Denver,
blocking eastward transmission of the Hollywood-originated Eddie Cantor and
Kay Kyser shows for 45 minutes..
JUN 2 1944
Leading advertisers instruct networks and stations to suspend their
commer-cials for at least 24 hours when the imminent D-Day coverage begins.
(See
D-Day On
Radio.)
JUN 2 1944
U.S. Senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan introduces a bill to
prevent the American Federation of Musicians from “interfering”
with non-commercial music school broadcasts. (See
Petrillo!)
JUN 2 1944 To comply with FCC
duopoly regulations, WLW/Cincinnati owner Crosley sells its WSAI/Cincinnati
to Chicago’s Marshall Field for a reported $1.5 Million.
JUN 2
1944 The United Auto Workers decides against
buying WJBK/Detroit as it might cause “bad public relations.”
JUN 2 1946 American Tobacco
installs Frank Morgan as The Fabulous Dr. Tweedy as Jack Benny’s
summer replacement and switches the half hour’s sponsor from its Lucky
Strike to Pall Mall cigarettes. (See
Frank Morgan.)
JUN 2 1947 General Mills revives
it weekday serial The Guiding Light after a ten year run on NBC and
a six month hiatus for an additional nine year run on CBS. (See
Soft Soap & Hard Sell.)
JUN 2 1947 Disc
jockey Martin Block begins his 60 minute weekday show on Mutual, part of his
three hour show on KFWB/Los Angeles. His transcribed shows also continue on
WNEW/New York City resulting in a total weekly income estimated at
$14,000.
JUN 2 1947 Jack
Benny’s troupe concludes a record breaking two week run at New York City’s
Roxy Theater grossing $278,000 from which Benny netted $88,000. (See
Your Money Or Your Life.)
JUN 2 1947 AT7T
submits its proposed coaxial cable rates for network television to the FCC.
JUN 2 1948 Jean Hersholt takes
his first vacation from Dr. Christian on CBS in eleven years - six
weeks to return to his native Denmark to accept a knighthood. (See
Dr.
Christian and
Wednesday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 2
1949 FCC overturns the eight year old
Mayflower Decision by granting broad-casters the right to
editorialize.
JUN 2 1950 Myron
(Mike) Wallace and wife Buff Cobb begin their nightly, 90-minute
interview show from Chicago’s Chez Paree night club at 11:30 p.m. on WMAQ.
JUN 2 1950 The Big Ten
conference votes to prohibit live television coverage of its football games
in the 1950 season.
JUN 2 1950 General
Mills cancels its two long running serials on NBC, The Light of The
World and Today’s Children. (See
Soft Soap
& Hard Sell.)
JUN 2 1952
Actor William (Hopalong Cassidy) Boyd, 57, signs an
exclusive ten year contract with NBC.
JUN 2 1952
Lux Radio Theater is replaced for one month on CBS
by The Lux Hour of Romance & Mystery comprised of two half-hour
programs, Romance and Broadway Is My Beat. (See
CBS
Packages Unwrapped.)
JUN 2 1952 As
the 1951-52 Television Season closes, CBS sweeps the top three positions in
the Nielsen, ARB and Trendex surveys with I Love Lucy, Arthur Godfrey’s
Talent Scouts and Arthur Godfrey & His Friends.
JUN
2 1953 Network Radio coverage of Queen
Elizabeth’s coronation begins at 5:30 a.m. - pooled film of the event is
flown to the U.S. for network television broadcast late that same evening.
JUN 3 1933 NBC denies
Freeman Gosden & Charles Correll a month’s vacation from their nightly
Amos & Andy show, in its third year without a break, citing their
absence would cost the network $125,000 in billings. (See
Amos & Andy - Twice
Is Nicer and
Multiple Runs All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 3
1933 Licensed to Panama and transmitting from
a gambling ship off the coast of Los Angeles, RXKR Radio begins nightly
broadcasts with a fortune teller’s infomercial. The station is shut down at
the “request” of the U.S. State Department two months later.
JUN
3 1936 Your Hit Parade begins
a 17 week run on Blue in addition to its weekly broadcasts on CBS and NBC.
(See
The Lucky Strike Sweepstakes.)
JUN 3
1942 All stations on the Pacific Coast go off
the air from 9:00 p.m. until 5:25 the next morning as a precaution following
the Japanese bombing of Dutch Harbor in Alaska‘s Aleutian Islands. The
curfew, ordered by the U.S. Fourth Fighter Command, extends for three
nights.
JUN 3 1942 The Omaha
Chamber of Commerce complains to Lewis-Howe and NBC about Horace Heidt’s
disparaging jokes about the city on the previous night’s Tums Treasure
Chest originating from an Omaha theater.
JUN 3
1944 An Associated Press teletype operator practicing
on a machine in London inadvertently flashes a false bulletin of an Allied
invasion of Europe. NBC, CBS and Mutual broadcast the news then correct it
five minutes later. (See
D-Day On
Radio.)
JUN 3 1944
Ralph Edwards takes his Truth Or Consequences on its third
nationwide tour to sell War Bonds. (See
Truth
Or Consequences and
Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 3
1945 Wayne King returns from three years of
military duty as Jack Benny’s summer replacement. (See
The Waltz
King.)
JUN 3 1945
FCC proposes to liberalize its required announcements for
transcribed programs (See
"By
Transcription...")
JUN 3 1945
New York City radio stations WOR, WAAT and WEVD plus the American
Broadcasting Company, The New York Post and The New York Daily
News all bid for the city’s four remaining television licenses as FCC
hearings begin.
JUN 3 1946
Mark Goodson & Bill Todman’s first game show, Winner Take All,
begins its six year run on CBS.
JUN 3 1946
Applying for television station construction permits for New York
City, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco, ABC President Mark Woods tells
the FCC that the network will spend over $10.0 Million for television
development.
JUN 3 1947
Sponsor Brown & Williamson Tobacco passes out bonuses totaling $30,000 to
the cast and crew of NBC's Raleigh Cigarette Program starring Red
Skelton. (See
Tuesday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 3
1947 Fledgling transcription network, The
Broadcasters’ Guild, signs WHN/New York City, WLS/Chicago and KMPC/Los
Angeles as its major affiliates.
JUN 3 1949
Jack Webb, 29, debuts Dragnet on NBC, beginning eight
seasons on the radio network. (See
Jack
Webb’s Dragnet.)
JUN 3 1949
My Good Wife starring Arlene Francis and John Conte
replaces Red Skelton on NBC at 9:30 p.m. - the sitcom is cancelled after 18
weeks to make room for the new Jimmy Durante Show.
JUN
3 1950 Jack Benny and his radio troupe
finish a 21 day personal appearance tour, grossing $410,000. (See
Sunday
At Seven.)
JUN 3 1950
General Mills agrees to purchase an additional 26 half-hour episodes
of The Lone Ranger at $12,500 each from producer Jack Chertok for
first run broadcast on ABC-TV. (See
The Lone
Ranger.)
JUN 3 1950
Dodge begins sponsorship of three ABC-TV broadcasts of the Roller Derby each
week.
JUN 3 1953 An estimated 50 million viewers see
President Eisenhower and four of his cabinet members hold an informal
meeting broadcast by all four television networks.
JUN 4 1930 R. J.
Reynolds' Camel cigarettes becomes Network Radio’s biggest advertiser with
$1.1 Million budgeted for it’s new 52 week Wednesday night musical variety
hours on NBC.
JUN 4
1934 WJJD/Chicago announces a daily afternoon schedule of
descriptions of 28 horse races from four major race tracks, running from
1:30 to 6:30 p.m.
JUN 4 1935 Ed Wynn appears for the
last time as NBC’s Texaco Fire Chief when the sponsor refuses his
demand for a raise to $7,300 per week. (See
Tuesday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 4 1936
Don Lee Television Director Harry Lubcke conducts the first American
demonstration of cathode ray television in Los Angeles, sending 300 line
images 24 times a second from Lee’s experimental W6XAO.
JUN 4
1937 WCAU/Philadelphia cancels its annual staff picnic, “…because
the nature of our business doesn’t allow everyone to attend,” and
instead gives each of its 88 employees a $10 bonus.
JUN 4 1939 Gulf
Oil announces its season’s contribution to the Motion Picture Relief Fund in
lieu of talent fees for actors appearing on the CBS Screen Guild Theater
totals $220,000. (See
Acts of
Charity and
Monday's
All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 4 1941 AT&T
submits new rate reductions to FCC which will save five percent of networks’
line charges.
JUN 4 1942 American Tobacco’s Your
Hit Parade announces a competition for the best war song - fighting,
sentimental or humorous - published during the year. (See
Saturday’s All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 4 1944
Standard Brands pre-empts its Sunday night NBC programs for Bob Hope, Bing
Crosby, Fred Allen, Judy Garland and Edgar Bergen in The Bakers of
America Salute The Armed Forces which is also shortwaved overseas.
JUN 4 1945 Fred Waring’s Pennsylvanians begin their four
year run of half-hour concerts late every weekday morning on NBC.
JUN 4 1945 NBC’s Truth Or Consequences' West
Coast tour is credited with the sale of $6.8 Million in War Bonds. (See
Truth
Or Conseqences and
Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 4 1945
Research specialist Frank Stanton, 37, is appointed Vice President &
General Manager of CBS.
JUN 4 1945 NBC resumes
programming big band remotes on weeknights after 11:30 p.m. as each of its
shows of original studio programming is individually cancelled. (See
Words At War.)
JUN 4 1946 Mind reader Dunninger returns for a second
season as summer replacement for Amos & Andy. (See
Dunninger.)
JUN 4 1948 After 17 consecutive years, CBS cancels its
award winning weekday Columbia School of The Air.
JUN 4
1948 Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Arthur Godfrey headline The
Washington Post’s annual charity golf event.
JUN 4 1948 A
crowd of 6,000 fills Washington’s National Guard Armory for Arthur Godfrey’s
charity show featuring Bob Hope, Jane Russell, Morton Downeyand Godfrey’s
radio cast including the Mariners quartet whom Godfrey introduced with
another slam against the Daughters of The American Revolution to cheers from
the audience.
JUN 4 1950 FCC transfers all broadcast
personnel to its new Broadcast Bureau headed by Chief Engineer Curtis
Plummer which is to oversee all functions devoted to radio and television.
JUN 4 1951 Harold Fellows, General Manager of CBS-owned
WEEI/Boston, takes office as the first President of the newly enlarged
NARTB, (fka NAB).
JUN 4 1951 Miles Laboratories breaks
Network Radio’s sponsorship drought with a year’s contract for weekday
replays of Curt Massey & Martha Tilton’s nightly musical quarter hour on CBS
worth $900,000 to Mutual.
JUN 4 1951 Serge
Koussevitzky, former conductor of the Boston Symphony and Detroit Symphony -
both often heard on radio - dies at 79 after a long period of failing
health.
JUN 4 1951 FCC refuses to require commercial
television stations to devote 25% of their air time for educational purposes
as proposed by N.Y. Rep Emauel Celler and endorsed by Commissioner Frieda
Hennock.
JUN 4 1952 All four radio networks plus
CBS-TV and NBC-TV broadcast the homecoming speech by returning General
Dwight D Eisenhower from Abilene, Kansas. .
JUN 4 1952
Gordon McLendon cancels plans to form a new West Coast based Liberty Radio
Network.
JUN 5
1932 CBS cuts all employee’s salaries by 15%.
JUN 5 1935 Both CBS and NBC
negotiate with United Press to buy the news service for their owned stations
which would doom the Press-Radio Bureau. (See
The
Press-Radio Bureau.)
JUN 5 1936 Major Edward Bowes demands $15,000 per week -
a 100% raise - from Standard Brands to deliver his top rated Original
Amateur Hour, to NBC for the 1936-37 season. (See
Major Bowes’ Original Money Machine and
Network Jumpers.)
JUN 5 1939 General Mills increases
its weekday afternoon buy on NBC to 90 minutes a day - 1:30 to 3:00 p.m.
(See
Soft Soap
& Hard Sell.)
JUN
5 1941 Lewis-Howe’s Tums antacid cancels Pot O Gold on
Blue but continues the weekly giveaway show for a month with Tommy Tucker’s
band and reduced prizes on simultaneous broadcasts from New York City’s WHN,
WNEW and WMCA.
JUN 5 1942
Welch’s Grape Juice moves its Irene Rich Dramas prime time serial
to CBS after nine years on Blue.
JUN 5 1943 The U.S.
Government begins its 26 week, half-hour series, For This We Fight,
on NBC’s Saturday night schedule at 7:00.
JUN 5 1944 FDR’s announcement of
Rome’s capture by Allied forces on all networks registers a 45.2
Hooperating. (See
Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
JUN 5 1944 Characters heard in the
three Irna Phillips’ soap operas heard in a 45 minute block on NBC - The
Guiding Light, Today’s Children and Women In White - begin
appearing in each other’s programs. (See
Soft Soap
& Hard Sell.)
JUN
5 1944 Frank & Anne Hummert move the production of The
Romance of Helen Trent from Chicago to New York City leaving only their
serial Backstage Wife remaining in Chicago. (See
Soft Soap
& Hard Sell.)
JUN
5 1944 Julie Stevens begins her 16 year run in the title role of
The Romance of Helen Trent.
JUN 5 1944 Mutual revives the Tom Mix weekday
kids’ serial as The Tom Mix Ralston Straight Shooters for a five
year run. (See
Serials, Cereals & Premiums.)
JUN 5 1945 Herbert Marshall’s
The Man Called X jumps from CBS to become Bob Hope’s 13-week summer
replacement on NBC.
JUN 5 1945
Blue broadcasts 30 minutes of the four hour Glenn Miller Memorial Show from
New York’s Paramount Theater that raises $4.8 Million in War Bond sales,
(See
In The Miller Mood.)
JUN 5 1945 NBC cancels its award winning Words At War
after a two year run and reverts to dance bands instead of original
programming on weeknights at 11:30 p,m, (See
Words At War.)
JUN 5 1946 Chicago stations dispatch
remote crews and wire recording facilities to cover the midnight LaSalle
Hotel fire that kills 61 persons.
JUN 5 1946 CBS reports that over 8,000 entries were submitted in
the fifth annual Dr. Christian script writing contest. (See
Dr.
Christian and
Wednesday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 5 1946 Westinghouse and Glen
Martin Aviation fly a converted B-29 from Baltimore to Detroit transmitting
FM signals to receivers on land in initial tests of their Stratovision
concept for broadcasting FM radio and television.
JUN 5 1947 CBS proposes to the FCC
to sell its 45% of WAPI/Birmingham if the agency will reverse its decision
and allow the network to purchase KQW/San Jose-San Francisco.
JUN 5 1948 Quiz show Take A
Number hosted by Red Benson begins its seven season run on Mutual.
JUN 5 1949 Theater Guild On The
Air, (aka The U.S. Steel Hour), leaves ABC after four seasons
for NBC.
JUN 5 1949 Lever
Brothers uses Call The Police for Amos & Andy’s 17-week
summer replacement, pulling the melodrama from NBC where it had been
A&A’s replacement show for the two previous seasons.
JUN 5 1949 Hollywood reporter
Jimmie Fidler reports on his ABC and Mutual programs that AFM President
James Petrillo plans to retire - which Petrillo angrily denies. (See
Petrillo!)
JUN 5 1950 One Man’s Family,
a weekly half-hour program since 1932, becomes a successful 15 minute
nightly strip serial on NBC for nine more seasons. (See
Sunday's
All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 5 1950 NBC beats CBS in the bidding war for Bob Hope
and signs him to a multi-million dollar five year radio and television
contract.
JUN 5 1950 The
short-lived Tape Broadcasting System opens its transcribed program
service with 33 affiliates.
JUN 5
1950 Bud Collyer, radio’s Superman for ten years,
relinquishes the role to Michael Fitzmaurice when the serial returns to ABC
opposite Collyer’s weekday quiz show, Hits & Misses, on CBS.
JUN 5 1950 Charlton Heston and Lisa
Kirk star in the CBS-TV Studio One production of Shakespeare’s
Taming of The Shrew performed in modern dress.
JUN 5 1951 NBC reports that sheet
music sales for Meredith Willson’s May The Good Lord Bless And Keep You,
which he wrote as closing theme for The Big Show, have exceeded
500,000 copies. (See
Meredith
Willson and
Tallulah's Big Show.)
JUN 5 1951 NBC signs Milton Berle to an exclusive 30 year
contract paying the comedian a total of $1.26 Millio
JUN 5 1952 Gillette spends $175,000
for NBC-TV’s coverage of Jersey Joe Wolcott’s successful defense of his
Heavyweight Championship against Ezzard Charles which scores a 58.6 Trendex
rating representing 37 million viewers.
JUN 5 1953 Veteran stage, screen and radio actor Roland
Young, best known as the title character in the Topper film
comedies, dies in New York City at age 65.
JUN 6 1936 Nathan Burkan,
56, co-founder of ASCAP in 1914, dies at his Long Island summer home.
JUN 6 1938 The NAB Board
of Directors unanimously elects former Louisville Mayor Neville Miller, 44,
to a three year term as its President effective July 1st at an annual salary
of $25,000 plus expenses.
JUN 6 1938 After a year on
WEAF/New York City, Frank & Anne Hummert’s serial Stella Dallas,
adapted from the Olive Higgins Prouty novel and film, begins its 17 season
run on NBC. (See
Soft Soap
& Hard Sell.)
JUN 6 1938 Hummerts’ soap opera Young Widder Brown
begins its 18 year run, all on NBC.
JUN 6 1939
With the addition of KYOS/Merced, California, the Don Lee West Coast network
grows to 32 affiliates.
JUN 6 1941 KYW/Philladelphia
becomes the first U.S. station subscribing to Reuters news service from
Great Britain.
JUN 6 1941 Bandleader Sammy Kaye wins
his dispute with NBC and Blue to keep his band’s “singng” introductions of
songs, a practice also used by Kay Kyser's orchestra. (See
Kay Kyser.)
JUN 6 1941 Serial Claudia & David begins as a
four-week, 15-minute insert in Kate Smith’s CBS Thursday night hour before
becoming the first half-hour of her summer replacement.
JUN 6
1942 Ralph Edwards’ Truth Or Consequences originates
from a private home in Rutland, Vermont, resulting in $2,000 in extra line
charges. (See
Truth
Or Consequences and
Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 6 1943
Half-hour soap opera Those We Love makes its sixth network switch
in five years when General Foods moves it from CBS Sunday afternoons to be
Jack Benny’s summer replacement on NBC.
JUN 6 1944
First word of the Allied invasion of Europe is received from Radio Berlin
at 12:37 a.m. The networks broadcast the information, warning that it could
be a false, considering the source. An hour later BBC is heard warning the
people of Europe to move inland from coastal areas for safety. (See
D-Day
On Radio.)
JUN 6 1944 All four
networks begin 24 hour news operations for the next twelve days.
JUN 6 1944 NBC briefly adds a fourth note to its three note system
cue as a signal for employees to report for pre-assigned duties related to
D-Day news coverage.
JUN 6 1944 Official confirmation
of the D-Day invasion is announced on the networks at 3:32 a.m. - beginning
all day, non-commercial coverage.
JUN 6 1944 CBS
newsman Richard C. Hottelet, NBC’s Wright Bryan, Blue’s George Hicks and
Mutual correspondent Larry Meier provide eyewitness accounts of the D-Day
invasion
JUN 6 1944 FCC denies a request from
WLW/Cincinnati to increase its power to 500,000 watts during D-Day coverage.
JUN 6 1944 Army-bound Red Skelton leaves his high rated
NBC show. (See
Tuesday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 6 1945
NBC invests $18,000 a week to program Fred Waring’s Pennsylvanians
for 30 minutes every weekday morning against ABC’s popular Breakfast In
Hollywood which has a weekly budget of $5,500.
JUN 6 1945
Ted Malone, (fka Alden Russell), resumes his Between The Bookends
weekday quarter-hour beginning a ten year run on Blue/ABC.
JUN 6
1945 With their radio shows on summer hiatus, Bob Hope, Jack
Benny, Frank Sinatra and the Information Please panel all schedule
USO tours in Europe to entertain Allied occupation forces.
JUN 6
1945 FCC reports 836 U.S. radio stations had a total 1944 revenue
of $68.9 Million, a 43% increase over 1943 and more than 125% more than
1942.
JUN 6 1947 WHO/Des Moines scores major news
beats for NBC in covering the two major floods during the month that caused
$10.0 Million in damage to the Ottumwa, Iowa, area.
JUN 6
1947 Former Your Hit Parade star Joan Edwards sues the
American Tobacco Co. for $75,000, charging breach of contract after being
terminated from the program. (See
Saturday’s All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 6 1947
ABC’s West Coast news bureau, located in San Francisco since the start of
World War II, moves back to Los Angeles.
JUN 6 1947
Ted Weem’s orchestra plays a benefit date in Charlotte, North Carolina, to
thank WBT disc jockey Kurt Webster for reviving Weems’ 1933 recording of
Heartaches into a 1947 best-seller.
JUN 6 1947
WMPS/Memphis broadcasts a special program welcoming new station WDIA to the
city’s airwaves.
JUN 6 1949 Notre Dame football All
American Johnny Lujack stars in an ABC adventure series substituting for
Jack Armstrong three afternoons a week during the summer months.
JUN 6 1949 WKY-TV becomes Oklahoma City’s first
television station.
JUN 6 1950 Bob Hope and Lever
Brothers mutually agree to end their ten year contract after five years.
(See
About A
Song and
Tuesday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 6 1950
CBS-TV introduces its new kinescope film recording process of
television programs with The Ed Wynn Show from Hollywood and
receives critical praise for the system called, “…almost as good as live
TV.”
JUN 6 1951 Dinah Shore signs a five year,
$1.5 Million exclusive radio and television contract with NBC.
JUN 6 1951 Burbank, California, sells 19 acres of city land to
NBC for $263,000 - adjacent to 30 acres the network already owns - enabling
the network's construction of a $25 Million West Coast radio and television
headquarters.
JUN 6 1951 United Paramount Theaters
Board of Directors approves the 600 theater chain merging with ABC.
JUN 6 1951 The University of Pennsylvania announces plans
to televise all its home football games, defying the NCAA restriction of
only two TV games per school - one home and one away.
JUN 6 1952
Phil Spitalny’s legal threats against NBC and sponsor Texaco over Milton
Berle’s rough burlesque of The Hour of Charm featuring “Evelyn
& Her Tragic Violin” causes the network to censor out the offensive
routine from kinescope recordings of the broadcast sent to 17 stations.
(See
The Hour of Charm.)
JUN 6 1952
General Tire & Rubber consolidates the management of its Mutual network with
WOR-AM-FM-TV/New York City.
JUN 6 1953 Jack Webb and
his Dragnet co-star, Ben Alexander, host a 28-hour, star-filled
United Cerebral Palsy telethon on KECA-TV/Los Angeles that collects $500,000
for the charity. (See
Jack
Webb's Dragnet.)
JUN 7 1923 AT&T demonstrates radio
networking with the first “broadcast quality” telephone lines linking
WEAF/New York City, WGY/Schenectady, KDKA/Pittsburgh and KYW/Chicago in a
special broadcast from the National Light Association convention in New York
City.
JUN 7 1932 The
Federal Radio Commission authorizes WLW/Cincinnati to experiment with
500,000 watts during the hours of 1:00 and 6:00 a.m. The facility will
eventually require 18 months to construct and cost $400,000.
JUN
7 1934 KOA/Denver increases its power to 50,000 watts.
JUN 7 1937 Lux Radio Theater pays tribute to
Jean Harlow who died earlier that day of uremic poisoning at age 26. (See Lux...Presents
Hollywood! and
Monday's
All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 7 1938 NBC's
experimental television station W2SBS/New York City broadcasts excerpts of
the Broadway play Susan And God with original cast members Gertrude
Lawrence, Paul McGrath and Nancy Coleman.
JUN 7 1937
CBS declares a two-for-one stock split at par value of $2.50 a share.
JUN 7 1939 The four networks devote heavy coverage to the
U.S. visit by England’s King George and Queen Elizabeth beginning at Niagara
Falls, New York..
JUN 7 1940 NBC President Lenox Lohr
resigns after 36 months to become head of Chicago’s Museum of Science &
Industry.
JUN 7 1940 Lord & Thomas Advertising
executive Ed Kobak is appointed Vice President in charge of NBC’s Blue
Network.
JUN 7 1941 The AFL orders AFM boss Petrillo
to back down from his demand that a high school band must join his union
before playing on a CBS broadcast at the launching of the U.S. battleship
South Dakota. (See Petrillo!)
JUN 7 1941 Stage and radio comedienne Mary (Bubbles)
Kelly, 46, dies unexpectedly in her sleep..
JUN 7 1942
NBC gives Jack Benny’s timeslot for the summer to Victory Parade -
a weekly revue of NBC comedy stars with patriotic themed shows.
JUN 7 1943 The networks deliver new contracts to their affiliates
agreeing to the FCC’s edict to limit their affiliate option time to three
hours each from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.; 1:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.; 6:00 p.m. to
11:00 p.m., and 11:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m.
JUN 7 1943
Comedian Bert Lahr wins an AFRA arbitration award of $3,000 from MCA, for
the agency’s involvement in his loss of two summer replacement jobs.
JUN 7 1944 C.E. Hooper reports that radio listening in
its measured cities on D-Day was 82% above normal - the highest peak coming
between 6:00 and 8:00 p.m. at 138% above normal. (See
D-Day On
Radio and
Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & NIelsen.)
JUN 7 1944 The Armed Forces Network, BBC and CBC expand
operations of the Allied Expeditionary Forces Radio Service from
London transmitted by BBC facilities. Within a week the service increases
its daily programming to 18 hours of news and entertainment.
JUN
7 1946 General Foods fires the entire cast and crew of Fanny
Brice’s Baby Snooks Show except Brice and Hanley Stafford
in a major overhaul of the program which had cost $13,000 a week to
produce. (See
Baby Snooks and
Thursday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 7 1946 Paul
White, News Director of CBS for 13 years and credited with establish-ing the
network’s news division, is replaced by Edward R. Murrow.
JUN 7
1947 Bing Crosby’s appearance at a celebrity golf tournament in
Cincinnati raises $10,000 for the American Cancer Society. (See
Thursday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 7 1948
Pilot Radio Corporation introduces a portable television set with a
three-inch screen for $100.
JUN 7 1951 CBS scraps plans
for a nightly broadcast of The Barry Gray Show starring the
controversial WMCA/New York City talk show host.
JUN 7 1951
Popular filmed series Racket Squad starring Reed Hadley debuts on
CBS-TV, replacing Truth Or Consequences.
JUN 7 1952
NBC-TV hires comedian Jerry Lester, who is suing the network for breach of
contract, to host its Saturday Night Dance Party, the summer
replacement for Your Show of Shows.
JUN 7 1953
U.S. Steel cancels the acclaimed Theater Guild On The Air after an
eight year multi-network run, leaving Lux Radio Theater as the lone
60-minute dramatic series on Network Radio.
JUN 8 1920 AT&T’s Western Electric
introduces its Public Address System, amplifying speech electrically at the
Republican and Democrat conventions.
JUN 8 1930 Brooklyn Eagle
newspaper editor H.V. Kaltenborn begins his series of Sunday night news
commentaries on CBS. (See
H.V.
Kaltenborn.)
JUN 8 1932 FRC permits
independent station KNX/Los Angeles to increase power from 5,000 to 25,000
watts.
JUN 8 1936 NBC cancels its affiliation
agreement with WALA/Mobile, Alabama, when it learns that the station is
legally bound to its CBS affiliation for three more years.
JUN 8
1937 NBC dispatches announcers and engineers to the South Pacific
island of Enderbury to report on the total eclipse of the sun. CBS sends
its radio crew to cover the eclipse from the Andes mountains in Peru.
JUN 8 1937 The FTC orders Cosray Vitamin D Soap to cease
and desist its radio spots that tout its lather will remove wrinkles,
blackheads and, “…restore youthful color and elasticity to your skin.”
JUN 8 1939 The networks all cover President Roosevelt’s
welcome to England’s King George and Queen Elizabeth to Washington.
JUN 8 1939 Kate Smith sings at the White House reception
for King George & Queen Elizabeth then races to WJSV/Washington to appear on
her own CBS Thursday night show. (See Kate's
Great Song.)
JUN 8 1939 The Coon
County Creek Girls quartet from WLW/Cincinnati appears at the White
House to entertain King George & Queen Elizabeth as, “…representative
exponents of native folk music.”
JUN 8 1941 NBC and Mutual
news commentator Captain E.D.C. Hearne, dies at 51 in Chicago after a heart
attack.
JUN 8 1942
AFM President Petrillo decrees that all recording and transcribing of music
for public consumption will stop on August 1st. (See
Petrillo!)
JUN 8 1942 FCC orders all radio equipment manufacturers
and dealers to register any transmitters they may have in stock.
JUN 8 1942 Commentator Quincy Howe, returned from an
undisclosed mission for the U.S. Government, joins CBS News.
JUN
8 1942 Early soap opera Clara, Lu & Em, gone from
Network Radio for 6 years, returns to CBS for a 26-week run. (See
Soft Soap & Hard Sell.)
JUN 8 1943 A
powerful new Voice of America transmitter arrives in North Africa
to be installed for broadcasts to Europe.
JUN 8 1945
“Mind Reader” Joseph Dunninger debuts as the summer replacement for NBC’s
Amos & Andy. (See
Dunninger.)
JUN 8 1945 WBKB(TV)/Chicago introduces Look At The
News with an on-camera newscaster and his puppet “assistant.”
JUN 8 1946 Standard Brands introduces its 15 minute
Sunday night interview show Face To Face on WNBT(TV)/New York City
at a weekly cost of $400.
JUN 8 1947 Mutual celebrates
the signing of its 400th affiliate with the system cue, “…The only
network with stations in every State in the Union.”
JUN 8
1947 Dr. I.Q. creator Lee Segall and movie star Tyrone
Power open KIXL/Dallas. (See
Dr. I.Q.)
JUN 8 1948 NBC-TV debuts Milton Berle’s Texaco Star
Theater vaudeville revue from 8:00 to 9:00 p.m. on a seven station
network with a weekly budget of $5,000 opposite NBC Radio’s Tuesday night
comedy lineup.
JUN 8 1949 Baltimore stations WCBM,
WFBR and WITH are acquitted of contempt by the Maryland Court of Appeals for
defying a gag order and broadcasting details of a crime in advance of a
murder trial.
JUN 8 1949 Guy Lombardo, whose
orchestra’s transcribed program series is broadcast by 273 stations,
receives a four year, $500,000 contract extension from program producer
Frederick Ziv. (See
Fred Ziv - King of Syndication and
Guy Lombardo.)
JUN 8 1950 Philco unveils its new table model TV with a 16
inch picture tube for $269.95.
JUN 8 1951 Colgate
notifies NBC it is cancelling Bill Stern’s Sports Newsreel after 12
years’ sponsorship of the Friday night quarter-hour. (See
Bill Stern - Profile In
Pain.)
JUN 8 1952 Spring Byington,
65, debuts as December Bride for its one-year run on CBS before its
successful six seasons as a CBS-TV sitcom.
JUN 8 1953
Carton E. Morse’s weeknight soap opera The Family Skeleton starring
Mercedes McCambridge begins its 39 week run on CBS.
JUN 8 1953 CBS-TV
introduces its weekday panel-giveaway show I’ll Buy That! hosted by
Mike Wallace for a 13-week run.
JUN 9 1932 NBC President
M.H. Aylesworth says radio should be treated like the press and his network
will not pay to cover the 1932 Olympics or political conventions.
JUN 9 1934 Five staff members of WOWO/Fort Wayne are sworn
in as Allen County deputy sheriffs with power to eject “troublemakers” from
the station’s studio audiences.
JUN 9 1936 The
networks provide gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Republican National
Convention in Cleveland.
JUN 9 1942 General Motors
introduces Cheers From The Camps, a weekly 60 minute variety show
on CBS from Armed Forces installations featuring talented service personnel.
JUN 9 1947 AFM boss Petrillo threatens to prohibit all
union musicians from recording studios beginning December 31st if the
Supreme Court deems The Lea Act constitutional or The
Taft-Hartley Act becomes law. (See Petrillo!)
JUN 9 1947 Three dozen television station and AT&T
executives gathered at an FCC Conference in Washington agree that network
television is still several years away.
JUN 9 1948 The
controversial White Bill amending The Communications Act of
1934 and giving the FCC review power over programs is sent to the U.S.
Senate but is given little chance of passage.
JUN 9 1948
Westinghouse puts WBZ-TV/Boston on the air.
JUN 9 1948
Westinghouse Stratovision tests of television signals transmitted
from a B-29 flying over 30,000 feet over Pittsburgh are reported seen over
200 miles away from New England to the Midwest.
JUN 9 1949
FCC drops its five year old AVCO Rule requiring broadcasters to
widely advertise their applications to sell stations for 60 days to attract
other buyers and the Commission subsequently deciding which buyer is best
suited to serve the public.
JUN 9 1949 The Abbott
& Costello Show leaves ABC, closing a nine year multi-network run.
JUN 9 1950 Interstate Bakeries, sponsors of Ziv’s radio
series, The Cisco Kid, in the Midwest and West Coast, buys Ziv’s
television adaptation of the series for 16 markets. (See
Fred Ziv - King of Syndication.)
JUN 9 1951
Milton Berle’s 22 hour NBC-TV telethon raises over $1.0 Million for the
Damon Runyon Cancer Fund.
JUN 9 1952 Suspense’s
10th anniversary broadcast on CBS. presents Agnes Moorhead performing her
classic Sorry, Wrong Number role for the sixth time. (See Sus...pense! and
Thursday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 9 1953 Radio
is hailed for its emergency services in a two-day series of tornadoes
striking Nebraska, Michigan, Ohio and Massachusetts, killing 247 persons in
their paths.
JUN 9 1953 Milton Berle performs his
final Texaco Star Theater on NBC-TV, network television’s first
blockbuster hit show.
JUN 10 1924 AT&T establishes temporary
networks to cover the Republican convention in Cleveland followed by the
Democrat convention in New York City.
JUN 10
1932 FCC approves the sale of KPO/San Francisco to NBC and the
lease of WJSV/Alexandria, Virginia, (Washington, D.C.) to CBS.
JUN 10 1934 Major League Baseball’s second All-Star
game is broadcast by CBS and NBC as a non-commercial program available to
any station that wants it.
JUN 10 1936
WJZ/New York, WGN/Chicago, KNX/Los Angeles, WHAS/Louisville and WHO/Des
Moines all file with the FCC for 500,000 watt “superstation” power to match
WLW/Cincinnati.
JUN 10 1937 The two year
old, $1.7 Million restraint of trade suit filed by Transradio Press against
CBS, NBC and the wire services is settled out of court. (See
The
Press Radio Bureau.)
JUN 10 1940
All networks broadcast Italian dictator Mussolini’s declaration war
against England and France,
JUN 10 1941
ASCAP releases Irving Berlin’s song Any Bonds Today? for
unconditional free use to promote the sale of U.S. Defense Bonds.
JUN 10 1941 FCC asks Congress for $675,000
in emergency funds to employ 100 new linguists for its increased monitoring
of foreign short wave broadcasts.
JUN 10 1942
The New York State Supreme Court awards RCA stockholders $1.0 Million in
damages from Westinghouse and General Electric for gross mismanagement and
waste during their control of RCA.
JUN 10 1945
The U.S. Army takes control of Radio Munich’s 100,000 watt transmitter for
20 hours of programming a day. The Army is expected to add Radio
Stuttgart’s 100,000 watt facility within ten days which will give it blanket
coverage over Germany.
JUN 10 1946 Having
already banned its members from playing on live television, the AFM
prohibits film studios from allowing television to broadcast any soundtracks
that employed union musicians.
JUN 10 1946
AFM President Petrillo threatens to pull all union musicians from Network
Radio and recording studios if The Lea Act prohibiting
featherbedding is upheld. (See
Petrillo!)
JUN 10 1947 Radio’s Dr. I.Q., Jimmy
McClain, graduates from a theological seminary and moves with his wife and
three children to take a pastorship in Eastland, Texas. (See
Dr. I.Q.)
JUN 10 1947 The Philadelphia Evening
Bulletin sells WPEN/Philadelphia to Sun Ray Drug Stores for $800,000.
JUN 10 1948 Hallmark Cards debuts radio
adaptations of classic works, Hallmark Playhouse, on CBS for five
year run.
JUN 10 1948 FCC drops its rule
that stations must identify all network programs recorded for delayed
broadcast due to Daylight Saving Time as “transcribed”.
JUN 10 1949 Elgin Watch Company cancels its
popular Thanksgiving and Christmas afternoon radio variety shows costing
$100,000 each because of, “…poor business conditions and lack of top
talent.”
JUN 10 1949 After a two month hiatus, top rated puppet
show Kukla, Fran & Ollie leaves WBKB(TV)/Chicago for NBC-owned
competitor WNBQ(TV).
JUN 10 1950 WBKB(TV)/Chicago
raises $200,000 for Cerebral Palsy with an 18 hour telethon headlined by Bob
Hope, Peggy Lee and Don McNeil.
JUN 10 1951 Guy
Lombardo’s Royal Canadians return as Jack Benny’s summer
replacement on CBS for 14 weeks in a touring show to service camps. (See Guy
Lombardo.)
JUN 10 1951 Coca-Cola
introduces operatic movie star Mario Lanza, 30, as Edgar Bergen’s Sunday
night summer replacement for 17 weeks on CBS.
JUN 10 1951
Milton Berle concludes his 22 hour telethon on NBC-TV raises $1.13 Million
for the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund.
JUN 10 1951 U.S.
Census Bureau reports 40 million American homes, (95.6%), are equipped with
radio and five million homes, (12.3%), have television.
JUN 11 1927 NBC’S Red and Blue networks
cover aviator Charles Lindbergh’s triumphant return from France following
his historic solo transatlantic flight from New York to Paris.
JUN 11 1934 Jane
West’s family serial The O’Neills begins its nine-year,
multi-network run on Mutual. (See
Soft Soap
& Hard Sell.)
JUN 11 1934 WWL/New
Orleans wins its five year frequency fight with KWKH/ Shreveport over 850
kc. as the FCC assigns KWKH to 1100 kc.
JUN 11 1935
Major Edward Bowes begins shooting the first of a planned 26 two-reel
shorts featuring acts from his Original Amateur Hour at the
Biograph Studios in the Bronx. (See
Major Bowes’ Original Money Machine and
Radio
Goes To The Movies.)
JUN 11 1943
Ralph Edwards concludes his 14 week cross-country tour of Truth Or
Consequences netting $188.5 Million in War Bond sales - ten times the
tour‘s original goal. (See
Truth
Or Consequences and
Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 11 1943
RCA rejects American Tobacco’s bid to broadcast 65 quarter hour tran-scribed
episodes of The Gracie Fields Show, recorded in London, on the Blue
Network.
JUN 11 1944 Gracie Fields begins her summer
replacement series for Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy on NBC.
JUN 11 1946 Acclaimed NBC programming executive Bertha (Betty)
Brainard dies of a heart attack at age 55. (See The
Magic Key.)
JUN 11 1946 FCC proposes
issuing one of every five FM license grants in metropolitan areas to
ex-servicemen.
JUN 11 1946 Art Linkletter’s
People Are Funny is televised as a one-time special by NBC’s
WNBT(TV)/New York City. (See
People Are
Funny, Tueday's
All Time Top Ten and
Friday's
All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 11 1950 Grove
Laboratories takes over sponsorship of The Shadow on the entire
Mutual network. (See
The Shadow
Nos.)
JUN 11 1950 John Dehner and
Constance Crowder co-star in The Truitts, a 13-week Sunday
afternoon family sitcom on NBC.
JUN 11 1950 Comedian
Jack Paar, 32, replaces Eddie Cantor as host of NBC’s Take It Or Leave
It.
JUN 11 1950 After telling a bartender to watch
for him at the end of the fifth inning of the Dallas vs. Houston Texas
League baseball game on KLEE-TV/Houston, the man walks into the announcer’s
booth, pulls out a gun and commits suicide.
JUN 11 1950 John
Shephard III, founder of WNAC/Boston, WEAN/Providence and the Yankee Network
dies of a cardiac arrest at 64.
JUN 11 1951
Transit Radio station owners led by WWDC/Washington are expected to
appeal a lower court ruling that broadcasts of programs into streetcars and
buses are unconstitutional to the Supreme Court.
JUN 11 1951
The NCAA suspends the University of Pennsylvania for its plans to televise
all its home football games and threatens all schools on Penn’s schedule
with suspension if they play the Quakers.
JUN 11 1951 NBC’s
WNBT(TV)/New York City begins using its multi-use transmitter tower atop the
Empire State Building. It allows the city’s other stations to use the tower
for an annual $70,000 rent plus another $30,000 for space inside the
building to house their transmitters.
JUN 11 1952 FCC
denies a request by the American Civil Liberties Union to delay radio and
television license renewals until the networks denounce and end alleged
blacklisting practices.
JUN 12 1931
KMIC/Inglewood,California, moves its facilities to the Metropolitan
Pictures lot in Hollywood and begins identifying itself, “The
Metropolitan Studios station.” (See
Radio
Goes To The Movies.)
JUN 12 1933 The Chicago
World’s Fair agrees to hire 25 staff musicians to avoid hiring standby union
musicians for individual broadcasts originating at the event. (See
Petrillo!)
JUN 12 1935 The FCC refuses to grant a construction
permit for a 100 watt station proposed for Chattanooga, Tennessee, charging
the applicants with attempting to traffic in licenses.
JUN 12
1937 CBS celebrates the first anniversary of its Saturday
Night Swing Club with guests Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Bunny
Berrigan and the American radio debut of Stephan Grappelli and Django
Reinhardt by shortwave from the Hot Club in Paris.
JUN 12
1939 The AFM begins demanding that its members be hired by
stations to take control of transcription and phonograph record turntables
to, “…replace jobs lost to recordings.” (See
Petrillo!)
JUN 12 1940 After 73 days of hearings, the FCC’s
Network-Monopoly Investigation Committee issues its 1,300 page report
critical of NBC and CBS and proposes limits on network ownership of
stations, reducing the length of affiliate contracts and removing the
networks from the recording and talent agency businesses.
JUN
12 1941 NBC loses the court battle to prevent Mutual from taking
its Friday night boxing shows sponsored by Gillette.
JUN 12 1942
Earl Godwin begins his Monday through Sunday, 8:00 to 8:15 p.m. news-cast
on Blue as Ford commits $1.2 Million for its 52 week sponsorship.
JUN 12 1943 Preferring light musical programming, Ford
cancels its year-long sponsor-ship of Earl Godwin’s unique seven nights a
week newscasts on Blue.
JUN 12 1944 Jo Stafford leaves
the Pied Pipers vocal group to debut as a soloist on NBC’s
weeknight strip Johnny Mercer’s Song Shop.
JUN 12 1944
American Tobacco buys Sunday night time on 12 NBC Pacific Coast stations
for transcribed repeat broadcasts of Jack Benny’s program in the 1944-45
season. (See
Benny’s Double
Plays and
Sunday's
All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 12 1946
Massachusetts Congressman Thomas Lane condemns Duffy’s Tavern in
the U.S. House of Representatives, alleging that the show, “…twice
referred to St. Patrick with unbecoming levity, ridiculing those of Catholic
faith”. (See
Duffy Ain’t
Here.)
JUN 12 1947 Iowa stations
assume emergency status when a series of intense thunderstorms cause
wide-spread flood damage.
JUN 12 1947 Challenge of
The Yukon from WXYZ/Detroit begins its eight year multi-network run on
ABC.
JUN 12 1948 Trade magazine Broadcasting’s
survey of Network Radio giveaway programs in the past week shows a total of
$165,000 in cash and prizes were awarded,
JUN 2 1948
Harry Frankel, radio’s Singin’ Sam, dies of a heart attack at 60.
JUN 12 1948 Don Lee’s KTSL(TV)/Los Angeles televises a
concert by Stan Kenton’s orchestra from the Hollywood Bowl.
JUL
12 1950 IBEW calls a strike against CBS and 335 technicians walk
off their jobs. Their duties are performed by non-union employees.
JUN 12 1950 Espionage drama Top Secret starring
Hungarian actress Ilona Massey begins a 20 week run on NBC.
JUN
12 1950 A Tyler, Texas family reports seeing a newscast on
Channel 4 from WTCN-TV/Minneapolis-St. Paul, 1,200 miles away.
JUN 12 1952 AFM President Petrillo urges his members to avoid
strikes “at all costs” because the union can’t afford to support any
walkouts. (See
Petrillo!)
JUN 12 1952 The
Original Amateur Hour hosted by Ted Mack packs Madison Square Garden
with a paying audience of 15,000 for its National Championships
broadcast on ABC, raising $32,000 for the New York City Foundling Hospitals
JUN 12 1953 Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy introduces
a bill requiring all radio and television stations to record all broadcasts
and keep the recordings indefinitely.
JUN 12 1953
Thirteen members of the AFM return to work at KSTP/Minneapolis-St. Paul,
ending their three year, two month, sympathy walkout for striking union
engineers.
JUN 12 1953 FCC grants six new television
station construction permits, bringing the total of new stations authorized
since the lifting of its freeze to 380.
JUN 13 1929 CBS Chairman William Paley
sells half-interest in the network to Paramount Pictures for $5.0 Million
with a repurchase provision.
JUN 13 1932 Federal
Radio Commission permIts NBC to lease KPO/San Francisco from Hale Brothers
Department Store and The San Francisco Chronicle. (See
Three
Letter Calls.)
JUN 13 1932
WOR/Newark loosens its anonymity rule for announcers, allowing them to
identify themselves if they write their own copy or ad-lib narrations when
describing sports or special events.
JUN 13 1933 United Remedies buys the 8:00 p.m. hour on
WBBM/Chicago for recorded music and commercials for United’s Peruna Tonic
containing 18% grain alcohol.
JUN
13 1934 Pepsodent cancels (The Rise of)The Goldbergs
- the serial leaves the air three years to the day that it debuted on NBC.
JUN 13 1935 Max Baer loses his
Heavyweight Championship to James J. Braddock but Gillette continues to
sponsor Baer’s Lucky Smith radio serial.
JUN 13 1936 Ticket demand for
WSM/Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry forces the show to move to its
fourth venue in 18 months - the city’s 3,000 Dixie Fundamentalist
Tabernacle. (See
Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 13 1940
Lewis-Howe’s Pot O Gold moves from NBC to Blue at the request of
NBC network executives.
JUN 13 1942
CBS newsman Elmer Davis, 52, is appointed head of the new United States
Office of War Information.
JUN 13
1942 Blue presents the one hour special program Yank Goes To
Press saluting the new Army newspaper Yank and featuring songs
from Irviing Berlin’s new musical, This Is The Army.
JUN 13 1943 WJR/Detroit’s program
In Our Opinion sets off an uproar in neighboring Canada when the
speaker of the Ontario legislature says, ‘…40 to 45% of Canadian
citizens would vote for union with the United States if an election were
held at this time.”
JUN 13 1944
NBC devotes its entire broadcast day to the Fifth War Loan Drive -
the first of four days in which each of each of the networks will separately
compete to sell the most War Bonds.
JUN 13 1944 Point-to-point radio operator Press Wireless
establishes a transmitter at Normandy, allowing reporters to file news
stories directly with their New York offices - over 200,000 words of copy in
the first week alone.
JUN 13 1944
Veteran comedienne Charlotte Greenwood debuts in Life With Charlotte,
the summer replacement for Bob Hope on NBC. (See
A John
Guedel Production.)
JUN 13 1944 FCC reports the 1943 net income of 796 U.S.
commercial stations to be $46.48 Million, 50% above 1942.
JUN 13 1945 Music publishers claim
CBS censors are “too cautious” in banning the lyrics of the standard,
Thank Your Father, and a new song, Don’t Tell A Man About His Woman.
JUN 13 1946 Edward J. Bowes,
impresario of Major Bowes Original Amateur Hour, dies at 71. (See
Major Bowes’ Original Money Machine and
Thursday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 13 1946 The U.S. District
Attorney in Chicago charges AFM boss James Petrillo with violation of
The Lea Act in ordering a strike at WAAF/Chicago. (See Petrillo!)
JUN 13 1947 CBS announces it will
allow transcriptions to be used for West Coast delayed broadcasts,
eliminating the need for repeat performances. (See
The Late Shift.)
JUN 13 1948 WBAM(FM)/New York City
- named for Bamberger Department Stores - changes its call sign to WOR-FM.
JUN 13 1949 Sponsor General Mills
offers total cash prizes of $21,000 in a summer long Mystery Deputy
Contest on ABC’s Lone Ranger. (See
The Lone
Ranger and
Multiple Runs All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 13 1950 Pianist/conductor Lyle (Skitch)
Henderson replaces Bob (Buffalo Bob) Smith as the 6:00 to 8:00 a.m.
personality on WNBC/New York City.
JUN 13 1950 NBC signs Kate Smith to a five year television
contract with plans to build an afternoon variety show around her and her
manager/announcer, Ted Collins. (See
Kate’s
Great Song.)
JUN
13 1950 Groucho Marx films a television audition of his hit radio
quiz You Bet Your Life. (See
The
One, The Only…Groucho! and
Wednesday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 13 1951 RCA Chairman David
Sarnoff predicts in a Chicago speech that black and white television, “…will
be the backbone of the industry for many years to come.”
JUN 13 1952 Mr. District
Attorney leaves Network Radio after a 13 season multi-network run.
(See
Mr. District
Attorney and Wednesday’s
All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 13 1952 WHAM-TV/Rochester, New York, celebrates its
third anniversary week with a Red Cross blood drive, collecting a total of
23,051 pints.
JUN 13 1953
NBC premieres its two hour New Talent USA, a 14 week talent
competition originating from four different cities every Saturday night.
JUN 14
1932
CBS, NBC and independent
stations WGN, WLS, WJJD and WCFL begin coverage of the GOP National
Convention in Chicago expecting a potential national radio audience of 60
million.
JUN 14
1934 WNEW/New
York City defies NBC’s exclusive rights for the Primo Carnera vs. Max Baer
Heavyweight Championship fight by posting two reporters with binoculars at a
sixth floor apartment window overlooking the Long Island stadium ring.
JUN 14
1935
WXYZ/Detroit, one of the four
original Mutual affiliates, signs an affiliation contract with the Blue
Network effective October 1st and will become a dual affiliate until January
1, 1936. (See
The Lone
Ranger.)
JUN 14
1935
Mutual announces the
establishment of a national network sales organization and a new advertising
policy governing commercial copy for patent medicines, deodorants,
depilatories and laxatives.
JUN 14
1940
Bob Hope threatens to quit his
NBC show if sponsor Pepsodent toothpaste doesn’t double his salary to $8,000
per week. (See
Tuesday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 14
1940
James Caesar Petrillo, 48, is
elected president of the American Federation of Musicians - a post he will
hold for 18 years. (See
Petrillo!)
JUN 14
1944
Eddie Cantor and NBC
Vice-President Clarence Menser have another censorship dispute, this time
over a routine by comedian Joe Besser which Cantor eliminates rather than
use Menser’s substitute jokes. (See
Sunday's
All Time Top Ten and
Wednesday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 14
1946
ABC joins CBS and NBC
in agreeing to the AP’s new rate structure and subscribes to the wire
service.
JUN 14
1946
Wayne King begins his
summer run as vacation replacement for Jimmy Durante & Garry Moore on CBS.
(See
The Waltz
King.)
JUN 14
1946
John Baird, known in
Europe as The Father of Television for giving his first
demonstration of video to the Royal Institution of London in 1926, dies at
58 in Great Britain.
JUN 14
1947 Mutual
airs The 400 Party, a one-time special celebrating its 400th
affiliate, WMID/Atlantic City. (See
Mutual Led The
Way.)
JUN 14
1950
Truth Or
Consequences creator/host Ralph Edwards signs with CBS after ten years
at NBC. (See
Truth
Or Consequences.)
JUN 14
1950
Hal Peary performs his
last NBC broadcast as The Great Gildersleeve and jumps to CBS
without the show that made him famous or its sponsor. (See
The
Great Gildersleeve(s) and
Network Jumpers.)
JUN 14
1950
Technicians end their
strike of two days and return to their jobs at CBS.
JUN 14
1950
FM multiplexing
allowing FM stations to broadcast multiple signals simultaneously is
introduced by the Multiplex Development Corporation.
JUN 14
1951
Wayne Coy is confirmed
by the Senate Interstate Commerce Committee as Chairman of the FCC for a
full seven year term, a position he had held since 1949 when appointed to
fill the term of Charles Denny who resigned to join NBC.
JUN 15
1932
An FRC study estimates
that a government operated broadcasting system “remotely” similar to the
existing U.S. commercial system would cost $220 million in its first year
exclusive of program and talent costs.
JUN 15
1935
One of the two 370
foot, steel transmission towers at WPTF/Raleigh, North Carolina, collapses
in a high wind.
JUN 15
1936
American Tobacco Co.
reports receiving 80,350 pieces of mail in one day resulting from its
massive Lucky Strike Sweepstakes promotions based on the company’s
Your Hit Parade shows on CBS, NBC and Blue. (See
The Lucky Strike Sweepstakes on this site.)
JUN 15
1937
Transradio Press
lawsuit against networks, wire services and American Newspaper Publishers
Assn. is settled out of court. (See
The
Press Radio Bureau.)
JUN 15
1937 Singer
Tony Martin sues Campbell Soup Co. for $7,500, claiming breach of contract
when Campbell cancelled his appearances as host of Hollywood Hotel
on CBS.
JUN
15
1939
American Tobacco begins
13 weeks of next night transcribed repeats of its NBC Wednesday night hit,
Kay Kyser’s College of Musical Knowledge, on WOR/Newark.
(See
Kay Kyser
and
Wednesday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 15
1939
First Lady Eleanor
Roosevelt refuses to allow her scheduled remarks to be broadcast on New York
Ciy stations WOR and WNEW to keep her appearance on CBS with Kate Smith an
exclusive.
JUN 15
1939
NBC televises one
program, the 4:00 to 5:15 p.m. preliminary competition for Miss World’s
Fair Television Girl.
JUN 15
1940
Colgate Palmolive Peet
cancels its CBS crime show Gangbusters after four and a half years
sponsorship citing complaints from parents’ and teachers’ groups. (See
Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 15
1941
Walter Winchell’s
Jergens Journal is temporarily banned by co-owned Montana Blue Network
affiliates in Bozeman, Butte and Helena because Winchell is critical of
Montana Senator Burton Wheeler’s isolationist views. (See
Walter
Winchell and
Sunday's
All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 15
1942
U.S. Office of Censorship issues its revised
Code of Wartime Practices For American Broadcasting which is fully
endorsed by broadcasters.
JUN 15
1942
Ben Bernie begins his final Network Radio
series, a weekday afternoon quarter hour on CBS dedicated to defense workers
and their families. (See
Tuesday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 15
1942
The Yankee Network of 21 New England
stations becomes a full time affiliate of Mutual and its co-owned Colonial
Network closes.
JUN 15
1942
Blue introduces its new weekday juvenile
serial The Sea Hound for a two year run.
JUN 15
1942
Blue issues its new rate card offering a 2%
cash discount. (See
Blue’s
Blue Plate Special.)
JUN 15
1942 CBS institutes
a new 15% discount for sponsors buying all of its 115 affiliates. (See
CBS
Rates: Go Figure!)
JUN 15
1942 The
Atlantic Coast Network anchored by WNEW/New York City, debuts with four
affiliates either partially or completely owned by Arde Bulova.
JUN 15
1942
RKO projects the gross of Look Who’s
Laughing to exceed $1.3 Million, making the movie starring Jim & Marian
Jordan as Fibber McGee & Molly and Edgar Bergen, its most
successful film of the year. (See
Radio
Goes To The Movies.)
JUN 15
1943
Stan Kenton succeeds Army-bound Skinnay Ennis
as music director of Bob Hope’s Pepsodent Show. (See
Tuesday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 15
1943
The Incomparable Hildegarde, (Snell), makes
her Network Radio series debut hosting NBC’s Beat The Band, the
summer replacement for Red Skelton.
JUN 15
1944
NBC correspondent Roy Porter sends an
eyewitness account of the first strategic U.S. bombing raid over the
Japanese mainland to all networks via shortwave from XGOY/Chunking, China. .
JUN 15
1945
The Blue Network changes its on-air
identification to The American Broadcasting Company, (ABC).
JUN 15
1945 Thirty-three
stations alter their network affiliations on the second anniver-sary of the
FCC’s Network Monopoly Rules - ABC gains three affiliates, CBS
gains one, NBC loses one and Mutual loses three.
JUN 15
1945
The U.S. Office of War Information opens a new
200,000 watt shortwave station at Delano, California, beamed at Japan and
Japanese held territories.
JUN 15
1946
A honeymooning couple succeeds to “fight
their way out” of an eight foot paper bag on the CBS game show
Borden’s County Fair.- for a jackpot prize that had grown after 23
weeks to $1,150.
JUN 15
1946
Jack Barry’s Juvenile Jury
begins its seven year radio network run on Mutual.
JUN 15
1947
Crosley Broadcasting’s WINS/New York
City increases its daytime power to 50,000 watts.
JUN 15
1947
Fort Industries’ 10,000 watt WGBS/Miami and
50,000 watt WWVA/ Wheeling, West Virginia, both switch from ABC to CBS.
JUN 15
1948
The New York Daily News opens
WPIX(TV)/New York City on Channel 11 with a four hour show hosted by Ed
Sullivan.
JUN 15
1950
Ted Mack’s Original Amateur Hour
concludes its season tour of 17 cities raising $300,000 for local charities
with a broadcast from Madison Square Garden before a paid audience of 15,000
to benefit the New York City Foundling Hospital.
JUN 15
1950
WENR/Chicago newscaster Paul Harvey becomes
commentator Robert Montgomery’s summer vacation replacement for ten weeks on
ABC.
JUN 15
1950
Popular dialectician/comedienne Sara Berner
begins her 13-week NBC comedy-mystery series, Sara’s Private Caper.
JUN 15
1951 In
reaction to the Korean War, Mutual increases its weekly output of news by
three hours.
JUN 15
1951
CBS reclaims two Midwest regional affiliates
from ABC - KRNT/Des Moines and WNAX/Yankton, South Dakota.
JUN 15
1951
CBS adds its 26th 50,000 watt affiliate,
KTHS/Little Rock, formerly located in Hot Springs, Arkansas.
JUN 15
1951
WINX/Washington, D.C. is sold for the fourth
time in seven years for $117,500 - down $12,500 from its purchase price two
years earlier and down $432,500 from 1944.
JUN 15 1951
Notre Dame challenges the NCAA’s limited
telecast plans for college football.
JUN 15
1953
KQV/Pittsburgh affiliates with CBS. (See Three
Letter Calls.)
JUN
15
1953 Ford celebrates
its 50th anniversary with a two hour television spectacular starring Ethel
Merman and Mary Martin broadcast on 114 stations of the combined the CBS and
NBC networks resulting in a 54.5 Nielsen rating.
JUN 15
1953
Broadcast pioneer Lewis Allen Weiss, former
Chairman of the Don Lee Broadcasting System, is found dead of a
self-inflicted gunshot wound at 60. Weiss, credited as the original
builder the Don Lee West Coast Network, was suffering from cancer at the
time of his death.
JUN
16 1930 WGN/Chicago introduces Clara, Lu & Em, improvised skits
and chatter in quasi-serialized form. (See
Soft Soap
& Hard Sell.)
JUN 16 1933 FDR signs The National Industrial
Recovery Act which authorizes the establishment of a Code of Fair
Compensation for The Radio Broadcasting Industry.
JUN 16 1934 Edwin
Armstrong conducts his first FM broadcasting test from RCA’s Empire State
Building tower in New York City during a thunderstorm and terms the
experiment a success.
JUN
16 1937 CBS broadcasts a special ten
minute concert by Andre Kostelanetz and soprano Lily Pons at 12:50 a.m. to
be piped into the Los Angeles wedding of Jeanette McDonald and Gene Raymond.
JUN 16 1937 Weekday serial
Ma Perkins celebrates its 1000th broadcast. (See
Soft Soap
& Hard Sell.)
JUN 16 1939
After two months’ of negotiating, NBC and Crosley’s WLW/Cincinnati
agree on an affiliation contract with WSAI becoming NBC’s secondary
affiliate and WCKY the market’s Blue Network affiliate. (See
NBC’s Chinese
Menu.)
JUN 16 1939
Popular bandleader Chick Webb, 30, dies from complications following
kidney surgery.
JUN 16 1942
CBS begins its Thursday night summertime series, The Nature of
The Enemy, dramatizing the cruelty records of Axis leaders.
JUN 16 1942 Tommy Dorsey’s band fills
Red Skelton’s time slot on NBC during the comedian’s 13-weeksummer vacation.
JUN 16 1943 FM broadcasters ask
the FCC to replace the FM call sign system of letters and numbers with the
AM system of four letters.
JUN 16 1944 General
Foods moves Fanny Brice & Frank Morgan's Maxwell House Coffee Time
from NBC to CBS for the summer as replacements for the first half of General
Foods’ Kate Smith Hour. Sitcom Meet Corliss Archer is
transplanted from CBS’s Saturday afternoon schedule to fill the second
half. (See
Baby Snooks
and Frank
Morgan.)
JUN 16 1945
ABC makes overtures to WSB/Atlanta, WSM/Nashville, WFAA/Dallas, WOW/Omaha,
KVOO/Tulsa and other key NBC stations that let their affiliation contracts
expire over a dispute in the new contracts.
JUN 16
1947 CBS lifts its long-held prohibition against
transcribing network programs for delayed broadcast on the West Coast. (See
The
Late Shift.)
JUN 16 1947
The State of Georgia accuses CBS of conspiracy and obtains an
injunction preventing the network from switching its Atlanta affiliation
from state owned, 5,000 watt WGST to 50,000 watt WAGA.
JUN 16
1948 Sterling Drug cancels Frank & Anne
Hummert’s Waltz Time after 15 seasons on NBC’s Friday schedule.
(See
Frank
Munn's Golden Voice.)
JUN 16 1949
Five announcers and two engineers walk off their jobs at
WPTR/Albany, New York, protesting the station firing two air personalities.
JUN 16 1949 The International
Ladies Garment Workers opens WFDR-FM in New York City. The union also
operates KFMV/Los Angeles and WVUN/Chattanooga.
JUN 16
1949 DuMont signs Notre Dame University to
become the first television network to carry a college football team’s full
home schedule of games. (See
Dr.
DuMont’s Predictions.)
JUN 16 1950
FCC authorizes Multiplex Development Corporation to transmit three
or more programs simultaneously on abandoned FM station WGYN/New York City
for an experimental period of 90 days. .
JUN 16
1952 Trade magazine Broadcasting-Telecasting
estimates that Network Radio net income sank 12.8% from
1948 to 1951 - representing a loss of
over $17.0 Million. (See
The Gold In
The Golden Age.)
JUN 16
1952 Gordon
McLendon's bankrupt Liberty Broadcasting System lists $1.4 Million in debts
and $507,500 in assets.
JUN 16
1952 Jack
Benny and Dennis Day begin three weeks of successful stage appearances in
England and Scotland.
JUN 16
1952 The
NARTB claims success in its promotion campaign co-sponsored by the Radio &
TV Manufacturers Association to sell FM radios in North Carolina and the
District of Columbia with the sale of 9,000 new units.
JUN 16 1952
Surprise hit sitcom My Little Margie
starring Gale Storm and Charles Farrell debuts on CBS-TV as the summer
replacement for I Love Lucy.
JUN
16 1952
Lorillard’s Old Gold cigarettes commits $25,000 weekly for
the proposed Goodson & Todman comedy quiz Two For The Money on NBC
Radio & Television starring Fred Allen.
JUN
16 1952 Popular
pianist (Walter) Liberace is picked by NBC-TV to be Dinah Shore’s summer
replacement on the singer’s Tuesday and Thursday night quarter-hour shows
for Chevrolet.
JUN 16
1953 NBC
extends Margaret Truman’s contract for one year, calling for nine
appearances with an increase over her previous pay to $4,500 for each
television show and $2,500 for each radio performance.
JUN 16
1953 Jurisdictional fight between musicians union AFM
and talent union AFTRA heats up as AFM boss Petrillo demands musicians who
double as singers or emcees to drop out of AFTRA. (See
Petrillo!)
JUN 17 1932 KFRC/San Francisco
undergoes massive staff cuts as owner Don Lee shifts the West Coast
production center for CBS to his KHJ/Los Angeles.
JUN 17 1935
A New York Congressman asks the FCC to, “refuse a license to NBC,”
for bandleader Ben Bernie’s paraphrasing the Gettysburg address in a “vulgar”
Pabst beer commercial. (See
Tuesday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 17 1935
Fred Waring is elected President of the newly formed National
Association of Performing Artists, dedicated to prevent the
transcribing and selling records of Network Radio musical performances.
JUN 17 1939 CBS, NBC and Mutual dispatch newsmen to cover
the six-day maiden voyage aboard Cunard’s liner S.S. Mauretania
from Liverpool to New York.
JUN 17 1939 All four
networks cover the Transatlantic flight aboard Pan American’s Atlantic
Clipper from New York to Lisbon.
JUN 17 1941
Mexican troops confiscate 180,000 watt XERA/Villa Acuna cited by the
Mexican government as “an embarrassment,” and propose to buy the station
from its owners.
JUN 17 1942 Mystery anthology
Suspense begins its run on CBS spanning 20 years. (See
Sus…pense!
and
Thursday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 17 1942
The American Tobacco Company introduces America At Its Best, a five
minute non-commercial program saluting the Armed Forces with narrator Basil
Rysdale and Mark Warnow’s orchestra on Wednesdays at 10:00 p.m., before
Kay Kyser’s College of Musical Knowledge on NBC. (See
Kay Kyser
and
Wednesday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 17 1943
AFM chief Petrillo orders members off NBC’s Bob Burns Show because
of a technicality when the program is transcribed for rebroadcast on the
network’s WMAQ/ Chicago. (See
Petrillo!)
JUN 17 1944 Major Wayne King and the 334th Army Service
Force Band debut on Blue's eleven week Saturday afternoon series, 21
Stars, featuring performers serving in the military. (See
The Waltz
King and
The
Aragon’s Last Stand.)
JUN 17 1944
Groucho Marx closes his year as host of Blue Ribbon Town and won’t
be heard again until 1947’s You Bet Your Life. (See
The
One, The Only…Groucho!)
JUN 17 1945
NBC’s Sunday afternoon Army Hour is cut from 60 to 30 minutes.
JUN 17 1946 Phil Spitalny, 55, leader of the Hour of
Charm all-girl orchestra, and his star violinist, Evelyn Kaye Klein,
34, are married. (See The
Hour of Charm.)
JUN 17 1946 DuMont
Laboratories announces the development of a special 16 mm. camera and
process that allows it to film television programs directly from a picture
tube. (See
Dr.
DuMont’s Predictions on this site.)
JUN 17
1947 FCC Chairman Charles Denny sides with broadcasters in
opposing The White-Wolverton Bill which would allow the FCC to
grant licenses based on economic conditions of areas, make FCC's network
decisions the law, limit group operations by population and force
broadcasters to label programs as “news” or “opinion.”
JUN 17
1947 Producer Arthur Kurlan sues CBS for $150,000 charging
infringement of his radio rights to My Sister Eileen with the
network’s production and broadcast of My Friend Irma. (See
Monday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 17 1947
Movie star Van Heflin stars in The Adventures of Philip Marlow,
the summer replacement for Bob Hope.
JUN 17 1947 Fort
Industries pays $700,000 for foreign language WJBK/Detroit, a record price
for a 250 watt station.
JUN 17 1948 Both WPIX(TV)/New
York City and WFIL-TV/Philadelphia fly film crews to Mount Carmel,
Pennsylvania to shoot wreckage of the United Airlines plane crash that
killed 43 persons for broadcast that night.
JUN 17 1951 The
American Album of Familiar Music leaves the air after a multi-network
run of 20 consecutive seasons. (See
Gus Haenschen
and
Frank Munn’s Golden Voice.)
JUN 17
1952 The U.S. House of Representatives passes The McFarland
Bill, hailed as the most Important legislation affecting the FCC since
1934, freeing broadcasters from responsibility for libelous comments made in
political broadcasts.
JUN 17 1952 Sylvester (Pat)
Weaver, 44, is put in charge of NBC Radio and Television in what is called
the network’s Save Radio strategy.
JUN 17 1952 John
Daly, ABC news commentator, competes against John Daly, host of NBC Radio’s
transcribed What’s My Line on Tuesdays at 10:00 p.m.
JUN 17 1953 Drew Pearson’s syndication firm advertises that 258
stations have bought the commentator’s weekly taped 15-minute broadcasts.
JUN 17 1953 An FCC hearing examiner recommends awarding a
television station construction permit to Bob Hope’s KOA/Denver due to
Hope’s public service entertaining troops during World War II and the Korean
War.
JUN 17 1954 Former President Harry Truman and AFM boss James
Petrillo play a piano-trumpet duet of Hail, Hail,The Gang’s All Here
at the union’s convention in Milwaukee. (See
Petrillo!)
JUN 18 1930 NBC presents the first
intercontinental commercial broadcast linking the World Power Conference
in Berlin with the San Francisco Electric Light Association Convention,
with speakers Thomas Edison and Guglielmo Marconi.
JUN 18 1934 New York City
AFM local 802 threatens to prohibit members from playing on radio shows with
audiences admitted free, claiming they harm the attendance of venues where
musicians play that charge admission.
JUN 18 1937
CBS files with the Security & Exchange Commission to list $4.25 Million
worth of its stock on the New York Stock Exchange.
JUN 18 1937 Daytime
serial Today’s Children celebrates it 1,300th broadcast on NBC and
announces the sale of 250,000 copies of a 50 cent novel based on the
program. (See
Soft Soap & Hard Sell.)
JUN 18 1937
Comedy writer Al Boasberg, 45, dies of a heart attack one day after signing
a contract renewal with Jack Benny.
JUN 18 1939 The
Adventures of Ellery Queen begins its sporadic nine year multi-network
run on CBS.
JUN 18 1941 Future Hall of Fame
sportscaster Don Dunphy, 33, makes his network debut on Mutual describing
the Joe Louis vs. Billy Conn Heavyweight Championship fight which registers
a 58.2 Crossley rating.
JUN 18 1943 Mutual signs with
Radio Mil, owner of 36 stations in Mexico, to carry the network’s
programs.
JUN 18 1943 The Office of War Information
asks broadcasters to stop using the word “yellow” as a synonym for
Japanese or term of contempt because it offends Chinese listeners.
JUN 18 1945 Former NBC News Director A.A. (Abe)
Schechter leaves his wartime commission in the Army and joins Mutual as Vice
President of News & Special Events.
JUN 18 1945
Leading broadcaster Crosley Corp, sells its WLW/Cincinnati, WINS/New York,
shortwave station WLWO/Cincinnati plus television and FM construction
permits to Aviation Corp. (AVCO), for $22.0 Million.
JUN 18 1945
The U.S. Supreme Court temporarily vacates a decision of the Nebraska
Supreme Court dealing with the license and control of WOW/Omaha pending a
decision from the FCC.
JUN 18 1945 The four major
networks cancel their agreement to pool news broadcasts and recordings from
the Central Pacific war zone.
JUN 18 1945 Coca Cola’s
Victory Parade of Spotlight Bands returns to Mutual after three
seasons on Blue and becomes a Monday-Wednesday-Friday night show worth $2.0
Million in annual revenue. (See
Spotlight
Bands.)
JUN 18 1946 The Cooperative
Analysis of Broadcasting (CAB) radio ratings service announces it will go
out of business on July 31st and sell its remaining client contracts to
rival C.E. Hooper. (See
Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
JUN 18 1946 Fred Waring’s Pennsylvanians add 15 weeks of
summer replacement programs for Fibber McGee & Molly to their
schedule of half-hour concerts every weekday morning on NBC.
JUN
18 1946 Walgreen Drug buys a CBS network of 60 affiliates plus
time on 71 additional stations for its one-hour transcribed 45th
Anniversary Show starring Bob Hope, Frank Morgan, the Andrews Sisters,
Ginny Simms and Eddie (Rochester) Anderson for a talent cost of
$56,000.
JUN 18 1948 CBS cancels its nightly five
minute newscast at 8:55 p.m. - a schedule fixture since September, 1939.
JUN 18 1948 CBS-owned Columbia Records demonstrates its
33 1/3 Microgroove long playing record technology containing over 22 minutes
of music on each side of a vinyl disc. (See
The 1948-49
Season.)
JUN 18 1951 FCC votes 3 to 2
to renew the license of Hearst’s WBAL/Baltimore, cited in the Commission’s
1946 report for over-commercialization in violation of its Blue Book
guidelines. The license had been challenged by newsmen Drew Pearson
and Robert Allen.
JUN 18 1951 H.R. Baukhage, an ABC
newscaster for eight years, moves to Mutual for an 11:00 p.m. weeknight
commentary offered to affiliates on a co-op basis.
JUN 18 1953
Wong Bek Fay, hostess of Chinese Festival on WHOM-FM/New York
City, apologizes for, “…having to leave the program for a short while,”
She is then rushed to a hospital and delivers a baby boy.
JUN 18
1953 FCC permits NBC-TV to test RCA’s “compatible color”
television system for six weeks on sustaining programs.
JUN 19 1934 The
Communications Act of 1934 is passed by Congress, modifying The
Radio Act of 1927 and establishing the Federal Communications
Commission.
JUN 19 1936 Crossley/CAB gives the Joe
Louis vs. Max Schmeling fight on NBC and Blue a sky-high 57.6 rating. (See
Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
JUN 19 1937 American Federation of Musicians’ Chicago local
president James Petrillo addresses the union’s national convention and
demands controls on “...this wage thief, canned music.” (See
Petrillo!)
JUN 19 1941 The
Original Amateur Hour’s string of 327 continuous weekly broadcasts is
broken when Major Edward Bowes is hospitalized for an emergency
appendectomy. (See
Major Bowes’ Original Money Machine and
Thursday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 19 1942
FCC returns construction permit applications for 23 AM stations and 17 FM
outlets to their applicants in keeping with its policy of not allowing
construction with the use of scarce materials until after the war.
JUN 19 1943 Union engineers take WTOP/Washington, D.C.,
off the air for five hours in a labor dispute.
JUN 19 1945
Liggett & Myers cancels Chesterfield cigarettes’ Music That Satisfies
on CBS, ending a sponsor-network relationship of 652 weeks that began in
1935.
JUN 19 1945 Networks, local stations, Voice
of America shortwave outlets and WNBT(TV) give blanket coverage to the
New York City homecoming parade and celebrations for World War II Supreme
Commander, General Dwight Eisenhower.
JUN 19 1946
General Motors and its Foote, Cone & Belding agency tell the press that they
expect to sign Bing Crosby for his new ABC radio show in the fall, “within
the week.”.
JUN 19 1946 FCC issues its
controversial Scott Decision which rules that broadcasters cannot
deny time to atheists or any other “unpopular” belief under threat of
license revocation.
JUN 19 1946 The Joe Louis vs. Billy
Conn Heavyweight Championship rematch on ABC scores all-time high
Hooperating for a commercial broadcast, 67.2. (See
Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
JUN 19 1946 The Louis-Conn fight is televised by WNBT/New York
City and fed to Philco’s WPTZ/Philadelphia, GE’s WRGB/Schenectady and
DuMont’s experimental W3XWT/Washington.
JUN 19 1947
Electrical transformer failure forces WINS/New York City off the air - WOR
lends its auxiliary transmitter to the station allowing it to resume
broadcasting seven hours later.
JUN 19 1948 A New
York District Court rules ASCAP violated Federal anti-trust laws in a suit
brought by theater owners.
JUN 19 1949 FCC celebrates
its 15th anniversary noting that in 1934 only 60
0 AM stations existed
compared to 1949’s 4,000 AM, FM and TV stations.
JUN 19 1950
ABC and Breakfast Club host Don McNeill sign a 20 year contract -
his show remains on the network until 1968.
JUN 19 1950
Comedians Jerry Lester and Morey Amsterdam are signed by NBC-TV as alternate
hosts for the troubled late night variety show, Broadway Open House.
JUN 19 1952 NBC gives Ohio Senator Robert Taft 30 minutes
on its radio and television networks to answer General Dwight Eisenhower’s
June 4th speech from Abilene, Kansas.
JUN 19 1953
WDAF-AM&TV/Kansas City resume operation after an AFTRA strike shuts down
the stations for a month.
JUN 19 1953 Radio soap opera
producers Frank & Anne Hummert make their first venture into television with
an adaptation of their radio series Hearthstone of The Death Squad
on CBS-TV.
JUN 20 1932 WJJD/Chicago
and Columbia Records agree to an exclusivity pact - the station will only
play Columbia discs, identify the artist after each song and its
availability at local music stores.
JUN 20 1932
The U.S. Treasury imposes a 5% manufacturers’ tax on sales of radios
and phonograph records.
JUN 20 1934
Union demands for reduced hours and guaranteed wages dominate two
days of National Recovery Administration hearings for a new radio code.
JUN 20 1936 Chrysler Corp.
successfully bids $25,000 a week for Major Bowes’ Original Amateur Hour
and will move the show to CBS in September. (See
Major Bowes' Original Money Machine and
Network Jumpers.)
JUN 20 1937 Vaudeville and film
comedian Eddie Anderson, 31, debuts as Jack Benny’s gravel-voiced
black valet, Rochester Van Jones. (See
Sunday At
Seven.)
JUN 20 1939 Controversial
priest Charles Coughlin is reported signing stations around the country to
carry his new set of four daily 15 minute and half hour programs fed from
his Detroit studio at different times during the day. (See
Father Coughlin.)
JUN 20 1939 Bob Hope devotes
five minutes of his last show of the season to introduce his summer
replacement series, Mr. District Attorney. (See
Mr. District
Attorney.)
JUN 20 1939 NBC
presents television’s first one hour live production, a condensed version of
Gilbert & Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance.
JUN 20
1940 Joe Louis’ eighth round TKO of Arturo
Godoy to keep the Heavyweight Championship scores a 37 CAB rating on Blue
topping Bing Crosby’s Kraft Music Hall 20.2 on NBC. (See
Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen,)
JUN 20 1941 NBC is first to the scene
of the sinking of the submarine U.S. 0-9 off Portsmouth, N.H.,
killing its entire crew of 33.
JUN 20 1941
AFRA declares its first "strike" against Taft Broadcasting’s
WKRC/Cincinnati for refusing to allow the union to represent its employees.
JUN 20 1945 The Ohio State
Senate opens hearings on a bill that would require all television images to
be pre-approved by a Department of Education censorship panel, virtually
eliminating all live television in the state.
JUN 20
1947 The NAB supported Broadcast Measurement Bureau
turns down C.E. Hooper’s $1.0 Million price to buy Hooperatings and suspends
its plans for a third nationwide radio coverage survey in 1948. (See
Radio'sRulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
JUN
20 1947 Owners of KMPC/Los Angeles
reject NBC’s offer to buy the station.
JUN 20 1947
President Truman’s speech explaining his veto of The Taft-Hartley
Bill draws a 30.7 Hooperating.
JUN 20 1948
Stop The Music’s June Hooperating soars to second place
among all Network Radio programs and pushes its time period competitor, Fred
Allen, down to 38th place. (See
Stop The
Music!)
JUN 20 1948
Ed Sullivan’s Toast of The Town debuts on CBS-TV.
JUN 20 1950 Don McNeill’s
Breakfast Club, on its annual tour to New York City, performs its ABC
broadcast from the deck of the Navy carrier U.S.S. Enterprise in
New York harbor.
JUN 20 1950 General
Teleradio sells WOIC(TV)/Washington, D.C., to CBS and The Washington
Post, co-owners of the city’s WTOP Radio, for $1.4 Million.
JUN 20 1951 Storer-owned WJBK-TV/Detroit, WAGA-TV/Atlanta and
WSPD-TV/Toledo threaten to drop the CBS-TV series Suspense because
its horror content is deemed, “...too potent“. (See
Sus…pense! and
Thursday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 20 1951
FCC grants a St. Louis developer an experimental license to use radar for
locating storms.
JUN 20 1953 Henry Morgan and WMGM/New
York City dissolve their five-year contract and Morgan leaves his
three-hour, Monday through Saturday late night broadcasts from Hutton’s
Restaurant.
JUN 20 1953 Jack Paar brings his new
Saturday night audience participation show, Bank On The Stars, to
CBS-TV for a summer run.
JUN 21 1932 Graham
McNamee’s NBC description of Jack Sharkey’s split decision win over Max
Schmeling for the Heavyweight Championship causes the New York State
Athletic Commission to threaten to ban all but “approved experts” from
broadcasting fights.
JUN 21 1937 NBC
announces the signing of Amelia Earhart for broadcasts from her world
circling flight’s planned landings in Honolulu on July 3rd and San Francisco
on July 4th. Her plane was lost enroute to Honolulu.
JUN 21
1937 Blue premieres its six week series,
Streamlined Shakespeare, starring John Barrymore in 45 minute versions
of Shakespearian plays.
JUN 21 1939
Jack Benny refuses General Foods’ request to accept its Grape Nuts
cereal as his sponsor instead of Jello despite the inducements of a new
three year contract and a raise. (See
Your
Money Or Your Life.)
JUN
21 1940 Officials of Broadcast Music, Inc., survey industry
attitudes about providing $4.5 Million to buy the Robbins, Feist and Miller
music catalogs which accounted for 1/7th of the ASCAP credits in 1939.
JUN 21 1943 The Adventures of Superman, sponsored
by Kelloggs on only 38 Mutual stations in March, grows steadily to be
broadcast by 201 MBS affiliates. (See Serials,
Cereals & Premiums.)
JUN 21 1943
Standard Brands replaces NBC’s weekday serial The O’Neills with
The Open Door at 10:15 a.m. (See
Soft Soap
& Hard Sell.)
JUN 21 1945 Romance,
Rhythm & (Robert) Ripley sets a war bond selling record when a
New York audience of 500 persons each buy a $10,000 bond for admission to
the CBS broadcast. (See
Believe It Or
Not.)
JUN 21 1945 Eugene Sykes, a
member of the original Federal Radio Commission in 1927 and later a chairman
of the FCC, dies at 69.
JUN 21 1946 CBS soap opera
Big Sister, cancelled after ten years’ sponsorship by Lever Brothers at
an annual cost of $800,000, is picked up immediately by Procter & Gamble for
the next six seasons. (See
Soft Soap
& Hard Sell.)
JUN 21 1946 Hundreds
of People Are Funny fans are turned away from the Cleveland Arena
when NBC station WTAM prints and distributes too many free tickets to the
broadcast. (See
People Are
Funny, Tuesday's
All Time Top Ten and
Friday's
All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 21 1948 The
four television networks cover the Republican convention in Philadel-phia
and feed it live to 18 stations reaching an estimated 354,000 sets. The same
coverage is given to the Democratic convention three weeks later.
JUN 21 1948 Industry surveys report that the most widely
sold television sets feature ten-inch screens.
JUN 21 1949
Standard Oil of New Jersey cancels its annual Sunday afternoon sponsorship
of New York Philharmonic Symphony broadcasts on CBS, saving the company $1.0
Million in time and talent charges.
JUN 21 1952 A 14½
hour telethon starring Bing Crosby, (in his television debut), Bob Hope and
Dorothy Lamour carried by 68 CBS and NBC stations in 48 cities raises $1.0
Million for the U.S. Olympic Team.
JUN 21 1952
WSM/Nashville and New York’s Hotel Astor close down The Grand Ole Opry
nightclub show starring Red Foley and Minnie Pearl which had been
booked through September at the Astor Roof. (See
Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 22 1934 Fifty mile per
hour gusts destroy the two 154 foot towers of WKRC/ Cincinnati atop a nine
story hotel. The CBS affiliate returns to the air with an auxiliary
antenna.
JUN 22 1935 The NAB approves the networks'
new five year agreement with ASCAP.
JUN 22 1937
General Electric in Schenectady announces construction of a $20,000
shortwave high frequency television transmitter including a 20 foot tower
atop the nine story State Office Building in Albany.
JUN 22 1937
The combined 126 stations of NBC & Blue register a 57.6 Hooperating for the
Joe Louis vs. James J. Braddock Heavyweight Championship fight won by Louis
with an eighth round knockout. (See
Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
JUN 22 1938 The Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling fight on NBC & Blue
scores a 63.6 Crossley rating - sponsor Buick calculates that the 15 minute
broadcast cost $300,000 per minute. (See
Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
JUN 22 1939 FCC votes to extend the lengths of radio station
licenses from six months to one year effective August 1st.
JUN 22
1939 The CBS press department is instructed not to divulge the name
of the actor portraying Ellery Queen, (Hugh Marlow), for fear it
will destroy the illusion that he’s an actual detective.
JUN 22
1940 Bing Crosby, Shirley Temple, Burns & Allen, Mickey Rooney,
Charles Laughton and Pat O”Brien headline a two hour Saturday night benefit
for the Red Cross carried by 15 Los Angeles stations and the CBS network
raises $230,000 for war relief.
JUN 22 1940 Paris
correspondents Eric Sevareid and Edmund Taylor, (CBS), Waverly Root and
Victor Lusinchi, (Mutual), and Paul Archinard, (NBC), all escape France just
before its fall to Nazi Germany.
JUN 22 1942 Newsman
Cecil Brown replaces Elmer Davis - recently appointed Director of the Office
of War Information - on the CBS weeknight newscast at 8:55 p.m. - Eric
Sevareid is assigned the program on weekends.
JUN 22 1942
Lux Radio Theater cancels its adaptation of The Bugle Sounds
because of its elements of sabotage. (See
Lux…Presents Hollywood! and
Monday's
All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 22 1942 The
Office of War Information accuses Broadcasting magazine of stealing
government information contained in the trade magazine’s article, American
Attitudes Toward War News, then slanting its findings with biased editing.
JUN 22 1943 Columbia Pictures releases Crime Doctor,
the first of its ten low budget mysteries based on the CBS series, all
starring veteran actor Warner Baxter in the title role. (See
Radio
Goes To The Movies.)
JUN 22 1945
Popular Breakfast Club singer/composer Jack Owens, 33, is
stricken with rheumatic fever while on a tour selling War Bonds and is
expected to be off the ABC program for six months.
JUN 22 1948
Cartoonist/satirist Rube Goldberg begins a weekly show based on his
drawings and “inventions” on WPIX(TV)/New York City.
JUN 22
1949 The New York Post agrees to sell WLIB/New York City
to a group of local businessmen.
JUN 22 1949 NBC
salutes pioneer announcer Norman Brokenshire on his 25th anniversary in
radio.
JUN 22 1949 Milton Berle signs a new contract
with Texaco paying him $8,000 a week to host NBC-TV’s Texaco Star
Theater.
JUN 22 1951 CBS lets its exclusive radio
and television options for Frank Sinatra expire.
JUN 22 1952
Arthur Godfrey, with Janette Davis and Julius LaRosa from his CBS Radio and
Television broadcasts, perform a weekend of shows in Memphis and raise
$15,000 for the Navy Relief Society. (See
Arthur
Godfrey.)
JUN 22 1953 WISN/Milwaukee
celebrates its 30th anniversary.
JUN 22 1953
Newscaster Lowell Thomas, 61, signs a new ten year contract with CBS. (See
Multiple Runs All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 22 1953
The New York Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers complain to the FCC that Gordon
McLendon is pirating information from their ballgames and using it for
recreated play-by-play broadcasts on KLIF/Dallas, KLBS/Houston and KELP/El
Paso.
JUN 23 1933
Don McNeill, 25, becomes host of Blue’s hour-long morning show,
The Pepper Pot, and transforms it into The Breakfast Club
which remains a Blue/ABC staple for 35 years.
JUN 23 1936
The networks provide full coverage of Democratic National Convention in
Philadelphia.
JUN 23 1937 Pittsburgh stations KDKA,
KQV, WWSW, WJAS and WCAE enjoy a two day advertising windfall as a mailers’
strike shuts down the city’s three daily newspapers.
JUN 23 1938
FCC formally issues the revised allocations determined by the North
American Regional Broadcast Agreement - aka The Havana Treaty
- forcing 90% of the country’s stations to change frequencies. (See
The
March of Change.)
JUN 23 1939 L.B.
Wilson, owner of WCKY/Cincinnati, rejects NBC’s affiliation terms for his
station with the Blue Network, threatening to take his argument, “…to
the FCC, the FTC, the Congress, the Senate and the President of the United
States.”
JUN 23 1940 WEMP/Milwaukee retitles its
popular German Hour to The Musical Sunshine Hour and
converts all announcements from German to English.
JUN 23 1941
Frank & Anne Hummert’s weekday afternoon newspaper serial Front Page
Farrell opens on Mutual for one season, followed by an additional
twelve seasons on NBC.
(See
Soft Soap
& Hard Sell.)
JUN 23 1942 Bob Hope
and Jerry Colonna return from a 10 week, 50,000 mile trip entertaining an
estimated two million U.S. service personnel. (See
Hope From Home
and “Professor”
Jerry Colonna.)
JUN 23 1942 A severe
overnight storm with winds up to 50 mph. snaps the steel transmitter tower
of WDAF/Kansas City in half. The station switches to a standby transmitter
causing no delay to its 6:00 a.m. sign-on.
JUN 23 1943
NBC censors prohibit Eddie Cantor from singing Frank Loesser’s In My
Arms because of the lyric, “Give me something nice, cute and
female, I’ll never find her in the V Mail.” Cantor had performed the
song twice before on the network with no complaints. (See
Sunday's
All Time Top Ten and
Wednesday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 23 1943
An audience of 3,500 fills Chicago’s Civic Opera House to witness a
broadcast of NBC’s Information Please, paying an admission of $6.8
Million in War Bonds. (See
Information Please.)
JUN 23 1944
Chester Morris brings his Boston Blackie character from the movies
to NBC as summer replacement for Amos & Andy. (See
Fred Ziv - King of Syndication.)
JUN 23 1945
Smilin’ Ed McConnell reports that his reading a letter from an
eight year old St. Louis polio victim on NBC’s Saturday morning Buster
Brown Gang resulted in the little girl receiving 210,000 birthday cards
and 525 gifts.
JUN 23 1945 Tommy Dorsey, Harry James
and Vaughn Monroe headline a program of seven bands on a CBS special
Saturday night broadcast to benefit the Seventh War Loan Drive.
JUN 23 1947 The U.S. Supreme Court upholds The Lea
Act, (aka The Anti-Petrillo Act), which prevents
featherbedding by unions - specifically aimed at the AFM. (See
Petrillo!)
JUN 23 1947 All networks interrupt afternoon programming
to cover the U.S. Senate‘s 68-25 vote overriding President Truman’s veto of
The Taft-Hartley labor law.
JUN 23 1947 The
noontime 15 minute commentary Kate Smith Speaks moves from CBS to
Mutual guaranteeing the 40 year old Smith $450,000 a year.
JUN 23
1947 Combination newscast/soap opera Wendy Warren & The News
begins its eleven year run on CBS replacing Kate Smith Speaks.
(See
Soft Soap
& Hard Sell.)
JUN 23 1947 Veteran
announcer Norman Brokenshire becomes the first disc jockey on WNBC/New York
City, with a weekday show from 12:30 to 12:45 p.m.
JUN 23 1947
ASCAP is named defendant in a U.S. Justice Department anti-trust suit.
JUN 23 1947 NBC President Niles Trammell announces
Ultrafax, RCA’s new high--speed facsimile system which he boasts can
transmit a million words a minute from New York to San Francisco using
microwave relays.
JUN 23 1948 Eve Arden auditions for
the lead in the new CBS comedy Our Miss Brooks. (See
Our Miss Arden.)
JUN 23 1949 A gale topples the 500 foot transmission
tower of NBC’s WMAQ/Chicago forcing the station off the air for 90 seconds
before a nearby 200 foot emergency tower is activated.
JUN 23
1949 FCC examiner recommends denial of the sale of clear channel
WHAS/ Louisville to AVCO, licensee of clear channel WLW AM-FM-TV/Cincinnati
located 90 miles away.
JUN 23 1950 Frank Sinatra signs
a five-year exclusive radio, television contract with CBS guaranteeing him a
sustaining minimum of $250,000 per year.
JUN 23 1950
FCC approves AT&T’s plan to construct a television microwave relay system
between Omaha and San Francisco at a cost of $17.9 Million. .
JUN
23 1950 Mutual boasts its baseball Game of The Day is
broadcast by 323 stations on a co-op basis and carries commercials for 3,256
different local/regional advertisers.
JUN 23 1950 The
Pennsylvania Supreme Court halts collections of the $2.0 Million in annual
taxes from taprooms with television sets until the U.S. Supreme Court
decides on the Constitutionality of the four-year old tax.
JUN
23 1951 Jack Benny performs a benefit in Memphis and raises
$30,000 for veterans’ charities. (See
Your
Money Or Your Life.)
JUN 23 1952
Former CBS and Mutual executive Paul White joins NBC as its Number Three
chief behind President Joseph McConnell and network boss Sylvester (Pat)
Weaver.
JUN 23 1953 FCC votes 6-1 to temporarily
authorize CBS-owned WBBM-TV/Chicago to move from Channel 4 to Channel 2,
turning down Zenith Corporation’s proposal to jointly operating the channel
with the network.
JUN 23 1953 Don McNeill’s
Breakfast Club celebrates its 20th anniversary on Blue/ABC with a
simulcast on ABC-TV.
JUN 24
1904 The Roosevelt Board, a U.S. Presidential commission, assigns
oversight of wireless transmission to the Navy Department.
JUN 24 1910
U.S. Congress passes The Wireless Ship Act requiring all passenger
ships to carry wireless equipment and trained operators.
JUN 24 1936 Four more
50,000 watt stations, KFI/Los Angeles, WJR/Detroit, KDKA/Pittsburgh and
WSM/Nashville, file requests with the FCC for a power increase to 500,000
watts.
JUN 24 1940 Bill Paley of CBS charges the FCC's Anti-Monopoly
Report to be “error laden.”
JUN 24 1940
Folk singer/actor Burl Ives, 31, begins his sporadic nine year multi-network
run on NBC.
JUN 24 1940 Philadelphia’s Republican
national convention becomes the first to be televised via Philco’s
W3XE/Philadelphia and RCA’s W2SBX/New York City.
JUN 24 1941
Sitcom A Date With Judy gets its first Network Radio exposure as
summer replacement for Bob Hope.
JUN 24 1941 AFRA’s
National Board votes to order all members to refuse to work on all Mutual
commercial programs fed to “unfair” affiliate, WKRC/Cincinnati.
JUN 24 1941 FCC grants the first television station commercial
licenses and call signs effective July 1st to RCA’s W2XBS, (WNBT), and CBS’s
W2XAB, (WCBW), both in New York City.
JUN 24 1942 RCA
head David Sarnoff, 51, is called to active duty as a Colonel in the Signal
Corps to establish communications planning in the European theater.
JUN 24 1945 Dick Powell debuts in his first private
detective series, Rogue’s Gallery, the summer replacement for
Fitch Bandwagon. (See
Dick Powell.)
JUN 24 1945 Veteran West
Coast network announcer Gary Breckner, 53,dies in a Redlands, California
auto accident.
JUN 24 1946
NBC cancels all daytime television programs on WNBT(TV)/New York City citing
the lack of receivers in its signal area.
JUN 24 1949
Eddie Cantor, 57, leaves his NBC variety show after three seasons when
sponsor Pabst Beer demands that he host separate radio and television shows
every week for the next three years. (See
Sunday's
All Time Top Ten and
Wednesday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 24 1951
Patent medicine Hadacol cancels all radio advertising for 30 days, fueling
rumors that the heavy user of spot radio will be sold. (See
Hadacol.)
JUN 24 1953 U.S. Senator Edwin Johnson of Colorado
introduces his bill to allow radio or television coverage of any
professional baseball game provided the broadcast contains no commercials.
JUN 24 1953 U.S. Treasury Department reports that its 15
minute transcribed series Guest Star is broadcast at no charge by
2,900 stations every week.
JUN 24 1953 FCC grants a
special temporary authorization to CBS to operate on Chicago’s Channel 2 as
WBBM-TV pending a U.S. Appeals Court decision between applicants Zenith
Radio Corporation and CBS.
JUN 25 1936 Bing Crosby leaves NBC’s
Kraft Music Hall for a three month vacation and sidekick Bob Burns
becomes the show’s substitute host. (See
Bob Burns.)
JUN 25 1939 Jack Benny originates his NBC program from
his hometown of Waukegan, Illinois, combined with the premiere of his movie,
Man About Town. (See
Sunday At
Seven and
Radio Goes To The Movies.)
JUN 25 1940
Six recordings of NBC’s Jack Benny Program are sent to London for
broadcast on the BBC which requested them, “…to give listeners relief
from the grim realities of war.”
JUN 25 1940 FCC
rules that one entity cannot directly or indirectly operate or control more
than three television stations.
JUN 25 1941 Monopoly
charges force NBC to put off plans to buy KGO/San Francisco and KOA/Denver
which it had been leasing from General Electric. (See
Three Letter
Calls.)
JUN 25 1941 Citing 56 of the
previous week’s 67 big band remotes on Mutual were only 15 minutes,
bandleaders complain that the quarter hour broadcasts reduce their
promotional value to the orchestras. (See
Big Band
Remotes.)
JUN 25 1942 Numbskull
panel show It Pays To Be Ignorant begins its nine year
multi-network run on Mutual. (See
It
Pays To Be Ignorant.)
JUN 25 1943
Associated Press and United Press announce 50% gain in wire service
transmission speed to radio stations when circuits become available.
JUN 25 1945 CBS announces plan to purchase KQW/San
Jose-San Francisco for $950,000 contingent upon its sale of WBT/Charlotte to
Jefferson Standard Life Insurance for $1,505,000. (See
Three Letter
Calls.)
JUN 25 1945 Mutual
introduces Now It Can Be Told narrated by Martin Gabel with stories
of previously secret work by U.S government agencies during World War II.
(See
On A Note of
Triumph.)
JUN 25 1946 Bob Hope buys
one-sixth interest in the Cleveland Indians baseball team for $292,000,
because, “It’ll give me something to talk about on the radio.”
JUN 25 1947 The U.S. Supreme Court upholds The Lea
Act ban on union feather-bedding and the act becomes law.
JUN 25 1947 ABC introduces its Eddie Albert Show as
summer replacement for Bing Crosby's Philco Radio Time.
JUN 25 1947 KTLA(TV)/Los Angeles buys rights to the weekly Olympic
Stadium boxing bouts and rival W6XAO(TV) buys rights to Hollywood Legion
Stadium fights to be broadcast to the city’s 3,000 receivers.
JUN 25 1948 Information Please concludes its ten year,
multi-network run. (See
Information Please.)
JUN 25 1948 CBS
cancels its popular weeknight Johns Manville News at 8:55 with Bill
Henry.
JUN 25 1948 Television coverage of the
Republican National Convention is estimated to reach ten million viewers in
nine major markets and daily radio coverage is estimated at 62 million
listeners.
JUN 25 1948 The Joe Louis vs. Jersey Joe
Wolcott Heavyweight Championship fight scores a 59.3 Hooperating on ABC
Radio and a New York City 86.6 Hooperating on WNBT(TV). (See
Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
JUN 25 1948 Icing on the plane's transmission antenna interrupts
the Westinghouse Stratovision telecast of the Louis-Walcott fight
from a B-29 flying over Pittsburgh.
JUN 25 1948 New
York City’s Hotel New Yorker reports complete booking of its 100 rooms
equipped with television - at $3.00 extra - for the night’s Joe Louis vs.
Jersey Joe Walcott Heavyweight Championship fight.
JUN 25 1949
Famous Jury Trials completes its 13 year Network Radio run on
Mutual and Blue/ABC.
JUN 25 1950 North Korea crosses
38th Parallel to attack South Korea prompting U.S. networks to immediately
dispatch newsmen to Tokyo, and resume around-the-clock wartime status.
JUN 25 1950 WNBC/New York City begins a Sunday afternoon
half-hour of Gilbert & Sullivan recordings hosted by British comic actor
Arthur Treacher.
JUN 25 1950 NBC introduces The
$1,000 Reward, which combines mystery and giveaway elements by enacting
a crime then calling listeners with the cash prize for those deducing the
correct solution.
JUN 25 1951 CBS-TV broadcasts its
first color television program, a 60 minute special titled Premiere
starring Arthur Godfrey. (See
Arthur
Godfrey.)
JUN 25 1952 Newspaper
drama Big Town completes its Network Radio run spanning 14
seasons. (See
Big Big Town and
Tuesday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 25 1953
Veteran actor and network personality Gary Breckner, 53, dies in a
Redlands, California, auto crash.
JUN 25 1952 NBC
sells KOA/Denver to Bob Hope and associates for $2,25 Million.
JUN 25 1953 RCA and NBC petition the FCC for prompt approval of
their “Compatible Color” television system.
JUN 25 1953
Research departments of ABC, CBS, MBS and NBC issue joint report estimating
that radio set ownership in America had jumped from 105 million in 1952 to
over 110 million in 1953.with car radios representing 24% of the total.
JUN 26 1933 The Kraft
Music Hall starring Paul Whiteman and Al Jolson opens with a two-hour
Monday night broadcast on NBC. It stays on Monday night for six weeks
before moving to Thursday. (See
Thursday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 26
1936 American Tobacco reports giving away
28,000 cartons - 280,000 packs containing 5.6 Million Lucky Strike
cigarettes - in its massive Lucky Strikes Sweepstakes promotion,
(See
The Lucky Strike Sweepstakes.)
JUN 26
1936 WNOX/Knoxville, Tennessee, boasts a
two-month attendance of over 34,000 listeners have paid from five to 25
cents to attend broadcasts at the station’s new studios.
JUN 26
1937 The American Guild of Radio
Announcers & Producers union, independent of the AFL-CIO, announces
plans to organize all workers involved with radio programs from writers and
talent to technicians.
JUN 26 1939 Eddie
Cantor performs his last broadcast for R.J. Reynolds’ Camel cigarettes. The
tobacco manufacturer reportedly drops the Top Ten show due to the comedian’s
political and union activism. (See
Sunday's
All Time Top Ten and
Wednesday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 26
1939 Fred Waring’s weeknight 7:15 strip for
Chesterfield cigarettes begins 13 weeks of repeat broadcasts at 11:05 p.m.
on Blue’s New York City anchor WJZ to test its late night popularity.
JUN 26 1939 FCC approves Earle
C. Anthony’s $400,000 purchase of Hearst’s KEHE/Los Angeles. Anthony, also
the owner of clear channel KFI/ Los Angeles, agrees to exchange his license
for KECA/Los Angeles for the more powerful KEHE.
JUN 26
1939 NBC relaxes its ban of transcribed
programs on the Pacific Coast Blue network, paving the way for delayed
broadcasts of Blue’s Information Please. (See
Information Please.)
JUN 26 1939
A U.S. Court of Appeals rejects WLW/Cincinnati’s application to
return to 500,000 watts.
JUN 26 1939 FCC
releases Labor Department statistics reporting that radio broadcasting was
1938’s best wage-paying industry in America with an average weekly salary of
$45.20.
JUN 26 1940 A welcoming
crowd of 25,000 and the Royal Hawaiian Band playing Love In Bloom
greets Jack Benny and his family as their ship arrives at the port of
Honolulu.
JUN 26 1942 In
response to protests from stuttering listeners, NBC bans the songs
K-K-K-Katy and The Daughter of K-K-K-Katy.
JUN 26
1942 Songs from Irving Berlin’s new
all-military musical This Is The Army are previewed on Kate Smith’s
CBS variety show. (See
Kate’s Great Song and
Friday's
All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 26 1944 The
four major networks devote 60 hours of combined coverage to the two day
Republican National Convention in Chicago.
JUN 26
1944 General Electric, Mutual and WGN/Chicago begin
“extensive” testing of wire recorders at the GOP convention.
JUN
26 1944 NBC and RKO’s Pathe News fly
film of each day’s political convention events from Chicago to New York
City’s WNBT(TV) for same night broadcast and relay to GE’s
WRGB(TV)/Schenectady and Philco’s WPTZ(TV)/Philadelphia.
JUN 26
1944 A stage show adaptation of Blue’s
Blind Date opens to standing room crowds in Boston.
JUN 26
1944 RKO’s new television department begins
test programming on Don Lee’s W6XAO/Los Angeles.
JUN 26
1944 WINS/New York City covers the novel
three-way baseball game between the Yankees, Dodgers and Giants which sells
$5.5 Million in War Bonds.
JUN 26 1945
Former NBC Music Director and popular early radio bandleader, Erno
Rapee dies of heart attack at 55.
JUN 26 1945
The March of Time leaves the air after a 14 year
multi-network run. (See The
March of Time.)
JUN 26
1946 U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Thomas Parran
charges “extravagant drug ads” on radio have reached “disturbing
proportions” - an assertion that the networks claim is vague and
general.
JUN 26 1947 Edward
Arnold debuts as Mr. President, beginning a six year run on ABC.
(See
Mr. President.)
JUN 26 1947
Bud Abbott & Lou Costello end their four season run for R.J.
Reynolds’ Camel cigarettes on NBC.
JUN 26 1947 Jack
Haley leaves NBC’s Sealtest Village Store and Eve Arden takes the
show by herself for the summer before Jack Carson joins her in the fall.
(See Our
Miss Arden.)
JUN 26
1948 Kay Kyser’s College of Musical Knowledge
leaves the air after a ten year run on NBC. (See
Kay Kyser
and Wednesday's
All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 26 1948 Mutual
introduces its music-based giveaway show Three For The Money emceed
by Bud Collyer which offers a potential jackpot of $50,000. The program is
cancelled after 13 weeks.
JUN 26 1949
Fred Allen, 55, ends his 17 year Network Radio career. He dies
seven years later. (See
Sunday's
All Time Top Ten and
Wednesday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 26
1950 Mutual scores a scoop in Korean War
coverage with the first broadcast from Seoul - an interview with the U.S
ambassador.
JUN 26 1950 Bandleader
Sammy Kaye sues CBS and Liggett & Myers Tobacco for $400,000 charging that
they stole his original idea for the radio and television program, The
ABC’s of Music.
JUN 26 1950 Garry
Moore begins his weeknight 7:00 to 7:30 p.m. variety show on CBS-TV.
JUN 26 1950 NBC-TV’s 15-minute Mohawk Showroom
starring singer Roberta Quinlan becomes the first regular series program to
be experimentally telecast in color.
JUN 26 1953
Mutual meets with its Affiliates Advisory Board to discuss revamping station
payment schedules and expanding co-op sponsorship of network programs.
JUN 27 1929 Color video is first
demonstrated at the Bell Telephone laboratories in New York City.
JUN 27 1932 NBC
agrees to consider “experts” to report future prizefights after the outcry
over Graham McNamee’s alleged bias for Max Schmeling in his loss of the
Heavyweight Championship to Jack Sharkey.
JUN 27 1932
CBS, NBC and independent stations WGN, WLS, WJJD and WCFL provide full
coverage of the Democratic National Convention at the Chicago Stadium.
JUN 27 1937 Freeman Gosden & Charles Correll meet with
representatives of Campbell Soup to finalize details of shifting their
Amos & Andy sponsorship to the soup company in 1938. (See
Amos & Andy: Twice
Is Nicer and
Multiple Runs All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 27 1938
Don Quinn, 37, writer/partner of Fibber McGee & Molly, is seriously
injured and his wife is killed while vacationing in a highway accident near
Murdo, South Dakota.
JUN 27 1939 Raymond Edward
Johnson stars in the first half-hour run of Mr. District Attorney,
NBC’s 13-week summer replacement for Bob Hope. (See
Mr. District
Attorney and
Inner Sanctum.)
JUN 27 1941 Nazi authorities retaliate to remarks made by
CBS news analyst Elmer Davis by cancelling all CBS shortwave broadcast
services from Berlin.
JUN 27 1942
CBS newsman Elmer Davis increases his workload to seven nights a week,
adding Saturday and Sunday to his weeknight schedule of five minute
newscasts at 8:55 p.m. (See
The 1942-43
Season.)
JUN 27 1942 NBC's National
Barn Dance stages a special performance in Bloomington, Illinois,
requiring 50 pounds of rubber or 100 pounds of metal for admission. The
show collected 53,000 pounds of rubber and 585,000 pounds of metal for the
war effort. (See
Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 27 1944
Mutual commentator Fulton Lewis Jr. requires ten stitches after bumping his
head on a steel girder at the GOP convention.
JUN 27 1945
FCC designates 88 to 106 megacycles as the new FM broadcasting band in the
United States, replacing the original 42 to 50 megacycle band and makes an
estimated 500,000 FM receivers currently in use obsolete.
JUN 27
1945 FCC designates the megacycle assignment of television as
Channels One to Six.
JUN 27 1946
After 14 years as a weekday 15 minute sitcom, Vic & Sade, closes
its multi-network run with 13 weeks as a Thursday night half hour on
Mutual. (See Vic
& Sade.)
JUN 27 1947 Jimmy Durante
and Garry Moore perform their final show as a team but remain lifelong
friends. (See
Goodnight, Mr. Durante... and
The 1942-43
Season.)
JUN 27 1947 CBS sells My
Friend Irma, its second pre-packaged show over which the network has
total control, to Lever Brothers. (See
My Friend Irma, The
CBS Packages Unwrapped and
Monday's
All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 27 1947 NBC
opens its Washington, D.C., television station, WNBW.
JUN 27 1947
NBC transmits its first block of network television programs - three hours
from WNBT(TV)/New York, to WRGB(TV)/Schenectady, WPTZ(TV)/Phladelphia and
WNBW(TV)/Washington.
JUN 27 1948 Stop The Music’s
jackpot valued at $20,000 is won by a New York City cab driver’s wife. (See
Stop The Music!)
JUN 27 1949 NBC
cuts its live television production by ten hours per week with no programs
before 5:00 p.m.
JUN 27 1950
ABC’s Drew Pearson breaks the news of U.S. involvement in the Korean War,
an hour before its official release by the White House.
JUN 27
1951 The FTC orders American Tobacco to cease its claims that
Lucky Strike Cigarettes contain less nicotine and acid than its competitors.
(See
Unfiltered Cigarette Claims.)
JUN 27 1951
Jack Benny leaves for Korea to entertain U.S. troops with a cast that
includes actor Erroll Flynn.
JUN 27 1952 ABC cancels
its daytime serials Against The Storm, Lone Journey, The Strange Romance
of Evelyn Winters and Mark Trail. (See
Soft Soap
& Hard Sell.)
JUN 27 1953 The IBEW strike that began
at KSTP/Minneapolis-St. Paul on April 5, 1950, is finally settled.
JUN 28 1925 WGN/Chicago broadcasts the Scopes Evolution (Monkey) Trial
in its entirety from Dayton, Tennessee.
JUN 28 1932 The
Eastern Intercollegiate Association representing twelve major East Coast
universities bans broadcast coverage of its schools’ football games because
radio is claimed to cut attendance.
JUN 28 1936 Mutual
announces that it will expand into a nationwide network in late December
with the addition of the Don Lee stations, KHJ/Los Angeles, KFRC/San
Francisco, KGB/San Diego and KDB/Santa Barbara.
JUN 28 1936
RCA officially transmits its first television signals from the Empire State
Building to two receivers in New York City.
JUN 28 1937 Critics pan Walter Winchell’s overacting as
Hildy Johnson in the Lux Radio Theater production of
Front Page on CBS. (See
Walter
Winchell.)
JUN 28 1937 Lux Radio
Theater announces a guest appearance by Amelia Earhart on July 5th at
the conclusion of her around-the-world flight. (Her plane was lost on July
3rd.) (See
Lux…Presents Hollywood! and
Monday's
All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 28 1939 The
Joe Louis vs. Tony Galento Heavyweight Championship fight on Blue registers
a 53.2 CAB rating. (See
Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
JUN 28 1940 The Quiz Kids debut on NBC, beginning their
13 year multi-network run. (See
The Quiz Kids.)
JUN 28 1940 The National Maritime Union sues Walter
Winchell, NBC’s Blue Network and sponsor Andrew Jergens Co.for $1.0 Million
after Winchell claims some members of the union are Communists. (See
Walter Winchell and
Sunday's
All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 28 1940 RCA-Victor
introduces its Personal Radio - a four pound portable measuring
eight inches long by four inches wide by thee inches deep equipped with a
shoulder strap.
JUN 28 1940 Stars of The Grand Ole
Opry appear in a special NBC broadcast from WSM/Nashville during the
premiere of the Republic Pictures movie named after the show and featuring
many of its performers. (See
Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 28 1941
Actor Lee Powell wins his two year South Carolina court case giving him
permission to bill himself as The Lone Ranger of Two Films over the
objections of The Lone Ranger, Inc. (See
The Lone
Ranger and
Multiple Runs All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 28 1943
Officials commend KFXJ/Grand Junction, Colorado, for repeated announcements
reassuring listeners that no sabotage was involved when two railroad
carloads of munitions exploded at local rail yards in the early morning
hours.
JUN 28 1945 Bing Crosby’s Kraft Music Hall
closes its season with a 22.2 average Hooperating, the highest in seven
seasons. (See
Thursday’s All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 28 1947
Chicago’s 14 radio stations pool their facilities to broadcast a simulated
air attack on the city by 200 “enemy” planes.
JUN 28 1947
DuMont’s WTTG(TV)/Washington, D.C., initiates remote broadcasts with
coverage of all remaining Washington Senators’ home games for which it paid
a total of $10,000.
JUN 28 1948 “Unpredictable” Arthur
Godfrey refuses to allow any commercials on his WCBS/New York morning show
for one day, “Just to see how it sounds.” (See
Arthur
Godfrey.)
JUN 28 1948 Bill Henry
moves his popular five minute weeknight news capsule from CBS to Mutual.
JUN 28 1949 C.E. Hooper releases its first Network
Television popularity survey encompassing 31 cities - Milton Berle‘s
Texaco Star Theater on NBC-TV ranks first with a 74.4 rating Arthur
Godfrey’s Talent Scouts on CBS-TV is second with 72.0. .
JUN
28 1950 WHAS-TV/Louisville broadcasts 40 feet of film of a
“flying saucer” hovering over the city.
JUN 28 1951 The
television version of longtime radio favorite Amos & Andy debuts on
CBS-TV.
JUN 28 1951 Jack Armstrong, All American Boy,
(aka Armstrong of The SBI), leaves the air after 18 seasons. (See
Serials, Cereals & Premiums.)
JUN 28 1952 NBC-TV’s
Your Hit Parade originates from the new luxury liner, U.S.S. United
States, with its musical numbers staged from various parts of the
ship.
JUN 29
1932
Paul Rhymer’s weekday comedy series Vic &
Sade begins its 14 year multi-network run on Blue. (See Vic
& Sade.)
JUN 29
1934 Joe
Penner, star of Blue’s Bakers Broadcast, refuses to accept his
$3,000 performance fee from the Macon, Georgia, Red Cross when his two shows
for the charity fail to draw the expected audiences.
JUN 29
1936 Elaine
Carrington’s daytime serial Pepper Young’s Family, (fka Red
Davis and Forever Young), begins its 23 season multi-network
run. (See
Soft Soap
& Hard Sell.)
JUN
29
1940 Miles
Laboratories moves its Saturday night National Barn Dance to 50 NBC
stations from Blue except in Chicago where the show remains on Blue
affiliate WLS where it originates. (See
Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 29
1941 Author
Erskine Caldwell and his wife, photographer Margaret Bourke-White, make the
first reports from Moscow via shortwave on CBS after Germany declares war on
Russia.
JUN 29
1941 Edward
G. Robinson climaxes the 90 minute CBS all-star show to benefit the USO with
a $100,000 donation to the organization. (See
Big Big Town.)
JUN 29
1941 KIRO/Seattle
boosts its transmitting power to 50,000 watts.
JUN 29
1942
Paul Reymer’s NBC comedy serial Vic & Sade
celebrates its tenth anniversary with the same four actors - Art Van
Horn, Bernadine Flynn, Billy Idleson and Clarence Hartzell. (See Vic
& Sade.)
JUN 29
1943
CBS News reassigns its leading correspondents
by sending Charles Collingwood to North Africa, John Daly to Algiers, Bill
Henry to Washington, Larry Lesueur to London and Eric Sevareid to Cairo,
while Edward R. Murrow returns to London.
JUN 29
1943
Bob Hope leaves his NBC show for the summer and
the leaves country for Great Britain and an extended tour of Armed Forces
camps. (See
Hope From Home.)
JUN 29
1944
Lever Brothers announces its purchase of
toothpaste manufacturer and major network advertiser Pepsodent for $10.0
Million. (See
Sponsor
Sweepstakes.)
JUN
29
1945 Pacific
Borax moves The Sheriff, (aka Death Valley Days and
Death Valley Sheriff) moves to Blue after four years at CBS, its fourth
network switch since its debut in 1930.
JUN 29
1946
WGN/Chicago withdraws its application for FM
stations in Peoria, Grand Rapids and Ft. Wayne and cancels its plans for a
Midwest FM Network.
JUN 29
1947
Kate Smith leaves CBS after 16 seasons and
cuts her ten year association with sponsor General Foods. (See
Kate’s
Great Song and
Friday's
All Time Time Top Ten.)
JUN 29
1947 The
quiz show featuring its contestants’ hard luck stories, Strike It Rich,
begins its ten year multi-network run on CBS.
JUN 29
1947 Cinderella
G. Stump, vocalist on Red Ingle’s hit novelty record Temptation,
is revealed to be the CBS singing star of Club 15, Jo Stafford.
(See
Multiple Runs All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 29
1947 Charles
Medbury, script writer of Amos & Andy, dies of a heart attack at
54.
JUN 29
1948 FCC
adopts its Port Huron Decision - named for its license renewal of
WHLS/Port Huron, Michigan - decreeing that stations cannot censor or cancel
political speech but are not responsible for its contents.
JUN 29
1948
The five year old Molle Mystery
Theater anthology is converted to a detective series, Mystery
Theater, (aka Hearthstone of The Death Squad), for an added
six season run on CBS.
JUN 29
1950
Parents of the 15 year old winner of $25,000
worth of prizes on ABC’s Kate Smith Calls sue the program, claiming
the prizes were shoddy and had a real value of only $4,000.
JUN 29
1951
The NAACP threatens to boycott Blatz
Beer for its sponsorship of Amos & Andy on CBS-TV.
JUN 29
1951
Longtime radio executive Mark Woods,
49, resigns as Vice Chairman of ABC prior to the network’s merger with
United Paramount Theaters and receives a $100,000 contract settlement.
JUN 29
1951
Popular sitcom The Life of Riley is
cancelled after ten multi-network seasons. (See
Friday's
All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 29 1952 Information
Please debuts the summer television replacement for Fred Waring on
NBC-TV sponsored by General Electric. (See
Information Please.)
JUN 29
1952
Edward R. Murrow’s See It Now scores
an exclusive 15 minute filmed interview with Presidential candidate and
former General Dwight Eisenhower.
JUN 29
1953 Procter
& Gamble renews its entire daytime lineup of six NBC Radio shows for 52
weeks representing $6.5 Million in network billings.
JUN 30 1930 The voice of C.D. Wagoner travels
around the world in 1/8th of a second, moving on shortwave from General
Electric's WGY/Schenectady and back again via Holland, Java and Australia.
JUN 30
1932 NBC
reports its first six months’ revenue increased $3.0 Million over 1931 to
$15.1 Million and CBS shows a $2.5 Million gain to $7.7 Million. (See
The
Gold In
The Golden Age.)
JUN 30
1932 A
massed band of 2,000 musicians and 200 singers donate their services for an
hour long NBC salute to the Olympics from Olympics Stadium and the Hollywood
Bowl hosted by Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks.
JUN 30
1933 Eddie
Cantor, 40, completes the first of his three seasons as Network Radio’s most
popular personality scoring an all-time high Crossley season average rating
of 55.7. (See
Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
JUN 30
1933 A
sign of economic depression, CBS and the two NBC networks report a six month
combined revenue of $15.1 Million - $7.7 Million less than the first six
months of 1932. (See
Radio Nets'
Grosses.)
JUN 30 1933 Standard
Brands will be the biggest spender for network facilities in 1933 with
$750,000 budgeted for Fleischmann Yeast, $500,000 for Chase & Sanborn Coffee
and $350,000 for Royal Gelatin & Puddings. (See
The Sponsor
Sweepstakes.)
JUN
30
1934 President
Roosevelt appoints the first FCC: Judge Eugene Sykes and Thad Brown of the
FRC, Irvin Stuart from the State Department, Paul Walker of Oklahoma, Norman
Case of Rhode Island, George Payne of New York and Hampson Gary of Texas.
JUN 30
1935 Phillips
H. Lord as Seth Parker returns to Network Radio on Blue after an 18
month absence.
JUN 30
1936 Bandleader
Benny Goodman, 27, begins his three year run of shows on CBS. (See The
King of Swing.)
JUN 30
1936 FCC
approves the sale of WEEI/Boston to CBS.
JUN 30
1936
London, Ontario, natives Guy Lombardo and his
three brothers apply for U.S. citizenship. (See Guy
Lombardo.)
JUN 30
1939
Bob Hope & Jerry Colonna begin their first
personal appearance tour together - two weeks at The Chicago Theater
followed by two weeks at New York City‘s Paramount Theater. (See
"Professor"
Jerry Colonna.)
JUN 30
1941
Westinghouse begins shortwave
broadcasting to Europe from its 50,000 watt WBOS/Boston.
JUN 30
1941 Miles
Laboratories’ Alka -Seltzer buys 15 minutes daily on 94 small market
affiliates of the Keystone Broadcasting System for transcribed episodes of
Lum & Abner.
JUN 30
1941 The
U.S. Treasury Department credits the support of the radio industry,
including 152,000 one-minute announcements in the first two months of sales,
with helping it sell $707 Million in Defense Bonds.
JUN 30
1942
General Foods’ Sanka Coffee, citing wartime
shortages, cancels Duffy’s Tavern on CBS. (See
Duffy Ain’t
Here.)
JUN 30
1943 General
Motors signs a 52 week contract to sponsor broadcasts of the NBC Symphony
under the rotating direction of Arturo Toscanini, Leopold Stokowski and
Frank Black.
JUN 30
1943 Teenage
sitcom A Date With Judy starring Louise Erickson returns as Eddie
Cantor’s summer replacement on NBC.
JUN 30
1945 Local
sales of ABC co-op programs over the past year are estimated to total $4.0
Million, topped by Raymond Gram Swing’s daily commentaries sold on 120
stations which keep 75% of the income.
JUN 30
1945 A
delivery drivers’ strike shuts down New York City’s eight daily newspapers
for 17 days and provides a $1.0 Million windfall of advertising business for
the city’s radio stations.
JUN 30
1945
The Treasury Department credits radio’s
estimated total of $23.4 Million in time and talent for helping the the
two-month Seventh War Loan Drive sell over $26.3 Billion in bonds.
JUN 30
1946
Two dozen network correspondents on ships and
CBS newsman/pool reporter Bill Downs in a plane cover the atomic bomb test
at Bikini atoll - but transmission problems create garble and a major
failure for radio’s coverage.
JUN
30
1946 The
Radio Manufacturers Association estimates the month’s total produc-tion to
be 1.1 Million sets, a new all-time record.
JUN 30
1947
Bob Crosby begins his two season run as host
of Campbell Soups’ Club 15 on CBS three nights a week. (See
Multiple Runs All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 30
1947
Tommy Bartlett’s weekday interview show
Welcome Travelers begins its seven season multi-network run on ABC.
JUN 30
1947 ABC
introduces the first nationwide disc jockey show - a weekday afternoon hour
hosted by 57 year old bandleader and radio personality Paul Whiteman - that
generates $5.0 Million in revenue for the network.
JUN 30
1947
A Dayton, Ohio, man wins bandleader Sammy
Kaye’s So You Want To Lead A Band national contest and $6,000 in
prizes.
JUN 30
1947 Agnes
Moorhead narrates the CBS documentary, The Sunny Side of The Atom.
JUN 30
1948
Bell Laboratories introduces the tiny
Transistor, capable of serving as an amplifier and oscillator to
replace the vacuum tube.
JUN 30
1948 Weekday
kids’ serial Terry & The Pirates leaves the air after a five year
run on ABC. (See
Serials, Cereals & Premiums.)
JUN 30
1948
Cheyenne, Wyoming, changes its name for one
day to Lone Ranger Frontier Town in celebrating the ABC show’s 15th
anniversary. (See
The Lone
Ranger
and
Multiple Runs All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 30
1949 The
U.S. Treasury Department cites radio’s promotional effort for helping it
achieve over One Billion dollars in sales in the six week Opportunity
Savings Bond Drive.
JUN 30
1950 Jimmy
Durante closes his last Network Radio series in a career spanning 17 years.
(See
Goodnight, Mr. Durante...)
JUN 30
1950
Gordon McLendon’s Liberty Broadcasting
System signs WOL/Washington as its affiliate in the nation’s capital.
JUN 30
1950
Film director William
Keighley signs a five year contract to host Lux Radio Theater on
CBS. (See
Lux…Presents Hollywood! and
Monday's
All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 30
1950 NBC
agrees to back Irving Berlin’s Broadway musical Call Me Madam
starring Ethel Merman for $200,000 in return for the production’s radio,
television and original cast recording rights.
JUN 30
1950
The hour long Songs For Sale with
comedian Jan Murray begins its one season Friday night run on CBS.
JUN 30 1951 Colgate cancels its two NBC Saturday night
shows starring Dennis Day and Judy Canova. (See
Saturday's All Time Top Ten and
Judy Canova.)
JUN 30
1952 Compared
to the same period in 1951, January-June gross billings of CBS Radio are
down $9.5 Million and NBC's are down $5.9 Million while ABC's are up $2.0
Million and Mutual's are up $1.4 Million. (See
Radio Nets'
Grosses.)
JUN 30
1952
NBC-TV’s Camel News Caravan weeknight
newscast goes nationwide, adding Los Angeles, San Francisco and Salt Lake
City to its 39 city network.
JUN 30
1953
Fibber McGee & Molly leaves its
Tuesday night timeslot after 15 seasons to become a 15 minute strip show.
(See
Fibber McGee Minus Molly and
Tuesday's All Time Top Ten.)
JUN 30
1953 Transcription
network Keystone Broadcasting System announces the signing of its 669th
affiliate.
GLOSSARY
AAAA = American Association of Advertising Agencies - ABC = American
Broadcasting Company - ACLU = American Civil Liberties Union - AFL =
American Federation of Labor - AFM = American Federation of Musicians -
AFRA = American Federation of Radio Artists - AFRS = Armed Forces Radio
Service - AFTRA = American Federation of Radio & Television Artists - AGVA =
American Guild of Variety Artists - ANA = Association of National
Advertisers - ANPA = American Newspaper Publishers Association - AP =
Associated Press - ARB = American Research Bureau - ASCAP = American
Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers - BBC = British Broadcasting
Corporation - BMB = Broadcast Measurement Bureau - BMI = Broadcast Music,
Inc. - CAB = Cooperative Analysis of Broadcasting - CBC = Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation - CBS = Columbia Broadcasting System - CIO =
Congress of Industrial Organizations - CST = Central Standard Time - CWA =
Communications Workers of America - EST = Eastern Standard Time - FCC =
Federal Communications Commission - FRC = Federal Radio Commission - FTC =
Federal Trade Commission - IAPTA = International Allied Printing Trades
Association - IATSE = International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees -
IBEW = International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers - ILGW =
International Ladies Garment Workers - INS = International News Service -
IRS = Internal Revenue Service - LBS = Liberty Broadcasting System - MBS =
Mutual Broadcasting System - MCA = Music Corporation of America - MST =
Mountain Standard Time - NAB = National Association of Broadcasters - NABET
= National Association of Broadcast Employees & Technicians - NARBA = North
American Regional Broadcasting Agreement - NARTB = National Association of
Radio & Television Broadcasters, (fka NAB) - NBC = National Broadcasting
Company - NCAA = National Collegiate Athletic Association - NLRB = National
Labor Relations Board - PST = Pacific Standard Time - PTA = Parent Teachers
Association - RCA = Radio Corporation of America - RMA = Radio Manufacturers
Association - SAG = Screen Actors Guild - SESAC = Society of European Stage
Authors & Composers - SPCA = Society for The Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals - TVA = The Television Authority (union) - UAW = United Auto Workers
- UP = United Press