OCTOBER
IN THE GOLDEN AGE
Unless otherwise noted
all times are Eastern Time Zone
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OCT 1 1921 Westinghouse opens WJZ/Newark and four days later broadcasts
play-by-play reports of the New York Giants vs. New York Yankees World
Series.
OCT 1 1931
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer tests the promotional value of radio with a half-hour
variety show starring Jimmy Durante in the 12 station Don Lee network from
KHJ/Los Angeles.
OCT 1 1932
Independent station KNX/Los Angeles increases power from 10,000 to 50,000
watts.
OCT 1 1933
Chevrolet increases the number of NBC affiliates for its
Jack Benny Show
to 59. (See
The 1933-34
Season.)
OCT 1 1933
CBS restores 7½% of the 15% pay cut ordered for all
employees in June, 1932.
OCT 1 1934
The Mutual Broadcasting System, (fka
The Quality Group), is incorporated with founding
stations WOR/Newark, WGN/Chicago and affiliates WLW/Cincinnati and WXYZ/
Detroit. (See
Mutual Led The
Way.)
OCT 1 1934
WLW/Cincinnati, operating with 500,000 watts, raises its basic one hour
rate from $1,000 to $1,200.
OCT 1 1934
FCC approves the move of 100 watt KICK at 1370 kc.
from Carter Lake to Davenport, Iowa, and the change of its call sign to
WOC. (See
Three Letter
Calls.)
OCT 1 1935
Kate Smith begins a year of 15 minute shows on CBS
Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday nights for A&P Stores. (See
Kate’s
Great Song.)
OCT 1 1936
After seven years sponsorship by its Fleischmann Margarine, Standard
Brands switches sponsorship of
Rudy Vallee’s Variety Hour on NBC to its Royal
Gelatins and Puddings. (See Thursday's
All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 1 1937
Chicago Tribune
European correspondent William L. Shirer is appointed
Central European representative for CBS News.
OCT 1 1938
Tommy Riggs with his Betty Lou
alter ego begin the first of four short multi-network series. .
OCT 1 1938
Jack Benny’s Sunday night NBC show leads all network programs with 113
stations carrying it, Al Jolson’s
Lifebuoy Show and Edward G. Robinson’s
Big Town, both
Tuesday night on CBS, are each second with 112 stations. (See
Big, Big Town.)
OCT 1 1939
The NAB puts its sweeping self-regulatory code into
effect for all members governing news, controversial issues, children‘s,
educational and religious programs and length of commercials.
OCT 1 1939
Mr. District Attorney,
Bob Hope’s successful summer replacement, begins a six month run on Blue
before moving to NBC for eleven seasons. (See
Mr. District
Attorney and Wednesday’s
All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 1 1940
General Electric assumes control of its
WGY/Schenectady after nine years of NBC management but the network continues
to manage GE”s KGO/San Francisco and KOA/Denver.
OCT 1 1940
Cesaro Petrillo, brother of AFM President James
Petrillo, is named Music Director of CBS-owned WBBM/Chicago. (See
Petrillo!)
OCT 1 1941
Pioneer Westinghouse station KDKA/Pittsburgh shifts from Blue to NBC but
retains the Lowell Thomas nightly newscast on Blue. Former NBC affiliate
WCAE moves to Mutual and indie KQV becomes Blue’s affiliate.
OCT 1 1941
Red Barber, Bob Elson and Bill Corum announce Gillette’s broadcasts of the
“subway” World Series between the New York Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers on
Mutual which registers an overall 32.8 CAB rating.
OCT 1 1941
The labor dispute between the AFM and NBC affiliate WSMB/New Orleans is
settled allowing NBC to promptly reinstate late night dance band remotes on
the full network. (See
Big Band
Remotes.)
OCT 1 1941
Vocalist Ginny Simms, 28, leaves the Kay Kyser troupe
for a successful solo career. (See
Kay Kyser.)
OCT 1 1942
The U.S. Office of War Information buys eight hours daily on four stations
in Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau and Ketchikan to entertain and communicate
with troops stationed in Alaska.
OCT 1 1942
Crossley’s Cooperative Analysis of Broadcasting,
(CAB), radio listening surveys add telephone coincidental polling to its
established recall method. (See
Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper &
Nielsen.)
OCT 1
1943 Art Linkletter, 31, becomes the
host of People Are Funny
for the stunt show’s next 18 successful years. (See
People Are
Funny.)
OCT 1 1943
A second round of newsprint limits mandated by
The Federal Printing & Publishing General
Limitation Order of 1942 takes effect forcing
newspapers to reduce their size.
OCT 1 1944
The elaborate Radio Hall of Fame
opens its second season on Blue with a bi-coastal program featuring Ed Wynn,
his son Keenan, the Andrews Sisters, Ted Husing, Alexander Knox, Geraldine
Page, Alfred Newman’s orchestra and Paul Whiteman’s orchestra. (See
Radio Hall of Fame.)
OCT 1 1944
Jack Benny opens the 1944-45 season on NBC for his new sponsor, American
Tobacco’s Lucky Strike cigarettes, with guest Fred Allen while General
Foods’ Kate Smith Hour
on CBS counters with the cast of
Can You Top This? and Helen Hayes as guests.
(See
Lucky Gets Benny
and
Sunday At
Seven.)
OCT 1 1944
CBC’s Trans-Canada network carries the new Jack
Benny show without commercials because American Tobacco doesn’t market
products in the country.
OCT 1 1944 Fred Allen, 50, ordered by
doctors not to resume his Texaco
Star Theater on NBC, is replaced by tenor James
Melton and pianist Alec Templeton. (See The
Feud and
Mr. Allen Meets Mr. Benny.)
OCT 1 1944
Like NBC’s earlier move, CBS bans “cow-catcher“ and
“hitch-hike” commer-cials at the beginning and end of its programs.
OCT 1 1944
Ted Cott’s
Crime Quiz
becomes the first program from WNEW/New York City to be adapted on WABD(TV)
in an agreement that will feature a television version of one of the radio
station’s programs every three weeks.
OCT 1 1945 The
first Armed Forces Radio Service station within the Japanese home-land,
Radio Okinawa, begins operations.
OCT 1 1945 FCC rescinds its 1942
wartime order and mandates all stations resume full-power operation.
OCT 1 1945
Newspaper acquisitions of radio stations continue as
The Philadelphia Bulletin
buys WFIL/Philadelphia for $1,900,000 and
The Boston Herald -Traveler
pur-chases WHDH/Boston for $850,000.
OCT 1 1945
After 15 years on the CBS weekday morning schedule, the network moves its 30
minute American School of The Air
to 5:00 p.m.
OCT 1 1945
NBC’s Carnation Contented Hour
broadcast is cancelled when its musicians fail to appear on orders from AFM
President Petrillo claiming that the network’s New Orleans and Chattanooga
affiliates are “unfair.” (See Petrillo!)
OCT 1 1946
Miles Laboratories drops John W. Vandercook from its nightly NBC News
of The World and names Morgan Beatty its anchor. (See
Multiple Runs All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 1 1947
Billed as the first major attraction to be offered
to local stations on a co-op basis, ABC debuts
The Abbott & Costello Show
at a reported average cost per affiliate of $300.
OCT 1 1947
Jack Benny’s former summer replacement,
The Jack Paar Show,
begins a 13 week run on ABC.
OCT 1 1947
AFRA refuses to allow Cecil B. DeMille to appear on ABC’s
Vox Pop
because the union expelled him three years earlier.
OCT 1 1947
AFM head Petrillo lifts his ban on the Rochester Symphony Orchestra
appearing on the Continental FM Network after sponsor Stromberg-Carlson
defies the ban with non union musicians. (See
Petrillo!)
OCT 1 1947
NBC-TV refuses to carry a video version of Mutual’s
Meet The Press,
claiming the program is, “…too
controversial.”
OCT 1 1948
Dinah Shore rejoins Eddie Cantor’s NBC show for
$1,250 a week with the option to appear anywhere else she wants. (See
Sunday's All Time Top Ten and
Wednesday's All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 1 1948
CBS discontinues its shortwave service to the 126
station Cadena de los Americas network serving Central and South America.
OCT 1 1948
The U.S. State Department takes over programming
The Voice of America
from NBC and CBS and supervision of the 225 employees
involved.
OCT 1 1948
William Sweets, National President of the
Radio & Television Directors Guild union, resigns after refusing to sign the
group’s non-Communist affidavit.
OCT
1 1949
Carnation Contented Hour
star Buddy Clark, 37, is killed in a Los Angeles
private plane crash. (See
The 1949-50
Season.)
OCT 1 1950
NBC-TV interconnects 14 more stations bringing live network television to 47
cities - reaching as far west as Kansas City and Jacksonville to the south.
OCT 1 1951
Chicago stations WLS and WENR readjust their time
sharing of the 50,000 watt facility at 890 k.c. -
Prairie Farmer
magazine’s WLS has weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 3:00
p.m., 6:00 to 6:30 and 7:00 to 8:00 p.m., all day Saturdays and Sundays from
8:00 a.m. until noon. ABC’s WENR has all the remaining hours.
OCT 1 1951
Mutual reports that 3,250 local sponsors bought its
Game of The Day
broad-casts on a co-op basis during the 1951 baseball
season.
OCT 1 1951
Switching problems at KELP/El Paso are blamed for the mayor’s speech on city
water problems being fed for broadcast to 182 Liberty Broadcasting System
affiliates.
OCT 1 1951
CBS-TV carries the first baseball game seen coast-to-coast, the New York
Giants vs. Brooklyn Dodgers National League playoff game.
OCT 1 1952
Gillette sponsors the World Series on 560 Mutual
affiliates plus 100 inde-pendent stations in addition to 64 NBC-TV
affiliates and four television stations with ownership interests in Mutual.
OCT 1 1952 DuPont
introduces the television adaptation its legendary 18 year radio series,
Cavalcade of America, on NBC-TV.
OCT 1 1952 Ralph
Edwards adapts his NBC human interest radio show, This Is Your Life,
on NBC-TV.
OCT 1 1952 The FCC’s first
competitive television license “post thaw” hearings since September, 1948,
begin in Washington.
OCT 1
1952 Comedian Abe Burrows is among 41
persons linked with the Communist party in U.S. House Un-American Activities
Committee hearings into party infiltration in broadcasting.
OCT 1 1953
Singer Frank Munn, 58, billed for years as
The Golden Voice of Radio,
dies of a heart attack. (See
Frank Munn’s Golden Voice.)
OCT 1 1953
U.S. Treasury Department reports 2,900 stations donate 15 minutes each
week for its transcribed Guest
Star program to sell Defense Bonds.
OCT 1 1953
Sportscaster Vin Scully, 26, replaces Red Barber for NBC-TV’s World Series
coverage when Barber refuses to work for $250 a game.
OCT 1 1953
Mutual begins its new schedule of 18 “Star“ programs given to
affiliates for local sale in lieu of cash payment for carrying network
shows. Included in the weekly package are
Mr. District Attorney, Counterspy,
Bulldog Drummond, High Adventure with George
Sanders, Starlight Theater
starring Madeline Carroll and Edward Arnold’s
Spotlight Story.
OCT 1 1953
The NBC Research Department estimates that 25.23 Million television
sets are in use across the country and 55% of American homes are equipped
with receivers.
OCT 2 1932 Elaine Carrington’s
longtime multi-network weekday serial
Pepper Young’s Family
begins as the weekly half-hour drama
Red Davis on
Blue. (See
Soft Soap
& Hard Sell.)
OCT 2
1932 Columbia
Records offers local stations an early form of "Per Inquiry" com-mercials:
Four minute transcribed programs selling its records through the stations
for 25 cents each with the stations keeping 8½ cents of every sale.
OCT 2
1933 The
Columbia News Service opens under the direction of former CBS publicity
chief Paul White in response to the Associated Press edict banning its
members from providing news to broadcasters.
OCT 2
1935 Ford
Motors sponsors the Detroit Tigers vs. Chicago Cubs World Series on 194 U.S.
and Canadian stations, paying $100,000 to Major League Baseball for the
rights and $225,000 to the four networks.
OCT 2
1935 Transradio
Press posts a reporter and shortwave transmitter at World Series games to
provide play by play accounts of the games to its clients.
OCT 2
1935
WGN/Chicago unveils its new
$600,000 studio complex and 588 seat theater in the downtown Loop next to
its ten year old studios in the Tribune Tower.
OCT 2
1938
Meredith Willson’s Signal
Oil Carnival, a weekly NBC West Coast program, becomes the first show
originated from the network’s new Hollywood studios at Sunset & Vine. (See
Meredith
Willson.)
OCT 2
1939
With increased expenses
covering the European war, United Press invokes the emergency clause in its
contracts calling for a 12½% increase in subscription fees; International
News Service follows with a 15% increase.
OCT 2
1939
NBC issues new network rate
card raising the rates for 30 affiliates and lowering them for 15. (See NBC's
Chinese Menu.)
OCT 2
1939
Carleton E. Morse’s I
Love A Mystery opens sporadic eight season multi-network run. (See
I Love A
Mystery and
I Love A Sequel.)
OCT 2
1939 Basil
Rathbone and Nigel Bruce recreate their signature film roles as Holmes
and Watson on Blue in the first of seven multi-network seasons
of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. (See
Sherlock Holmes.)
OCT 2
1940 FCC
authorizes KYW/Philadelphia to increase its power to 50,000 watts.
OCT 2
1940 Gillette
pays Major League Baseball $100,000 for broadcast rights to the Cincinnati
vs. Detroit World Series and another reported $150,000 for Mutual’s 253
station network to carry the games reported by Bob Elson and Red Barber.
OCT 2
1940 For
the second year, Mutual permits General Electric’s two shortwave stations,
WGEO and WGEA, to relay its World Series broadcasts to Europe.
OCT 2 1940 DuPont
announces signing noted playwrights Maxwell Anderson, Robert Sherwood and
Marc Connely along with screen stars Loretta Young, Edward Arnold and
Charles Laughton for its Cavalcade of America series on NBC. (See
The Cavalcade of America.)
OCT 2
1940 WNEW/New
York City advertises its disc jockey Martin Block as earning one of the 500
highest salaries in the United States.
OCT 2
1941
Eddie Cantor returns to NBC
from CBS for his remaining 14 years in Network Radio. (See
Network Jumpers, Sunday's
All Time Top Ten and
Wednesday's All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 2
1941 Fanny
Brice reunites with Frank Morgan on NBC’s Maxwell House Coffee Time.
(See
Baby Snooks
and
Good News.)
OCT 2
1941
Garry Moore, 26, opens Blue’s
26 week Thursday night quiz from Army camps, Service With A Smile.
OCT 2
1942
The FTC orders the makers of
Dr. Lyons Tooth Powder to stop using the statement in its radio commercials,
“Do as your dentist does - use powder.”
OCT 2
1942
Network Radio prime time
program production costs are released - NBC’s Jack Benny at $18,000 is the
most expensive per week, Major Bowes’ Original Amateur Hour tops
the CBS list at $17,000 and Blue’s is $5,000 for Walter Winchell’s
Jergens Journal. (See
Major Bowes' Original Money Machine and
Walter
Winchell.)
OCT 2
1943 The
Third War Loan Drive ends with Kate Smith named radio’s top sales-person
with $37.0 Million in bonds sold and Ralph Edwards' Truth Or
Consequences the runnerup with $34.0 Million in sold bonds to its
credit. (See
Kate's
Great Song and Truth
Or Consequences.)
OCT 2
1943 Can
You Top This? celebrates its first anniversary on NBC with a special
Saturday night “testimonial dinner” broadcast honoring 18th Century joke
book king Joe Miller from the historic Murray Hill Hotel beginning at
midnight. (See
Can You Top
This?and
Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 2
1944 The
NAB announces that it will distribute recordings of The Liberty Bell chiming
to all member stations for play on V-E Day. (See
V-E Day (Very
Early).)
OCT 2
1944
FCC approves the sale of
WLIB/New York City to The New York Post for $250,000.
OCT 2
1944 The
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation cancels The Jack Benny Program
when sponsor Lucky Strike is mentioned outside of regular commercial time
which the CBC normally covers with public service spots.
OCT 2
1944 Six
members of Ray Noble’s Chase & Sanborn Hour orchestra escape injury
in the California forced landing of their Army transport when returning from
the NBC broadcast at a New Mexico air base.
OCT 2
1945 Bob
Hope’s Pepsodent Show begins the first postwar contest offering
major prizes: 20 new Jeeps for best completions of the sentence, “We
should not cash in our War Bonds because….” (See
Tuesday's All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 2
1945 Judge
Justin Miller succeeds J. Harold O’Brien as NAB President.
OCT 2
1945 Random
network work stoppages by the musicians union spur reports that AFM
President Petrillo is attempting to form a coalition with the major
technical unions - NABET and IBEW - with himself as its head. (See
Petrillo!)
OCT 2
1946 Kay
Kyser’s College of Musical Knowledge, an hour long program on NBC for
nine years, is trimmed to 30 minutes. (See
Kay Kyser
and Wednesday’s
All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 2
1946 After
five year hiatus, sponsor Lewis-Howe’s Tums returns giveaway show Pot O
Gold to Network Radio on ABC - but cancels after 26 weeks. (See
First
Season Phenoms.)
OCT 2
1946
Information Please
leaves NBC after six seasons and moves to CBS where it plummets in the
ratings out of the season’s Top 100. (See
Information Please.)
OCT 2
1947
C.E. Hooper conducts its first
telephone coincidental survey of television viewers in New York City during
the third World Series game between the New York Yankees and Brooklyn
Dodgers carried by all three local TV stations for a 34.5 rating.
OCT 2
1947 Al
Jolson, 61, returns to The Kraft Music Hall after a 13 year
absence, replacing Bing Crosby as the show’s host for two seasons. (See
Thursday’s All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 2
1948 A
ten-year old girl, taken to a Boston remote of the CBS quiz show Give &
Take by her mother, is spotted in the audience by host John Reed King
and asked to identify the show’s jackpot sound. She replied, "a pencil
sharpener", and won $5,750.
OCT 2
1948
The machine-operated NBC
chimes malfunction and continue ringing through the first three minutes of
the network’s Morton Downey Show.
OCT 2
1948 Twin
City taverns equipped with television sets charge a $2.50 “minimum” during
KSTP-TV’s broadcast of the Minnesota vs. Nebraska football game.
OCT 2
1949
Edgar Bergen and Red Skelton
join Jack Benny and Amos & Andy by moving from NBC to CBS. (See
Network
Jumpers and The
1949-50 Season.)
OCT 2
1949 Aldrich
Family creator Clifford Goldsmith writes the initial episode of the
television adaptation of his sitcom for NBC-TV. (See The
Aldrich Family and
Thursday's All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 2
1949
NBC’s KNBH(TV)/Los Angeles
expands its operations from five to seven days a week.
OCT 2
1950
Liberty Broadcasting System
begins fulltime service offering 10½ hours of programs to its 240
affiliates.
OCT 2
1950 CBS
weekday giveaway show Strike It Rich broadcasts for five days from
the New England Foods Show at Boston Garden.
OCT 2
1950
A video version of Horace
Heidt’s Youth Opportunity Program debuts on CBS-TV.
OCT 2
1950
A six week Pittsburgh
newspaper strike stimulates a marked increase in newscasts from the city’s
radio and television stations and results in a revenue windfall.
OCT 2
1951
The U.S. State Department
confirms the building of ten high powered antennas to combat Soviet jamming
and increase the coverage of The Voice of America 14 fold at a cost
of $41.2 Million.
OCT 2 1952
The
Democratic Party complains to the FCC about the Republicans’ $2.0 Million
saturation spot campaign for candidate Dwight Eisenhower in 12 key states,
charging collusion among major advertisers who control most of radio and
television prime time allowing the GOP’s commercial blitz.
OCT 2
1952 ABC-owned WJZ-TV/New York City uses the premiere of The
March of Time to advertise sponsorship of its program with newsman
Taylor Grant doing commercials offering it, “…for only $2,300 per week
plus time charges.”
OCT 2 1953
NBC changes its system
cue preceding its familiar chimes from, “This is NBC, the National
Broadcasting Company,” to, “This is the NBC Radio Network.”
OCT 2
1953 CBS
introduces Stage Struck, an hour long revue of Broadway attractions
hosted by Mike Wallace.
OCT 2
1953
Ziv’s World Broadcasting
System sets a new record for transcription services with 1,000 subscribing
stations. (See
Fred Ziv - King of Syndication.)
OCT 2
1953
Capitol Records ends
terminates its transcription service after seven years and proposes to sell
the library’s 700 recordings to its subscribing stations. (See
“By Transcription…”.)
OCT 2 1953 Edward R. Murrow
introduces his interview show, Person To Person, on CBS-TV,
beginning the popular half-hour’s eight season run.
OCT 3 1932 NBC
boasts that its first nine months’ advertising revenue beats The
Saturday Evening Post’s billings for the same period, $20.49 Million to
$18.87 Million.
OCT 3
1932 Bulova Watches
reports it spends $250,000 annually for ten-second time signal radio
announcements.
OCT 3
1934
Ford pays $100,000 to Major
League Baseball for the rights to the Detroit Tigers vs. St Louis Cardinals
World Series broadcast by CBS, NBC and Blue which add another estimated
$275,000 to the auto company’s total bill.
OCT 3
1934
Proponents of non-commercial,
educational and religious broadcasting conclude the first week of FCC
hearings for their demands to be allocated 25% of broadcast frequencies with
the President of The National Educational Association warning of, “…a
great and growing dissatisfaction with commercial radio.”
OCT 3
1934 Actress
Mary Pickford debuts in a successful 26 week dramatic anthology series on
NBC.
OCT 3
1935 More
stations leave the Press-Radio Bureau as its rigid structure delays news
from the Italian-Ethiopian War. (See
The
Press-Radio Bureau.)
OCT 3
1935
Chrysler Corp. assembles a 34 station network headed by WOR/Newark and
CKLW/Windsor-Detroit for an hour long noontime program headlined by Amos
& Andy and Lowell Thomas to introduce its new Plymouth automobile
models.
OCT
3 1935
FCC
determines the contested 1400 kc. frequency in Brooklyn, New York, be split
between the existing WBBC and a new station to be constructed by The
Brooklyn Eagle.
OCT
3 1935 Harry Engman Charlot, creator of The Shadow radio
series in 1930, is found dead in a New York hotel room at age 31. (See
The
Shadow Nos.)
OCT 3
1936 Saturday
Night Serenade, Pet Milk’s answer to competitor Carnation’s
Contented Hour, begins nine season run on CBS.
OCT 3
1937 International
Silver's dramatic anthology Silver Theater begins its sporadic ten
year run late Sunday afternoons on CBS
OCT 3
1937 Hollywood
Playhouse with rotating leads Tyrone Power, Charles Boyer and Herbert
Marshall opens on Blue for two season run before moving to NBC for an
additional year.
OCT 3
1938 CBS
and NBC estimate that that 18 day European crisis in September cost a
combined $160,000 in direct expenses plus another $40,000 in rebates to
advertisers whose programs were interrupted or preempted.
OCT 3
1938 The
Rochester, New York school board cancels its weekly Let’s Sing
program for elementary school children on WHEC when the AFM local insists
that a standby union piano player be employed. (See
Petrillo!)
OCT 3
1939 The
NAB Code Committee rules the controversial broadcasts of Catholic priest
Charles Coughlin, Unitarian minister Walton Cole and Jehovah Witness
spokesman Joseph Rutherford violate the code by blasting other religions and
advocating social change. (See Father
Coughlin.)
OCT 3
1939 WNEW/New
York City cancels Martin Block’s Tuesday night big band remotes when the AFM
prohibits the broadcasting of one night stands.
OCT 3
1940 Former
Louisiana Governor James Noe, owner of WNOE/New Orleans, is indicted by a
Federal Grand Jury for income tax evasion.
OCT 3
1941
NBC surprises the industry by
replacing late night band remotes with programs produced by its owned
stations and local affiliates. (See Big
Band Remotes.)
OCT 3
1941 Bob
Hope files for an injunction to prevent his gag writer, Jack Douglas, from
submitting material to Red Skelton’s NBC show. (See
Tuesday's All Time To Ten.)
OCT 3
1942
The AFM’s recording ban causes
General Foods to cancel the Saturday morning transcribed repeats of its
Thursday night Aldrich Family broadcasts on 55 stations. (See The
Aldrich Family and
Thursday's All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 3 1942
Can You Top This?
begins its eleven season multi-network run on NBC for Colgate Palmolive Peet
while remaining on WOR/New York City once a week for Colgate‘s Kirkman Soap.
(See
Can You Top
This? and
Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 3
1943 General
Foods announces a week’s delay starting the new season of Jack Benny’s
program on NBC due to the comedian’s extended tour entertaining troops
overseas.
OCT 3
1944 Elaine
Carrington’s weekday soap opera Rosemary begins its eleven year
multi-network run on NBC. (See
Soft Soap
& Hard Sell.)
OCT 3
1945
Claiming “typographical
errors” in its September 20th commercial television channel allocation
decree, the FCC “discovers” 90 corrections needed in the 140 metro-politan
areas.
OCT 3
1946 NBC-TV
pays $6,500 for the Brooklyn Dodgers vs. St. Louis Cardinals playoff game
won by St. Louis for the National League championship.
OCT 3
1946
Singer-comedian Dennis Day,
30, debuts in his successful sitcom, A Day In The Life of Dennis Day,
destined for five year run on NBC. (See Saturday's
All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 3
1947
FCC announces a record six
month schedule of 346 application hearings to be held for new AM, FM and TV
stations.
OCT 3
1948
International Silver moves its Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet from
NBC to CBS. (See Ozzie
& Harriet and
Friday's
All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 3 1948
NBC’s Fred Allen offers
$5,000 to any listener who can prove he or she lost a prize on his competing
program, ABC’s Stop The Music!, as a result of listening to him.
(See
Stop The
Music!)
OCT 3 1948
The prestigious Philco
Television Playhouse with a total budget of $17,000 per week debuts on
NBC-TV, fed live to seven stations and sent by kinescope film to another
ten.
OCT 3
1948
Network Radio veteran
Russ Morgan stars in television’s first big band show, a weekly half-hour on
NBC-TV sponsored by Admiral Radio & Television Corp.
OCT 3
1949 The
Liberty network introduces a two hour game show, Musical Bingo, to
fill the afternoon time occupied by baseball broadcasts during the summer.
OCT 3
1949 Cowles
Broadcasting sells jts WOL/Washington, D.C., to competitor WWDC.
OCT 3
1949 Mutual
revives Carleton E. Morse’s I Love A Mystery for a three season
nightly run of new transcribed productions of Morse’s previously broadcast
scripts. (See I
Love A Mystery and I
Love A Sequel.)
OCT 3
1951 CBS
makes an unprecedented Network Radio move by offering its Wednesday night
Red Skelton Show available for single broadcast sponsorship at a
total cost of $23,500 for one show.
OCT 3 1951 NBC gives its
affiliates 40 seconds for a “cowcatcher” local commercial prior to the
beginning of ten sustaining network programs.
OCT 3
1951 William
Gargan begins his five year contract with NBC starring as Barrie Craig,
Confidential Investigator on both radio and television. (See
The
1951-52 Season.)
OCT 3
1951
Hadacol maker LeBlanc
Corporation files for Chapter 10 reorganization in New York City after the
FTC charges it with false advertising in claims that it treats cancer,
tuberculosis and heart disease. (See
Hadacol.)
OCT 3
1952 FCC
Broadcast Bureau issues its opposition to the merger of ABC with United
Paramount Theaters citing conflicts of interests.
OCT 3
1952
Three bandits raid the New
York offices of NBC during the lunch hour and escape with $4,000 in cash.
OCT 3
1952 CBS-TV’s
My Friend Irma becomes the first program to originate from the new
CBS Television City in Los Angeles. (See
My Friend Irma
and
Monday's
All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 3 1952 Eve Arden and
her CBS Radio cast, (Gale Gordon, Richard Crenna, Robert Rockwell, Gloria
McMillian and Jane Morgan), bring their hit sitcom Our Miss Brooks
to CBS-TV. (See
Our Miss Arden.)
OCT 3 1952 Ozzie & Harriet (Nelson) with their two sons,
David & Ricky, begin the television adaptation of their radio sitcom on
ABC-TV. (See
Ozzie &
Harriet.)
OCT 3
1952
Ten year radio hit Mr. &
Mrs. North debuts on CBS-TV with its radio co-stars, Richard Denning
and Barbara Britton. (See
Married Sleuths
and Tuesday’s
All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 4 1922 WJZ/Newark feeds its coverage of the New
York Yankees vs. New York Giants World Series to WGY/Schenectady for
rebroadcast.
OCT 4
1933 Movie
actress Irene Rich,42, begins her eleven year multi-network series of
programs for Welch’s Grape Juice on Blue
OCT 4
1935
Striking engineers shut down
WDAS/Philadelphia from 1:30 p.m. until 9:15 p.m. when station management
signs a new union contract.
OCT 4
1935
Attorneys for KFWB/Los Angeles
disc jockey Al Jarvis notify WNEW/Newark that Jarvis has copyrighted the
term, “The World’s Largest Make Believe Ballroom,” used by WNEW’s
Martin Block.
OCT 4
1936
General Foods moves Jack
Benny’s Sunday evening show from the Blue Network to NBC. (See
Sunday At
Seven.)
OCT 4
1936
Phillips H. Lord introduces his
human interest show, We The People on Blue, beginning 15 year
multi-network run.
OCT 4
1936
Singing bandleader/comedian
Phil Harris debuts as a cast member on the Jack Benny Program.
OCT 4
1937
Frank McNinch becomes Chairman
of the FCC and pledges, "...an open and transparent commission."
OCT 4
1937
Mary Margaret McBride,
previously known to listeners as Martha Deane on WOR/New York City,
begins a CBS commentary series under her own name.
OCT 4
1937
Barney Pressman, owner of
Barney’s Clothes, Inc., sues WNEW/New York City for $106,000 claiming the
station shorted his series of sponsored programs from two to four minutes
each from 1934 to 1936.
OCT 4
1938
FCC backs down and votes to
reconsider its profanity test case against WTCN/Minneapolis-St. Paul for
carrying the Blue Network dramatization of Eugene O’Neill’s Beyond The
Horizon containing the words “damn” and “hell”.
OCT 4
1939
Mutual begins exclusive
coverage of the World Series on 151 stations - including 43 NBC affiliates
and eleven CBS stations - sponsored by Gillette which paid $225,000 for the
rights.
OCT 4
1939
Sponsor Grove Laboratories
begins Wednesday night transcribed rebroadcasts of its Monday night Blue
Network Adventures of Sherlock Holmes on WOR/New York City. (See
Sherlock Holmes.)
OCT 4
1940
NBC’s Board of Directors meets
to make its disposed programming chief John F. Royal the new Vice President
in charge of Television, Shortwave, FM and Facsimile.
OCT 4
1940
Brown & Williamson’s Wings
cigarettes opens its Friday night aviation melodrama Wings of Destiny
on NBC with the weekly giveaway of a new Piper Cub airplane to the listener
who writes a winning testimonial letter and then answers the telephone when
the program calls.
OCT 4
1941
Armstrong Cork Company’s light
drama anthology, Theater of Today, begins its 13 year run at noon
Saturdays on CBS.
OCT
4
1942
The transcribed West Coast
rebroadcast of NBC’s Jack Benny Program is cancelled when the AFM
demands that “live talent” be used, despite the show’s offer to double the
musicians‘ pay. (See
Petrillo!)
OCT 4
1942
Fred Allen’s Texaco Star
Theater on CBS is cut from 60 to 30 minutes. (See
Sunday's
All Time Top Ten and The
1942-43 Season.)
OCT 4
1942
Arthur Godfrey, morning
personality on CBS-owned WJSV/Washington and WABC/New York City, joins the
cast of Fred Allen’s Texaco Star Theater until Allen fires him
after six weeks . (See
Arthur
Godfrey.)
OCT 4
1942
First
Nighter moves from CBS to Mutual - the program’s fourth network in
twelve years. (See
Friday’s
All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 4 1944 President
Roosevelt wires a request to AFM chief Petrillo asking that the union’s two
year ban on recording be abolished. (See
Petrillo!)
OCT 4 1944 Don Dunphy, Bill Slater and Bill Corum cover
the Detroit Tigers vs. St.Louis Cardinals World Series on Mutual to over 300
U.S. stations, 47 Canadian outlets and AFRS relays worldwide via six
shortwave stations.
OCT 4 1945 Frank Morgan becomes
substitute host of NBC’s Kraft Music Hall when Bing Crosby refuses
to perform after the network and sponsor refuse to let him pre-record the
program. (See
Frank Morgan
and Thursday’s
All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 4 1947 NBC
relaxes its ban on recorded programs and allows Truth Or Consequen-ces’
8:30 p.m. broadcast to be transcribed for later replay on its Pacific Coast
network. (See
The Late Shift.)
OCT 4 1947
Campana transplants its 17 year old Chicago based anthology series
First Nighter to Hollywood and returns it to the CBS Saturday night
schedule after an 18 month absence from the air. (See
Friday's
All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 4 1947 F.
Chase Taylor as Colonel Stoopnagle joins Vaughn Monroe’s Camel
Caravan show on CBS in what would be his last two years in Network
Radio.
OCT 4 1948 Kay Kyser’s College of Fun &
Knowledge debuts as a weekday half-hour at 11:00 a.m. on ABC. (See
Kay Kyser.)
OCT 4 1948 Broadway and movie singing star Gordon MacRae,
27, opens The Railroad Hour on ABC for a six year multi-network
run. (See
The Railroad Hour.)
OCT 4 1948 Bulova’s bi-lingual WOV/New York City opens a
production studio in Rome, Italy, to record programs.
OCT 4 1948
Popular bandleader Jan Savitt, 35, dies of a cerebral hemorrhage.
OCT 4 1948 The Original Amateur Hour with host
Ted Mack debuts on ABC-TV.
OCT 4 1949 Eddie Cantor
begins his series of semi-monthly variety shows on NBC-TV.
OCT 4
1949 The first television version of The Life of Riley
begins a one season run on NBC-TV with Jackie Gleason replacing William
Bendix in the title role.
OCT 4 1950 CBS introduces
A Dollar A Minute with host Bill Goodwin for a 39 week run,
inviting listeners to pay a dollar a minute to expound on any subject they
choose.
OCT 4 1950 ABC-TV, CBS-TV and NBC-TV each chip
in $50,000 to broadcast the 1950 World Series sponsored by Gillette which
pays $800,000 for the rights to the games between the New York Yankees vs.
Philadelphia Phillies.
OCT 4 1951 NBC-TV begins its
four year contract with Gillette for exclusive World Series television
coverage.
OCT 4 1951 CBS settles out of court a
$750,000 lawsuit brought by Haven MacQuarrie who claimed the network stole
the concept for his Noah Webster Says for its short lived We
Take Your Word. (See
CBS
Packages Unwrapped.)
OCT 4 1952
NBC-TV celebrates the opening of its Burbank studios with an hour long
special edition of its Saturday night All Star Revue.
OCT 4 1953 NBC introduces Weekend, a two-hour Sunday
afternoon news and feature program that continues until the network
premieres Monitor on June 25, 1955.
OCT 4 1953
A.C. Nielsen reports that the fifth World Series game between New York and
Brooklyn was the most watched sports event ever with an estimated 14,776,000
homes tuned to the event on NBC-TV.
OCT 5 1930 Controversial
Detroit priest Charles Coughlin begins six months of Sunday afternoon
lectures on CBS before forming his own private networks for the next ten
years.
(See Father
Coughlin.)
OCT 5 1931 Phillips H. Lord begins a 60 city
appearance tour as his radio character, Seth Parker, to promote his
new RKO movie, Other People’s Business.
OCT 5 1932
The Shadow becomes the title character in mystery series for one
season on NBC followed by another on CBS. Series shift to Mutual and
introduction of Lamont Cranston doesn’t occur until 1937. (See
The Shadow Nos.)
OCT 5 1934 Hollywood
Hotel hosted by Louella Parsons and Dick Powell begins its five year
run on CBS, taking advantage of AT&T’s newly lowered line charges that
encourage West Coast program originations. (See
Dick Powell and
Friday's
All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 5 1935 The
Associated Press accesses member newspapers that broadcast local news an
additional 5% fee.
OCT 5 1935 Anheuser Busch awards
cash prizes for new instruments to five municipal bands in Iowa who turn in
the most Budweiser bottle caps in a contest sponsored by KRNT/Des Moines
over the protests of temperance groups.
OCT 5 1936 FCC
begins reallocation hearings in Washington attended by over 250
representatives of networks and stations.
OCT 5 1936
Ford again pays Major League Baseball $100,000 for broadcast rights and
sponsors the New York Giants vs. Yankees World Series on all networks.
OCT 5 1936 Lever Brothers buys pre-game and post game
spots over CBS stations on World Series opening day to plug that evening’s
Lux Radio Theater adptation of the baseball comedy Elmer The Great with
Joe E. Brown. (See
Lux...Presents Hollywood!)
OCT 5 1936
KHQ/Spokane begins construction of its new 793 foot transmitter tower, the
tallest un-guyed tower in the world.
OCT 5 1936 The
first coaxial cable is installed between New York and Philadelphia.
OCT 5 1937 MGM balks at Kate Smith’s asking price of
$12,500 a week in its search for Marie Dressler’s successor.
OCT
5 1939 FCC officials express immediate and vehement resentment
toward a Fortune magazine charge that it conspired with equipment
manufacturers, patent holders and broadcasters to retard the technology’s
advancement.
OCT 5 1939 After four years on NBC, Parks
Johnson and Wally Butterworth move their Vox Pop interview show to
CBS for the next eight seasons. (See Monday's
All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 5 1939 A
non-broadcast performance of Dr. I.Q. with Lew Valentine draws a
capacity audience of 9,000 at the Omaha Municipal Auditorium. (See
Dr. I.Q.)
OCT 5 1940 Philco televises the football game between
Pennsylvania and Maryland from Philadelphia’s Franklin Field on experimental
station W3XE to a downtown hotel where it’s viewed by the press on a nine by
seven inch screen.
OCT 5 1941 NBC allows
transcriptions of its Jack Benny Program to be used for West Coast delayed
broadcasts - but only on its Blue Network affiliates. (See
Benny’s Double
Plays.)
OCT 5 1941 Jack Benny and
Eddie Cantor headline an all-star cast at the It’s Fun To Be Free
patriotic rally attended by 17,000 at New York City’s Madison Square Garden.
OCT 5 1942 The AFM bans NBC’s transcribed rebroadcasts of
Jack Benny’s show and Duffy’s Tavern on the West Coast. (See
The Late
Shift.)
OCT 5 1942 Plough, Inc.,
buys six hours a week on the newly formed ten station Atlantic Coast Network
including WNEW/New York City, WPEN/Philadelphia, WWDC/Washington and
WFBR/Baltimore.
OCT 5 1942 Standard Brands revives
weekday serial The O’Neills for an encore season on NBC. (See
Soft Soap & Hard Sell.)
OCT 5 1943
Gillette pays $100,000 to a charity pool designated by Major League
Baseball for broadcast rights to the New York Yankees vs. St. Louis
Cardinals World Series on Mutual and also shortwaved to Europe and Latin
America.
OCT 5 1943 The War Department allows Army Private Mel Allen to
join Red Barber in Mutual’s coverage of the World Series.
OCT 5 1943
BBC begins daily reports of the World Series narrated by Mutual’s Don
Dunphy on its shortwave stations for the benefit of U.S. Armed Forces
personnel stationed overseas.
OCT 5 1943
Newspaper drama Big Town begins its second run. Edward Pawley
replaces Edward G. Robinson in the lead role for the next ten seasons on CBS
and NBC. (See
Big Big Town and
Tuesday's All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 5 1943
President Roosevelt opens the National War Fund campaign with a
five minute speech broadcast by the four networks and most independent
stations.
OCT 5 1944 America’s Town Meeting on Blue becomes a one
time simulcast when produced and televised at WRGB(TV)/Schenectady.
OCT 5 1945
Producers Martha Roundtree and Lawrence Spivak introduce Meet The Press
on Mutual, “…to show how press conferences really work.”
OCT 5 1945
Musicians union boss Petrillo threatens to continue pulling members from
network broadcasts if disputes aren’t settled with NBC affiliate
WAPO/Chattanooga and CBS affiliate WRBL/Columbus, Georgia. (See
Petrillo!)
OCT 5 1946 Roy
Rogers, Dale Evans and Gabby Hayes begin a 26 week run on NBC replacing
The National Barn Dance.
OCT 5 1947
A three way circuit is employed as Jack Benny in Hollywood and Fred Allen
in New York participate in ABC’s Quiz Kids program originating from
Chicago. (See
The Quiz Kids.)
OCT 5 1947
The hour-long Ford Theater hosted by Howard Lindsay debuts on NBC
at 5:00 p,m. representing a $1.5 Million investment by the automaker in
film, stage and book dramatizations.
OCT 5 1947
Doctors allow comic actress Minerva Pious, suffering from bronchial
pneumonia, to perform her role as Mrs. Pansy Neusbaum on the
Fred Allen Show if accompanied by a nurse.
OCT 5 1947
President Truman appears in the first telecast from the White House
addressing the nation on food conservation. The broadcast is relayed to
stations in Washington, New York City, Philadelphia and Schenectady.
OCT 5 1948
Reversing past policy, the FCC denies Special Temporary Authorizations
to daytime-only stations to operate past sunset on Election Night.
OCT 5 1949
FM inventor Edwin Armstrong applies to the FCC to increase the power of his
WFMN/Alpine, New Jersey to 100,000 watts, enabling his station to cover New
York City.
OCT 5 1949 Groucho Marx takes his You Bet Your Life
comedy quiz from ABC to CBS. (See
Network Jumpers
and Wednesday’s
All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 5 1949
DuMont feeds its telecast of the World Series to 49 stations which accepted
sponsor Gillette’s proposal to broadcast the games at no charge. Mutual
lines up 695 stations for its radio coverage of the Series.
OCT 5 1949
Dr. Allen DuMont of DuMont Laboratories predicts that color television will
not be commercially available for ten to 20 years. (See
Dr.
DuMont’s Predictions.)
OCT 5 1950
Groucho Marx begins his eleven season run of 202 episodes of You Bet
Your Life on NBC-TV. (See
The
One, The Only…Groucho! and
A John
Guedel Production.)
OCT 5 1951
Senior NBC commentator Richard Harkness urges the Truman adminis-tration to
assure the press that the World War II Office of Censorship would not be
revived for the Korean War.
OCT 5 1951
NBC announces its intent to add 100 to 200 new radio affiliates and
restructures its rates to allow advertisers more flexibility in selecting
the stations to be used for their programs.
OCT 5 1951
Bandleader Sammy Kaye’s two volume Sunday Serenade Books of Poetry
- based on his weekly ABC program - is reported to have sold 250,000 copies
for $750,000.
OCT 5 1952 Inner Sanctum Mysteries leaves the
air after eight multi-network seasons. (See
Inner Sanctum and
Monday's
All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 5 1952 Walter Winchell
brings his Sunday night Journal to ABC-TV and registers a 14.2
Trendex rating against the 9.2 scored by Edward R. Murrow’s See It Now
on CBS-TV. (See
Walter
Winchell.)
OCT 5 1953 ABC’s
Pyramid Plan, the CBS Power Plan, Mutual’s
Multi-Message Plan and NBC’s Tandem Plan all are reported
successful in convincing advertisers to buy participating spots in Network
Radio programs.
OCT 5 1953 Mutual research estimates 27½ million homes
were tuned to one or more of its World Series broadcasts and NBC-TV claims
25 million homes watched its coverage of each game.
OCT 5 1953 Fibber
McGee & Molly and Can You Top This? are converted by NBC to 15
minute strip shows, broadcast as a block on Monday through Friday nights
from 10:00 to 10:30.
OCT 5 1953
NBC introduces The Three Plan, offering participation spots on
three of its quarter-hour weekday shows, Second Chance, It Pays To Be
Married and Fibber McGee & Molly for as low as $2,000.
OCT 5 1953
Forty CBS affiliates lose the last seven minutes of Suspense when
master control at WTOP/Washington suffers a blackout. (See
Sus…pense! and
Thursday's All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 5 1953
ABC introduces two 15 minute serials on weeknights, Hollywood Starway
and Mike Malloy, Detective.
OCT 6 1924 The third National Radio
Conference is convened in Washington, D.C.
OCT 6 1930 Both CBS and NBC announce the
banning of phonograph records from network broadcast.
OCT 6 1932
Maxwell House Showboat opens its successful five year run on NBC’s
Thursday schedule. (See
Thursday’s All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 6 1937
Ford’s refusal to renew its sponsorship agreement with Major League
Baseball forces the four networks to broadcast the World Series games as
sustaining programs.
OCT 6 1937
Dave Elman’s Hobby Lobby moves from WOR/New York City to CBS,
beginning its sporadic 13 year multi-network run.
OCT 6 1937
Colgate-Palmolive-Peet cancels Beauty Box Theater after four
multi-network seasons, two in the Annual Top Ten.
OCT 6 1937 Variety
reports that CBS, NBC and Blue produce 64 shows a week for studio audiences
in New York City with a combined free ticket count of 70,000.
OCT 6 1940 General
Foods reduces seven local stations from Jack Benny’s 1940-41 lineup,
claiming that the markets affected are sufficiently covered by high powered
NBC affiliates in the region. (See Sunday
At Seven.)
OCT 6 1940
Listener “whodunit” calls flood WJR/Detroit when a line failure blocks the
climax of The Helen Hayes Theater mystery, Love From A Stranger
on CBS, forcing the station to obtain the play’s conclusion via teletype to
satisfy the callers‘ questions.
OCT 6 1940
Columnist Dorothy Thompson begins a series of Sunday night 15 minute co-op
commentaries on Mutual.
OCT 6 1941
AFM boss James Petrillo prohibits dance bands from late night remotes on
Blue in retaliation for NBC’s cancellation of remotes. NBC and Blue
temporarily share the same affiliate produced programs after 11:30 p.m.
OCT 6 1941
Despite reported threats from the AFM, the non-union Royal Canadian Air
Force Band begins a series of bi-weekly concerts on the Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation network. (See
Petrillo!)
OCT 6 1941
Time magazine admits its August error in claiming a radio loss of
audience based on Crossley and Hooper survey data. (See Radio's
Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
OCT 6 1942 Kate
Smith makes 30 appearances on CBS owned WABC/New York City from 6:00 a.m.
until 2:00 a.m. the following morning and sells $2 Million in U.S. War
Bonds. (See
Kate's
Great Song and
Friday's
All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 6 1942
Suspenseful series Lights Out which left NBC in 1939, begins a
year’s run on CBS Thursday nights. (See
Lights Out.)
OCT 6 1942
A Spanish version of Blue’s crime drama Counterspy begins a
Thursday shortwave schedule for rebroadcast by Latin American stations to
demonstrate anti-espionage activities in the United States.
OCT 6 1943
Paul W. Kresten, 45, General Manager of CBS, is named its Executive Vice
President.
OCT 6 1943 NBC announces its eight year old rule prohibiting NBC
staff announcers from performing commercials on Blue and vice-versa will be
strictly enforced when the FCC approves the sale of Blue to Edward Noble.
OCT 6 1944
FCC proposes a rule requiring “complete” sponsor identification at the
beginning and end of all “non-political” programs distributed on
transcription free of charge to stations by political groups.
OCT 6 1945 Meet
The Press co-creator Martha Roundtree introduces Leave It To The
Girls on Mutual for a four season run.
OCT 6 1945 Truth
Or Consequences reunites contestants via shortwave radio with family
members and sweethearts serving in the Armed Forces in Japan with a hookup
to AFRS facilities in Tokyo. (See
Truth
Or Consequences and
Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 6 1945
Danny Kaye leaves his CBS show for a European tour and guest hosts
substitute in his six week absence: Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Jack Benny,
Burns & Allen, Easy Aces and Ed Gardner.
OCT 6 1946
Gillette pays $175,000 plus line charges for the Cardinals vs. Red Sox World
Series on Mutual which causes a firestorm of criticism aimed at the
announcers chosen by Commissioner Happy Chandler, Jim Britt and Arch
McDonald.
OCT 6 1946 The Incomparable Hildegarde leaves NBC’s
Raleigh Room to host The Campbell Room for six months on CBS.
OCT 6 1947
The CBS weekday afternoon quiz Winner Take All is offered to
affiliates as a co-op program.
OCT 6 1947
Mutual claims its full network coverage of the World Series augmented by 50
independent stations and a 64 Canadian stations reached over 30 million
listeners, scoring a seven day average rating of 36.7.
OCT 6 1947
FM inventor Edwin Armstrong files a brief with the FCC charging that the
Commission and RCA colluded to hold back the growth of FM.
OCT 6 1948
Gillette pays a record $600,000 for radio and television rights to the
Boston Braves vs. Cleveland Indians World Series.
OCT 6 1948 The
World Series is again made available to all television stations with access
to AT&T network connections - but games in Cleveland are limited to seven
cities on its Midwest network and games in Boston are only seen in the eight
cities on its East Coast network.
OCT 6 1948 Adolphe
Menjou hosts the inaugural five hour program on KFI-TV/Los Angeles debuting
on Channel 9.
OCT 6 1949 CBS, led by inventor Dr. Peter Goldmark,
officially demonstrates its color television system to the FCC.
OCT 6 1950 Arthur
Godfrey hosts General Dwight Eisenhower in a one-time special CBS program,
Crusade For Freedom. (See
Arthur
Godfrey.)
OCT 6 1950 FCC
proposes its first “anti-monopoly” ruling since 1942 in limiting any
television network from dominating programming in markets with less than
four stations
OCT 6 1951 NBC premieres Talent Search - Country
Style for a 13 week Saturday night run.
OCT 6 1951 WSM/Nashville
reports one announcement on its Grand Ole Opry offering a free
picture of singer Jimmy Dickens received 24,964 responses from 31 states.
(See
Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 6 1951
For the first time in its ten year history Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI)
places five songs in Billboard’s Top Ten, led by Because of
You, I Get Ideas and Cold, Cold Heart in the top three
positions.
OCT 6 1952 Bert Parks brings Double Or Nothing to CBS-TV
on Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons while Walter O”Keefe remains host
of the show’s radio version on NBC.
OCT 6 1953
Frank Sinatra opens a 26 week run as adventurer Rocky Fortune on
NBC.
OCT 7 1922 The first
chain broadcast is made via telegraph lines between WJZ/New York City and
WGY/Schenectady - the fourth game of the World Series in which the New York
Giants defeated the New York Yankees, 4 to 3.
OCT 7 1932
Protests are filed with the State Department over Mexico’s granting 500,000
watts to border station XER/Villa Acuna controlled by infamous “goat gland
doctor” John Brinkley.
OCT 7 1934
Eddie Cantor begins the final eight weeks of his contract to host NBC’s
highly rated Chase & Sanborn Hour before switching sponsors and
networks. (See
Network Jumpers and The
1934-35 Season.)
OCT 7 1934 The
Ford Sunday Evening Hour of classical concerts begins its eight season
run on CBS.
OCT 7 1935 NBC replaces its four daily Press-Radio
reports on its seven owned and operated stations east of the Mississipi with
newscasts using United Press material and sponsored by Standard Oil of New
Jersey aka Esso. (See
The
Press-Radio Bureau.)
OCT 7 1935
Procter & Gamble begins to trade transcriptions of its serial, Ma
Perkins, to small market stations in isolated areas for the time
required to broadcast them every weekday. (See
Soft Soap
& Hard Sell.)
OCT 7 1938
Hearst Radio sells WINS/New York City to advertising executive Milton Biow
for $200,000 pending FCC approval.
OCT 7 1939 Stop
Me If You’ve Heard This One starts five month run on NBC with host
Milton Berle. The short lived show is forerunner to the long-running
Can You Top This? (See
Can You Top
This?)
OCT 7 1940
General Foods introduces its weekday serial Portia Faces Life for
its eleven season run alternating between CBS and NBC. (See
Soft Soap
& Hard Sell.)
OCT 7 1940
Over 1,500 Texas schools endorse the weekday 15 minute Texas School of
The Air, produced by the state’s Education Department and broadcast by
WFAA/Dallas, KPRC/Houston, WBAP/Fort Worth and WOAI/San Antonio.
OCT 7 1941
Red Skelton, 28, begins his 12 year multi-network run in NBC’s highly rated
Tuesday night lineup. (See
Tuesday’s All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 7 1941
Lever Brothers introduces its Swan Soap in the premiere of the new Burns &
Allen sitcom format on NBC identifying the couple as husband and wife. (See
Network
Jumpers and
Wednesday's All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 7 1941 Leopold
Stokowski, 59, begins an eight week contract to conduct the NBC Symphony’s
Tuesday broadcasts on Blue while continuing his guest appearances as
conductor of the New York Philharmonic’s Sunday broadcasts on CBS.
OCT 7 1942 CBS introduces The Man Behind The Gun
for an 18 month run profiling American troops using U.S. manufactured
weapons at war.
OCT 7 1943 FCC Chairman James Fly
publicly criticizes the CBS decision to keep opinions out of its newscasts.
OCT 7 1943 AFRA protests the CBS and Blue Network
performances of the Blue Jacket Choir of 50 non-union Navy sailors
from Great Lakes Naval Training Station.
OCT 7 1945
FCC closes applications for new FM stations.
OCT 7 1945
AFM boss James Petrillo forbids a union organist from playing on a
televised Rosh Hashana religious service in Chicago because it would break
his “no television” rule. (See
Petrillo!)
OCT 7 1945 NBC pre-empts an hour of its afternoon
programming for The Parade of Stars promoting its fall lineup.
OCT 7 1945 CBS debuts Request Performance -
similar to AFRS’ Command Perfor-mance - with the cooperation of the
Masquers Club of show business personalities. (See
Command
Performance.)
OCT 7 1945 AFM’s
Petrillo pulls union musicians from The Prudential Family Hour
forcing cancellation of the CBS show because of disputes with CBS affiliates
in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Albany and Columbus, Georgia. (See
Petrillo!)
OCT 7 1945 After four seasons on CBS and a year’s
sabbatical, Fred Allen returns to NBC and to the Annual Top Ten for the
first time since 1938. (See
Sunday’s
All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 7 1946 The
Soviet Union denies use of its shortwave facilities to U.S. Network Radio
correspondents for direct reports from Moscow.
OCT 7 1947
C.E. Hooper releases its television viewership estimates for the 1947 World
Series seen in New York, Philadelphia, Washington and Schenectady - 447,587
viewers in homes, 3,514,749 viewers in bars.
OCT 7 1948
ABC purchases the 20 acre Vitagraph Studios lot in Hollywood from
Warner Brothers as the future site for its West Coast radio and television
operations.
OCT 7 1949 Niles Trammell, 55, President
of NBC since 1940, becomes Board Chairman of the network replacing David
Sarnoff who remains Chairman of RCA. Trammell is succeeded by NBC Vice
President Joseph McConnell, 43.
OCT 7 1949 Illinois
Congressman Noah Mason vows to close the tax loophole that allows Ed Gardner
to record NBC’s Duffy’s Tavern in Puerto Rico and evade U.S.
taxes. (See
Duffy Ain’t Here.)
OCT 7 1949
KVI/Seattle goes off the air for seven hours when its IBEW engineers walk
out on strike.
OCT 7 1949 Gillette and NBC-TV carry
the World Championship Rodeo from Madison Square Garden for three
weeks instead of their normal Friday Night Fights from the arena.
OCT 7 1950 Sing It Again, a CBS Saturday night
feature for two seasons, begins a simulcast schedule on CBS-TV.
OCT 7 1952 Mutual claims an average of 22½ million homes tuned to
its broadcasts of the World Series.
OCT 7 1952
Lorillard’s Old Gold cigarettes debuts the edited week-old audio of its
NBC-TV quiz show Two For The Money starring Herb Shriner on NBC
Radio.
OCT 7 1952 CBS-TV
introduces the short-lived sitcom, Leave It To Larry starring Eddie
Albert, which critics universally pan.
OCT 8 1932 University
of Southern California tells Los Angeles stations that only those
“recommended by newspapers” will be allowed to broadcast its football
games.
OCT 8 1933 Joe Penner, 29, begins his seven
year multi-network run on Blue with Fleischmann Yeast ‘s Bakers
Broadcast. (See The
1933-34 Season.)
OCT 8 1934 CBS and
NBC install teletype machines at Chicago daily newspapers for the prompt
delivery of network program changes and press releases.
OCT
8 1935 Future sitcom stars - bandleader Ozzie Nelson, 29, and his
band’s vocalist, Harriet Hilliard, 26, are married. (See Ozzie
& Harriet and
Friday's
All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 8 1937 Dramatic
anthology Grand Central Station debuts on Blue and begins its
multi-network run spanning 17 years.
OCT 8 1937 The
Pennsylvania Supreme Court upholds a lower court ruling in the case of
Fred Waring vs. WDAS/Philadelphia and rules that a radio station can’t
play an artist’s phonograph records without permission.
OCT
8 1937 A variation of Bingo broadcast on WTHT/Hartford
attracts a sudden rush of 27,000 calls in 15 minutes, overloads the city’s
phone system and temporarily knocks it out of commission.
OCT
8 1939 Bill Stern begins The Colgate Sports Newsreel’s twelve
year multi-network run on Blue. (See Bill
Stern.)
OCT 8 1939 The weekly 15
minute sitcom, The Parker Family, starts its five season run on
Blue.
OCT 8 1939 Tenor/comedian Dennis Day replaces
Kenny Baker in Jack Benny’s cast.
OCT 8 1941 Scores of
NBC employees are temporarily denied permission to enter the network’s New
York City headquarters when a “bomb scare” causes NBC pages to require
network issued identification cards for entrance.
OCT 8 1941 Standard
Brands signs comics Bud Abbott & Lou Costello to appear in skits on NBC’s Chase
& Sanborn Hour for a reported $1,800 per broadcast.
OCT
8 1942 OWI Director Elmer Davis estimates that radio’s
contribution in time to the war effort to date - at 1942 commercial rates -
is worth $64.0 Million.
OCT 8 1942 Bud Abbott & Lou
Costello begin their first full season of shows on NBC for R.J. Reynolds‘
Camel cigarettes.
OCT 8 1942 Transcribed rebroadcast of
NBC’s Rudy Vallee Show on Blue’s 13 Pacific Coast affiliates is
cancelled in reaction to threats by musicians union boss James Petrillo.
(See Petrillo!)
OCT 8 1942 Ten year old KXKX/Kansas City, (fka KITE),
suspends operations and leaves the air.
OCT 8 1943 A
New York jury awards Grombach Productions $13,000 in its suit against Fred
Waring, Grove Laboratories and Stack-Gobel Advertising for stealing the
program concept Your Song.
OCT 8 1943 Walter
Winchell declines an invitation to debate CBS News Director Paul W. White
over the CBS “un-opinionated” newscast policy. (See Walter
Winchell.)
OCT 8 1943 After 14 years
in daily 15 minute serial form, Amos & Andy is reintroduced on NBC
as a weekly half hour sitcom. (See Multiple
Runs All Time Top Ten and
Sunday’s
All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 8 1943 Jimmy
Durante, 50, and Garry Moore, 28, are rewarded by sponsor Camel cigarettes
for their seven months of substituting for Abbott & Costello - with their
own series on CBS for three seasons. (See Goodnight,
Mr. Durante.)
OCT 8 1944 WOR/New
York City carries joke book king Joe Miller’s 229th birthday party attended
by 200 guests at the Park Lane Hotel, hosted by former Mayor Jimmy Walker
and the cast of Can You Top This? beginning at 12:30 a.m. (See Can
You Top This?)
OCT 8 1944 The
networks interrupt programs to announce the death of 52 year old Wendell
Willke, 1940 Republican Presidential candidate.
OCT 8 1944 The
Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet (Nelson) opens on the CBS Sunday
schedule, beginning a ten year multi-network run. (See Ozzie
& Harriet and Friday’s
All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 8 1944 American
Tobacco pays an additional $12,000 in talent fees, studio charges and line
costs to bring in Frank Sinatra and Alex Stordahl’s orchestra from New York
to guest on Jack Benny’s Hollywood based show. (See Lucky
Gets Benny.)
OCT 8 1945 Casts of the
CBS interview show Vox Pop and Kay Kyser’s College of Musical
Knowledge from NBC arrive in Annapolis for broadcasts celebrating the
U.S. Naval Academy’s 100th Anniversary.
OCT 8 1945
Bing Crosby declines a General Motors offer of $25,000 a week to headline
an NBC half-hour on Sundays at 5:30 p.m.
OCT 8 1946 ABC,
CBS, Mutual and NBC interrupt regular programming throughout the day to
report verdicts from the Nuremberg War Crimes trials.
OCT 8 1947 FCC
Chairman Charles Denny resigns to become Vice President and General Counsel
of NBC.
OCT 8 1948 Mutual President Ed Kobak tells the
FCC that giveaway programs that “bribe” listeners to listen instead
of entertaining them, “Are not good for radio.”
OCT
8 1948 After a year on NBC’s Sunday afternoon schedule, the
prestigious Ford Theater moves to CBS on Friday nights with a
premiere adaptation of Madame Bovary starring Marlene Dietrich,
Claude Rains and Van Hefflin.
OCT 8 1948 NBC debuts its
highly promoted two hour block of Friday night comedy shows starring Jimmy
Durante, Eddie Cantor, Red Skelton and William Bendix in The Life of
Riley.
OCT 8 1951 To avoid a Justice Department
complaint, Major League Baseball drops its “territorial” rules and
relinquishes individual control of radio and television rights to each of
its teams.
OCT 8 1951 Coca-Cola moves its four-month
old Mario Lanza Show from CBS to NBC for a one season run.
OCT 8 1951 Mormon owners of KSL-TV/Salt Lake City refuse
to air the CBS programs with beer sponsors: Amos & Andy, Schlitz
Playhouse of Stars, The Ken Murray Show and Pabst Wednesday Night
Fights.
OCT 8 1952 FCC refuses the Democratic
party’s request to investigate Republicans‘ broadcast advertising blitz for
the Eisenhower presidential campaign.
OCT 8 1952 The
National Television System Committee, (NTSC), tells the Society of Motion
Picture & Television Engineers’, (SMPTE), convention that it will unveil a
successful compatible color television system in 1953.
OCT
8 1952 NBC executive Ted Cott predicts that 700 radio stations
will be “...chased off the air” by television.
OCT
8 1953 Nigel Bruce, famous as Dr. John Watson in Sherlock
Holmes movies and radio mysteries, dies at 58. (See
Sherlock Holmes.)
OCT 9 1933 NBC begins its month long move to its new
ten story, 100,000 sq. foot headquarters at Radio City.
OCT
9 1935 DuPont Chemical’s historical series Cavalcade of
America begins four seasons on CBS before moving to NBC for another 13
seasons. (See
The Cavalcade
of America.)
OCT 9 1937 Movie comedian
Jack Haley begins his successful six year Network Radio career.
OCT 9 1937 Censured by his superiors, Detroit priest Charles
Coughlin cancels plans to resume his Sunday afternoon series of sermons on
an independent network of 36 stations. (See Father
Coughlin.)
OCT 9 1939
CBS correspondent Bill Henry and Mutual’s Arthur Mann of Mutual become the
first reporters to leave England to cover World War II in France.
OCT 9 1939 Singer Kate Smith begins her 15 minute weekday
commentary/interview program, Kate Smith Speaks. The noontime
program runs for eight seasons on CBS followed by four seasons on Mutual.
OCT 9 1939 CBS moves its weekday educational half-hour American
School of The Air from 2:30 p.m. to 9:15 a.m. with instructions that
its affiliates may record it for broadcast at “...more convenient times.”
OCT 9 1939 Veteran network singer Lanny Ross, 33, opens
his three year series of weeknight Multiple Run shows on CBS.
OCT
9 1939 Supporters of Detroit priest Charles Coughlin claim that
the NAB’s ban against him is ineffective because it doesn’t apply to paid
programs already under contract to stations. (See Father
Coughlin.)
OCT 9 1939 A.C.
Nielsen is reported to be field testing its new Audimeter listener
polling device in 200 Midwest homes. (See
Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
OCT 9 1941 NBC establishes a strict visitor’s pass policy for
technical operations areas of its network headquarters to prevent sabotage.
OCT 9 1941 NBC relaxes its ban against recorded elements,
war scenes and actors impersonating world leaders as The March of Time returns
to its Blue network after a two year hiatus. The network also agrees to
transcribe each week’s program for rebroadcast on GE shortwave stations
WGEO/Schenectady and KGEI/San Francisco. (See
The March of
Time.)
OCT 9 1942 RKO releases Here
We Go Again! the sequel to its earlier hit, Look Who’s Laughing,
with NBC's Edgar Bergen, Jim & Marian Jordan as Fibber McGee & Molly and
Hal Peary as Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve.(See
Radio
Goes To The Movies.)
OCT 9 1942 NBC
commentator Bill Henry leaves for the South Pacific on assignment for The
Los Angeles Times.
OCT 9 1942 Mutual commentator
Fulton Lewis, Jr., addresses 1,200 at the dedication of WPDQ/Jacksonville on
the subject, Are We Winning The War?
OCT 9 1943 Capitol
Records follows Decca’s lead and agrees to the AFM's terms of a half-cent
royalty per disc to end the recording ban against it. (See Petrillo!)
OCT 9 1944 FCC approves the sale of two Arde Bulova
stations, WCOP/Boston and WNBC/Hartford, for $425,000.
OCT
9 1944 Time, Inc., owner of 12.5% of the Blue Network’s stock,
moves its March of Time from NBC to Blue. (See
The March of
Time.)
OCT 9 1944 W.E. Macfarlane, Mutual Board Chairman and the network’s
first President, (duties he performed as Business Manager of The Chicago
Tribune), dies of a heart attack at age 60.
OCT 9 1946 Former
AFRS newscaster Gordon McLendon, 25, and his father apply for a new station
in the Dallas suburb of Oak Cliff which will eventually become the Liberty
network’s anchor station, KLIF. (See
Top 40
Radio's Roots.)
OCT 9 1948 Philco
installs a home television set in a Capital Airlines DC-4 airliner and 44
passengers see the complete Game 4 of the World Series from stations along
their route from Washington, D.C. to Chicago.
OCT 9 1948 Inaugural
program for ABC owned WXYZ-TV/Detroit headlined by Georgie Price, Paul
Whiteman and Frances Langford, is networked to five Midwest stations
affiliated with ABC-TV.
OCT 9 1950 Commentator Mary
Margaret McBride leaves NBC after nine years to join ABC.
OCT 9 1951 RCA begins ten
days of public demonstrations of its color television system in New York
City and Washington, D.C.
OCT 10 1923 WEAF/New York
City feeds its World Series broadcasts by wire to WGY/Schenectady.
OCT 10 1932 Frank & Anne Hummert’s soap opera Betty
And Bob begins its eight year multi-network run for sponsor General
Mills. (See
Soft Soap
& Hard Sell.)
OCT 10 1932 Variety divulges
the weekly salaries of Network Radio’s top singers - Kate Smith commands
$7,500, Rudy Vallee, Ruth Etting and Morton Downey each make $4,500 and Bing
Crosby earns $3,000.
OCT 10 1933 WGN/Chicago begins
feeding its weekday soap opera Painted Dreams to CBS as well as
supplying Little Orphan Annie, The Singing Lady and Clara, Lu &
Em to NBC.
OCT 10 1934 FCC adopts its Regional
Station Quota System to allocate station grants based on state
populations.
OCT 10 1936 CBS announces the purchase of
a city block at Sunset and Gower in Hollywood to house its West Coast
headquarters and KNX/Los Angeles.
OCT 10 1936 FDR’s
mid-term election speech on CBS, Mutual and NBC draws a 24.6 CAB rating.
(See
Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
OCT 10 1937 KOL/Seattle switches from CBS to Don Lee/Mutual on
short notice and KIRO picks up the CBS affiliation with no loss of network
programs while KVI/Tacoma remains the market’s second CBS affiliate. (See Three
Letter Calls.)
OCT 10 1939 The
Aldrich Family begins its successful 13 year multi-network run on Blue.
(See The
Aldrich Family and
Thursday's All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 10 1939
CBS gives The Los Angeles Times free use of its shortwave
connection to the European War Zone for correspondent Bill Henry’s daily
reports and receives print credit for Henry’s dispatches on KNX in return.
OCT 10 1940 BMI announces its catalog of non-ASCAP songs
has grown to 240,000 titles.
OCT 10 1941 Gangbusters begins
a new season on Blue with network orders that it cannot deal with any
espionage or sabotage crimes. (See
Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 10 1942 NBC
uses three control rooms to manage three simultaneous live perform-ances of
Edna St Vincent Millay‘s narrative, The Murder of Lidice,
accompanied by the NBC Symphony, broadcast in English for network audiences
plus Spanish and Portuguese for shortwave listeners in Latin and South
America.
OCT 10 1943 Sponsor Serutan laxative
increases the size of the Blue Network for Drew Pearson’s Sunday evening
commentaries from 55 to 110 affiliates. (See Nets
To Order.)
OCT 10 1943 Frank
Sinatra’s Broadway Bandbox moves from Monday to Sunday on CBS
opposite Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy on NBC and is gone after three
broadcasts.
OCT 10 1944 AFM boss Petrillo rejects
President Roosevelt’s request to end the two year recording strike. (See Petrillo!)
OCT 10 1944 DuMont Laboratories offers 225,000 shares of
its stock for sale at $7.37 per share to fund increased production of
television transmitting and receiving equipment. (See Dr.
DuMont’s Predictions.)
OCT 10 1945 CBS
successfully broadcasts a 525 line, high-frequency color television signal
in New York City.
OCT 10 1945 New York Congressman
Emanuel Celler introduces a bill to make broad-casting a public utility with
the FCC exercising rigid control over programming and award-ing licenses to
applicants who promise less commercials.
OCT 10 1945 WDOD/Chattanooga
yields to pressure and hires seven union musicians for non-existent jobs.
(See Petrillo!)
OCT 10 1946 FCC denies The Press Wireless Service use of
domestic shortwave facilities to transmit program material to its client
stations.
OCT 10 1948 Standard Oil of New Jersey pays
$1.2 Million to sponsor the New York Philharmonic’s Sunday afternoon season
of 90 minute concerts on CBS.
OCT 10 1948 Amos &
Andy, the first headliners recruited in Bill Paley’s “talent raid” on
NBC, premiere on CBS. (See
Network Jumpers, Sunday's
All Time Top Ten and
Multiple Runs All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 10 1949 RCA’s
demonstration of its compatible color television system before the FCC is
termed “disappointing” - complicated by the late arrival and setup
of equipment.
OCT 10 1949 CBS-TV makes its weekday
period from 4:00 to 5:30 p.m. available for participating sponsors similar
to an earlier move by NBC for three hours every Saturday evening.
OCT 10 1951 Mystery series The Casebook of Gregory
Hood is cancelled after four multi-network seasons.
OCT 10 1951 FCC permits
Paramount Pictures to test Juke Box Television - a pay TV system
using a coin operated device to unscramble video pictures - for 90 overnight
periods on its KTLA(TV)/Los Angeles.
OCT 10 1952
Signifying the growing use of filmed programs for television, 32 production
companies report the filming of 41 shows for the networks and syndication.
OCT 10 1952 The
television version of CBS’s Life With Luigi creates controversy
among Italian-American groups for creating “unsympathetic”
stereotypes. (Life
With Luigi and
Tuesday's All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 10 1953 NBC
introduces the quiz show Know Your NBC’s, challenging contestants
on their knowledge of the radio network’s programs and personalities.
OCT 10 1953 Liggett & Myers boasts that its Chesterfield
cigarettes sponsored Dragnet theme song is a big enough hit to be
played on Your Hit Parade, sponsored by competitor American
Tobacco’s Lucky Strike. (See
Jack
Webb's Dragnet and Smoke
Gets In Your Ears.)
OCT 11 1931 The American
Album of Familiar Music begins its 19 year run on
NBC followed by a 20th encore season on ABC. (See Gus Haenschen
on this site.)
OCT 11 1932 Helen
Morgan, Willie & Eugene Howard and Leon Janney headline CBS
Talkies of The Air a two hour demonstration of inventor Elmer Myers’
“cold light” television production process, transmitted to a single 26-inch
tube receiver by CBS experimental station W2XAB/New York City.
OCT 11 1933 Over network objections the NAB convention votes to
petition the FRC to adopt a shortened statement required to identify all
transcribed program elements and phonograph records.
OCT 11 1935
A spanner wrench used in aircraft is found on the grounds of WNEW’s
transmitter in Carlstadt, New Jersey, and believed to have been dropped from
a plane, breaking the 300 pound red beacon atop the station’s 424 foot
tower.
OCT 11 1937 Calling AFRA, “..a union of no
importance,” Chicago AFM local president James Petrillo enrolls 28 CBS
employees and aims to organize all announcers, producers and sound effects
men as AFM associate members. (See Petrillo!)
OCT 11 1939 Kate Smith & Ted Collins file a $100,000 suit
for unauthorized use of her name against The Smith Company, manufacturers of
lingerie sold as Kate Smith Stouts.
OCT 11 1941
FCC votes 4-2 to ban network option time beginning November 15 - both CBS
and NBC plan to protest.
OCT 11 1943 Bob Hope appears
on NBC’s Cavalcade of America to report on his recent trip
entertaining troops in England, Africa, Sicily and Iceland. (See
Hope From Home.)
OCT 11 1944 Muzak
proposes to the FCC allocation hearings the establishment of three FM
channels for its non-commercial, “nickel a day”, subscription
service offering classical music, pop music and talk programs.
OCT 11 1944 NBC loses the first three minutes of Eddie Cantor’s Time
To Smile remote broadcast from an Army camp when a fuse blows in the
program line.
OCT 11 1945 CBS throws the FCC
television hearings into chaos with its successful demonstration of a
high-frequency color system and the announcement that manufacture of the
system’s components has begun.
OCT 11 1946 Newsman
Don Goddard, fired by NBC in February, sues the network for $78,270 in back
wages from his four lost sponsored programs.
OCT 11 1946 NABET
engineers end their 17 day strike against Westinghouse stations and settle
for a $7 a week raise.
OCT 11 1947 The Joan Davis
Show becomes the first variety show offered by CBS for local co-op
sponsorship.
OCT 11 1948 Arthur Godfrey, 45, announces
that he’s leaving his local morning radio shows on CBS-owned
WTOP/Washington and WCBS/New York City, (that pay him $200,000 annually), to
focus on his CBS network programs. (See Arthur
Godfrey.)
OCT 11 1948 Daytime
serial The Brighter Day begins its eight year multi-network run on
NBC.
OCT 11 1948 Westinghouse fails in its attempt to
link AT&T’s East Coast and Midwest television networks for the final World
Series game in Boston using its B-29 Stratovision plane flying over
Pennsylvania and trying to connect with WEWS(TV)/Cleveland.
OCT
11 1948 The U.S. Supreme Court refuses to hear the case of
WSAY/Rochester, New York against the ABC and Mutual networks which
affiliated with the station’s com-petitors rather than sell programs to WSAY
on an ala carte basis.
OCT 11 1949 Sponsor Lever
Brothers allows Bob Hope to pre-record his NBC show on an experimental
basis. (See
Tuesday's All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 11 1949 WOR-TV/New
York City goes on the air over Channel 9 with a two hour daily schedule.
OCT 11 1950 Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt
celebrates her 66th birthday by beginning a 45 minute weekday talk show on
WNBC/New York City with guests David Sarnoff and Fred Allen.
OCT
11 1950 By a 5-2 vote the FCC reaffirms its decision favoring the
CBS system of color television technology effective November 20 - RCA
promptly files suit against the decision in federal court.
OCT
11 1950 CBS signs Procter & Gamble to sponsor television’s first
weekday soap opera, The First Hundred Years, scheduled for a
December premiere.
OCT 11 1950 A U.S. Army
Psychological Warfare spokesman suggests broadcasting propaganda from guided
missiles over foreign countries.
OCT 11 1951 General
Tire announces plans to merge its Yankee and Don Lee networks with R.H.
Macy’s WOR AM-FM-TV/New York City, which will give it 58% ownership of
Mutual.
OCT 11 1953 After 15 years at 8:00 p.m. on the
NBC and CBS Sunday night schedules, Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy are
moved 90 minutes ahead to 9:30 on CBS.
OCT 12 1932 Goodman
and Jane Ace make an undisclosed cash settlement to Arthur Church, Manager
of KMBC/Kansas City, releasing Easy Aces from the exclusivity
contract that Church held on their program. (See Easy
Aces.)
OCT 12 1933 CBS begins a 13
week contract with General Motors for a mix of 15 minute programs six nights
a week at 9:15 p.m.
OCT 12 1934 Former NBC Vice
President George McClelland, 39, commits suicide with a pistol in his New
York City office.
OCT 12 1934 The CBS Artists Bureau
boosts its commission rate paid by talent for its booking agency services to
20%.
OCT 12 1934 KVOS/Bellingham, Washington, is
reported to have lifted World Series broadcasts off the air from Canada,
broadcast them and inserted local commercials to replace network originated
Ford commercials.
OCT 12 1937 Frank & Anne Hummert’s
mystery melodrama Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons debuts on Blue
as a 15 minute weeknight strip show, beginning five season run before moving
to CBS..
OCT 12 1939 The Music Publishers Protective
Assn. joins the AFM in protesting RCA-Victor and Decca Records’ plans to
charge stations for playing their records.
OCT 12 1940
Cowboy star Tom Mix, 60, dies in a car wreck - but the Blue Network
announces that its weekday kids’ serial, The Tom Mix Ralston Straight
Shooters will continue, “…as a tribute to his memory.” (See
Serials, Cereals & Premiums.)
OCT 12 1940 Crosley
Broadcasting dedicates its new 50,000 watt shortwave station WLWO with a
directional beam toward South America with an effective power of 600,000
watts.
OCT 12 1942 AFM President Petrillo brags, “The
ban stands!” when a Chicago Federal Judge rules against the
government’s anti-trust suit to end the lengthy strike against record and
transcription companies. (See Petrillo!)
OCT 12 1942 NBC and P. Lorillard’s Old Gold cigarettes
donate the winning bid of $71,200 for broadcast rights to the Sgt. Joe Louis
vs. Pvt. Billy Conn Heavyweight Championship fight to the Army Emergency
Relief Fund. The afternoon bout is recorded for shortwave broadcast
later by GE’s WGEA and WGEO/ Schenectady.
OCT 12 1942
British stage and radio star Gracie Fields 44, debuts on U.S. Network Radio
with a nightly five-minute show on Blue.
OCT 12 1942 NBC
introduces Victory Volunteers, a weekday morning patriotic series
featuring casts of its daytime serials in specially written five chapter,
quarter hour dramas.
OCT 12 1942 KODK, a ten watt
station operated by civilians and soldiers based in Kodiak, Alaska, reports
receiving records and transcriptions, “..by the bushels,” after its
appeal to the radio industry for program material.
OCT 12 1942
President Roosevelt’s Fireside Chat on all networks regarding
ships and shipping registers a 55.8 Crossley/CAB rating. (See
Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
OCT 12 1943 FCC approves NBC’s sale of its Blue Network to Edward
Noble for $8.0 Million.
OCT 12 1943 The U.S. Office of
Censorship relaxes its ban on broadcasting weather reports, allowing
government issued forecasts only and restricting mention of barometric
pressure or wind direction.
OC 12 1943 The radio
industry begins a month long promotional tour of 116 cities with sales
presentations touting broadcast advertising to retailers.
OCT 12
1944 The International Ladies Garment Union becomes the first
labor union to buy network time for a political cause - 15 minutes on four
consecutive Thursday nights advocating the re-election of President
Roosevelt.
OCT 12 1945 The NAB complains to that the
FCC's proposed regulation requiring all television stations to broadcast
programs for six hours a day, seven days a week, would be currently
impossible to honor.
OCT 12 1946 C.E. Hooper founding
stockholder and Vice President John Whitridge, 41, drowns near Northport,
Long Island, when his boat overturns in high wind.
OCT 12 1947 Captain
Tom Healy, conductor of early radio’s Stamp Club programs which
claimed as many as 3.0 Million members, dies in a Fort Worth hospital at 56.
OCT 12 1948 Negotiations collapse to end the nine month
AFM strike against record and transcription companies. (See Petrillo!)
OCT 12 1950 Newspaper editorial criticism of the FCC’s
decision favoring the CBS color television system is immediate, estimating
that conversion costs to current set owners would be $500 Million.
OCT 12 1950 George Burns & Gracie Allen begin their eight
season sitcom run on CBS-TV. (See
The 1950-51
Season.)
OCT 12 1951 Congressional action barring use of Government funds
to be used for recruitment forces the Armed Services to cancel a planned
$1.5 Million in radio and television advertising in the 1951-52 season.
OCT 12 1951 FCC majority
declares the National Citizens Advisory Board For Radio & Television proposed
by Connecticut Senator William Benton to be “undesirable” and “involves
the dangers of censorship.”
OCT 12 1951 Arthur
Godfrey establishes a foundation for American University in Washington,
D.C., to give aviation students 35 hours of flying time instruction. (See Arthur
Godfrey.)
OCT 12 1952 Arthur Godfrey hosts the Sunday afternoon
60-minute Red Cross blood appeal, Roll Up Your Sleeves, broadcast
by the four radio networks plus NBC-TV and CBS-TV.
OCT 12 1953 Mutual
approves the delayed broadcast of its nightly half hour adventure shows at
9:30 a.m. by affiliate KSUN/Bisbee, Arizona, because many of the station’s
listeners work overnight shifts in local copper mines.
OCT
13 1934 Detroit broadcaster George Storer opens the American
Broadcasting Sys-tem network in 14 Eastern and Midwest cities anchored by
WMCA/New York, WJJD/ Chicago, WJBK/Detroit, WIP/Philadelphia and
WOL/Washington.
OCT 13 1935 Interview show Vox Pop begins
its 14 year multi-network run.
OCT 13 1937 FCC votes
to abandon its three division structure governing broadcasting, telephone
and telegraph - placing all responsibilities and decisions on the seven
person commission.
OCT 13 1938 NBC slashes rates on
its Blue Network offering discounts up to 20% for complete network coverage.
OCT 13 1938 FCC Chairman Frank McNinch attempts to
exclude Commission staff members from the Civil Service merit system which
would enable him to fire employees.
OCT 13 1939 NBC
appoints retired Brig. Genral Henry Reilly a military correspondent based in
Europe.
OCT 13 1939 The NAB Code Committee condemns
the broadcasts of militant Detroit priest Charles Coughlin and urges the 44
stations carrying his broadcasts to cancel them.
(See Father
Coughlin.)
OCT 13 1939 The NAB Code
Committee cites Elliott Roosevelt’s Mutual commentaries for violations by
expressing controversial opinion.
OCT 13 1939 The
Detroit Street Railway system begins construction of a 250 watt high
frequency station to communicate with its drivers.
OCT 13 1940
Newsmen Drew Pearson and Robert Allen introduce the Government of Brazil as
their new sponsor on Blue with, “…in the event of any trouble in the Far
East, Brazil will be found as always standing shoulder to shoulder with the
United States.”
OCT 13 1941 President Roosevelt
appoints Alabama lawyer Clifford Durr who has no broadcasting experience to
the FCC succeeding Fred Thompson.
OCT 13 1941 NBC
stations in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Pitts-burgh,
Nashville, Cincinnati, Buffalo, Omaha, Hartford, Oklahoma City, Omaha
contribute 38 programs a week replace big band remotes on NBC and Blue.
OCT 13 1942 Veteran actor Roland Young hosts Mutual’s
all-star program, Bundles For America’s Gala Radio Show, to
encourage used clothing donations for needy families during wartime.
OCT 13 1943 The networks broadcast news of Italy’s
declaration of war against Germany with shortwave reports from
correspondents in Algiers.
OCT 13 1943 NBC-owned
KPO/San Francisco goes off the air for 45 minutes after a tractor’s plow
severs the underground cable carrying its signal at its transmitter in
Belmont, California.
OCT 13 1944 Professor Joseph
Maddy, head of the Interlochen Music Camp, blasts the AFM’s chief James
Petrillo at the FCC Allocation Hearings calling him, “…the dictator of
American music.” (See Petrillo!)
OCT 13 1947 WWDC/Washington, D.C., asks the FCC for
permission to broadcast horse race results and betting prices paid -
previously denied by the Commission but broadcast by WWDC competitors WOL,
WEAM and WGAY.
OCT 13 1948 AVCO subsidiary Crosley
Broadcasting files application with the FCC to purchase WHAS/Louisville
from The Louisville Courier-Journal for $1.9 Million.
OCT 13 1948 The International Ladies Garment Workers Union
withdraws it applications for FM stations in Boston, Philadelphia and St.
Louis but proceeds with its stations in New York City, Los Angeles and
Chattanooga.
OCT 13 1949 NBC is reported in
negotiation to buy 50,000 watt KMPC/Los Angeles as its West Coast anchor for
$1.25 Million replacing long time affiliate KFI.
OCT 13 1950
FCC votes 4-2 to revoke the license of WTUX/Wilmington, Delaware, for
carrying horserace results, “…in such a way that would assist bookie
operations.”
OCT 13 1950 A Television
Broadcasters Association spokesman claims that only one of the country’s 107
stations is equipped to transmit the FCC-approved CBS color system and less
than 100 of the nation’s 8,000,000 sets are able to receive it.
OCT 13 1952 CBS correspondent Lou Cioffi, 26, suffers leg wounds
while interviewing American servicemen at the Korean war front.
OCT 13 1952 NBC brings Burr
Tillstrom & Fran Allison’s TV hit, Kukla, Fran & Ollie, to NBC
Radio for a ten-minute weekday afternoon show.
OCT 13 1953 FM inventor
Edwin Armstrong introduces FM multiplexing and successfully demonstrates his
concept at a news conference.
OCT 13 1953 Longtime
Buffalo NBC affiliate WBEN AM&TV switches to CBS following the same move by
Norfolk’s WTAR AM&TV - stirring speculation of a CBS raid on NBC for
affiliates.
OCT 14 1932 Paramount Pictures
releases The Big Broadcast starring CBS personalities Bing Crosby,
Burns & Allen, Kate Smith and the Mills Brothers.
OCT 14 1934 Lux
Radio Theater debuts on Blue as a Sunday afternoon program from New
York with its adaptation of Seventh Heaven starring John Boles and
Miriam Hopkins. (See Lux…Presents
Hollywood! and
Monday's
All Time Top Ten)
OCT 14 1934 Jack
Benny begins his 21 year string of programs broadcast on Sunday evenings at
7:00 p.m. for a reported opening salary of $5,750 per week. (See Sunday
At Seven and Benny’s
Double Plays.)
OCT 14 1934 NBC reports a completely sold out status for
the first time from 1:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. (See
The Gold In
The Golden Age.)
OCT 14 1935 Crossley (CAB) polling changes its method
from next day recall to same day recall with operators placing calls from
9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. (See
Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
OCT 14 1935 Ohio State University psychology teacher Dr. Frank
Stanton, 27, joins the CBS Marketing Research Department. He will become
President of the network in eleven years.
OCT 14 1935
General Mills, through its Blackett-Sample-Hummert agency, states that it
wants to sponsor as many baseball broadcasts as $500,000 will buy for its
Wheaties cereal during the 1936 season .
OCT 14 1937
After six seasons on CBS, The March of Time moves to Blue’s
Thursday night schedule. (See The
March of Time.)
OCT 14 1939 The
first picture of Earl Graser without his Lone Ranger mask appears
in a Saturday Evening Post story about the program. (See The
Lone Ranger.)
OCT 14 1939 NBC
launches a half hour of The Grand Ole Opry from WSM/Nashville on
its Saturday night schedule. The program remains on the network for 18
years. (See
Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 14 1940
Seven BBC employees are killed when a German bomb hits London‘s
Broadcasting House.
OCT 14 1940 WGN/Chicago moves its
daily sign-on time back from 7:00 a.m. to 5:30 a.m. to attract a greater
farm audience but Prairie Farmer magazine-owned WLS/Chicago remains
ahead at 5:00 a.m.
OCT 14 1940 FCC holds an
extraordinary closed door meeting with shortwave broad-casters to negotiate
rules to prevent facilities from becoming tools of, “…alien
propagan-dists, spies and agitators.”
OCT 14 1940 Mutual
rules that all 30 minute band remotes must contain at least four BMI or
non-ASCAP songs - one more than demanded by Blue, CBS and NBC.
OCT 14 1940 AFM President James Petrillo bans union musicians from
playing on late night CBS dance band remotes because of a labor dispute with
CBS affiliates WGBI/ Scranton and WADC/Akron. (See Big
Band Remotes.)
OCT 14 1941 FCC grants
owners of KSFO/San Francisco a license to construct a 100,000 watt shortwave
station directed to the Far East and South America to combat
Axis
propaganda.
OC 14 1941 WKRC/Cincinnati agrees to
broadcast games of the Cincinnati Reds, joining WSAI and WCPO in that city
which have covered the team with separate announcing teams for a decade.
OCT 14 1942 WJR/Detroit develops a system using the heat
generated by its transmitter tubes to help warm its building and save
heating oil.
OCT 14 1943 Edward J. Noble takes
control of the Blue Network from RCA, retaining its President Mark Woods and
Executive Vice President Ed Kobak.
OCT 14 1943 Jimmy
Durante & Garry Moore continue substituting on NBC’s Thursday night Abbott
& Costello Show while doing their own new CBS show on Friday nights.
Their two show a week schedule for Camel cigarettes continues until
mid-November. (See Goodnight,
Mr. Durante…)
OCT 14 1944 In a rare
Saturday session of the FCC Allocation Hearings, Joseph Ream of CBS asks a
delay on any television channel assignments because his network has ordered
a high-frequency transmitter capable of quality color pictures and sound on
the same channel.
OCT 14 1944 NBC promotes its news
coverage by offering “Election Score Cards” to listeners who request them.
OCT 14 1946 President Truman’s speech lifting meat price
controls scores a 57.6 Hooperating - equivalent to an estimated 44.5 million
adults, his greatest total audience to date. (See
Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
OCT 14 1946 Nineteen applicants bid for Los Angeles FM stations
at FCC hearings including owners of AM stations KFAC, KFI, KFVD, KFWB,
KIEV, KLAC, KNX and KRKD
OCT 14 1947 NBC News of
The World scoops the competition in the Coast Guard rescue of 69
persons from a disabled flying boat in the North Atlantic with shortwave
reports from the rescue ship. (See Multiple
Runs All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 14 1949 FCC
Commissioners receive a 50% raise to $15,000 annually.
OCT 14
1949 The Chicago Fedration of Labor shuts down its WCFL-FM which
had been simulcasting programs from WCFL-AM.
OCT 14 1949
Paramount Pictures releases My Friend Irma based on the CBS sitcom
with its star, Marie Wilson, and the popular new comedy team of Dean Martin,
32, & Jerry Lewis, 23. (See
My Friend Irma
and Monday's
All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 14 1950 RCA-Victor
distributes a letter to its 25,000 dealers protesting the FCC’s adoption of
the “...incompatible and inferior (CBS) color television
system…scientifically unsound and against public interest.”
OCT 14 1951 ABC begins programming Studio 52, a
short-lived series of 60 minute, non-commercial dramas from the CBC on
Sunday nights..
OCT 14 1953 Arthur Godfrey’s featured
singer, Julius LaRosa, signs with agent General Artists Corporation, despite
Godfrey’s warnings that it would violate their working agreement. (See Arthur
Godfrey.)
OCT 15 1931
Trade magazine Broadcasting publishes its first issue.
OCT 15 1933 After two and a half years on WMAQ/Chicago, The
University of Chicago Roundtable begins its 22 year on NBC.
OCT 15 1934 Decca introduces its low cost, 35 cent phonograph
records with a roster of popular radio names including Bing Crosby, Guy
Lombardo, the Mills Brothers, Jane Froman, Ethel Waters, Glen Gray and
Arthur Tracy.
OCT 15 1934 British bandleader Ray
Noble, denied the right to broadcast in the United States by the AFM, signs
with Paramount Pictures as a composer-conductor.
OCT 15 1935
FCC’s Broadcast division proposes a plan for creating 25 “super-power”
stations of 500,000 watts.
OCT 15 1937 FCC relaxes its
requirement of station identification every half-hour by five minutes on
either side of the hour, (:55 to :05), and half hour, (:25 to :35).
OCT 15 1937 Chicago musicians union chief James Petrillo
confirms that he’s attempting to start a new union for radio announcers,
producers and sound effects technicians to compete with AFRA. (See Petrillo!)
OCT 15 1937 RCA introduces its famous Model 77 Uni-Directional
(Silver Bullet) microphone.
OCT 15 1937 RCA
television images projected to a three by four foot screen in a press demon-stration
are called, “…greenish faint and eye-repellent.“
OCT
15 1937 Jim & Marian Jordan as Fibber McGee & Molly appear
in their first film, Paramount’s This Way Please. (See Fibber
McGee Minus Molly and
Radio
Goes To The Movies.)
OCT 15 1939 RCA
announces its new Orthacoustic high fidelity recording system for
transcription services.
OCT 15 1939 Lou Costello rents
the Patterson, New Jersey armory seating 8,000 and organizes a benefit show
starring Kate Smith, Olson & Johnson and several top band leaders to help
the dilapidated church of his childhood to rebuild.
OCT 15 1940
Texaco agrees to sponsor the Saturday afternoon broadcasts of the
Metropolitan Opera on Blue beginning in December for a total season cost of
$250,000.
OCT 15 1941 Officials from CBS and NBC
meet with their affiliates in Chicago in efforts to arrange an agreement
with ASCP and avoid the boycott of ASCAP music due to begin on January 1st.
OCT 15 1941 Station trade organization formerly known as
The Major Market Group reorganizes as Independent Broadcasters, Inc., with
membership limited to network affiliates not owned by any network and not on
a clear channel. The group’s first act is to reject ASCAP’s proposals for
payment.
OCT 15 1941 All networks give extensive
coverage to the two week U.S. Army war maneuvers in Louisiana.
OCT 15 1942 WSIX/Nashville attempts to terminate its five year
Mutual affiliation agreement with three years remaining in its contract.
OCT 15 1943 The U.S. government drops all anti-trust
suits and monopoly charges against the networks and Mutual cancels its $10.2
Million lawsuit against RCA and NBC for unlawful competition.
OCT 15 1943 CBS replaces its weekly Our Secret Weapon propaganda
analysis series with Eyewitness, recreating and dramatizing the
week’s top news stories narrated by Robert Trout.
OCT 15 1944 The
American Radio Warblers - singing canaries accompanied by organist
Helen Westcott - begin their four seasons of Sunday quarter hour shows on
Mutual.
OCT 15 1946 Mutual’s coverage of the World
Series registers an average 32.1 rating for the seven daytime games.
OCT 15 1946 FCC agrees to the TBA’s request and postpones
until January 1, 1947, its regulation that television stations must
broadcast programming at least 28 hours per week.
OCT 15 1947 The
U.S. Government renews its prosecution of AFM chief James Petrillo for
violation of The Lea Act in connection with the musicians strike
against WAAF/Chicago in May, 1946. (See Petrillo!)
OCT 15 1947 CBS and sponsor Campbell Soup both praise Double
Or Nothing emcee Walter O’Keefe for his fast thinking in cutting off a
female contestant’s telling of a risqué experience that resulted in a flood
of listener complaint calls.
OCT 15 1948 Standard
Transcription service completes production of the first 160 of 350 songs
recorded in France to skirt the AFM recording ban. (See “By
Transcription…” )
OCT 15 1948 Arch
Oboler returns from his eight month tour of Africa with 13 reels of movie
film and 180 hours of taped sound effects for producer Fred Ziv who funded
the trip. (See Fred
Ziv - King of Syndicaton.)
OCT 15 1949 Your
Hit Parade with Frank Sinatra and Dorothy Kirsten originates at
Richmond, Virginia’s Tobacco Bowl celebration before a stadium
audience of 20,000. (See
Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 15 1951 The U.S. Supreme
Court agrees to rule on the Constitutionality of Transit Radio,
requested by WWDC/Washington, D.C. whose FM broadcasts to public transit
vehicles were ruled in violation of the Constitution by a lower court.
OCT 15 1951 ABC and NBC
present the first international network telecasts, covering the visit of
Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh to Windsor, Ontario.
OCT 15 1951 Classic sitcom I Love Lucy starring
Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz debuts on CBS-TV.
OCT 15 1952 Mutual
proposes cutting nighttime rates by 30% in television markets and 10% in
cities without TV.
OCT 15 1953 The National Television
System Committee, (NTSC), and networks conduct a full scale demonstration of
their recommended compatible color television systems at New York’s Waldorf
Astoria Hotel for the FCC and the U.S. House Interstate & Foreign Commerce
Committee.
OCT 15 1953
Kraft Foods, sponsor of NBC-TV’s weekly Kraft Television Theater,
adds an additional hour-long drama each week on ABC-TV, increasing its
annual television budget to $8.0 Million.
OCT 16 1932 Rebuffed by the
networks, Detroit priest Charles E. Coughlin begins a 27 week series of
addresses on an independent hookup of 26 major market stations. (See Father
Coughlin.)
OCT 16 1933 With a new contract
calling for $1,750 per program, Bing Crosby debuts as star of The
Woodbury Show on CBS for two seasons.
OCT 16 1933
The Washington Star, stating editorially that, “…it wasn’t
fair to CBS,” reinstates the program listings and items pertaining to
CBS and its WJSV which the paper had cancelled two weeks earlier.
OCT 16 1935 At the orders of American Tobacco’s George
Washington Hill, the cast members of Your Hit Parade are handed
their two week notices when returning to New York City from a month in
California. (See
Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 16 1935
Blackface actress Tess Gardella sues General Foods for $200,000 claiming
infringe-ment for using of her stage name Aunt Jemima on NBC’s Log
Cabin Revue.
OCT 16 1936 FCC, bowing to political
pressure, reverses its earlier decision and allows 100 watt WOL/Washington,
D.C. to move from 1310 to 1230 kc. and boost its power to 1,000 watts.
OCT 16 1938 The Blue Network broadcasts Winston
Churchill’s address from London attacking The Munich Agreement.
OCT 16 1938 Former NAB
President Harry Shaw, 52, is found dead in his Sarasota, Florida, home of a
gunshot wound.
OCT
16 1939 Irna Phillips’ daytime drama The Right To Happiness begins
its 21 season multi-network run. (See
Soft Soap
& Hard Sell.)
OCT 16 1939 Peabody
Award winning serial Against The Storm starts its three year run on
NBC. (See
Soft Soap
& Hard Sell.)
OCT 16 1939 KGKY/Scottsbluff,
Nebraska, is informed by the telephone company that it will be at least six
months before a Mutual line can be established to the nearest network
affiliate in Denver.
OCT 16
1939 NBC orchestra conductor Joseph Green, co-inventor of the
vibraphone, dies in New York City of pneumonia at age 43.
OCT 16 1940 RCA President
David Sarnoff explains his company has obtained $15 Million in loans at 1½%
annual interest to expand its facilities for the rush of national defense
manufacturing orders.
OCT 16 1940 Thousands of men in
the radio industry are required along with other young males to register for
the draft under the nation’s first peacetime conscription law.
OCT 16 1940 WSM/Nashville turns the entire station over to its
women employees and gives all of its men the day off to register for the
draft.
OCT 16 1940 FCC rules that all U.S. shortwave
stations must make and keep transcriptions of all broadcasts and English
translations of all foreign language programs.
OCT 16 1942
Neville Miller remains President of the NAB after a 10-10 tie vote to
remove him by its Board of Directors.
OCT 16 1942 CBS
Director of Television Richard Hubbell tells the press that World War II
will have advanced video technology by 15 years.
OCT 16 1944 Broadcasters
and reporters attending the FCC Allocation Hearings complain that they are
expected to stand whenever the commissioners enter the room.
OCT
16 1944 Lux Radio Theater celebrates its 10th
anniversary an adaptation of Seventh Heaven, the same production
that opened the series in 1934. (See Lux…Presents
Hollywood! and
Monday's
All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 16 1945
Academy Award winner Barry Fitzgerald, 57, begins a 26 week run as His
Honor, The Barber on NBC.
OCT 16 1945 Bob Hope
welcomes the Third Fleet home by performing his NBC show from the USS
Dakota docked in San Francisco Bay. (See
Hope From Home and
Tuesday's All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 16 1946
Bing Crosby debuts his recorded Philco Radio Time with guest star
Bob Hope on 217 ABC affiliates and 94 independent stations, scoring a 24.0
Hooperating. (See
Wednesday's All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 16 1950 A.A.
(Abe) Schechter resigns his five year post as Mutual’s Vice
President of News and Special Events to join Crowell-Collier Publishing in
an executive capacity.
OCT 16 1950 CBS-TV launches
daytime programming from 1:30 to 6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday.
OCT 16 1953 The U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear
arguments over the FCC’s 1949 ban of giveaway programs which was suspended
until declared legal by the courts.
OCT 16 1953 Gordon
McLendon sells KLBS/Houston, an anchor station for his defunct Liberty
Broadcasting System, for $300,000.
OCT 16 1953 AFM’s
James Petrillo tells Edward R. Murrow on CBS-TV’s Person To Person,
“Many musicians aren’t working because unpaid school children exploited
by cheap politicians are performing in their places.” (See Petrillo!)
OCT 17 1919 Radio Corporation of America, (RCA), is formed by General
Electric, Westing-house, AT&T and United Fruit. (See
Alchemists
of The Air.)
OCT
17 1919 American Marconi sells its interest in the newly formed RCA to its
partners.
OCT 17 1919 Marconi executive David Sarnoff, 28, is named RCA
General Manager.
OCT 17 1919
Westinghouse engineer Frank Conrad begins operating 8XK in Pittsburgh, the
predecessor to KDKA.
OCT 17 1937 NBC opens its $2.0
Million Los Angeles broadcast center at Sunset & Vine in Hollywood.
OCT 17 1937 NBC’s Chase & Sanborn Hour introduces
two George Gershwin songs posthumously, A Foggy Day and Nice
Work If You Can Get It, both written for the RKO film, Damsel In
Distress.
OCT 17 1937 Because Canadian radio law
prohibits alcoholic advertising, CKLW/ Windsor, Ontario, carries Mutual’s 30
Minutes In Hollywood without commercials while WXYZ/Detroit carries the
same show simultaneously for Goebbel’s Beer.
OCT 17 1938 FCC
subcommittee of Commissioners Payne, Craven and Case recommends termination
of the 500,000 watt experimental license of WLW/Cincinnati and that the
station revert back to 50,000 watts.
OCT 17 1938 Civil
Service Commission refuses FCC Chairman Frank McNinch’s request to exempt
FCC staff members from rules preventing what the press called a “political
purge” of the FCC.
OCT 17 1938 Scripps-Howard
columnist Hugh Johnson blasts: “The row in the FCC is beginning to
smell…It’s actually over whether that quasi-legislative body is a seven-man
commission or a one-man czardom…Mr. McNinch was selected its chairman to
iron issues out … Instead his arbitrary and cantankerous nature has made
them worse.”
OCT 17 1939 A labor dispute shuts
down WPEN/Philadelphia from 7:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. the following day.
OCT 17 1939 Hal Peary, 31, debuts as Fibber McGee &
Molly’s next door neighbor, Throckmorton P Gildersleeve.
(See The
Great Gildersleeve(s) and
Wednesday's All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 17 1939 Demonstrating
that television signals travel in a straight line, RCA celebrates its 20th
anniversary by picking up the video signal from New York City’s Empire State
Building aboard two DC-3’s flying over Washington, D.C.
OCT
17 1940 FCC Chairman James Fly tells a Town Hall audience that he
doesn’t see much change in broadcasting if war comes and professes that the
government should not take over U.S. shortwave stations.
OCT
17 1940 NBC begins a series of heartwarming 15 minute programs
allowing British refugee children to talk with their parents in England via
radio.
OCT 17 1942 Philadelphia stations WCAU-AM,
W69PH-FM and WPTZ(TV) make history by simultaneously covering the
Penn-Princeton football game in a three-way broadcast.
OCT
17 1944 WJNO/West Palm Beach, Florida, begins its 48 hour
emergency duty during a Category Four hurricane with a direct line to the
U.S. Weather Bureau for frequent reports.
OCT 17 1947
Maine stations carry first reports of a forest fire seen near Bar Harbor.
The stations assume emergency status as the fire grows to immense
proportions, destroying 250,00 acres and nine towns over two weeks, leaving
2,500 persons homeless.
OCT 17 1947 In the first case
of its kind in five years, the FCC orders WARL/Arlington, Virginia, to show
cause why its Dollars For Answers quiz isn’t a lottery in violation
of the Commission’s broad interpretation of the term.
OCT
17 1949 Your Hit Parade orchestra conductor Mark Warnow
dies of a heart attack at age 47. (See
Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 17 1949
ASCAP signs blanket music contracts with the ABC, CBS, DuMont and NBC
television networks.
OCT 17 1949 The Cities
Service Band of America, a 22 year feature of NBC Radio, begins four
weeks of simulcasts on 16 NBC-TV stations. (See
Monday's
All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 17 1950 RCA
files suit in Chicago against the FCC’s color television decision favoring
the CBS system.
OCT 17 1950 C.E. Hooper introduces a
new mechanical recording device promised to instantly record and report AM,
FM and TV program popularity in homes. (See
Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
OCT 17 1950 Professional wrestlers on the West Coast form The
American Sportsmen Television Equity Society to set minimum pay and
establish fees for rehearsal time.
OCT 17 1952 Mutual
joins the other three networks and cuts its nighttime rates by 25%.
OCT 17 1952 Keystone Broadcasting System transcription
network reports its number of affiliates reaches 500 stations.
OCT 17 1952 Associated Transcription Service announces that it
will record no new releases as it “re-evaluates” its business.
(See “By
Transcription…”)
OCT 17 1952 CBS, owner of
WCBS-TV/New York City and KNXT(TV)/Los Angeles and minority owner of
television stations in Washington, D.C., Pittsburgh and Minneapolis-St.
Paul, applies to the FCC to build a station on Channel 4 in St. Louis.
18 1931 Thomas Alva Edison, known
universally as The Father of The Electrical Age, dies in New Jersey
at age 84. (See
Alchemists
of The Air.)
OCT 18 1933 Admiral Richard Byrd makes the first of his
CBS Antarctic Expedition broadcasts off the west coast of South
America. (See The
1933-34 Season .)
OCT 18 1934 NBC’s
WMAQ/Chicago buys KYW’s 50,000 watt transmitter when Westinghouse moves the
station from Chicago to Philadelphia.
OCT 18 1935 The
pilot of a single engine plane lost in fog is killed when his wing catches
WLW’s 831 foot tower at the 600 foot level and he crashes at Mason, Ohio.
OCT 18 1937 AFM Chicago local President James Petrillo
obtains a 20% raise in the weekly minimum pay for the union’s new associate
members at CBS in Chicago: Announcers, $50, Producers, $60, and Sound
Effects Techs, $45. (See Petrillo!)
OCT 18 1937 The first Monday night broadcast of Kay
Kyser’s College of Musical Knowledge on WGN/Chicago draws 2,800
pieces of mail vying for small cash prizes. (See
Kay Kyser and
Wednesday's All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 18 1939
AFM Chicago local boss James Petrillo retreats from his attempt to organize
announcers and assigns his contracts with CBS announcers to AFRA, but he
retains his ability to organize producers and sound effects technicians.
OCT 18 1940 CBS subsidiary Columbia Records meets
resistance from broadcasters in its proposal to supply stations with enough
Masterworks classical records for five half-hour shows a week in
exchange for ten, 125 word commercials.
OCT 18 1941 Kate
Smith hosts a 60 minute CBS program celebrating the network’s anchor,
WABC/New York City, increasing its power to 50,000 watts. (See Kate's
Great Song.)
OCT 18 1943 Earle
Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason debuts as a weekday serial beginning
a twelve year run on CBS.
OCT 18 1943 Russ Hodges is
named Mutual’s lead football announcer.
OCT 18 1947
Movie star and former sportscaster Ronald Reagan presents a $75,000 grant
to his alma mater, Eureka (Illinois) College and does the play by play of
the city’s Pumpkin Bowl football game on local radio.
OCT 18 1950 NBC President Joseph McConnell tells his affiliates
that the network has a $9.0 Million annual investment in radio talent and
program properties.
OCT 18 1950 FCC shuts down the
first reported “bootleg” television station, Sylvania Electric Corp.’s
unlicensed transmitter near Emporium, Pennsylvania, rebroadcasting on
Channel 7 the programs from WJAC (TV)/Johnstown, 90 miles away.
OCT 18 1952 The New York Post announces a $1.5 Million
libel suit against ABC commentator Walter Winchell which it settles three
years later for $30,000. (See Walter
Winchell and
Sunday's
All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 18 1953 Orson Welles is
a critical triumph in his 90-minute television performance as Shakespeare’s
King Lear on CBS-TV.
OCT 19 1934 FCC is swamped with 91
applications for new 100 watt local stations under the more liberal rules of
the Communications Act of 1934.
OCT 19 1934
AFM protests any FCC liberalization of rules requiring stations to identify
transcribed elements or phonograph records,
OCT 19 1935
The American Federation of Labor convention adopts a proposal to
nationalize broadcasting.
OCT 19 1935 WLW/Cincinnati
cancels Drew Pearson & Robert Allen’s Washington MerryGoRound commentary
from Mutual for its controversial content.
OCT 19 1937
Edward G. Robinson debuts as the star in the initial five season run of
newspaper drama Big Town on CBS. (See Big
Big Town and
Tuesday's All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 19 1937
New York stations WEAF and WHN exercise an agreement to simulcast selected
programs of NBC’s Packard Hour starring Gladys Swarthout and Lanny
Ross.
OCT 19 1941 Catholic Archbishop Francis Beckman
of Dubuque, Iowa, causes a sensation on an NBC broadcast with his vehement
diatribe against the Roosevelt administration and anti-Semitic castigation
of Nazi critics.
OCT 19 1942 General Mills begins its Write
A Fighter Corps campaign on Blue’s Jack Armstrong network of
111 stations, encouraging kids to write servicemen and women they know with
news from home.
OCT 19 1942 The FTC orders Zenith
Radio Corp. to stop advertising that its receivers are capable of bringing
in programs from all parts of the world with clarity, “… regardless of
weather conditions.”
OCT 19 1942 Lady Esther
Cosmetics begins its five year sponsorship of Screen Guild Players on
65 CBS affiliates, pledging $8,500 per week to the Motion Picture Relief
Fund in lieu of talent fees. (See Acts
of Charity and
Monday's
All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 19 1943 Non-Mutual
stations complain to C.E. Hooper that its ratings were taken during World
Series week which skewed the audience figures to Mutual’s advantage.
OCT 19 1944 Bob Hope becomes the only show business
personality inducted into the Smithsonian Institution’s Living Hall of
Fame - in recognition for his work entertaining Allied troops overseas.
(See Hope
From Home and
Tuesday's All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 19 1944 An
AT&T mix-up is blamed for the West Coast rebroadcast of NBC’s Bob Burns
Show covering the first three minutes of the network’s Sealtest
Village Store intended for Eastern and Midwest stations at 9:30 p.m.
(See Bob
Burns.)
OCT 19 1945 Correspondents
Ted Malone of ABC, NBC’s Robert McCormick, Robert Trout of CBS and Mutual’s
Dave Driscoll leave on the second Globester flight around the
world.
OCT 19 1945 Members of the radio industry join
those in motion pictures to form the Mobilization Against Thought
Police In The USA, protesting the U.S. House Un-American Activities
Committee’s call for two months of scripts from seven network commentators.
OCT 19 1945 Ed Noble buys out his partners, Chet LaRoche
and Time, Inc. for $1,0 Million to become sole owner of ABC.
OCT
19 1945 Colonel Tom Lewis, commander of AFRS since the spring of
1942, returns to civilian life.
OCT 19 1946 With NBC
and sponsor Wildroot Cream Oil’s differences settled, the Nat King Cole trio
begins a 5:45 p.m. Saturday afternoon quarter hour show on 144 stations.
OCT 19 1947 CBS cancels Crime Doctor after a
seven year run. (See
Radio
Goes To The Movies.)
OCT 19 1947 AFM
boss Petrillo announces that the union’s members will stop performing for
recordings and transcriptions on December 31st and, “…never again make
them because they‘re making their own competition.” (See Petrillo!)
OCT 19 1948 A battery of ten lawyers argue the networks’
case before the FCC against the Commission’s controversial interpretation
of lottery laws banning giveaway shows.
OCT 19 1948 A
Ravenna, Ohio, farmer shoots and kills a tenant while arguing the
entertainment merits of radio comedians versus giveaway shows - specifically
NBC’s Jack Benny and ABC’s Go For The House.
OCT 19 1949
To save money ABC-TV drops sustaining programs and temporarily cuts back
its hours of operations.
OCT 19 1950 WTMJ/Milwaukee
cancels the radio and television versions of ABC’s Stop The Music! after
Wisconsin’s Attorney General rules the program to be a lottery. (See Stop
The Music!)
OCT 19 1951 The NARTB
proposes a new and more stringent code of conduct for its member television
stations.
OCT 19 1951 U.S. District Court rules in
favor of NBC radio and television star Roy Rogers and prohibits Republic
Pictures from releasing his 81 movies to television.
OCT 19 1951
U.S. Office of Defense Mobilization requests a halt to color television
broadcasting and set manufacturing, “…for the duration of the (Korean
war) emergency..”
OCT 19 1953 Arthur Godfrey
fires his CBS programs’ popular singer Julius LaRosa on the air during his
weekday morning show. (See Arthur
Godfrey.)
OCT
20 1932 CBS opens WJSV/Alexandria, Virginia, serving Washington,
D.C.
OCT 20 1933 Jack Pearl makes his feature film
debut as Baron Munchausen in MGM’s Meet The Baron. (See
First Season Phenoms and
Radio
Goes To The Movies.)
OCT 20 1934 FCC
concludes three weeks of hearings regarding non-commercial groups demanding
25% of station allocations for educational, religious or public service
purposes with network spokesmen testifying that the current system is
sufficient for the public‘s needs.
OCT 20 1936 CBS
buys 50,000 watt WOAI/San Antonio from Southland Industries for $550,000.
OCT 20 1939 An engineers’ walkout takes KFSD/San Diego
off the air for 13 minutes until its manager grabs its controls and restores
power.
OCT 20 1940 A fire of suspicious origin at its
transmitter disables powerful shortwave station WLWO/Cincinnati for 24
hours.
OCT 20 1941 An Army pilot is killed when his
training plane crashes after striking the transmission wires of New York
City stations WNEW and WINS at East Rutherford, New Jersey, shutting both
stations off the air for 45 minutes.
OCT 20 1941 NBC
discloses that its “bomb scare” of October 8th was caused by the
discovery of a large container of acid outside its Master Control, enough to
burn out the entire wiring system. Pinkerton guards were immediately hired
and strict check of network issued identity cards was ordered.
OCT 20 1941 The U.S. Office For Emergency Management begins
production of its transcribed radio adaptation of Douglas Miller’s book You
Can’t Do Business With Hitler for weekly distribution to 400 stations.
OCT 20 1942 WWJ/Detroit announces its intent to dismantle
its two 200 foot towers atop The Detroit News building, unused
since 1938, to provide 26 tons of steel for the Ford defense plant
smelters.
OCT 20 1942 Information Please circumvents
the AFM ban on recorded music within its Tuesday night transcribed West
Coast broadcasts of Friday night’s NBC shows by inserting live musicians
into the recordings when called for. (See Information
Please.)
OCT 20 1942 Dr. Frederick Stock, 66, called The Dean
of American Conductors, dies of a heart attack in his 38th year of
leading the Chicago Symphony Orchestra heard often in local and network
broadcasts.
OCT 20 1943 Longtime
Network Radio bandleader and comedian Ben Bernie, 52, dies after a long
illness. (See
Tuesday's All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 20 1943 Transcription
firms Associated, Lang-Worth, MacGregor and Standard settle with the AFM to
end the union's 14 month strike. (See “By
Transcription…”)
OCT 20 1944 Blue
network Executive Vice President Ed Kobak is named President of Mutual,
eventually taking the network to record high billings and numbers of
affiliates.
OCT 20 1944 U.S. General MacArthur’s
return to the Philippines is flashed to the networks from a floating
broadcast station off Leyte.
OCT 20 1944
WGAR/Cleveland is first on the scene with eyewitness reports from the
aftermath of the mid-afternoon gas leak explosion that killed 130 persons
and destroyed a square mile of the city’s east side.
OCT 20
1945 Big money quiz Break The Bank premieres on Mutual,
beginning its nine season multi-network run.
OCT 20 1947 ABC
newscaster Taylor Grant trips and falls on the stairs at home requiring
casts on both arms and causing network friends to jokingly compare him to Sheridan
Whiteside in The Man Who Came To Dinner. (See Monty
Woolley.)
OCT 20 1948 FCC approves
CBS selling 55% of WTOP/Washington to The Washington Post and
acquiring full ownership of KQW/San Francisco.
OCT 20 1948
Emerson Radio & Phonograph Corp. introduces its Conqueror table
model FM radio intended to, “…bring FM to the masses,” for $29.95.
OCT 20 1949 First Nighter broadcasts its last
live performance on CBS after an 18 year multi-network run - all sponsored
by Campana Balm hand lotion. (See Friday’s
All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 20 1950
General Tire & Rubber buys the Don Lee Broadcasting System including KHJ
AM&FM/Los Angeles, KFRC/San Francisco, KGB/San Diego, KDB/Santa Barbara, the
Don Lee Radio Network of 41 affiliates and KTSL(TV)/Los Angeles for $12.3
Million.
OCT 20 1950 CBS agrees to buy KTSL(TV)/Los
Angeles from General Tire for $3.0 Million, contingent on the network
selling its 49% of KTTV (TV)/Los Angeles.
OCT 20 1950 FCC
reports receiving its greatest amount of mail in history on its “anti-giveaway”
decision - running eight to one in favor of the Commission’s controversial
ban. (See Stop
The Music!)
OCT 20 1950 NBC
President Joseph McConnell tells his affiliates’ convention in White Sulpher
Springs that the network is spending $9.0 Million in radio personalities and
properties to regain its leadership over CBS.
OCT 20 1950
CBS hires writer-producer Fred Friendly, 35, away from NBC with a five year
contract. Friendly had previously produced Edward R. Murrow’s Columbia
Records album, I Can Hear It Now.
OCT 20 1950
Cash-strapped ABC borrows $1.0 Million on a five year note from New York
Trust Co.
OCT 20 1950 CBS President Frank Stanton
ignites a controversy by warning consumers against buying black and white
television sets that can’t be converted to receive color with the use of an
adapter.
OCT 20 1951 CBS-TV introduces its famous
“Eye” logo on the network’s system cues.
OCT 20 1953 Three hundred
broadcasting, film and associated industry leaders are gathered in
Washington by The American Heritage Foundation to plan a $10 Million drive
to operate Radio Free Europe.
OCT 21 1936 FCC
Reallocation Hearings adjourn after 13 days and 500,000 words of testimony
with no decisions expected until 1937.
OCT 21 1936 FCC
authorizes WNEW to move its main studio and city of license from Newark to
New York City.
OCT 21 1938 FCC refuses to permit CBS
to lease KSFO/San Francisco, casting doubt on the future of all lease
arrangements.
OCT 21 1940 Procter & Gamble’s Chicago
based weekday serial Lone Journey expands from an NBC regional
network to the full network originating from New York City. (See
Soft Soap & Hard Sell.)
OCT 21 1943
CBS agrees to pay AFRA union “standby” singers for the U.S. Navy per-sonnel
who perform free of charge on the Sunday morning Blue Jacket Choir program.
OCT 21 1943 WSAY/Rochester settles its dispute with AFM
by agreeing to hire four new musicians.
OCT 21 1943
Mutual broadcasts a late night memorial program honoring Ben Bernie hosted
by former New York City Mayor Jimmy Walker and featuring many show business
luminaries.
OCT 21 1946 Record manufacturers agree to
a 37½% pay raise for AFM musicians to avert a strike.
OCT 21 1946
FM inventor Edwin Armstrong tells the NAB convention that a drive for more
FM channels and an increase in FM operations is the broadcast industry’s
best chance to fight engineering restrictions and government controls.
OCT 21 1946 NBC’s nightly News of The World increases
its domestic news coverage with reports from local affiliates and boosts its
Hooperating from 5.2 to 7.7 in two weeks. (See
Multiple Runs All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 21 1947
FCC votes 5-1, (one member absent), to revoke WORL/Boston’s license for
alleged misrepresentation of its stock.
OCT 21 1947 A
District Court rules that WGST/Atlanta will remain a CBS affiliate for one
more year before the network can link with the more powerful WAGA.
OCT 21 1947 Citing listener response to the program’s
summer run, CBS slots its historical series CBS Is There on the the
network’s Tuesday night schedule. (See You
Are There.)
OCT 21 1948 General
Foods begins 40 weeks of switching from The Aldrich Family's New
York City studio to NBC in Hollywood for live commercials performed by
Meredith Willson’s Talking People at a total cost of $21,500 in
extra line charges. (See Meredith
Willson and The
Aldrich Family.)
OCT 21 1948 RCA,
NBC and Eastman Kodak introduce the high speed Ultrafax facsimile
system combining television, radio relays and photography.
OCT
21 1949 The American Council of Christian Churches complains to
the FCC that CBS, “…discriminates against significant minority
denominations,” in its Church of The Air program.
OCT 21 1951 NBC launches its Silver Jubilee series
of four half hour programs hosted by Bob Hope to celebrate the 25th
Anniversary of Network Radio news.
OCT 21 1952 Gene
Autry and KMPC/Los Angeles General Manager Bob Reynolds file papers to form
a new corporation to buy the 50,000 watt station.
OCT 21 1953
Arthur Godfrey explains he fired Julius LaRosa from his CBS radio and
television shows for signing with a talent agency and bandleader Archie
Bleyer for making a record with ABC’s Don McNeill. (See Arthur
Godfrey.)
OCT 22 1933 Detroit priest Charles Coughlin returns for
26 weeks in a second year of hour long Sunday broadcasts over a 23 station
independent network. (See Father
Coughlin.)
OCT 22 1934 Mutual begins
prime time programming with remote pickups of the Wayne King and Jan Garber
orchestras from Chicago’s Aragon and Trianon ballrooms. (See The
Aragon’s Last Stand and Big
Band Remotes.)
OCT 22 1934 FCC
opens hearings of 14 applicants wanting to share clear channel 640 kc. with
KFI/Los Angeles.
OCT 22 1935 WLW/Cincinnati reinstates
the broadcasts of Drew Pearson & Robert Allen’s Washington Merry Go
Round from Mutual after listener allegations of censorship are sent to
Congress and the FCC.
OCT 22 1938 In reporting the
Princeton vs. Navy football game, CBS Sports Director Ted Husing fails to
see that a 45 yard Princeton run resulted in a touchdown and not just a
first down.
OCT 22 1939 Mutual introduces Calling
America, a unique Sunday evening half hour co-op show originating in
Washington and New York City, with commentators Drew Pearson and Robert
Allen, singers Mary Small and The Tune Twisters plus Erno Rapee’s
30 piece orchestra.
OCT 22 1941 ASCAP’s settlement with
broadcasters appears near as BMI reports its growth to 733 member stations.
OCT 22 1941 Fred Waring wins dismissal of a $60,000
plagiarism suit brought against him by Grombach Productions involving a
feature that encouraged listeners to write to Waring about important songs
in their lives.
OCT 22 1941 Frank & Anne Hummert’s American
Melody Hour opens for a 26 week run on Blue before moving to CBS for
six years.
OCT 22 1942 All Puerto Rican radio stations
are placed under the control of the U.S. War Department.
OCT
22 1943 It Pays To Be Ignorant from WOR/New York City
receives its first network exposure as part of The Kate Smith Hour on
CBS. (See It
Pays To Be Ignorant.)
OCT 22 1945 After
three years in World War II service, Colonel William S Paley returns to the
Presidency of CBS.
OCT 22 1945 FCC issues 64
conditional grants for new FM stations in 21 states, the first since its
construction freeze went into effect in 1942. Another 600 FM applications
are left to be processed.
OCT 22 1947 Mutual
President Ed Kobak criticizes the NAB endorsed Broadcast Measurement Bureau
saying, “Any audience research that takes over a year to do and takes
further time to get out isn’t worth the money.”
OCT 22 1947 CBS
buys the Housewives Protective League Productions, a combination consumer
group and program producer, for $1.0 Million.
OCT 22 1947
FCC cancels the ten month old construction permit for WWPN/ Middlesboro,
Kentucky, charging its backers with financial misrepresentation.
OCT 22 1947 Clear Channel Broadcasting Services presents
a controversial plan to the FCC that would convert 20 existing 50,000 watt
stations to super-power status of 750,000 watts to better serve rural areas.
OCT 22 1948 Quiz show Break The Bank becomes a
radio-television simulcast on ABC.
OCT 22 1950 CBS
settles a $150,000 lawsuit out of court for a Chicago couple’s claim that
the network stole the concept for Hit The Jackpot from their format
called Watch Your Step.
OCT 22 1952 CBS
Radio adds its 215th affiliate: Gene Autry’s KNOG/Nogales, Arizona.
OCT 23 1932 Fred Allen,
38, begins his 17 year multi-network run with The Linit Bath Club Revue on
CBS. (See
Sunday's
All Time Top Ten and
Wednesday's All Time Top Ten on this site.)
OCT
23 1933 Comedian Ed Wynn resigns as President of the Amalgamated
Broad-casting System.
OCT 23 1933 Humorist Harry
Hershfield bans studio audiences from his nightly quarter-hour on WOR/Newark
because, “…they’re dumb and unmannerly.”
OCT 23 1936
Pepsodent launches its month long Name Amos & Ruby’s Baby contest
on NBC’s Amos & Andy, offering $34,000 in prizes with a $5,000 U.S.
Savings Bond for the first place winner. (See Amos
& Andy - Twice Is Nicer.)
OCT 23 1937 NAB
reminds its members that no blanket agreement has been signed and none is
recommended to be signed with the AFM.
OCT 23 1942
U.S. Senator D. Worth Clark of Idaho proposes legislation aimed at the AFM
outlawing its interference with the manufacture of records or
transcriptions. (See Petrillo!)
OCT 23 1942 North Dakota Senator Gerald Nye praises Kay
Kyser’s efforts to sell bonds and entertain troops in a floor speech then
questions the draft status of radio and show business personalities. (See
Kay Kyser
and Wednesday's
All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 23 1946 The
radio networks plus New York City television stations WNBT(TV) and WCBS-TV
give all day coverage to the opening of the United Nations General Assembly
at the World’s Fair grounds in Flushing, New York.
OCT
23 1946 CBS petitions the FCC to adopt standards and authorize
commercial operation of UHF television stations broadcasting in color
although the country already has six stations operating in the low frequency
black and white bands with another 72 under construction.
OCT
23 1950 Legendary singer-showman Al Jolson dies of a heart attack
at 64. (See
Tuesday's All Time Top Ten.)
OC 23 1950
KTTV(TV)/Los Angeles broadcasts a “secret sneak preview” of the pilot to
an Amos & Andy television sitcom at 1:00 a.m. so Freeman Gosden &
Charles Correll can see what it looks like in their homes.
OCT
23 1950 Television set manufacturer Hallicrafters releases a poll
reporting that 54 of the country’s 107 television stations have no plans to
use the FCC approved CBS color system.
OCT 23 1950
Arthur Godfrey upsets sponsor Lever Brothers by parroting CBS President
Frank Stanton’s public caution against buying black and white television
sets that can’t be adapted to receive color. (See Arthur
Godfrey.)
OCT 24 1929 Rudy Vallee premieres
The Fleischmann Hour on NBC beginning his 20 year multi-network
career. (See
Thursday's All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 24 1930 Freeman
Gosden & Charles Correll appear as Amos & Andy on NBC’s RKO
Hour to promote their RKO movie, Check & Double Check, opening
the next day at theaters across the country. (See
Amos & Andy: Twice
Is Nicer and
Multiple Runs All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 24 1938 Contrary to
the trend, Procter & Gamble moves production of its CBS and NBC soap opera, The Road
of Life, from New York to Chicago, home of the dual network drama's
creator, Irna Phillips. (See
Soft Soap
& Hard Sell.)
OCT 24 1938 FCC grants
a construction permit to DuMont Laboratories to build a television station
in Montclair, New Jersey. (See Dr.
DuMont’s Predictions.)
OCT 24 1941 The
U.S. Office of The Coordinator of Information establishes program lines
linking all shortwave stations east of the Mississippi, allowing them to
broadcast the same program simultaneously if necessary.
OCT
24 1941 Sportscaster Russ Hodges, 31, is hospitalized with
injuries from an auto accident when leaving his going away party at
WBT/Charlotte and misses his Mutual debut covering the Washington vs.
Cleveland NFL game.
OCT 24 1942 Contracts are sent to
the owners of the country’s 14 shortwave stations to formalize the
government’s takeover of the facilities for the duration of World War II.
OCT 24 1942 A contestant is challenged to sell $10,000 in
War Bonds with an ad-libbed 30 second commercial on Truth Or
Consequences’ West Coast feed to 22 NBC stations. She sells over
$107,000 worth and wins a call to one son serving in Hawaii and a trip to
see another at a Mississippi training camp. (See
Truth
Or Consequences and
Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 24 1943 Frank
Sinatra abandons Sunday night’s Broadway Bandbox on CBS for the 15
minute Songs By Sinatra at 7:15 p.m. opposite Jack Benny on NBC.
OCT 24 1943 We The People on CBS originates from
Admiral Farragut’s frigate Hartford in the Washington Navy Yard
with guests Lieutenant Tyrone Power and Lieutenant Commander Robert
Montgomery.
OCT 24 1945 Comedienne Sara Berner sues
Rudy Vallee for $19,500 claiming he reneged on his agreement to put her on
NBC’s Rudy Vallee Show for a talent fee of $500 per week. (See
Thursday's All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 24 1947
The NAB creates the Industry Music Committee of 35 executives
representing the radio, television and recording industries to form a united
front against musician union threats.
OCT 24 1947 The
Radio Pioneers Club, comprised of 20 year veterans in the industry, is
founded in New York and elects ABC President Mark Woods as its first
President and NBC’s H.V. Kaltenborn its Vice President.
OCT
24 1949 Writer Charles Carneval sues Campbell Soup and NBC for
$457,000 claiming that they stole his program concept American
Sweepstakes for the quiz show Double Or Nothing.
OCT 24 1949 NBC bans Cole Porter’s Six Times A Week And Twice
On Sunday as “Too suggestive.”
OCT 24 1951
Over broadcasters’ protests, President Truman signs a controversial
amendment to The Communications Act giving him power to seize radio
and television stations with signals that could become homing devices for
enemy aircraft.
OCT 24 1952 Jack Bailey crowns his
2,000th Queen For A Day on Mutual’s weekday giveaway program.
OCT 25 1930 Freeman Gosden & Charles Correll appear
for the first and only time as Amos & Andy in the RKO film, Check
& Double Check, a story written by composers Bert Kalmar & Harry Ruby.
OCT 25 1931 NBC establishes its second five
station West Coast , (aka Gold), network by linking KPO/San
Francisco with KECA/Los Angeles, KEX/Portland, Oregon, KJR/Seattle and
KGA/Spokane. It is designed to compliment NBC’s previously established
Orange Network consisting of KGO/San Francisco, KFI/Los Angeles,
KGW/Portland, KOMO/ Seattle and KHQ/Spokane.
OCT 25 1937 Hearst
Universal News Service journalist Fulton Lewis, Jr. begins his 20 year
broadcasting career at WOL/Washington.
OCT 25 1938 FCC
orders its legal department to conduct a study of station complaints with an
emphasis on profane language and possible lotteries.
OCT
25 1938 The Mexican Senate refuses to ratify The North
American Regional Broadcasting Agreement already approved by the United
States and Cuba with Canada yet to act. (See The
March of Change.)
OCT 25 1940 The
WCAU/Philadelphia mobile unit is stolen from a parking lot and used as the
getaway vehicle in two holdups.
OCT 25 1943 Mentalist
Joseph Dunninger, whose weekly program is carried by 198 Blue affiliates,
cancels his personal appearances with a St. Louis circus when he’s denied
star billing. (See
Dunninger.)
OCT 25 1943 NBC’s WNBT(TV)/New York City presents its
first live telecast in 16 months, a single camera view of the rodeo from
Madison Square Garden.
OCT 25 1944 Citing poor ratings
and dissatisfaction with Mutual, sponsor Campana cancels its First
Nighter after a 14 year multi-network run. (See
Friday's
All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 25 1944 Bert
Gordon drops his identification as Eddie Cantor’s Mad Russian on
NBC’s Time To Smile and becomes Cantor’s “neighbor” Boris
Tsoris. (See The
Two Stooges.)
OCT 25 1945 Trade
groups NAB and FM Broadcasters, Inc., merge and prepare to fight the AFM
mandate that requires two crews of its members be hired for AM-FM
simulcasts.
OCT 25 1945 FCC refuses to act when CBS
executive Paul Keston charges AFM boss James Petrillo with delaying the
growth of FM by demanding twice the number of union members necessary be
employed for AM-FM simulcasts. (See Petrillo!)
OCT 25 1945 RCA introduces its Image Orthicon tube
which will become an industry standard in television cameras for over 20
years.
OCT 25 1947 Al Pearce & His Gang is
cancelled by ABC ending the comedian’s 13 year multi-network run.
OCT 25 1947 The first Notre Dame home football game ever
televised, (against Iowa), is sent by microwave to Chicago and broadcast by
WBKB(TV).
OCT 25 1948 Can You Top This? regular
Harry Hershfield begins a nightly half-hour interview show on WOR/New York
City from various nightclubs beginning at midnight.
OCT
25 1949 WPEN/Philadelphia’s regional chain, The Sports
Broadcasting Network, carrying games of Philadelphia Eagle football and
Warrior basketball games plus prize fights, boasts a surprising 116
affiliates from Vermont to Mississippi.
OCT 25 1949
Television producers label AFM President Petrillo’s lengthy demands to end
his ban on union musicians playing for films totally unworkable and organize
to oppose them. (See Petrillo!)
OCT 25 1950 General Electric slams CBS President Frank
Stanton’s remarks that buyers should hold off buying black and white
television sets incapable of adapting to color in a New York Times full
page ad.
OCT 25 1951 A Seattle court awards damages
of one dollar to the plaintiff in a $35,000 libel suit against Mutual
commentator Fulton Lewis, Jr.
OCT 25 1951 NBC-TV announces a delay in the start of its
new early morning show, Today, (originally titled Rise & Shine),
from November 1st until mid-January.
OCT 25 1952 Kansas
City Star owned WDAF/Kansas City bends its ban against alcohol
advertising to broadcast concerts by the Kansas City Symphony sponsored by
Goetz Beer.
OCT
26 1932 Bowing to their newspaper clients’ demands, both AP and
UP refuse to supply returns from the November 8th Presidential Elections to
CBS or NBC.
OCT 26 1936 CBS demands a 20% commission
from its announcers and contract employees for any outside work they
perform.
OCT 26 1936 Network comedians and their
writers are cautioned not to mention Wallis Simpson's name in deference to
British listeners.
OCT 26 1942 CBS introduces Victory
Front, like NBC’s Victory Volunteers, a weekday morning 15
minute series with patriotic themes featuring casts of its daytime serials
in specially written five chapter dramas.
OCT 26 1944
Blue correspondent Clete Roberts is wounded by shrapnel in a Japanese
bombing attack on Leyte.
OCT 26 1945 FCC authorizes
tests of the Westinghouse Stratovision plan to relay television and
FM signals from planes flying in fixed circular courses at 30,000 feet.
OCT 26 1945 Joe E. Brown is awarded the Army’s Bronze
Star, its highest civilian award, for his service entertaining troops
overseas. Brown and his wife already hold the Gold Star honoring their son
who was killed in a bomber crash.
OCT 26 1946 Lang-Worth
transcription service breaks ranks with its competitors and gives in to the
musicians’ union demand for a 50% pay raise. (See “By
Transcription…”)
OCT 26 1946 The
Parent-Teachers Association of New York announces its campaign to force the
networks to tone down their police shows that, “…definitely contribute
to juvenile delinquency.”
OCT 26 1948 The Radio
Writers Guild calls a strike against 70 Network Radio shows
OCT
26 1949 San Francisco’s KCBS and KSFO drop their plans to swap
facilities filed before the war with the FCC.
OCT 26 1949
ABC-TV eliminates sustaining programs and cuts its film purchases due to an
expected $3.5 Million loss - most of which is covered by the network’s radio
profits.
OCT 26 1950 The FBI arrests a former mental
patient who admits to the September 17th bombing of the Voice of
America radio tower in Mason, Ohio.
OCT 26 1951
Music publisher Santly-Joy, Inc. charges American Tobacco with an
unauthorized Lucky Strike commercial parody of the hit song My Truly,
Truly Fair on Jack Benny’s program and demands a $250 fee for each of
the 191 stations that carried the commercial - a total of $47,750. (See
Unfiltered Cigarette Claims.)
OCT 26 1951 The
NARTB reports a three fold growth in the number of radio stations in nine
years and an annual average station income increase of 11% to $166,000.
OCT 26 1952 Academy Award winning actress Hattie
McDaniel, former star of Beulah on CBS Radio and ABC-TV, dies at
age 57. (See
Multiple Runs All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 26 1952
Legendary World War II documentary series Victory At Sea debuts on
NBC-TV.
OCT 26 1953 Longtime news commentator and
former head of the Office of War Infor-mation, Elmer Davis, 63, retires from
his nightly ABC radio newscasts due to ill-health.
OCT 27 1920 The
Department of Commerce awards the first radio station license and call sign
to Westinghouse Electric’s KDKA/Pittsburgh. (See
Alchemists
of The Air.)
OCT 27 1933 FCC
approves the Westinghouse application to move of KYW/Chicago at 1020 kc. to
Philadelphia.
OCT 27 1935 Both CBS and NBC participate
in the globe circling network broadcast involving 31 countries, Youth
Sings Across Borders.
OCT 27 1936 Polish Count
Anten Potocki sues WJBK/Detroit for $10,000 charging defamation of character
in a Polish language newscast, then settles for $500.
OCT
27 1939 NBC continuity writer Raymond Scudder, 38, is killed when
struck by a New York City subway train.
OCT 27 1941 President
Roosevelt’s speech on National Defense broadcast on all networks and most
independent stations registers a 51.9 Hooperating. (See
Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
OCT 27 1942 Wartime measures affect major radio and movie stars
when U.S. Director of Economic Stabilization James F. Byrnes rules that no
incomes in 1943 and beyond can exceed $25,000 after federal income tax and
certain deductions.
OCT 27 1943 AFM boss James
Petrillo allows union members to resume recording V-Discs for U.S. Armed
Forces. (See Petrillo!)
OCT 27 1943 The Church League of America files a $1.0
Million libel suit against Walter Winchell, sponsor Andrew Jergens Co. and
the Blue network for Winchell’s questioning the patriotism of the group.
(See Walter
Winchell and
Sunday's
All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 27 1944 Major
Glenn Miller’s Army Air Force band is reported beaming propaganda broadcasts
into Germany from London. (See In
The Miller Mood.)
OCT 27 1944 NBC’s Cities
Service Concerts, a network fixture since February, 1927, lightens its
classical music format and changes its name to Highways In Melody.
(See
Friday's
All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 27 1946 A new
trade group, The National Association of Radio News Directors, is formed
Cleveland.
OCT 27 1947 Musicians union president James
Petrillo orders members, “…never to make records again.” (See Petrillo!)
OCT 27 1947 Daytime serial This Is Nora Drake opens
its twelve year multi-network run on NBC. (See
Soft Soap
& Hard Sell.)
OCT 27 1947 Fred
VanDeventer buys out producer Charles Stark’s interest in Twenty
Questions for an undisclosed sum after a lengthy battle over the Mutual
panel show’s ownership. (See
Twenty
Questions.)
OCT 27 1947 Groucho
Marx, 57, hosts the new comedy quiz You Bet Your Life on ABC,
beginning nine year multi-network run. (See The
One, The Only…Groucho! and
Wednesday's All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 27 1950
CBS issues a one sentence memo stating that Margaret (Mug)
Richardson, Arthur Godfrey’s secretary and personal assistant for 16 years,
“…has resigned.” (See Arthur
Godfrey.)
OCT 27 1950 The nine ABC
Radio affiliates in Wisconsin keep Stop The Music! on the air after
conferring with the state’s Attorney General regarding the program’s status
as a lottery. (See
Stop The
Music!)
OCT 27 1950 Wisconsin’s only
television station, WTMJ-TV/Milwaukee, cancels Stop The Music!, Break
The Bank, Toni Twin Time, What’s My Name and Chance of A Lifetime in
fear of the state‘s lottery laws.
OCT 27 1950
CBS-produced mystery drama Pursuit begins a two-season run on
CBS. (See CBS
Packages Unwrapped.)
OCT
27 1951 Jane Ace, Disc Jockey replaces Monty Woolley’s
Magnificent Montague on the NBC Saturday night schedule. (See
Monty
Woolley and
Easy Aces.)
OCT 27 1951 CBS-TV drops its color telecasts of college
football games and substitutes black-and-white coverage of Saturday
afternoon Roller Derby matches.
OCT 27 1952 CBS
dismisses Freeman Gosden & Charles Correll’s announcement that they will be
retiring as Amos & Andy at the end of the season. (See
Sunday's All Time Top Ten and
Multiple Runs All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 28 1928 AT&T pioneers long-distance
remote broadcasts with reports of the Princeton vs. University of Chicago
football game from Stagg Field in Chicago to WEAF/New York City.
OCT 28 1934 Controversial
Detroit priest Charles Coughlin assembles a network of 29 stations for 26
weeks of his Sunday afternoon sermons titled, The Golden Hour of The
Little Flower. (See
Father Coughlin.)
OCT 28 1937 NBC’s Maxwell
House Showboat leaves the air after 265 consecutive weeks without a
break. (See Thursday’s
All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 28 1937 CBS
presents a 90 minute salute to Eddie Cantor on the comedian’s 25th
anniversary in show business. (See
Sunday's
All Time Top Ten and
Network Jumpers.)
OCT 28 1938 A Pittsburgh jury fines NBC $15,000 for
remarks made by Al Jolson critical of “…a rotten hotel,” in nearby
Uniontown, Pennsylvania. (See
Tuesday's All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 28 1938
The NAB distributes its How To Use Radio booklet to member
stations for political candidates which warns readers against, “…shouting,
arm waving and floor stalking away from the microphone.”
OCT
28 1940 One Man’s Family organist Paul Carson introduces
his composition Waltz Patrice as the show’s replacement theme song
for Destiny Waltz during the anticipated ASCAP boycott. (See
Sunday's All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 28 1940 Comedian
Henry Morgan begins his ten year sporadic multi-network run on Mutual.
OCT 28 1941 Listeners to KIRO/Seattle’s morning show
donate more than a ton of clothing and toys to be shipped to Great Britain
and distributed to children by Royal Air Force pilot Ken Stofer, a former
KIRO personality.
OCT 28 1941 FDR’s Navy Day address
broadcast on all four networks and many independent stations scores a 51.9
Hooperating.
OCT 28 1942 CBS avoids a 9:00 p.m. strike
deadline by arriving at a five dollar a week wage increase for technicians
in the IBEW union.
OCT 28 1943 Jack Benny, Phil Baker,
Walter Winchell, Paul Whiteman, Damon Runyon and Moss Hart are among the
honorary pall bearers as an estimated 1,300 mourners attend the funeral of
Ben Bernie.
OCT 28 1944 CBS follows NBC’s lead to
promote its election coverage by offering “score cards” to listeners.
OCT 28 1945 Each network broadcasts its own special
program to kick off the Treasury Department’s Victory Loan Drive.
OCT 28 1945 His exclusive contract with Mutual prevents Queen
For A Day host Jack Bailey from starring in ABC’s new Movie Quiz show.
OCT 28 1946 Longtime CBS sportscaster Ted Husing, 45,
begins eight years as a disc jockey on WHN/New York City for a reported
minimum of $260,000 per year.
OCT 28 1946 Kids’
weekday afternoon serial Sky King begins its eight year
multi-network run on ABC. (See
Serials, Cereals & Premiums.)
OCT 28 1948
The AFM and record companies reach an accord to end the union’s ten month
strike. (See
Petrlllo!)
OCT 28 1950 NBC carries WLW/Cincinnati’s celebration of
the 20th anniversary and 7,300th broadcast of its late night hour of soft
music and poetry, Moon River, with a guest appearance by its first
host, Jay Jostyn, aka Mr. District Attorney.
OCT
28 1950 Jack Benny makes his television debut on CBS-TV in a 45
minute show with Eddie (Rochester) Anderson, Don Wilson, Mel Blanc
and Artie Auerbach from his radio cast and guest Dinah Shore, scoring a ten
city 41.5 Hooperating.
OCT 28 1951 CBS changes the
call sign of its Los Angeles television flagship from KTSL to KNXT.
OCT 29 1935 Jimmy
Durante, 42, opens Texaco’s elaborate Jumbo Fire Chief Program on
NBC - the expensive program is cancelled after four months. (See
Goodnight, Mr. Durante…)
OCT 29 1936 WSM/Nashville signs a five year affiliation
renewal with NBC which allows it to also carry programs from Mutual.
OCT 29 1937 Hollywood commentator Jimmie Fidler claims
that film studios can’t cut off his supply of news and gossip because, “…I
have 24 tipsters in key studio positions on my payroll known only to me - I
don’t have to go near the studios for my for news.”
OCT
29 1940 The networks give full coverage to the Selective Service
lottery ceremonies at noon. NBC and Blue follow twelve hours later at
midnight with a special three hour program repeating in order all 8,500
numbers drawn in the lottery.
OCT 29 1941 NBC
President Niles Trammell invites the executives from 14 NBC and Blue Network
stations to a conference in New York City in advance of establishing an Affiliates
Advisory Board.
OCT 29 1942 Kate Smith appears
in 19 hour marathon broadcast on WJSV/Washington and sells $1.0 Million in
U.S War Bonds, (See Kate’s
Great Song.)
OCT 29 1942 Edgar
Bergen, his Charlie McCarthy and cast of NBC’s Chase & Sanborn Hour begin
a month long tour of East Coast service camps, originating four Sunday night
broadcasts from them. (See
Sunday's
All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 29 1942 Claiming
to be more representative of industry interests than the NAB, the fledgling
trade group American Broadcasters Association, begins a mail campaign to all
stations.
OCT 29 1943 Blue network executives are
reported meeting with U.S. and Mexican officials to propose increasing
Blue’s Southern California coverage by operating a 100,000 watt bilingual
station located in Tijuana.
OCT 29 1943 Most record
companies except Columbia and RCA-Victor follow the pattern set by Decca and
come to terms with the American Federation of Musicians to settle the
lengthy recording strike. (See Petrillo!)
OCT 29 1943 Republic Pictures releases Here Comes
Elmer starring Al Pearce in the dual role of himself and his radio
character, Elmer Blurt, and featuring members of his long-running Al
Pearce’s Gang program.
OCT 29 1944 NBC records
for broadcast the first Jewish service conducted inside Germany since the
return of religious freedom. Held near Aachen, the service featured a rabbi
and 50 voice choir from the U.S Army.
OCT 29 1944
Silent screen legend Harold Lloyd, 51, begins a season’s run as star and
director of NBC’s Comedy Theater.
OCT 29 1945 The
Mississippi Valley network of 75 Midwest stations begins operations with a
daily hour of farm news.
OCT 29 1945 The UAW demands
an FCC investigation into Detroit stations WWJ and WXYZ for turning down
commercials for union Vice President Richard Frankensteen’s mayoral
campaign.
OCT 29 1945 Ralph Edwards begins his fifth
cross-country tour of NBC’s Truth Or Consequences to sell War
Bonds, performing the show in broadcast and stage appearances in 15 cities
over five weeks. (See Truth
Or Consequences and
Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
OCT
29 1946 Philco’s WPTZ(TV)/Philadelphia signs television’s first
network affiliation contract with NBC.
OCT 29 1946 Transcription
companies bow to the AFM’s threat of a strike and agree to a 50% pay
increase for union musicians. (See Petrillo!)
OCT 29 1947 After eight months of negotiation the
networks and Radio Writers Guild sign a six year contract paying writers a
base of $360 for a 15 minute commercial program and $500 for a half hour
commercial show.
OCT 29 1947 FCC follows the course of
its AVCO Ruling by rejecting the bid of a California broadcaster to
buy KMED/Medford, Oregon, and approving the station’s purchase by a group
of local businessmen.
OCT 29 1947 NBC-TV changes its
rules and allows advertising agency personnel to produce programs for their
clients instead of turning them over to network personnel for broadcast.
OCT 29 1947 WCBS-TV/New York City tests its daytime show The
Missus Goes A'Shopping on location from a supermarket.
OCT
29 1948 A Georgia State Court of Appeals rules that the FCC cannot
interfere with the private operation of a station or annul any contracts its
owners enter into.
OCT 29 1948 KLZ/Denver and
KOVR/Colorado Springs are sold by Gaylord Publications to a group of
Colorado business executives for $1.0 Million.
OCT 29 1948
C.E. Hooper reports that Milton Berle’s Texaco Star Theater on
NBC-TV in October broke all New York City radio and television records for a
commercial program with a 63.2 average rating and a 92.4% share of audience.
OCT 29 1949 Billy Artzt, veteran composer-conductor of
the Blondie sitcom series for nine years, dies at 53. (See Bloon-dee!)
OCT 29 1950 NBC declares Ben Grauer Day honoring
the veteran announcer’s 20th anniversary on the network with tributes on all
of its shows.
OCT 29 1950 President Truman’s daughter
Margaret makes her television debut on Ed Sullivan’s Toast of The Town.
Trendex surveys in twelve cities give the hour on CBS-TV a huge 48.4 rating.
OCT 29 1951 Lee Carpets becomes the
first sponsor of a CBS-TV color program with spots in the weekday morning
Mike & Buff Show, (Mike Wallace & wife Buff Cobb), seen in New York
City, Boston, Baltimore and Washington, D.C.
OCT 29 1952 FCC rescinds
its controversial “rebroadcast” decision which forced radio and television
stations to allow the rebroadcast of their programs by competitors.
OCT 29 1952 Nielsen reports that If daytime and nighttime
Network Radio rankings were combined, five soap operas - The Right To
Happiness, Backstage Wife, The Romance of Helen Trent, The Guiding Light
and Pepper Young’s Family - would be in October's Top Ten.
(See
Soft Soap
& Hard Sell.)
OCT 29 1952 NBC begins
the 13-week run of Jason & The Golden Fleece starring MacDonald
Carey to fill the Wednesday 10:00 p.m. timeslot until Bob Hope takes it in
January.
OCT 30 1931
RCA owned W2XBS begins 120-line television broadcasts from its Empire State
Building transmitter;
OCT 30 1932 Eddie Cantor begins
his record setting ratings run on NBC’s Chase & Sanborn Hour -
resulting in a first season Crossley rating average of 55.7. (See The
1932-33 Season and
Sunday's
All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 30 1933 Frank
& Anne Hummert’s daytime serial The Romance of Helen Trent begins
its 27 year run on CBS. (See
Soft Soap
& Hard Sell.)
OCT 30 1933 Daily
newspapers in Denver and Charlotte drop all radio program listings and the
mention of stations in protest to the new CBS News Bureau.
OCT
30 1933 Bing Crosby wins his battle with sponsor Woodbury Soap,
insisting that his theme, Where The Blue of The Night, be used on
his CBS show and not Woodbury’s corporate theme, Lovliness.
OCT 30 1937 A Federal grand jury finds Groucho and Chico
Marx guilty of plagiarism in a suit brought by writers of the radio skit, Mr.
Dibble & Mr. Dabble. The brothers are each fined $1,000 and appeal
the verdict. (See
The
One, The Only...Groucho!)
OCT 30 1937 Westinghouse
conducts a series of celebrations in Pittsburgh to introduce KDKA’s new 718
foot transmitting tower which the station claims will increase its coverage
ten-fold.
OCT 30 1937 NBC bars a sweepstakes winner
from appearing on Ripley’s Believe It Or Not for fear of violating Section
316 of The Communications Act which prohibits broad-casting
information about lotteries. (See
Believe It Or Not.)
OCT 30 1937 Variety quotes
a slogan heard on “goat gland doctor” John Brinkley’s broadcast from high
powered XER on the Texas/Mexico border: “No man wants to be a capon.”
OCT 30 1938 RCA’s Magic Key broadcast on Blue
includes an overhead description of the Treasure Island site of San
Francisco’s 1939 Golden State Exposition broadcast from a Pan
American flying boat by announcer Hal Gibney. (See The
Magic Key.)
OCT 30 1938 CBS
broadcasts Orson Welles’ infamous War of The Worlds drama. (See The
War of The Worlds.)
OCT 30 1940 The
fatal heart attack of veteran WSB/Atlanta transmitter engineer Harold Kelly
delays the station’s 5:30 a.m. sign-on until emergency crews arrive at the
scene 40 minutes later.
OCT 30 1940 Kay Kyser
records a test of his College of Musical Knowledge playing
non-ASCAP music for American Tobacco’s George Washington Hill to determine
the fate of the show in the event of an ASCAP boycott. (See
Kay Kyser
and Wednesday's
All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 30 1940 FDR’s
radio address from Boston sets a new Crossley/CAB ratings record for
campaign speeches at 38.7. (See
Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
OCT 30 1940 Late night band remotes resume on CBS after a two week
absence when the labor dispute between affiliate WGBI/Scranton and the AFM
is settled. (See Big
Band Remotes.)
OCT 30 1941 ASCAP
agrees to contract terms with CBS and NBC ending ten months without ASCAP
music on the networks.
OCT 30 1941 CBS and NBC file
separate suits in U.S. District Court to restrain the FCC from its planned “chain
monopoly” regulations including the banning of network option time due
to take effect on November 15.
OCT 30 1941 NBC and the
243 affiliates of both its networks agree on a four point radio defense
policy should it become necessary involving emergency communications, public
morale and uninterrupted service.
OCT 30 1941 CBS
devotes a half-hour salute to WKBW/Buffalo’s increase to 50,000 watts.
OCT 30 1942 The U.S, Treasury Department claims that the
1943 individual income limit of $25,000 translates, before federal income
tax and “certain allowable” deductions, to a gross income of $67,200.
OCT 30 1944 To save budget after its expensive purchase
of Jack Benny’s program, American Tobacco begins offering a two year
“lease” of Kay Kyser’s College of Musical Knowledge on NBC to the
highest bidder. (See
Kay Kyser
and Lucky
Gets Benny.)
OCT 30 1945 President
Truman’s speech on wage and price controls carried on all networks registers
a 43.8 Hooperating. (See
Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
OCT 30 1946 RCA gives its first public demonstration of its
electronic color television system at the company‘s laboratories in
Princeton, New Jersey.
OCT 30 1946 Arlene Francis
begins a one season run in The Affairs of Ann Scotland on ABC.
OCT 30 1947 The Radio Writers Guild of freelance writers
ratifies a six and a half year contract with the four networks determining
pay scale and ownership of material. It includes a minimum pay for free
lance writers that ranges from $35 for a sustaining five minute program to
$500 for an hour long commercial show.
OCT 30 1947
CBS-TV presents the four hour Bellevue Hospital benefit Show of Shows from
Madison Square Garden starring Milton Berle, Helen Hayes, Frank Sinatra and
Morey Amsterdam.
OCT 30 1948 Packard Bell sponsors the
first “triple-cast” - The Television Talent Test on KFI
AM-FM-TV/Los Angeles.
OCT 30 1949 A large coalition of
television networks, major movie studios, film producers, program packagers
and trade associations draw battle plans against the AFM’s proposed pay hike
and work rules governing television films.
OCT 30 1950 General
Electric, Philco, Westinghouse, Magnavox and Sylvania threaten to cancel
their advertising after CBS President Frank Stanton warns the public not to
buy black and white television sets without color adapters.
OCT
30 1950 Stop The Music! producer Louis Cowan and its
star, Bert Parks, introduce the half hour Bert Parks Show on
NBC-TV, Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons.
OCT 30 1951 FCC
forecasts it will lift the freeze on new television stations by January 1st,
“…or sometime shortly thereafter.”
OCT 30 1953 AFTRA
bans members from participating in network originated telethons.
OCT 30 1953 The Daytime Broadcasters Association is
formed in St Louis representing a charter membership of 25 stations limited
to sunrise-to-sunset operation.
OCT 31 1933 CBS
obtains WBBM/Chicago and makes it the network’s primary affiliate in the
city, dropping WGN.
OCT 31 1935 KMBC/Kansas City
mobile units cover the $250,000 fire at Cook Paint & Varnish Company's
plant, scooping the competition - including WHB, owned by Cook Paint &
Varnish Company.
OCT 31 1938 Iowa Senator Clyde
Herring renews his call for censorship with legislation requiring advance
approval for all broadcast material.
OCT 31 1938 West
Coast broadcaster and television pioneer Don Lee applies for a television
license in San Francisco.
OCT 31 1939 Following his
failed attempt to take over Mutual, FDR son Elliot Roosevelt announces the
establishment of his planned Transcontinental Broadcasting System of 100
stations to rebroad-cast two hours of soap operas nightly.
OCT
31 1940 FCC issues the first wave of FM construction permits for
15 stations located in ten states.
OCT 31 1941 Bob
Hope drops his suit against gag writer Jack Douglas claiming that his
seeking to prevent Douglas from submitting material to Red Skelton, “…was
all a misunderstanding.”
OCT 31 1942 Bob Hawk,
begins his Thanks To The Yanks quiz show for service personnel on
CBS awarding cartons of Camel Cigarettes as prizes. The program runs for
two seasons before becoming The Bob Hawk Show. (See Monday’s
All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 31 1942
Reports surface that CBS Chairman Bill Paley will cut his 1943 gross salary
from $190,000 to $65,000 in keeping with the government’s decree that no net
salaries shall exceed $25,000.
OCT 31 1943 CBS starts
paying AFRA $35 each for ten “standby” singers during the network’s Sunday
morning Blue Jacket Choir concerts from the Great Lakes Naval
Training Station.
OCT 31 1943 Arturo Toscanini and
Leopold Stokowski begin alternating as conductors of the NBC Symphony in a
series of 24 Sunday afternoon broadcasts.
OCT 31 1945 Bell
Laboratories demonstrates its Microwave Radio Relay System,
originally developed for military use, and predicts its civilian use will
eventually include television networking.
OCT 31 1946
Activists for the National Temperance & Prohibition Council file a
$33.1 Million lawsuit against CBS and ask for dissolution of the network for
its refusal to sell “choice” time for the group’s anti-alcohol
programs.
OCT 31 1946 Trade group FM Broadcasters,
Inc., dissolves to merge into the NAB.
OCT 31 1947 CBS
reports spending $500,000 to develop 15 program series led by Arthur
Godfrey’s Talent Scouts, My Friend Irma, Strike It Rich and Crime
Photographer. (See CBS
Packages Unwrapped.)
OCT 31 1947
ABC, CBS, Mutual and NBC are sued for $13.0 Million in damages by WSAY/
Rochester, New York, which claims the networks conspired to refuse service
to the station.
OCT 31 1947 Disc jockey Martin Block
and KFWB/Los Angeles cancel their highly publicized three year, $1.0 Million
contract after four months.
OCT 31 1948 Walter
Winchell reports a three-alarm fire, “…raging out of control in Albany,
New York,” which had been extinguished 90 minutes before his Sunday
night broadcast began. (See
Walter
Winchell and
Sunday's
All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 31 1949 Veteran
CBS newsman John Daly leaves the network after 13 years.
OCT
31 1949 FCC rejects the petition of atheist spokesman Robert
Scott to revoke the licenses of San Francisco stations KCBS, KFRC, KGO and
KNBR because they refused to grant him time to promote his cause.
OCT 31 1950 Legendary dancer Irene Castle, 57, sues CBS
and Ed Sullivan’s Toast of The Town for $250,000 for showing
without her permission, a 1912 movie clip of she and her husband/partner
Vernon dancing.
OCT 31 1950 CBS claims that eleven
manufacturers of television sets, including Philco and Westinghouse, have
indicated they will, “…cooperate in one way or another,” with the
network’s color television system.
OCT 31 1951 Radio
and television networks give full coverage to the arrival and visit of
Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh to Washington.
OCT
31 1951 FCC Commissioner Frieda Hennock asks President Truman to
withdraw her controversial nomination to the Federal bench, deciding instead
to remain on the commission.
OCT 31 1951 Peg Lynch &
Alan Bunce, radio’s Ethel & Albert, make their television debut on
NBC-TV’s Kate Smith Hour.
OCT 31 1952 Fast
work by affiliate WHIZ/Zanesville, Ohio, gives NBC’s News of The World the
first reports from the four-day Ohio Penitentiary riots in Columbus. (See
Multiple Runs All Time Top Ten.)
OCT 31 1952
MGM shuts down production of ten movie-based radio series produced for
Mutual as the film company and network argue over renewal fees.
OCT 31 1953 NBC-TV presents its first full hour program in color,
highlights of the opera Carmen.
OCT 31 1953
NBC-TV becomes the first television network to exceed $10.0 Million in
one-month billings, recording $10.39 Million. CBS-TV trails with October
billings of $9.42 Million.
GLOSSARY
AAAA = American Association of Advertising
Agencies - ABC = American Broadcasting Company - 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 - 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 - IBEW = International Brotherhood of Electrical
Workers - ILGW = International Ladies Garment Workers - INS = International
News Service - LBS = Liberty Broadcasting System - MBS = Mutual Broadcasting
System - MST = Mountain Standard Time - NAB = National Association of
Broadcasters - NBC = National Broadcasting Company - NCAA = National
Collegiate Athletic Association - NLRB = National Labor Relations Board -
PST = Pacific Standard Time - RCA = Radio Corporation of America - SESAC =
Society of European Stage Authors & Composers - TVA = The Television
Authority (union) - UAW = United Auto Workers - UP = United Press