​           JANUARY IN THE GOLDEN AGE
                                Unless otherwise noted all times are Eastern Time Zone
                    For current dollar equivalents consult: www.usinflationcalculator.com  

JAN 1 1927  NBC establishes the Blue Network with five Westinghouse-owned affiliates: WJZ/Newark, KDKA/ Pittsburgh, KYW/Chicago, WBZA/Boston and WBZ/Springfield, Massachusetts.  Its existing chain, anchored by WEAF/New York City, is designated as the NBC Red Network. 
JAN 1 1927   NBC’s play-by-play of the 7-7 Rose Bowl tie game between Alabama and Stanford is Network Radio’s first coast-to-coast broadcast.
JAN 1 1930  Humorist Raymond Knight introduces his zany Cuckoo Hour for a sporadic five year run on Blue and NBC.
JAN 1, 1931  The Bank of America begins sponsorship of unprecedented five-minute newscasts every hour on KMPC/Los Angeles. 
JAN 1 1931  KFOX/Long Beach, California, moves its offices and studios to the movie lot of Tec-Art Studios in Hollywood, giving the film maker an hour of air-time daily to promote its current productions.
JAN  1 1932  NBC’s West Coast Network loses its popular morning show when Hugh Dobbs, (aka Captain Dobbsie) moves his Shell Happytime exercise and variety hour from the Don Lee Network.  (See The 1933-34 Season.)
JAN 1 1933   ASCAP establishes a separate accounting system for songs receiving radio play, assuring composers with the most airplay will receive the greatest share of royalties.
JAN 1 1935   Nash Motors returns to CBS for a three hour New Years afternoon variety show hosted by Alexander Woollcott and featuring Noel Coward, Beatrice Lilly and Ethel Barrymore.
JAN 1 1935   Early weekday serial The Story of Mary Marlin is elevated from a 13 week trial on WMAQ/Chicago to begin its ten year, multi-network run.  (See Soft Soap & Hard Sell.) 
JAN 1 1936   NBC opens the Pacific Blue Network - similar to its Pacific Red Network - to accommodate regional and transcontinental feeds for its Blue Network.
JAN 1 1936   Chicago Worlds Fair General Manager Lenox Lohr, 44, is appointed President of NBC.
JAN 1 1936   The Distilled Spirits Institute prohibits its members from advertising hard liquor on radio.
JAN 1 1937   WLW/Cincinnati sportscaster Red Barber heads Mutual's coverage of the Villanova vs. Auburn football game from Tropical Stadium in Havana, Cuba.
JAN 1 1937   WHN/New York City expands its broadcast schedule to 24 hours a day.
JAN 1 1938   Don Wilson and Ken Carpenter, better known as the announcers for Jack Benny and Bing Crosby, handle the play by play of NBC’s Rose Bowl broadcast.
JAN 1 1938   A freight train jumps the track at Longview, Washington, killing two trainmen, destroying telephone lines and interrupting network service to the Pacific Northwest for 24 hours. 
JAN 1 1940   Don McNeill’s Breakfast Club is offered by Blue for local sale to its affiliates in quarter hour segments, an early venture into co-op sales, with stations each paying the network one-fourth of their evening hourly rate.   
JAN 1 1940   The proposed Transcontinental Broadcasting System network announces a one month delay to begin operations, fueling reports of financial failure. 
JAN 1 1941   All networks and most stations refuse to renew their ASCAP licenses - substituting BMI and public domain music.
JAN 1 1941   BMI acquires Edward Marks Corporation’s catalog of 15,000 songs in the publisher’s switch from ASCAP. 
JAN 1 1941   Ted Husing reports Mississippi State’s 14-7 Orange Bowl victory over Georgetown on CBS from a sound-proof booth to prevent any ASCAP songs played by the schools' bands from leaking into the broadcast.
JAN 1 1941   KFRC/San Francisco avoids ASCAP music in its broadcast of the East-West Shrine Football Game for Mutual by blocking stadium sounds and inserting background music created by a band located in its studios.  
JAN 1 1941   FCC authorizes full commercial operation for FM stations.
JAN 1 1941   General Electric takes back control of its WGY/Schenectady from NBC but the network continues to  manage GE stations KGO/San Francisco and KOA/Denver. (See Three Letter Calls.)
JAN 1 1941   WOR-owned W2XOR/Newark boasts FM’s first commercial contract, for a series of time signals sponsored by Longines watches.
JAN 1 1942   KQW/San Jose-San Francisco, now 50,000 watts, replaces KSFO as the market’s CBS affiliate.
JAN 1 1942   WOV/New York City, previously a foreign language station, converts to all English programming.
JAN 1 1942   WCRC, CBS-owned 50,000 watt shortwave station based at Brentwood, Long Island, and directed to South America, begins operations. 
JAN 1 1944   The NBC-BBC series Atlantic Spotlight begins starring Anna Neagle from London, British actor Philip Merivale from New York, Red Skelton from Hollywood and the Glenn Millier Army Air Force Band.  (See In The Miller Mood.)
JAN 1 1944   Gillette sponsors broadcasts of the Orange Bowl and Sugar Bowl on CBS, plus the Cotton Bowl and East-West Game on Mutual, while the Rose Bowl on NBC remains unsponsored.  
JAN 1 1945   Procter & Gamble brings comic Jack Kirkwood’s quarter hour to CBS weeknights at 7:00 p.m. for 13 weeks. 
JAN 1 1946   The nation’s FM stations switch from the 42-50 megacycle band to the FCC-mandated 88-108 megacycle band despite the lack of receivers available to receive the broadcasts. 
JAN 1 1946   NBC changes its system cue used since 1926 from, “This is the National Broadcasting Company,” to, “This is NBC…the National Broadcasting Company.”  The familiar NBC chimes continue in use.
JAN 1 1946   Armed Forces Radio Service closes its New York office citing service to Europe, Africa, Greenland and Iceland is no longer needed.
JAN 1 1946   CBS-TV makes its first remote broadcast with a basketball game from Madison Square Garden.
JAN 1 1947   ABC Sports Director Harry Wismer is appointed to additional duties as Executive Assistant to G.A. (Dick) Richards, owner of WJR/Detroit, WGAR/Cleveland and KMPC/Los Angeles. 
JAN 1 1948   Commentator Walter Winchell, 50, begins a new contract with ABC guaran-teeing him $520,000 a year with seven weeks vacation.  (See Walter Winchell and Sunday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 1 1948   NBC adopts a ban against crime shows before 9:30 p.m. in the Eastern and Pacific time zones and 8:30 p.m. in the rest of the country.
JAN 1 1948   NBC-TV presents the U.S. “premiere” of the French film African Diary which critics universally pan. 
JAN 1 1949   RCA-Victor CEO Frank M Folsom, 54, is promoted to President of RCA replacing David Sarnoff who remains Board Chairman. 
JAN 1 1949   NBC research reports One Million television sets operating in the United States, 93% concentrated in the 30 cities in which the country’s 52 television stations are located.
JAN 1 1949   KTTV(TV)/Los Angeles, co-owned by CBS and The Los Angeles Times, begins operations.
JAN 1 1950   William Boyd brings his Western hero, Hopalong Cassidy, to Mutual for a nine month run before jumping to CBS for two seasons.  (See Network Jumpers.)
JAN 1 1951   Gillette begins its three year exclusive sponsorship of the Rose Bowl on NBC radio and television.
JAN 1 1951   NBC-TV boosts its nighttime half-hour rate over its 42 interconnected stations from $16,000 to $21,780.
JAN 1 1951   Zenith begins a 90 day test of its Phonevision pay television service in 300 Chicago area homes - charging a dollar for each movie ordered. 
JAN 1 1952   Mutual introduces the mystery series The Black Museum, produced and narrated in London by Orson Welles.  
JAN 1 1953   Grand Ole Opry star Hank Williams, 29, dies of a heart attack in his car near Oak Hill, West Virginia. 
JAN 1 1953   NBC-TV scores a doubleheader win with rights to the Cotton Bowl and Rose Bowl. 

JAN 2 1921 The first known religious broadcast is originated from Pittsburgh’s Calvary Episcopal Church over KDKA.
JAN 2 1930   FRC reports 594 licensed radio stations in the United States, down 139 in two years.
JAN 2 1932   Liggett & Myers Tobacco budgets $475,000 for talent and $1.75 Million in charges to broadcast its Chesterfield Music That Satisfies quarter hour on 64 CBS stations six nights a week for 52 weeks. (See The 1932-33 Season and The Gold In The Golden Age.)
JAN 2 1932   General Motors renews the radio contracts of Al Jolson for $5,000 per week and Paul Whiteman for $3,500 a week.
JAN 2 1932   The U.S. State Department reports receiving a high number of protests urging the suppression of XER Radio in Villa Acuna, Coahuila, Mexico, interfering with the signals of American stations. 
JAN 2 1933   Newsman Boake Carter, 35, begins his eleven year multi-network series of commentaries on CBS.
JAN 2 1933  George Kemp, who in 1901 received Marconi’s transatlantic wireless “S” signal in Newfoundland with P.W. Paget, dies in Southampton, England, still a Marconi employee at age 75.
JAN 2 1934   George Jessel, 34, begins his 20 year sporadic, multi-network career with a half hour variety show on CBS.
JAN 2 1935   CBS announces the purchase of WJSV/Alexandria, Virginia -Washington, D.C., for a reported $175,000.
JAN 2 1935   CBS, NBC and New York City stations WHN, WINS,WNEW and WOR descend on Flemington, New Jersey to cover the Lindbergh baby kidnapping trial of Richard (Bruno) Hauptmann.  The networks each program three dispatches daily from the scene. 
JAN 2 1936   Bing Crosby replaces Paul Whiteman as host of Kraft Music Hall on NBC and remains with the program for most of the next ten seasons.  (See Thursday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 2 1936   The March of Time returns to 30 minute form on CBS after part of the season as a 15 minute weeknight Multiple Run program.  
JAN 2 1936 Arthur Kales, 54, General Manager of KFI and KECA/Los Angeles, dies after a lengthy illness.
JAN 2 1937   Major Bowes heads a two hour program on CBS saluting the network's new  West Coast affiliates led by KNX/Los Angeles and KSFO/San Francisco. 
JAN 2 1938   Walt Disney hosts the Sunday afternoon Mickey Mouse Theater of The Air, featuring voices of his cartoon characters, for a six month run on NBC.
JAN 2 1938   Comics Sam Lee and Al Shaw host a new CBS variety show, Double Or Nothing, sponsored by Wrigley’s Doublemint Gum with acts limited to musical duets.  After two weeks the show’s name is changed to Double Or Everything and is cancelled two months later.
JAN 2 1940   Glenn Miller begins his 15 minute Moonlight Serenade, (aka Chesterfield Time), for a three season run on CBS at 10:00 p.m. on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights. (See In The Miller Mood.)
JAN 2 1941   Former Good News comedy stars Fanny Brice, 50, and Frank Morgan, 51, are reunited on NBC’s Maxwell House Coffee Time for a successful four season run. (See Thursday’s All Time Top Ten, Good News, Baby Snooks and Frank Morgan.) 
JAN 2 1941   The Keystone Broadcasting System transcription network opens with 65 small market affiliates. 
JAN 2 1941   BMI reports a membership of 680 subscribers out of a potential of 796 commercial stations in the country. 
JAN 2 1942   Justice Department files anti-trust suits against NBC and CBS.
JAN 2 1942   General Foods signs a six year contract with Aldrich Family creator Clifford Goldsmith to sponsor the Top Ten sitcom until the 1947-48 season.  (See The Aldrich Family and Thursday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 2 1942   The U.S. Office of Production Management outlaws the use of copper in radio receiver manufacture except when indispensable to carry current.   
JAN 2 1943 New York City again receives television programming for at least two hours per night, seven nights a week with content provided on alternating nights by NBC, CBS and DuMont. 
JAN 2 1944   Perry Como replaces Frank Sinatra with 15 sustaining minutes at 7:15 p.m. Sunday nights on CBS, opposite Jack Benny on NBC.
JAN 2 1944   Blue Network anchor station WJZ/New York City activates its new 50,000 watt transmitter at Lodi, New Jersey, with its 640 foot tower greatly improves its signal's strength in the metropolitan New York area.
JAN 2 1947   Anamosa, Iowa, newspaper publisher Clifford Niles sues NBC and Bristol-Meyers for $2.0 Million, claiming that a villain named Clifford Niles in an episode of Mr. District Attorney caused an invasion of his privacy.  (See Mr. District Attorney and  Wednesday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 2 1948   WCBS-TV/New York City issues its first rate card, charging $400 an hour for air time, $175 additional for film and $700 additional for remote pickups - all about par with NBC and DuMont’s local charges.
JAN 2 1949   Jack Benny joins Amos & Andy and jumps from NBC to propel CBS in Sunday night popularity with a first  show Hooperating of 27.8.  (See Sunday At Seven, Sunday's All Time Top Ten and Network Jumpers.)
JAN 2 1949   Kaiser-Frazer Autos begins sponsorship of Walter Winchell’s weekly program on ABC with a two year, $2.5 Million contract from which Winchell receives $1.35 Million.  Winchell’s first broadcast for the auto maker scores a 29.7 Hooperating. (See Walter Winchell and Sunday's All Time Top Ten ) 
JAN 2 1949  To emphasize Walter Winchell’s change in sponsors from Jergens Lotion to Kaiser-Frazer, Winchell’s first program’s commercials are delivered via transcription by Bing Crosby for a $4,000 contribution to the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund in his name.
JAN 2 1949   Ford agrees to move its Fred Allen Show back 30 minutes to 8:00 p.m. on NBC Sunday nights but finds the new time conflicts with the second half-hour of The Ford Television Theater on CBS-TV.  (See Sunday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 2 1949   The short-lived Union Broadcasting System begins limited service to 27 stations in New York and New England from WOKO/Albany.
JAN 2 1950   For the second consecutive year Gillette sponsors the Rose Bowl game on CBS Radio and Television.
JAN 2 1951  The Radio-Television Manufacturers Assn. reports that 18% of the 8,174,600 home radios produced in 1950, including portable sets, contained FM tuners.
JAN 2 1951  Richard Hart, who held the title role in television’s Adventures of Ellery Queen, dies of a heart attack at 35.
JAN 2 1952   Ziv Television President John Sinn reports in Variety that over 3,000 hours of filmed television programs were produced  in 1951 at a total cost of $60.0 Million.  (See Fred Ziv - King of Syndication.)
JAN 2 1953   Former Mutual President Frank White, 53, becomes President of NBC and the first individual to head two national networks.  He replaces Joseph McConnell who becomes President of Colgate-Palmolive-Peet.

JAN 3  1921 WHA/Madison, Wisconsin, begins daily voice transmission of weather reports.
JAN 3 1927  NBC begins Monday night network service with Harry Horlick’s A&P Gypsies, beginning a ten year multi-network run for the group.
JAN 3 1929  The United Independent Broadcasters Network changes its name to The Columbia Broadcasting System.
JAN 3 1930   David Sarnoff, 38, General Manager of RCA, is named the company’s President.
JAN 3 1931  Joe Penner makes his film debut in the eleven-minute Warner Brothers’ comedy, Service Stripes.
JAN 3 1933   Early detective series The Eno Crime Club moves from CBS to Blue and becomes Eno Crime Clues. 
JAN 3 1934   Fred Allen opens his 30-minute Sal Hepatica Revue on NBC’s Wednesday schedule.  The program will be expanded to an hour and retitled The Hour of Smiles in two months. (See Sunday's All Time Top Ten, Wednesday's All Time Top Ten and The Feud.)
JAN 3 1935   Phil Spitalny introduces his all-girl orchestra starring Evelyn (Klein) & Her Magic Violin for a 26 week run on CBS in the Linit Hour of Charm.  (See The Hour of Charm.)
JAN 3 1936   KNX/Los Angeles wins the small award of $2,500 in its $500,000 libel case against The Los Angles Times for editorializing that station had “...broadcast false news.”
JAN 3 1936   National Independent Broadcasters, Inc., begins offering spot announce-ment and program packages to advertisers on its 105 non-network member stations.
JAN 3 1938   Procter & Gamble moves six weekday programs - Ma Perkins, The Goldbergs, The O’Neills, The Road of Life, The Guiding Light and Kitty Keene - from NBC to CBS.  (See Soft Soap & Hard Sell.)
JAN 3 1938   Actress Constance Bennett files a $250,000 lawsuit against NBC Hollywood reporter Jimmie Fidler for his remarks about her rude behavior on a movie set.
JAN 3 1938   After nine years of Pepsodent sponsorship, Campbell Soup takes over NBC’s weeknight strip Amos & Andy, paying Freeman Gosden & Charles Correll the same $3,750 a week.  (See Amos & Andy - Twice Is Nicer and Multiple Runs All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 3 1938   Early quiz  show True Or False begins its 18 year sporadic multi-network run on Mutual.
JAN 3 1938   Irna Phillips’ weekday soap opera Woman In White begins its first of two, four year multi-network runs replacing Phillips‘ Today‘s Children after its five year NBC run.   (See Soft Soap & Hard Sell.)
JAN 3 1938  Former screen star Mae Murray begins her weekday afternoon 15-minute dance lessons on WMCA/New York City. 
JAN 3 1938   FCC grants WWL/New Orleans a power increase from 10,000 to 50,000 watts, virtually doubling its primary service area.  
JAN 3 1938   W8XWJ, shortwave station operated by WWJ/Detroit, begins a daily 18-hour schedule of independent programming.  
JAN 3 1939   Carnation Milk begins an Arthur Godfrey quarter hour show on Monday-Wednesday-Fridays for 39 weeks over nine Mutual affiliates including WOR/New York City. (See Arthur Godfrey.)
JAN 3 1939   Coca-Cola signs a 52 week contract with 108 stations across the country to broadcast its transcribed 15 minute Singin’ Sam  shows three times a week. 
JAN 3 1940   NBC prints a powerful boast in the trade press, “…1939 saw advertisers invest $35,000,000 in the Red Network - more money than was spent in any other single advertising medium in the world!”  (See The Gold In The Golden Age and Radio Nets' Grosses.)
JAN 3 1944   Edward Noble takes control of Blue network, its WJZ/New York City, WENR/Chicago, KGO/San Francisco and announces his intent to purchase KECA/Los Angeles.
JAN 3 1945   A U.S. House committee ends its two year investigation of the FCC with recommendations to update The Communications Act of 1934.
JAN 3 1945   Described as the largest radio talent contract of all time, Lever Brothers and Bob Hope agree to a ten-year contract totaling $10.0 Million.  The contract is voided five years later.  (See The Sponsor Sweepstakes.)
JAN 3 1946   Kraft Foods files suit with the New York State Supreme Court to prevent Bing Crosby from appearing on any other program except Kraft Music Hall unless he honors his contract. (valid through 1950 at $3,000 per week), and returns to the program.. (See Thursday’s All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 3 1947   NBC, CBS and DuMont pool facilities to televise the opening of the 80th Congress from the chamber of the House of Representatives.  The remote pickup was relayed to stations in New York and Philadelphia.
JAN 3 1947   NBC outpaces CBS in 1946 gross billings, $66.74 Million to $59.95 Million. Blue follows at $40.46 Million and Mutual trails with $25.91 Million.   (See The Gold In The Golden Age and Radio Nets' Grosses.)
JAN 3 1947  Ezra Stone and Jackie Kelk of The Aldrich Family leave on a two-week tour of veterans’ hospitals followed by a second two week personal appearance tour for The March of Dimes.  (See The Aldrich Family and Thursday's All Time Top Ten)
JAN 3 1947  CBS reports a Hollywood studio audience of 1,592,206 persons attended its programs in 1946.
JAN 3 1948  CBS reformats its Suspense mystery series as an hour-long program starring actor Robert Montgomery. (See Sus…pense!)
JAN 3 1948   The AFL begins sponsorship of the syndicated Guy Lombardo Show on KFI/Los Angeles.  (See Fred Ziv - King of Syndication and Guy Lombardo.)
JAN 3 1949   AFRA releases results of a membership poll objecting to CBS and NBC proposals to pay reduced fees for transcribed repeats of network programs during the summer months.
JAN 3 1950   General Electric moves its weekday hit Art Linkletter’s House Party from ABC to CBS.  (See A John Guedel Production.)

JAN 4 1923   Radio’s first networking experiment connects WEAF/New York City and WNAC/Boston by a telephone line for a five minute saxophone solo by musician Nathan Glanz.
JAN 4 1928 NBC opens a permanent broadcast quality line to the West Coast..
JAN 4 1928 NBC produces The Dodge Victory Hour, a 48-station, coast-to-coast broadcast for Dodge automobiles hosted by Will Rogers which the network claims attracts 35 Million listeners. 
JAN 4 1932   The 30 minute Carnation Contented Hour begins its 19 year, multi-network run on Blue.
JAN 4 1932  Hearst newspaper columnists Walter Winchell, Bugs Baer and Mark Hellinger participate NBC's broadcast of Hearst celebrating its purchase of WCAE/Pittsburgh.
JAN 4 1933   Rudy Vallee begins his fifth year on Thursday nights for Standard Brands’ Fleischmann Yeast over 45 NBC stations. (See Thursday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 4 1933   Bing Crosby, 29,  creates a CBS ratings sensation with his four months as host of the 15 minute Music That Satisfies on Tuesday and Saturday nights. (See Smoke Gets In Your Ears.).
JAN 4 1935   CBS breaks its ban against recorded programming with a late night transcribed repeat broadcast of President Roosevelt’s afternoon address to Congress proposing Social Security.
JAN 4 1935   FCC Commissioner Hampson Gary, appointed for a one year term in 1934, retires.  His seat is taken by New York Representative Anning Prall.
JAN 4 1935   Bob Hope, 31, makes his Network Radio debut on Blue’s Intimate Revue sponsored by Bromo Seltzer.  The program is cancelled after 13 weeks.  (See Tuesday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 4 1937   Sinclair Refining cancels The Sinclair Minstrels after a successful six year run on Blue.  (See Monday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 4 1938   Serial Those We Love begins its seven year sporadic run of nine different broadcast times on three networks.
JAN 4 1938   San Francisco offices of General Foods and NBC are flooded with 30,000 written ticket requests for the visiting Jack Benny broadcast on January 9th at the 660 seat Community Playhouse.
JAN 4 1938   The trio formally known as The Tastyeast Jesters returns to Blue two nights a week as The Mustard Melodeers for Gulden’s Mustard.
JAN 4 1939   President Roosevelt’s 1:00 p.m. State of The Union address on all four networks scores a 16.3 CAB rating.  (See Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
JAN 4 1940   The first FM “network” broadcast originates in Yonkers, NY, and is relayed on four experimental stations to Boston. .
JAN 4 1940   American Tobacco begins Millerfilm recorded repeats of Wednesday night’s NBC broadcasts of Kay Kyser’s Kollege of Musical Knowledge on Thursday nights over 14 East Coast  Mutual stations.  (See Kay Kyser and Wednesday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 4 1940   FCC again revises its required announcement rule identifying recorded programs - changing it from every 15 minutes to every 30 minutes.
JAN 4 1941  Popular Mutual commentator Fulton Lewis, Jr., is signed by GE for five minute commentaries on Phil Spitalny’s Sunday night Hour of Charm broadcasts on NBC.
(See The Hour of Charm.)
JAN 4 1942   Insulation manufacturer Johns-Manville takes over sponsorship of the CBS 8:55 p.m. weeknight newscast with Elmer Davis from Colgate Palmolive Peet at an annual cost of $750,000.
JAN 4 1943   The Office of War Information, (OWI),  becomes the clearing house for all U.S. Government radio announcements. 
JAN 4 1943  Objections from George Washington Hill at American Tobacco prevent Frank Sinatra from beginning a new series of sustaining broadcasts on CBS as Sinatra recently signed with Lucky Strike’s Your Hit Parade on NBC.
JAN 4 1944  Walter (Bide) Dudley, 66, longtime New York City radio personality, dies after a long illness.
JAN 4 1947  The Pacific Northwest Broadcasters station group makes the largest mass-switch of call signs with eight stations adopting the identity of KXL/Portland to become KXLY/Spokane, KXLF/Butte, KXLJ/Helena, KXLQ/Bozeman, KXLE/Ellensburg, KXLL/ Missoula and KXLK/Great Falls. (See Three Letter Calls.)
JAN 4 1948   Gordon MacRae, 26, replaces Tony Martin on the CBS Texaco Star Theater to good reviews.  (See The Railroad Hour.) 
JAN 4 1948   Standard Brands’ Tenderleaf Tea drops sponsorship of NBC’s Fred Allen and the show is immediately picked up by Ford Motors.  (See Wednesday's All Time Top Ten, Sunday's All Time Top Ten and The Feud.)
JAN 4 1950  Ford Motors spends $1.0 Million in a two-week sponsorship of eight CBS and 12 Mutual sustaining programs to introduce its 1950 model cars.
JAN 4 1950   FCC examiner rules Western Union sports wire reports to radio stations to be “unreasonably and unjustly discriminatory” in charging extra for all stations on a net-work as well as the originating station. 
JAN 4 1950   NBC begins operation of experimental UHF television station, KC2XAK/ Bridgeport, Connecticut, to retransmit programs from its WNBT (TV)/New York City..
JAN 4 1950   After 13 weeks of taped production, Mr. District Attorney returns to live Wednesday night production on NBC.  (See Mr. District Attorney and Wednesday’s All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 4 1952   Veteran newsman Robert Trout, 42, returns to CBS after three years at NBC. 
JAN 4 1952   Poor ratings, partly resulting from its move to Puerto Rico, force Duffy’s Tavern off the air after eleven seasons.  (See Duffy Ain’t Here.)
JAN 4 1952   NBC petitions the FCC to allow group owners of five VHF television stations to own additional UHF stations.   

JAN 5 1932    The Shadow debuts on CBS as a nameless narrator of mystery stories - he doesn’t become Lamont Cranston for another five years.  (See The Shadow Nos.)
JAN 5 1933   NBC censors Gracie Allen’s reference to her “missing brother,” (a running gag on her CBS show), when the topic is brought up during her guest appearance on Rudy Vallee’s Fleischmann Yeast Hour.  (See Thursday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 5 1934   Arthur Godfrey, host of the popular Breakfast Club on WMAL/Washington, D.C., quits in a dispute with management over his material and delivery.  (See Arthur Godfrey.)
JAN 5 1936   Eddie Cantor takes the CBS Sunday timeslot opposite Jack Benny on Blue and slips in the annual ratings from first to 13th.  (See Sunday At Seven and Network Jumpers.)
JAN 5 1936   Eddie Cantor announces an essay contest on his program offering a full college scholarship valued up to  $5,000 for the best letter titled, “How Can America Stay Out Of War.”  (See Sunday's All Time Top Ten and Wednesday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 5 1936   Paul Whiteman begins his Sunday night series of shows for Andrew Jergens’ Woodbury Soap on Blue at for $10,000 per week.
JAN 5 1939   ASCAP demands a 100% increase in music license fees to 7½ % of all stations’ gross income.
JAN 5 1939   Freeman Gosden performs the Western network feed of Amos & Andy by himself when Charles Correll hurries to his wife’s side  upon learning of their newborn daughter’s death.  Gosden also solos the next day‘s East and West coast broadcasts.  (See Amos & Andy - Twice Is Nicer.)
JAN 5 1940   The AFM and the Independent Radio Network Affiliates avert a national strike by the union, agreeing to continue negotiations without a contract. 
JAN 5 1940   Twelve existing FM stations,  ten stations with FM construction permits and  31 station applicants organize the trade group, FM Broadcasters, Inc., (FMBI).
JAN 5 1940 Veteran film and radio actor, (Pepper Young’s Family, Your Family & Mine, etc.), Jack Roseleigh, 58, dies of a heart condition.
JAN 5 1940   Victor Jory debuts as The Shadow in Columbia Pictures’ 15 chapter serial based on Mutual’s melodrama. (See The Shadow Nos. and Radio Goes To The Movies.)
JAN 5 1941   Network and government officials meet to determine voluntary World War II censorship policies if they are needed. 
JAN 5 1943 Longtime host of Chicago children’s shows, Harry Hosford, (aka Uncle Harry), 53, dies of a heart attack.​
JAN 5 1944   Fresh from his Your Hit Parade success, Frank Sinatra debuts on CBS with a Top 20 variety show.
JAN 5 1944   Mentalist Joseph Dunninger moves his Sunday afternoon ABC “mind-reading” show the network’s Wednesday night schedule for Sherwin-Williams paints.  (See Dunninger.)
JAN 5 1946   ABC re-enters agricultural programming, replacing the National Farm & Homemaking Hour with the Saturday half-hour American Farmer. 
JAN 5 1948   NBC buys full-page newspaper ads in 18 cities announcing, “The NBC Television Network Is Open For Business.”
JAN 5 1949   Borden moves its popular Saturday afternoon CBS game show, County Fair, to Wednesday nights opposite ABC’s Milton Berle Show and Duffy’s Tavern on NBC.
JAN 5 1949   Bob Hope’s radio troupe leaves on a 35 day, 35 city personal appearance tour by chartered plane.  (See Tuesday's All Time Top Ten and About A Song.)
JAN 5 1949   The manager and two engineers at KXLW/St. Louis are arrested on charges of erecting the station’s new transmitter tower in suburban Olivette without a building permit.  The station claims it to be harassment triggered by its labor disputes. 
JAN 5 1950   Arthur Godfrey, responsible for $7.0 Million annually in CBS radio and television income, reportedly signs a new long term contract with the network for $900,000 per year.  (See Arthur Godfrey.)
JAN 5 1951   Frank & Anne Hummert’s soap opera David Harum is cancelled after a split run of eleven multi-network  years, all sponsored by Babbitt Corporation’s Bab-O Cleanser.  (See Soft Soap & Hard Sell.)
JAN 5 1951  NBC reacts to the the CBS talent raids by signing Bob Hope to a long term radio and television contract valued at $1.5 Million.  (See Tuesday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 5 1951  FCC votes to renew Hearst’s license of WBAL/Baltimore over the application of ABC commentator Drew Pearson and Robert Allen.
JAN 5 1951  FCC shuts down WKRG/Marysville, Ohio, the city’s only radio station, an unlicensed operation established by three young men in their 20’s and two high school boys with an army surplus transmitter in the second floor of a house.
JAN 5 1953   Baltimore’s three television stations and two of its radio stations join forces to present a schedule of classes to 80,000 schoolchildren shut out of 100 of the city’s schools by a strike. .

JAN 6 1928   CBS begins its network service with Mary & Bob, (aka The True Story Hour).
JAN 6 1929   CBS begins Sunday night programming with The Majestic Hour variety show hosted by Wendell Hall.
JAN 6 1934   Five year favorite on KFRC/San Francisco, Al Pearce’s Gang, begins its 13 year sporadic multi-network run on Blue’s Saturday afternoon schedule. 
JAN 6 1934   WJSV/Washington, D.C., broadcasts nearly eight hours of Congressional hearings regarding local liquor laws from the House office building. 
JAN 6 1938   FCC hears a recording of the infamous Adam & Eve sketch featuring Mae West but issues no official comment.  (See Bergen, McCarthy And Adam & Eve and Sunday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 6 1939   CBS buys the neighboring seven story, 28,000 square-foot building that formerly housed the Julliard School of Music for additional studio space. 
JAN 6 1943   Georgia Congressman Eugene Cox introduces a resolution to investigate the FCC for actions, “…not in accordance with the law and public interest.” 
JAN 6 1944   Radio listeners hear Allied troops in actual battle for the first time when CBS and Mutual both broadcast a 15-minute recording made by Marine Sergeant, (and former CBS producer), Roy Maypole at the Marine invasion of Bougainville.  
JAN 6 1945   Sponsor Lucky Strike cigarettes replaces Frank Sinatra with Metropolitan Opera baritone Lawrence Tibbett on the CBS Your Hit Parade show.  (See Smoke Gets In Your Ears and Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 6 1945   Comedian Danny Kaye begins his two season Network Radio run on CBS in a sitcom co-starring Eve Arden. (See Our Miss Arden.)
JAN 6 1946   Walter Winchell begins his 14th season on ABC under the sponsorship of Andrew Jergens with a new contract paying $7,500 a week and granting him six week paid vacation per year.  (See Walter Winchell and Sunday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 6 1946   Former New York City Mayor LaGuardia begins a 26 week run of 15 minute commentaries on ABC Sunday nights at 9:30 following Walter Winchell’s and Louella Parsons’ quarter hours.  
JAN 6 1947   President Truman’s 1:00 p.m.  State of The Union address on all networks scores a 20.4 Hooperating.  (See Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
JAN 6 1949   Westinghouse previews its Stratovision system of transmitting television signals from a B-29 flying over Washington, D.C., with reported results ranging from “excellent” to “lousy”.
JAN 6 1950   Ronald Colman and wife Benita Hume debut as The Halls of Ivy for a two season run on NBC.  (See Your Money Or Your Life.)
JAN 6 1950   RCA-Victor begins sponsorship of NBC’s Screen Directors Guild program and considers recording the programs for commercial sale.
JAN 6 1950   WEW joins KSD, KWK and WIL, becoming the fourth St. Louis station to return its FM license to the FCC.
JAN 6 1950   Singing star Jack Smith celebrates his 1,000th CBS broadcast for Procter & Gamble.  (See Multiple Runs All Time Top Ten and The Sponsor Sweepstakes.)
JAN 6 1952   Marlene Dietrich begins her twelve month mystery series Café Istanbul on ABC.  
JAN 6 1952   A Sunday afternoon phone call agreement confirms Philco’s sponsorship of NBC’s Radio and Television’s coverage of the 1952 political conventions and elections similar to the Westinghouse agreement with CBS.

JAN 7 1934   Katherine Hepburn receives $5,000 to appear in NBC’s Hall of Fame adaptation of Morning Glory - the highest fee yet paid to a movie personality for a radio appearance.
JAN 7 1935   For the first time three national network programs originate simultaneously from Los Angeles:  Ben Bernie on Blue, Bing Crosby on CBS and Grace Moore on NBC. 
JAN 7 1936   Warner Brothers Music reports that 167 stations had signed contracts allowing them to use the publisher’s large catalog of music with another 84 stations expected to sign within the week.
JAN 7 1937   The networks sign on early to cover the marriage of Princess Juliana of the Netherlands to Prince Bernhard zu Lippe-Biesterfeld from The Hague at 6:00 a.m. 
JAN 7 1937   Standard Brands switches sponsorship of its Rudy Vallee variety show on NBC from Fleischmann Margarine to Royal Gelatin.  (See Thursday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 7 1937   WSB/Atlanta files application with FCC for 500,000 watts of power, becom-ing the 15th 50,000 watt station to request the authority.
JAN 7 1938    George Gerhardi, Director of German Programs for WPEN/Philadelphia, is fired for ad-libbing Nazi propaganda between commercials.
JAN 7 1939   FDR’s Jackson Day Dinner speech on all networks and many independent stations registers a 16.7 CAB rating.  (See Radio's Ruler's: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
JAN 7 1940   Standard Brands cuts its Chase & Sanborn Hour starring Edgar Bergen and his Charlie McCarthy on NBC from 60 to 30 minutes and gives Bergen a raise to $6,000 a week.  (See Sunday's All Time Top Ten and The Sponsor Sweepstakes.)
JAN 7 1940   Singing cowboy star Gene Autry starts his 15 season run of Melody Ranch on CBS, interrupted for two years by Autry’s service in World War II.  (See Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 7 1941   Four employees of BBC are seriously injured in the German bombing of London’s Broadcasting House.
JAN 7 1941   NBC reporter Fred Bate suffers cuts from shattered glass when the net-work’s London offices are damaged by a German bomb. .
JAN 7 1941   Inner Sanctum’s creaking door is heard for the first time in its eleven year multi-network history. (See Inner Sanctum and Monday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 7 1941   KHJ begins operations from the new Los Angeles headquarters of the Don Lee Network on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood, the former NBC complex with a $500,000 renovation.
JAN 7 1942   Mutual files suit against RCA and NBC seeking $10.28 Million claiming Red and Blue network affiliates were prevented from carrying Mutual programs.
JAN 7 1942   Producer Louis Cowan reports that 54 young geniuses took part as his Quiz Kids on the Blue Network in 1941 and they answered 89% of their questions correctly.  (See The Quiz Kids.)
JAN 7 1943   NBC’s Kraft Music Hall with Bing Crosby, an hour-long Thursday night program for over nine seasons, is cut to 30 minutes.  Rudy Vallee’s Sealtest Show moves back to the vacant 9:30 to 10:00 period and Abbott & Costello move from early Thursday evening to 10:00 to 10:30.  (See Thursday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 7 1943   Teenage sitcom Meet Corliss Archer begins its 13 year sporadic run on CBS.
JAN 7 1943  Electrical genius Nikola Tesla, 85, developer of many principles associated with broadcasting, dies after a long illness in his New Yorker Hotel apartment.
JAN 7 1943   James Tierney, Radio Director of Texaco during its early sponsorship of Ed Wynn, Eddie Cantor, Jimmy Durante, Fred Allen and the Metropolitan Opera, dies of a heart attack at 43 in New York City. 
JAN 7 1943   United Press reports increased German attempts to jam foreign shortwave news broadcasts telling of Nazi military defeats.
JAN 7 1943   President Roosevelt’s State of The Union address carried by all networks registers a 27.7 Hooperating. 
JAN 7 1944  Watchmaker Arde Bulova sells 80% of WOV/New York City to the Balgo Oil Company for $300,000.
JAN 7 1945   Edgar Bergen begins his new contract with Standard Brands’ Chase & Sanborn Hour paying him $10,000 a week from which he pays his writers.  (See Sunday's All Time Top Ten and The Sponsor Sweepstakes.)
JAN 7 1945   NBC cuts The Fitch Bandwagon for 15 seconds for risqué material not caught in rehearsal of lines between host Dick Powell and a guest comic.  (See Dick Powell and Sunday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 7 1945  Broadway columnist Earl Wilson begins a weekly Sunday night interview show on Mutual.
JAN 7 1946   Weekday serial The Second Mrs. Burton opens its 14 year run on CBS.  (See Soft Soap & Hard Sell.)
JAN 7 1946   Four and a half year old CBS comedy quiz Thanks To The Yanks is renamed The Bob Hawk Show and begins an additional six and a half season multi-network run.  (See Monday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 7 1946   A noted singer in his own right, Enrico Caruso, Jr., 41, joins WCAU/ Philadelphia as a disc jockey.
JAN 7 1946   Janette Davis, 29, former staff vocalist at WBBM/Chicago, begins a weeknight quarter hour with Archie Bleyer’s orchestra on CBS at 11:15 p.m.  
JAN 7 1947   The newly formed Television Academy of Arts & Sciences conducts its first official meeting in Hollywood and elects Edgar Bergen its first President for a six month term.
JAN 7 1948  FCC awards the first postwar commercial television license to NBC for WNBW(TV) in Washington, D.C..
JAN 7 1948   Philco, operator of WPTZ(TV)/Philadelphia, applies for a television license in Allentown, Pennsylvania. 
JAN 7 1949   RCA introduces its 45 r.p.m. record technology and CBS owned Columbia Records debuts its 33 1/3 rpm system.
JAN 7 1950   CBS-TV introduces its first Saturday night hour long variety show Ken Murray’s Blackouts sponsored by Anheiser-Busch which invests $1.0 Million in the program for its Budweiser beer.
JAN 7 1951   Rexall Drug Stores snaps up Amos & Andy on the CBS Sunday night schedule when Lever Brothers cancels it sponsorship after nine years.  (See The Sponsor Sweepstakes.)
JAN 7 1952   Lever Brothers begins simulcasting its segment of Arthur Godfrey Time on CBS Radio and Television weekdays from 10:15 to 10:30 a.m.  (See Arthur Godfrey.)
JAN  7 1952   WDAF(AM & TV)/Kansas City both cancel Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts for alleged questionable remarks that drew complaints from listeners and viewers to the CBS simulcast.
JAN 7 1952   Marie Wilson, star of the CBS sitcom My Friend Irma auctions off her dim-witted services as “Secretary For A Day” for the highest pledge received by the March of Dimes.  (See My Friend Irma and Monday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 7 1953  CBS takes a $9.3 Million hit in its 1952 gross billings opposed to 1951 but still leads NBC which took another $6.4 Million loss, $59.51 Million to $47.93 Million.  ABC is up $1.78 Million to $35.02 Million and Mutual tops all networks with a $3.09 Million gain but trails at $20.99 Million.   (See The Gold In The Golden Age and Radio Nets’ Grosses.)
​
JAN 8 1929   CBS buys WABC/New York City from the Atlantic Broadcasting Company.
JAN 8 1933   The Alhambra Theater in downtown Milwaukee installs a radio equipped speaker system and adds Eddie Cantor’s Chase & Sanborn Hour to its program every Sunday evening. 
JAN 8 1937   Isobel Carothers Berlozheimer, Lu of the early serial Clara, Lu & Em, dies of pneumonia at age 31
JAN 8 1939   Paramount Pictures co-founder Jesse l. Lasky, 59, debuts his Gateway To Hollywood talent show on CBS for a twelve month run.
JAN 8 1939   Screen Guild Theater, (aka Screen Guild Players), its begins successful 13 season multi-network run. (See Acts of Charity and Monday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 8 1940   Elliott Roosevelt takes over management Texas State Network and immed-iately drops nine of its 24 affiliates, in his words, “…to make it more composite.” 
JAN 8 1941  The Chicago Bears vs. Washington Redskins NFL Championship game on 113 Mutual stations with sportscaster Red Barber for Gillette becomes the first pro football game to receive sponsored coast-to-coast network coverage.
JAN 8 1941   ASCAP announces that 126 commercial stations - all non-network and mostly in small markets - have broken with the industry ban and signed new contracts with ASCAP.
JAN 8 1941   Lewis-Howe’s Tums begins a second weekly episode run of its Pot O Gold program - but only for New York City listeners - broadcast simultaneously by WHN, WMCA and WNEW.  (See First Season Phenoms.)
JAN 8 1941   The Chicago based Quiz Kids do their broadcast from New York City where they film their first ten minute Paramount featurette.  (See The Quiz Kids.)
JAN 8 1943   Billy Idleson, 24, who originated the role of adopted son Rush Gook on Procter & Gamble’s weekday comedy serial, Vic & Sade, joins the U.S. Coast Guard.  (See Vic & Sade.)
JAN 8 1943  Sponsor General Foods cites impending wartime food shortages as its reason for reducing The Kate Smith Hour, a 60 minute feature on CBS since 1936, to 30 minutes.  (See Kate’s Great Song and Friday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 8 1943   The Adventures of The Thin Man,  canceled on NBC the previous month, is brought back on CBS by General Foods to fill the 30 minutes vacated by Kate Smith and settles in for a five year run. (See Married Sleuths, Friday's All Time Top Ten and The Curse of Dashiell Hammett.)
JAN 8 1943  Information Please originates from Philadelphia’s Academy of Music where an audience of 3,400 persons purchase $6.3 Million in War Bonds for admission.  (See Information Please.)
JAN 8 1944   AFRA threatens to suspend Frank Sinatra when an hour before air time he demands the 1,400 seat CBS Vine Street Playhouse for his Hit Parade West Coast insert instead of the CBS studio that only seats 350.  He gives in, but a union spokesman says, “The kid’s beginning to believe his own publicity - and that’s fatal.” 
JAN 8 1946   WOR becomes the first New York City station client of A.C. Nielsen’s new audience measurement service.  (See Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
JAN 8 1946   John Reed King’s Missus Goes A’Shopping leaves WCBW(TV)/New York City after an 18 month run, but the show remains on CBS-owned WABC Radio.
JAN 8 1947  FCC grants television channel 7 in San Francisco to ABC, the 12th television license authorized for California and the 49th for the United States. 
JAN 8 1949  Gangbusters moves from ABC to a six year run on CBS - sponsored on 80 stations by General Foods and available to all others on a co-op basis.  (See Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 8 1950   NBC sells out its Sunday afternoon 3:00 to 6:00 lineup of One Man’s Family, The Quiz Kids, High Adventure, Harvest of Stars, Richard Diamond and two quarter hour news commentaries.
JAN 8 1950   NBC’s Sunday night hour long giveaway show, Hollywood Calling, designed to combat Jack Benny on CBS, is trimmed to 30 minutes.   (See Sunday At Seven.)
JAN 8 1951   CBS-TV newcomer Steve Allen substitutes for Arthur Godfrey on the Talent Scouts simulcast and receives rave reviews from critics when Godfrey is stranded in Miami by bad weather. 
JAN 8 1952   Television adaptation of CBS Radio hit My Friend Irma with stars Marie Wilson and Cathy Lewis debuts on CBS-TV.  (See My Friend Irma and Monday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 8 1952   The “dry” bill introduced by Rep. John Rankin of Mississippi which would outlaw all broadcast advertising of liquor, wine and beer, is referred to the U.S. House Interstate Commerce Committee.

JAN 9 1932  Paul Whiteman begins his 52 week NBC series for General Motors at $3,500 a week.
JAN 9 1932  Walter Winchell and Eddie Duchin’s orchestra broadcast NBC’s Lucky Strike Dance Hour from the Casino night club in New York City’s Central Park.  (See Walter Winchell.)
JAN 9 1933  Major phonograph record companies begin labeling discs, “Not Licensed For Radio Broadcast”, in a futile  attempt to ban or collect fees for their play.
JAN 9 1935   FCC approves the merger of Philadelphia stations WFI and WLIT to create WFIL.
JAN 9 1938 Controversial Detroit priest Charles Coughlin returns to Sunday afternoon radio with a half hour broadcast carried by a 59 station network paid for by his supporters.(See Father Coughlin.)
JAN 9 1939   A capacity crowd of 14,000 turns out for the Cleveland Auditorium broadcast of Phil Spitalny’s Hour of Charm (all girl) orchestra’s broadcast on NBC.  (See The Hour of Charm.)
JAN 9 1940   Universal Pictures releases The Green Hornet, its 13 chapter serial based on the Blue Network series originated at WXYZ/Detroit.  (See The Green Hornet and Radio Goes To The Movies.)
JAN 9 1941   CBS conducts a demonstration of its color television for the press in New York City, transmitting live images between neighboring buildings via coaxial cable.  
JAN 9 1942   Incorporation papers are filed by RCA to establish The Blue Network Company as a separate subsidiary - disassociated from NBC - to operate the Blue Network and its owned stations, WJZ/New York, WENR/Chicago and KGO/San Francisco.
JAN 9 1942   NBC’s Red Network identification is dropped and the network becomes officially known as NBC 
JAN 9 1942   Mark Woods, 40, former treasurer of NBC, is elected President of the new Blue Network Co. and Ed Kobak its General Manager.
JAN 9 1942   Fast talking Bob Hawk, until a month earlier the host of Take It Or Leave It on CBS, introduces a new quiz show on CBS for R.J. Reynolds’ Camel cigarettes, How’m I Doin’?  (See The 1941-42 Season.)  
JAN 9 1942  Joseph Franklin Rutherford, 72, founder of the Jehovah’s Witnesses in 1919 and heard on scores of stations in his weekly Watch Tower sermons, dies at home in San Diego. ​
JAN 9 1946   A labor strike by 8,000 telephone installation workers in 44 states threatens network service if winter storms cause equipment breakdowns.
JAN 9 1946  Frank Stanton, 38, succeeds William Paley as President of CBS - Paley becomes CBS Board Chairman and longtime Vice President Paul Kesten is promoted to Vice Chairman.
JAN 9 1947  Paramount Pictures subsidiary, Television Productions, Inc., receives a commercial license for W6XYZ/Los Angeles, soon  to be KTLA(TV).
JAN 9 1948   Rosemary co-stars George Keane and Betty Winkler who play husband and wife on the serial are married.  (See Soft Soap & Hard Sell.)
JAN 9 1947  America‘s Town Meeting of The Air, broadcast by Blue/ABC since 1935, becomes Network Radio‘s only hour long co-op program and is quickly sold to 34 local/regional sponsors..
JAN 9 1949   Anthology drama Screen Directors’ Playhouse, (aka The NBC Theater), opens its two season run at 8:30 p.m. Sunday to replace Fred Allen’s half hour which was moved back to 8:00 when Edgar Bergen left NBC.
JAN 9 1950   CBS installs receivers employing its color television system in homes of congressional leaders and Blair House, temporary quarters of President Truman’s family.
JAN 9 1951 A survey conducted among 3,000 families in seven markets finds that 38% more persons get their news from radio than newspapers.
JAN 9 1951  CBS broadcasts an all-star salute to Bing Crosby's 20th anniversary in show business starring Bob Hope, Edgar Bergen, Amos & Andy, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Judy Garland and Art Linkletter.  
JAN 9 1951   Viewer complaints of kinescope recordings’ poor quality cause Kraft Foods to cancel its Kraft Television Theater on KNBH(TV)/Los Angeles and replace it with the live Ruggles Family on KECA-TV.
JAN 9 1953   NCAA adopts “skeleton” television coverage policy of college football - one game on one network per week with teams limited to one appearance per season.
JAN 9 1953  Popular pianist/singer (Walter) Liberace begins filming the first of 117 half-hour shows for syndication.

JAN 10 1928   Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll introduce their Amos & Andy on WMAQ/Chicago.  (See Amos & Andy - Twice Is Nicer and Multiple Runs All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 10 1934   WLW/Cincinnati begins overnight testing its new 500,000 watt transmitter which cost $400,000 to construct. 
JAN 10 1935   FCC approves moving WMEX/Chelsea, Massachusetts to Boston.
JAN 10 1936   ASCAP notifies 450 stations of a five day deadline to agree to its terms for a blanket license for five years or face infringement penalties of $250 for each selection of ASCAP music they have broadcast since January 1st.
JAN  10 1939   The Press-Radio Bureau teletypes a notice suspending service to its clients for non-payment of bills yet continues to provide the service without interruption.  (See The Press-Radio Bureau.)
JAN 10 1939  The AAAA, in wage negotiation with AFRA, offers its new scale for sponsored network programs of $15 for a quarter hour show, (including two hours rehearsal), $20 for a half hour show, (including three hours rehearsal), and $25 for an hour program, (including four hours rehearsal).  The union rejects the terms and walks out of the meeting.
JAN 10 1940   Announcer Bill Hay’s lawsuit against Lum & Abner’s Chet Lauck and Norris Goff for reneging on their 1931 agreement giving Hay ten percent of the team’s earnings for five years is settled for $5,000.
JAN 10 1941   Popular radio and movie comedian Joe Penner dies in his sleep of heart disease at age 36. 
JAN 10 1941   Fearing sabtage, Crosley Broadcasting increases security at its transmitter plant at Mason, Ohio, to twelve guards for the equipment and towers of 50,000 watt WLW and 100,000 watt shortwave station WLWO.  The company also adds new fencing and a 75-foot watchtower. 
JAN 10 1942  Mutual and six affiliates - WOR/New York, WGN/Chicago, KWK/St. Louis, WOL/Washington, WGRC/Louisville and WHBF/Rock Island - file suit for $10.275,000 damages against RCA and NBC under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. 
JAN 10 1943   A study conducted in 17 Eastern states by CAB during the first three days of the ban on pleasure driving indicates a 17% increase in home radio listening.   (See Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.) 
JAN 10 1944  NBC makes all programs available to its affiliates for AM-FM simulcasting at no additional charge to sponsors.
JAN 10 1945   New FCC Chairman Paul Porter makes friends immediately by abolishing the custom of everyone standing when commissioners enter the room and abandoning the FCC’s rule of no smoking in the room during its meetings. 
JAN 10 1945  Standard Oil of Ohio celebrates its 75th anniversary by presenting a concert in the Cleveland Auditorium for 11,000 employees featuring the Cleveland Symphony, Gladys Swarthout, Victor Borge and Jan Peerce broadcast over a network of twelve Ohio stations.
JAN 10 1945  Brown & Williamson Tobacco orders Guy Lombardo to end his band’s three late night remotes per week on Mutual as detracting from his Monday night shows on Blue for Raleigh cigarettes.  (See Guy Lombardo.)
JAN 10 1946   Negotiations between Bing Crosby and Kraft Foods break down, indefin-nitely delaying Crosby’s return to NBC’s Kraft Music Hall.  (See The 1945-46 Season.)
JAN 10 1947  Trade group FM Association, (FMA), is organized.
JAN 10 1947  FCC Chairman Charles Denney predicts a total of 736 FM stations will be on the air in the United States at the end of 1947 - the actual number was 150.
JAN 10 1947   Noted chef and author James Beard begins a series of 15-minute cooking shows on WNBT(TV)/New York City aptly titled, I Love To Eat!
JAN 10 1950  Temperance forces pack the congressional hearings with endorsements for the bill proposed by North Dakota Senator William Langer banning the interstate adver-tising of all alcoholic beverages.  
JAN 10 1950   Dr. Walter Maier, speaker on the internationally heard Lutheran Hour since 1930, dies in St. Louis at 56.
JAN 10 1950   The Louisville Courier-Journal takes its WHAS AM&TV off the market.
JAN 10 1951  NBC cancels its plan to cut nighttime radio rates in 48 markets served by television.
JAN 10 1951   FCC confirms its license revocation of KPAB/Laredo, Texas, for its owner’s deliberate abandonment and transfer of responsibility of the station without Commission knowledge.

JAN 11 1932   CBS begins offering full power Hollywood independent KNX to advertisers wanting greater coverage than possible with its affiliate, KHJ/Los Angeles.
JAN 11 1935   WLW/Cincinnati applies to the FCC for a fulltime power of 500,000 watts.
JAN 11 1937   WGN leads a Chicago trend by eliminating all transcribed spot announce-ments.  Other stations in the city put severe limits to the hours when any spots will be accepted for broadcast..
JAN 11 1937   Lee Everett, announcer with WRC/Washington, D.C., temporarily “joins” the Army - a condition that  allows him to ride in uniform on an armored vehicle in the Presi-dential Inaugural Parade and describe the scene to NBC listeners.
JAN 11 1937  CBS begins service to Central and South America with its new 10,000 watt directional shortwave station, W2XE/Wayne, New Jersey. 
JAN 11 1938   The five month old AFRA opens its first round of wage negotiations with CBS and NBC for network actors, singers, announcers and sound effects personnel.
JAN 11 1940   Elliott Roosevelt continues cuts at the Texas State Network, firing 56 of its 80 employees, including some from its anchor station, KFJZ/Fort Worth.
JAN 11 1941   FCC disbars attorney James Gum from practicing before it for two years because of transactions connected with WSAL/Salisbury, Maryland, which had its license revoked because of financial manipulations.
JAN 11 1941   American Tobacco’s Your Hit Parade on CBS begins 13 weeks of remote broadcasts from military camps.  (See Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 11 1942   Boston police seize a quantity of Nazi propaganda from the headquarters of The Christian Front after Walter Winchell exposes the group on his Sunday night broadcast.  (See Walter Winchell and Sunday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 11 1943   Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s heirs sue Grove Laboratories for $7,700 claimed due him from a contract allowing Grove to sponsor 22 episodes based on the character Sherlock Holmes.  (See Sherlock Holmes.)
JAN 11 1943   The U.S. Justice Department files  another anti-trust suit against the AFM charging that the union has attempted to put 500 radio stations out of business with its recording strike.  (See Petrillo!)
JAN 11 1944   FDR’s State of The Union speech on all four networks registers a 56.9 Hooperating.  (See Radio's Rulers: Crossley,  Hooper & Nielsen.)
JAN 11 1946   Paramount Pictures releases People Are Funny, loosely based on the NBC stunt show with Network Radio stars Art Linkletter, Jack Haley, Rudy Vallee, Frances Langford and Ozzie Nelson. (See People Are Funny and Radio Goes To The Movies.)
JAN 11 1947   Frank Lovejoy begins a two year run of Murder & Mr. Malone on ABC, the first radio series by crime novelist Craig Rice, (aka Georgiana Craig).
JAN 11 1948   ABC, CBS and NBC let news leak that they have recorded 700 orchestra cues, (opens, closes, bridges), and 500 organ cues, in case the AFM strikes as threatened on January 31st.  (See Petrillo!) 
JAN 11 1949  AT&T links Pittsburgh and Cleveland via coaxial cable, establishing a live television network connection between East Coast and Midwest cities.  The four TV net-works celebrate with a “Golden Spike” program featuring Milton Berle and Arthur Godfrey.
JAN 11 1951   CBS opens its public color television demonstration for 30 minutes daily in Chicago’s Wrigley Building.
JAN 11 1952  Gordon McLendon, 31 year old President of the Liberty Broadcasting System, is named one of the Ten Outstanding Young Men of 1951 by the U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce.
JAN 11 1952  NBC-TV signs for the full Nielsen television service at a cost of $80,000 to $90,000 per year following ABC-TV which signed earlier for an annual fee of $50,000.
JAN 11 1953   An Air Force pilot, whose plane with 32 passengers was lost in a heavy fog, credits disc jockey Herb Oscar Anderson’s Theme For Dreaming show on KSTP/ Minneapolis-St. Paul with providing the signal that guided him into the Twin Cities airport.

JAN 12 1910   Lee DeForest arranges first radio broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera.
JAN 12 1926   Freeman Gosden, 27, and Charles Correll, 36, debut as Sam & Henry on WGN/Chicago.
JAN 12 1934   Ratification of the Press-Radio Bureau is held up by William Randolph Hearst’s refusal to enter his radio, newspaper and news service empire into an agreement that gives others control over his stations’ newscasts.  (See The Press-Radio Bureau.)
JAN 12 1936   A new weekly mystery series begins on WBEN/Buffalo from 7:30 to 8:00 p,m. with no solution to each night’s case broadcast until 10:45 to 11:00 p.m.  The first listener to wire the station between segments with the correct solution to the mystery wins $50.  
JAN 12 1937   FCC Engineering Department proposes changes in AM allocations which would allow 500 new stations.
JAN 12 1938   Colonel Norman Schwartzkopf, 42, New Jersey State Police Superin-tendent during the Lindbergh baby kidnapping case, succeeds Phillips H. Lord as host/narrator of Gangbusters on CBS.  (See Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 12 1938   Ben Bernie begins a 26 week Wednesday night half hour show for U.S. Rubber on CBS.
JAN 12 1939   AFRA’s National Board passes a motion favoring a strike against AAAA produced programs.  Union locals in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco endorse the resolution.
JAN 12 1941   Walter Winchell gets a scoop while doing his Sunday night program from WIOD/Miami, when a Coast Guard Captain calls with the news that the liner SS Man-hattan was grounded off Lake Worth, Florida. (See Walter Winchell and Sunday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 12 1941   Newsmen in a chartered boat from WJNO/West Palm Beach are first on the scene of the grounded liner Manhattan five miles north of Palm Beach to provide  shortwave reports and interviews from the vessel all night long. 
JAN 12 1942   NBC President Niles Trammell responds to the Mutual lawsuit writing in the trade press, “This suit is the culmination of a series of attacks that have been instigated against NBC by Mutual since NBC refused to sell to it important parts of the Blue Network." 
JAN 12 1942   British authorities refuse to let CBS correspondent Cecil Brown report from Singapore because his stories about British Army social life might be considered, “…detrimental to local morale.”
JAN 12 1942   KSFO/San Francisco personality Jack Kirkwood eliminates reading listeners’ names and numbers on the air at the “request” of the FBI.
JAN 12 1942   CBS Chief Engineer Peter Goldmark demonstrates the network’s color television system to The Institute of Radio Engineers in New York City.
JAN 12 1948   Shell Oil places a 52 week contract worth $135,000 with WNBC/New York City for a 15-minute newscast at 11:00 p.m. seven nights a week.
JAN 12 1948   A U.S. Court of Appeals says it lacks authority to set aside the FCC Blue Book but calls the Commission’s criticism of WBAL/Baltimore, “…unfortunate and unjustifiable,”  and the station’s complaint, “…pictures a legal wrong.”  
JAN 12 1949  William Ballard of Palo Pinto County, Texas, sues NBC and Brown & Williamson Tobacco for $1.2 Million claiming his copyrighted idea, The Lucky Interview Introducing Secrets of The Little Black Box was stolen by People Are Funny.  (See People Are Funny, Tueday's All Time Top Ten and Friday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 12 1949   Bandleader Blue Barron accepts an out of court settlement of $4,500 in his suit against Stop The Music! producers, claiming the show was based on an audition recorded by his band titled Mystery Melodies. (See Stop The Music!)
JAN 12 1949   Arthur Godfrey & His Friends, featuring most of his CBS radio weekday morning program cast, debuts on Wednesday nights from 8:00 to 9:00 p.m. on ten CBS-TV stations in the East and Midwest and becomes an immediate hit.  (See Arthur Godfrey.) 
JAN 12 1949   DuMont begins operations of WDTV(TV)/Pittsburgh on Channel 3.  (See Dr. DuMont's Predictions.)
JAN 12 1950   CBS begins public demonstrations of its color television system in a downtown Washington, D.C., building.
JAN 12 1950   Senate hearings begin on the bill introduced by North Dakota Senator William Langer outlawing the advertising of all alcoholic beverages on media engaged in interstate commerce.
JAN 12 1951   Louisiana politician and patent medicine promoter, Dudley LeBlanc, launches his Hadacol tonic’s national advertising with a variety show starring Judy Garland and Groucho Marx on the Mutual and Liberty networks plus 150 independent stations. The program is repeated on ABC the following night. (See Hadacol.)
JAN 12 1953   The Taft family, owners of The Cincinnati Times-Star and WKRC-AM&TV/Cincinnati, buy WTVN(TV)/Columbus for $1.5 Million.

JAN 13 1922 The University of Minnesota is licensed to operate WLB, (later KUOM), St. Paul, Minnesota.
JAN 13 1930  CBS rules that all performers in its studios must wear formal dress after 6:00 p.m. 
JAN 13 1933   FRC grants NBC’s  Blue Network anchor, WJZ/New York City, a power increase to 50,000 watts.
JAN 13 1933   Al Jolson tells NBC and sponsor General Motors that he wants to perform his Top Ten show without a studio audience - “…just 700 more unnecessary faces to make smile or laugh.” 
JAN 13 1935   George Storer’s American Broadcasting System network reorganizes as the American Broadcasting Company - WNEW replaces WMCA as the network's New York City anchor. (See The Original ABC Network.)
JAN 13 1936   Pioneer showman and radio show host Samuel (Roxy) Rothafel dies in his sleep at age 52.  (See Bill Stern.)
JAN 13 1936   All Boston stations join forces to fight an FCC proposal by the Travelers Insurance Company, owners of 50,000 watt WTIC/Hartford, to move the station to Boston. 
JAN 13 1937   Ford Motor Company issues a protest to CBS and NBC against chain-break spot announcements.  The networks respond that they have no way of policing local stations’ use of their allotted time for station identification.
JAN 13 1941   Trade magazine Broadcasting - a bi-weekly publication since 1930 - becomes a weekly.
JAN 13 1941  Bristol Myers’ Ipana and Sal Hepatica, Miles Laboratories’ Alka Seltzer and Lockheed Aircraft each sponsor daily newscasts on Crosley’s international shortwave station WLWO/Cincinnati 
JAN 13 1944   FCC drops all objections to newspaper ownership of broadcast properties opening the door for numerous station sales.
JAN 13 1944   The Liberty Ship S.S. Frank Cubel is launched in Richmond, California, named for the WGN-Mutual correspondent killed in the Clipper crash off Lisbon en route to covering the North African invasion.
JAN 13 1946   ABC kicks off the 1946 March of Dimes campaign with a special 15 minute show from Dime Box, Texas.
JAN 13 1947 Ma Perkins becomes the last of the Chicago originated soap operas to move to New York City.  (See Soft Soap & Hard Sell.)
JAN 13 1947   American Tobacco saves $100,000 in annual line charges by moving its Lucky Strike commercial auctioneers F.E. Boone and Lee (Speed) Riggs from New York to Los Angeles where its Jack Benny and Your Hit Parade shows originate.  (See The Sponsor Sweepstakes and Smoke Gets In Your Ears.)
JAN 13 1948   NBC-TV signs a five year contract with Jerry Fairbanks Productions to make filmed programs as ordered by the  network.
JAN 13 1950   Thomas Lee, 45, owner of Don Lee Broadcasting System, falls twelve stories to his death from a Los Angeles office building.  The radio, television and auto retail empire inherited from his father is valued at $9.4 Million.
JAN 13 1951   CBS-TV adds a Saturday night edition to its weeknight Douglas Edwards & The News from 7:45 to 8:00 p.m. 
JAN 13 1952   In his final CBS weekly broadcast, pollster-commentator Elmo Roper denies rumors and says he never encountered censorship in his four years with the network.
JAN 13 1952   General Motors spends $50,000 on a one week spot radio saturation campaign on 410 stations for its new model Buick automobiles.
JAN 13 1952   CBS-TV raids NBC-TV for Bristol-Myers’ quiz show Break The Bank for its Sunday night schedule.

JAN 14 1935   Responding to complaints of a dangerous hazard from airline companies, WMAQ/Chicago scales back its new 800 foot transmitter tower to 550 feet. 
JAN 14 1937   CBS adds KOY/Phoenix, as its 99th affiliate.  (See Three Letter Calls.)
JAN 14 1937   A Spartanburg, South Carolina, teenager is sentenced to four years imprisonment for the Halloween murder of WSPA announcer Edgar Dodd, stabbed with an ice pick in a local restaurant. 
JAN 14 1937   Popular Country Church of Hollywood minister William B. Hogg, 56, known to CBS audiences as Josiah Hopkins, The Goose Creek Parson, dies in Los Angeles following an operation.
JAN 14 1938 FCC issues a “strong rebuke” to NBC for the infamous Mae West Adam & Eve sketch broadcast on the Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy Chase & Sanborn Hour and threatens to hold the 59 network stations that carried the broadcast responsible when applying for license renewals.  (See Bergen, McCarthy and Adam & Eve.)
JAN 14 1938   CBS argues before the FCC that the Commission has no legal standing to interfere with the network’s plan to lease KSFO/San Francisco for $25,000 per year.
JAN 14 1939   Phil Baker’s short lived variety show, Honolulu Bound, begins its ten month run on CBS.
JAN 14 1941   New CBS correspondent William Dunn is assigned to head the network’s Far East bureau headquartered in Manila.
JAN 14 1941 Young & Rubicam Advertising resigns the Pall Mall cigarette and Half & Half tobacco accounts of American Tobacco, often called, “...a headache,” by the agency. 
JAN 14 1944 In a rare occurrence, both CBS and NBC broadcast television programs in New York City on the same night. 
JAN 14 1945 Six new 50,000 watt shortwave transmitters in California begin operations - KCBA and KCBF/Delano, KNBA, KNBC, KNBI and KNBX/Dixon - in addition to the four high powered stations already beamed at the Pacific theater from on the West Coast 
JAN 14 1946   General Mills schedules four weekday serials created by Irna Phillips - The Guiding Light, Today’s Children, Women In White and Masquerade - in its 2:00 p.m. hour on NBC.  (See Soft Soap & Hard Sell.)
JAN 14 1946  The Congress of Industrial Organizations - CIO - buys a 15 minute commentary three nights at 10:30 for 13 weeks on ABC.
JAN 14 1947   Jack Paar and the William Esty agency, producers of Vaughn Monroe’s Camel Caravan for R.J. Reynolds, separate after one show of their contract when Paar objects to censorship of his material.  (See Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 14 1947  Norman Corwin’s 13-part One World Flight debuts on CBS, documenting the writer-producer’s globe circling trip with interviews recorded in over a dozen foreign countries. It registers a 3.6 Hooperating opposite Bob Hope’s 30.6 on NBC.  (See We Hold These Truths.)
JAN 14 1949  ABC begins simulcasting its giveaway show Break The Bank on radio and television.
JAN 14 1949   Veteran stage and radio comedian Willie Howard dies after a short illness in New York City at age 62.
JAN 14 1950   Bob Crosby begins an eight week test period as a Saturday night disc jockey on ABC while he and his band already have a  Sunday night television show on NBC-TV.  (See Multiple Runs All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 14 1951  Twenty-three members of NABET go on strike at WAGA AM-FM-TV/Atlanta shutting down the radio  station for 30 minutes and the television station for three hours.
JAN 14 1952  NBC-TV introduces its pioneer morning program Today with host Dave Garroway.
JAN 14 1952   Ralph Edwards introduces his weekday afternoon show at  3:30 p.m. on NBC-TV. 
JAN 14 1952   Lipton Tea cancels the live West Coast television feed of Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts because of its early, 5:30 p.m. broadcast time on CBS-TV.  Instead the live program is “hot kinescoped” in Los Angeles at 5:30 and the film is broadcast on the West Coast at 8:30 p.m.   (See Arthur Godfrey.)
JAN 14 1953   Capitol Records proposes a monthly fee of ten dollars per station for supplying it s new popular and country records.

JAN 15 1923 The United States boundary between call-signs beginning with W and K is moved East to the Mississippi River.​
JAN 15 1932   Claiming that up to 20 song pluggers a night are crowding its New York City studios, CBS limits each music publishing house to only one representative.
JAN 15 1933   New Jersey stations WAAM/Newark and WDOD/Patterson are merged to become WNEW/Newark, operating with 2,500 watts day and 1,000 watts night on 1250 kilocycles. 
JAN 15 1934   Arthur Godfrey, 30, begins his 14 year run as the morning personality on CBS-owned WJSV/Washington.  (See Arthur Godfrey.)
JAN 15 1934   First reports surface that Archibald Crossley is going to sell his rating service to the ANA.   (See Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & NIelsen.)
JAN 15 1936   Phillips H. Lord’s Gangbusters, (aka Gang Busters), begins its 21 year multi-network run and introduces its show closing descriptions of actual wanted fugitives.  (See Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 15 1937   The New York State Judicial Council recommends to the state legislature that the word “court” be banned from the title of radio programs.
JAN 15 1937   Time, Incorporated, producer of The March of Time radio series and movie shorts, wins an injunction preventing a phonograph record manufacturer from branding its product featuring famous personalities, The Voice of Time.  (See The March of Time.)
JAN 15 1937   Fred MacMurray replaces Dick Powell as host of Hollywood Hotel on CBS.  (See Friday's All Time Top Ten and Dick Powell.)
JAN 15 1938   All Chicago hotels except the Edgewater Beach discontinue late night band broadcasts to protest the $100 weekly line fee demanded by the city's stations.  (See Big Band Remotes.)
JAN 15 1939   Kellogg debuts The Circle on NBC starring a rotating panel of conver-sationalists beginning with Carole Lombard, Cary Grant, Ronald Colman, Lawrence Tibbett and the Marx Brothers for a combined talent fee of $23,000.  (See The 1938-39 Season.)
JAN 15 1940   Celebrating KMPC/Los Angeles’ increase in power to 5,000 watts, owner G.A. (Dick) Richards appoints Bing Crosby, Harold Lloyd, Paul Whiteman and Freeman Gosden & Charles Correll to its Board of Directors.
JAN 15 1940  C.E. Hooper begins publishing its Pacific Coast ratings with initial semi-monthly polling in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Portland.  (See Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
JAN 15 1940   Mutual cuts ties with the Texas State Network and enters into separate affiliation agreements with its stations.
JAN 15 1941   At the request of BMI, CBS and NBC suspend their rule barring the broadcast of the same song within two hours.  Mutual is expected to follow their lead.
JAN 15 1942  The U.S. Office of Censorship, in declaring wartime standards, forbids broadcasters from making any comments about weather conditions other than read directly from material supplied by the U.S. Weather Bureau.  (See The 1941-42 Season.)
JAN 15 1944  Arthur Godfrey celebrates his tenth anniversary as morning personality at WTOP/Washington, D.C., (fka WJSV), with a show at the city’s Capitol Theater.  (See Arthur Godfrey.)
JAN 15 1944   Ralph Edwards takes his Truth Or Consequences to Phoenix, sells $915,500 in War Bonds and begins a month-long series of shows and broadcasts from southern cities generating a total of nearly $7.4 Million in bond sales.  (See Truth Or Consequences and Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 15 1944   Veteran West Coast music figure Jack Joy, credited with discovering many talents for radio and music director of The Army Hour, dies in Los Angeles after surgery at age 48.
JAN 15 1945   Art Linkletter’s House Party begins its 22 year multi-network weekday run on CBS.  (See A John Guedel Production.)
JAN 15 1945  The War Department orders the Army Air Force orchestra be renamed Glenn Miller’s Band of The Allied Expeditionary Forces in honor of its leader, missing in action and presumed dead.  (See In The Miller Mood.)
JAN 15 1945   Illness forces Ben Bernie, (aka The Ol’ Maestro),  51, to retire from his 13 year multi-network career.  (See Tuesday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 15 1945   Ed Wynn’s King Bubbles character of Happy Island is dropped for the newly formatted Ed Wynn Show sitcom on ABC.  (See Tuesday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 15 1945   FCC issues its Frequency Allocation Report, pushing FM to the higher channels of 84 to 102 megacycles, while giving lower frequencies to civilian “citizens band” service, and basically leaving television and AM radio untouched.
JAN 15 1946   New York City television stations WNBT and WCBW broadcast President Truman’s State of The Union address relayed to them via coaxial cable from Washington where the event is broadcast by DuMont’s experimental W3WXT.
JAN 15 1948   NBC affiliates begin playing a 15 minute transcribed March of Dimes appeal featuring the stars of NBC’s Saturday night lineup: Ralph Edwards, Frank Sinatra, Kay Kyser, Judy Canova and William Bendix.
JAN 15 1948   FCC denies the publisher of newspapers in Lorain and Mansfield, Ohio, permits for radio stations in those two cities because it claims, “…he can’t be trusted to operate them in the public interest.” 
JAN 15 1948   WBKB(TV)/Chicago’s mobIle unit is dispatched to the factory destroyed by an explosion and killing five.  It  covers the aftermath for five hours with live pictures from two image orthicon cameras and narration by three newsmen.  
JAN 15 1950   NBC cancels its elaborate Sunday giveaway show Hollywood Calling after six months of mediocre ratings opposite Jack Benny on CBS.  (See Sunday At Seven.)
JAN 15 1951   Arthur Godfrey leaves his CBS shows and reports for a two week temporary hitch in the Navy.  (See Arthur Godfrey.)
JAN 15 1951   Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall record the first five episodes of their transcribed series Bold Venture. (See Bogart & Bacall’s Bold Venture and Fred Ziv - King of Syndication.)
JAN 15 1951  The AFM opens negotiations with the networks by demanding that recorded music be banned from radio and television broadcasts from 8:00 a.m. until midnight.
JAN 15 1951   An AFRA strike honored by NABET engineers takes WJW/Cleveland off the air for three hours.
JAN 15 1951   DuMont leases the old Central Opera House in New York City to renovate for its new studios.  
JAN 15 1952   FCC hearings begin on the proposed merger of United Paramount Theaters & American Broadcasting Company. 
JAN 15 1952   KBON(FM)/Omaha shuts down its music and news programming for city buses and returns its license to the FCC.
JAN 15 1953   The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee bans radio and television news coverage of its hearing on the nomination of John Foster Dulles as Secretary of State.

JAN 16 1933   Warner Brothers gives Dick Powell a new six month movie contract that allows him to appear on a national radio network.  (See Dick Powell and Friday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 16 1936  WBNX/New York City, catering to its foreign language audience, broadcasts an hour of the novelty song, The Music Goes Round & Round, sung in English, Spanish, Hungarian, Polish, Greek, German, Italian and Yiddish.
JAN 16 1937   WKBW/Buffalo morning personality Jack Preston abandons his car after colliding with a milk truck, limps the final block to the station and arrives one minute late for his 7:00 a.m. show. 
JAN 16 1937   Mutual begins six weeks of broadcasting the Saturday afternoon feature races from Hialeah Race Track in Miami 
JAN 16 1939   Carleton E. Morse’s adventure serial I Love A Mystery begins a nine month run on NBC’s West Coast network before going on the full network in October.  (See I Love A Mystery and I Love A Sequel.)
JAN 16 1942   All U.S amateur, (ham), radio operators are ordered off the air for the duration of World War II. 
JAN 16 1942   Broadcasters are outraged by Federal Power Commission Chairman Leland Olds’ statement to the House Appropriations Committee that home radio listening may have to be outlawed because radio is, “…essentially one of the unnecessary consumers of electricity.”
JAN 16 1944   William Bendix debuts in The Life of Riley on Blue’s Sunday afternoon schedule - the sitcom moves to NBC eight months later for a successful six season run.  (See Friday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 16 1945   FCC’s postwar allocations  plan is reported to propose shifting the FM band up to 84 to 102 megacycles, making all existing FM receivers obsolete. 
JAN 16 1947   FCC turns down DuMont Laboratories’ applications for television stations in Cleveland and Cincinnati.  (See Dr. DuMont’s Predictions.)
JAN 16 1949   NBC presents the three and a half hour dedication telecast of its KNBH(TV)/Los Angeles.
JAN 16 1949   Bamberger Department Stores begins operations of its WOIC(TV)/Wash-ington, D. C., a CBS-TV affiliate. 
JAN 16 1950   The Liberty Broadcasting System network announces a 1950 schedule of 209 Major League baseball games from March until October.
JAN 16 1950   Gene Autry reveals to the press that his CBS Radio sponsor, Wrigley Gum, pays him a $500 weekly bonus not to appear on television.  (See Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 16 1950   The Chicago Cubs sell television rights to the team's 1950 season home games to stations WBKB(TV) and WGN-TV for $60,000. 
JAN 16 1953  Citing budget needs for television, Campbell Soup cancels Bob Crosby’s Club 15 weeknight music strip on CBS after six seasons.  (See Multiple Runs All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 16 1953  Your Hit Parade leaves the air after an 18 season multi-network run. (See Saturday's All Time Top Ten and Top 40 Radio’s Roots.) 

JAN 17 1930   Bandleader/comedian Ben Bernie, 39, begins his 13 year multi-network career on Blue.  (See Tuesday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 17 1933   Campana Balm drops all print advertising to concentrate its marketing of the lotion’s new ten-cent size tube on Blue’s First Nighter and The Fu Manchu Mysteries on CBS.  (See Friday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 17 1933   McClatchy Newspapers Vice President Carlos McClatchy, 41, responsible for the company’s five radio properties, dies in California of pneumonia.
JAN 17 1936   Warner Brothers Music files copyright infringement actions against New York City stations WABC, WEAF, WHN and WMCA for unlicensed broadcast of the songs  I Love Mountain Music, I Get A Kick Out of You and Put On Your Old Gray Bonnet. 
JAN 17 1937  Striking engineers take WBNX/New York City off the air for 36 hours while the station recruits replacements.
JAN 17 1941   FCC rules that stations may not editorialize or support partisan beliefs of their licensees. 
JAN 17 1941   New York City Police Commissioner Louis Valentine appears on the fifth anniversary program of Phillips H. Lord’s Gangbusters on Blue and commends the program with a sweeping endorsement for its beneficial qualities.  (See Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 17 1942   WHO/Des Moines starts a drive to collect scrap metal on Iowa farms, claiming there’s enough discarded steel on the state’s land to construct eleven battleships or 12,500 light tanks.
JAN 17 1943   Dick Jurgens’ band makes its last appearance on WGN/Chicago before its popular leader joins the Navy.  (See Big Band Remotes and The Aragon’s Last Stand.)
JAN 17 1944  Let's Back The Attack, an all-star hour hosted by U.S. Army Captain Ronald Reagan, featuring General Dwight Eisenhower, starring Bing Crosby with Glenn Miller and the Army Air Force Band, is broadcast by all four networks in prime time and scores a 44.4 Hooperating, (42.0 Million listeners), to open The Fourth War Loan Drive with a goal of $14.0 Billion.  
JAN 17 1945  Philadelphia’s Poor Richard Club presents its Gold Medal of Achievement to Bob Hope as, “The American who has made the outstanding contribution to the nation this year,” for entertaining the Armed Forces,  Citations were also given to Jerry Colonna, Frances Langford, Barbara Jo Allen, (Vera Vague), and Tony Romano of Hope’s troupe.  (See Hope From Home and “Professor” Jerry Colonna.)
JAN 17 1945   The American Civil Liberties Union backs the Italian Dress Makers Union Local 89 in asking for an injunction to prevent WCOP/Boston from cancelling its Italian language Voice of 89 program.
JAN 17 1947  Approximately 25 jobs are eliminated at ABC and its WJZ/New York City as higher operating costs force budget cuts.  The network also cancels its schedule of late night dance band remotes.
JAN 17 1947    WDSU/New Orleans, purchased in 1943 for $250,000, is sold to New York investors for $800,000.
JAN 17 1949   NBC is reported ready to forgo its ban on recorded programs if demanded by their stars and agreed to by their sponsors.
JAN 17 1949   Chicago television favorite Kukla, Fran & Ollie starring Burr Tillstrom’s puppets and actress/singer Fran Allison, debuts as a weeknight half-hour on NBC-TV.
JAN 17 1949   Gertrude Berg brings her long-running family radio serial The Goldbergs to CBS-TV.
JAN 17 1950   NBC’s familiar system cue in use since 1927 - the three-notes G.E.C. in the key of C played on chimes - becomes the first audible trademark registered with the U.S. Patent Office.
JAN 17 1951   Margaret Truman signs an exclusive contract with NBC guaranteeing her $2,500 for each radio performance and $4,000 for each television appearance.
JAN 17 1952   KTTV(TV)/Los Angeles stays on the air for over 24 hours in its coverage of massive floods in the San Fernando Valley.

JAN 18 1932   CBS and NBC report a combined audience of 21,000 visitors per month attend broadcasts from their New York City studios.
JAN 18 1935   Penn Tobacco, makers of Kentucky Winners cigarettes, cancels its two-month sponsorship of One Man’s Family, broadcast on 52 NBC stations Wednesday nights.  (See Sunday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 18 1935   CBS reports receiving 70,000 responses to sponsor Blue Coal’s two announcements offering pictures of The Shadow on twelve of its network stations.  (See The Shadow Nos.)
JAN 18 1937   Weekday drama Aunt Jenny’s Real Life Stories begins its 19 year run on CBS.  (See Soft Soap & Hard Sell.)
JAN 18 1937  The Screen Actors Guild files protests with the FCC, NBC and sponsor Luden’s Cough Drops over the treatment actors are receiving from Hollywood reporter Jimmie Fidler.
JAN 18 1937   Stations are indignant to Henry Ford’s complaint against their chain-break commercials expressed in a letter to the FCC by Ford’s agency, N.W. Ayer, and fear a threat to the $160,000 in annual local business that the spots represent.
JAN 18 1937   The Lone Ranger goes coast-to-coast with the addition of the Don Lee West Coast network.  Each show must now be performed three times: 7:30 p.m. for WXYZ and East Coast stations, 8:00 for WGN/Chicago and 10:30 for the West Coast.  (See The Lone Ranger and Multiple Runs All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 18 1942   Jack Benny cancels that night’s show to mourn his To Be Or Not To Be co-star, actress Carole Lombard, who was killed two days earlier in a plane crash returning from a War Bond rally.  
JAN 18 1943   Procter & Gamble adds 47 NBC stations to its weekday lineup for serials Ma Perkins and Road of Life, plus 49 stations for Vic & Sade, bringing the three programs’ coverage up to NBC’s full network of 129 affiliates.  (See Soft Soap & Hard Sell and Vic & Sade.)
JAN 18 1943   The OWI divides the country’s radio stations into four equal sized groups - each to receive a separate disc of twelve defense announcements each week with “requests” that each spot be played once a day. 
JAN 18 1944   A Date With Judy begins its six season multi-network run after two years as a summer replacement show.
JAN 18 1945   U.S. Senator John Overton of Louisiana files an FCC complaint that WDSU/New Orleans refused him time while it gave his opponent free appearances 13 times.  His opponent heads the company that owns WDSU. 
JAN 18 1946 Game show Blind Date hosted by Arlene Francis is cancelled after its three year multi-network run.
JAN 18 1947   Bandleader Woody Herman joins KLAC/Los Angeles for 13 weeks as a Saturday afternoon disc jockey.
JAN 18 1948  The television adaptation of The Original Amateur Hour hosted by Ted Mack premieres on the DuMont Network. (See The 1948-49 Season.)
JAN 18 1950   The difference cited for C.E. Hooper and A.C. Nielsen’s Saturday night ratings for Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch on CBS, (Hooper: 9.0 rating at 68th place, Nielsen: 16.0 rating at 10th place), is Hooper’s confinement to major cities and Nielsen’s inclusion of rural areas in its surveys.  (See Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
JAN 18 1950 Arthur Godfrey hosts a half-hour special on CBS-TV to introduce the 1950 model Pontiac automobiles.  (See Arthur Godfrey.)
JAN 18 1951   The National Football League passes new rules allowing teams to televise games within their home markets provided the visiting teams give their permission.
JAN 18 1952   Popular radio and stage personality Ed East, 56, collapses at New York’s Lambs Club while playing pool with friends and dies of a heart attack.
JAN 18 1952   Over 16,000 postcards are received in response to an offer for a free copy of Kiplinger’s Changing Times magazine during the first week of NBC-TV’s new morning program, Today. 
​
JAN 19 1938   FCC studies report that only 8.1% of the U.S. population is out of the “good service area” of AM radio during the daytime and 17.4% at night.
JAN 19 1942   World War II censorship bans all man-on-the-street interviews.  (See The 1942-43 Season.)
JAN 19 1942   Thai is added to the languages spoken on GE’s powerful shortwave sta-tion, KGEI/San Francisco, in addition to English, Spanish, French, Dutch, Tagalog plus Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese. 
JAN 19 1943   Monty Woolley joins the cast of The Al Jolson Show on CBS.  (See Monty Woolley.)
JAN 19 1943   Bob Hope’s Pepsodent Show sets a personal high a 40.9 Hooperating. trailed by Red Skelton’s personal high of 40.7.  (See Tuesday‘s All Time Top Ten and Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
JAN 19 1944   Frank Sinatra’s new series of shows for Vimm’s Vitamins registers a Hooperating of 12.4, a 36% drop from his premiere two weeks earlier.. 
JAN 19 1944   Liggett & Myers’ Chesterfield cigarettes begins a weekly half-hour series featuring Fred Waring’s Pennsylvanians on DuMont’s W2XWV(TV)/New York City.
JAN 19 1945   Protesting the FCC’s shifting the FM band from 42 to 50 megacycles, directors of FM Broadcasters, Inc., say the move to 84 to 102 megacycles will cost listeners over $30 Million to replace the 500,000 receivers already in use.  
JAN 19 1945   Bert Lytell, charter host of Stage Door Canteen,on CBS, leaves the American Theater Wing show after 30 months to return to the stage.
JAN 19 1945   Harold Sanford, 65, an NBC musical conductor for 15 years, dies of a heart attack in Springfield, Massachusetts.
JAN 19 1948   Network spokesmen tell the FCC they won’t agree to the AFM’s demand that a new contract hinges on their affiliates rehiring 136 musicians laid off since passage of the Lea and Taft-Hartley acts.
JAN 19 1948   Gene Autry acquires 50% ownership of KOWL/Santa Monica, California.  (See Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 19 1948   CBS Washington bureau chief Eric Severaid threatens legal action against Time magazine for his alleged quote, “Radio reporting is superficial and sloppy…I think I’d be happier writing for print.” 
JAN 19 1949   NBC lifts its network ban against recorded programs. 
JAN 19 1949   AFRS increases its number of transcriptions shipped to overseas stations per month to 40,000 discs. 
JAN 19 1949 Popular KOA/Denver singing personality John (Happy Jack) Turner, 50, with NBC since 1931 and KOA since 1944, collapses and dies two hours before his daily show.
JAN 19 1951   Banjoist Harry Reser’s Cliquot Club Eskimos, off the air for 15 years, return with a live, 26-week half-hour series on the 18 station Yankee Network originating at WNAC/Boston. 
JAN 19 1951   ABC issues a memo ordering avoidance of the word “television” and all references to the medium on its radio broadcasts.
JAN 19 1953   The birth Ricky Ricardo, Jr. on CBS-TV’s I Love Lucy scores a record breaking 68.8 Trendex rating.

JAN 20 1930   KWKH/Shreveport informs the FRC that it will ban all profanity, including the words “damn” and “hell” which upset Senator Clarence Dill who threatened action against the station.
JAN 20 1932   Floyd Gibbons’ news report from Manchuria becomes the first American broadcast from a foreign land.
JAN 20 1932   CBS gives New York City radio columnists free trips to Washington for the inauguration of President Roosevelt.
JAN 20 1936   Networks flash the 7:55 p.m. bulletin of the death of England’s King George V in London at age 71.
JAN 20 1936   Connecticut businessmen join forces to fight the proposed move of 50,000 watt WTIC/Hartford to Boston.
JAN 20 1937   Refusal to pool resources costs NBC and CBS a prime location at President Roosevelt’s second inaugural.
JAN 20 1937   First word of the flooded Ohio and Mississippi river valleys are made from Kennett, Missouri, on NBC.
JAN 20 1938   Dick Powell, threatens to quit as host of Lucky Strike's Your Hit Parade after he goes public with his complaints of American Tobacco President George Washington Hill micro-managing the NBC show.  (See Dick Powell.)
JAN 20 1939   FCC Commissioners Case, Craven and Payne recommend longer station license periods, “…for the stability of their business.”
JAN 20 1940   All networks and most independent stations carry the hour-long March of Dimes benefit show starring Eddie Cantor, Jack Benny, Bing Crosby and Burns & Allen.
JAN 20 1941   Legal hearings begin resulting from the FCC’s Mayflower Doctrine which prohibits stations from editorializing.
JAN 20 1941   C.E. Hooper’s first monthly ratings since the ASCAP boycott began indicate that evening network music programs’ audiences have increased from an average 10.8 to 11.1 and variety shows have increased from 14.3 to 15.1.  (See Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
JAN 20 1942  The Peabody Award winning Mail Bag program on GE’s powerful shortwave station, WGEO/Schenectady, is cancelled to prevent Axis agents from getting coded messages to Europe.
JAN 20 1945   The appearance by ten-year old polio victim on Truth Or Consequences results in the program receiving $40,700 in donations for The March of Dimes in one week.  (See Truth Or Consequences and Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 20 1945   Jack Benny and Bob Hope with their radio casts, plus Ralph Edwards, Ann Sheridan, Joan Edwards and Lester Lanin’s orchestra earn $4,000 for The March of Dimes in a sold out Carnegie Hall benefit.
JAN 20 1946   NBC’s Fitch Bandwagon completes its switch from music to a comedy format headed by Cass Daley.  (See Sunday's All Time Top Ten.)     
JAN 20 1947   NAB objects as FCC announces the seven dates in 1946 that make up its composite week from which stations must submit their program logs for Blue Book compliance inspection when applying for license renewal. 
JAN 20 1947   FCC announces its “lay away plan” delaying assignment of Class A, (smaller sized), FM licenses in areas adjacent to New York City, Chicago, Boston and Los Angeles. 
JAN 20 1948  Official Detective becomes Pharmaco’s fourth weekly program on Mutual for Feen-A Mint gum, joining Charlie Chan, Song of The Stranger and The Jim Bakus  Show and raising its 1948 budget on Mutual to $1.6 Million.
JAN 20 1948   AT&T sets the rate for its 15,000 cycle high-fidelity line for FM transmission at 28 cents a mile, compared to 22 cents a mile for its 8,000 cycle line used for AM networking. 
JAN 20 1948   DuMont’s WABD(TV)/New York City introduces its weekly 20 minute Telenews Newsreel on Tuesday nights sponsored by Chevrolet.
JAN 20 1949   CBS obtains a 15 year loan of $5.0 Million from Prudential Insurance for television development.
JAN 20 1949  The inauguration of President Harry Truman receives the event's  first live television coverage.
JAN 20 1949   Ralph Edwards hosts a television test of his Truth Or Consequences on KLAC-TV/Los Angeles.  (See Truth Or Consequences.)
JAN 20 1950   Kate Smith moves her nighttime variety show, dropped by ABC, to Mutual, substituting recorded music for live acts.  (See Kate's Great Song.)
JAN 20 1950  Ford follows its two week buy of 20 sustaining network radio shows on CBS and Mutual with the purchase of ten sustaining television shows over a twelve day period on ABC, CBS, NBC and DuMont.
JAN 20 1950  Twentieth Century Fox withdraws its FCC applications for television stations in San Francisco, Boston, St. Louis, Kansas City and Seattle.
JAN 20 1953   The inauguration of President Eisenhower is broadcast by all radio and television networks with television coverage carried by 118 stations in 74 cities. 
JAN 20 1953  For the first time since its establishment in 1934, the FCC prepares to operate under a Republican, (Eisenhower), administration.
JAN 20 1953 Nila Mack, producer of the CBS Saturday morning program Let’s Pretend for 23 years, dies of a heart attack at age 61.  (See Let's Pretend.)

JAN 21 1930 The NBC networks carry reports and speeches from The London Naval Conference via BBC shortwave relay.
JAN 21 1931  R.J. Reynolds’ Camel cigarettes pays Maurice Chivalier $7,500 for a single hour’s appearance on the Blue Network.
JAN 21 1934   A survey conducted for CBS estimates there are 18 Million radios in the United States.
JAN 21 1935   Baltimore dentists file a court challenge to the validity of a Maryland law prohibiting them from advertising on radio in the state.
JAN 21 1936   Texaco cancels its elaborate musical comedy Jumbo and its star Jimmy Durante, substituting a low-cost musical variety hour for the next 13 weeks.  (See Good-night, Mr. Durante... and The 1935-36 Season.)
JAN 21 1937  Floods put the brand new facilities of WGRC/New Albany, Indiana, under water.
JAN 21 1937   The 22 station Affiliated Broadcasting System regional network pays off its employees and goes out of business after nine months. 
JAN 21 1941   KSTP/Minneapolis-St. Paul completes installation of a coaxial cable to Stevens Point, Wisconsin, (halfway to Chicago), in preparation for network television which the station believes to be less than a year away.
JAN 21 1942   Kay Kyser’s Kollege of Musical Knowledge joins the quiz show trend and begins awarding Defense Bonds and Stamps instead of cash prizes.  (See Kay Kyser and Wednesday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 21 1944   Tommy Dorsey settles for an undisclosed sum with Ford for the sudden cancellation of their signed contract for a 13 week series of five 15-minute shows a week on Blue that would have paid him a total of $130,000.
JAN 21 1946   A Federal court sets aside the FCC decision not to renew the license of WOKO/Albany.
JAN 21 1946   J. Scott (Jack) Smart debuts as The Fat Man, beginning a successful five year run on ABC.  (See Friday's All Time Top Ten and The Curse of Dashiell Hammett.) 
JAN 21 1946   ABC introduces I Deal In Crime with William Gargan for an 18 month run, Paul Whiteman’s Forever Tops which lasted 26 weeks and Jimmy Gleason’s Diner, a sitcom that was cancelled in 13 weeks.  
JAN 21 1947  Basil Rathbone stars in the new Mutual mystery series, Scotland Yard, due for an eleven month, sustaining run.
JAN 21 1949   CBS announces signing Bing Crosby for radio and television and acquires 25% of Crosby Enterprises for $1.0 Million. 
JAN 21 1950   Veteran movie actor/comedian Roscoe Carnes debuts as Rocky King, Detective on DuMont Television.
JAN 21 1951   An overnight telethon on WGN-TV/Chicago raises $110,000 for the City of Hope children’s hospital.
JAN 21 1951   Cary Grant and his wife Betsy Drake debut in the NBC sitcom Mr. & Mrs. Blandings for 26 weeks.
JAN 21 1952   Westinghouse ups its 1952 political sponsorship on CBS Radio from 93 stations to the full network of 193 stations for an additional expense of $500,000.
JAN 21 1952   Admiral Corporation agrees to sponsor ABC Radio and Television’s coverage of the 1952 political conventions and elections while DuMont signs Life magazine for its television coverage and makes a part of its programs available on a co-op basis for local sale.

JAN 22 1937   WREC/Memphis begins what will become over 500 hours of continuous broadcasting as mid-south  stations assume emergency news and message duty during the massive floods of the Ohio and Mississippi River valleys.
JAN 22 1939   WMCA/New York City begins photographing and recording the anti-Semitic curses hurled by the crowd of  2,000 Sunday afternoon pickets protesting the station cancelling the weekly addresses of Detroit priest Charles Coughlin. (See Father Coughlin.)
JAN 22 1939   Eddie Cantor, Major Bowes and Amos & Andy star in an hour long East Coast kickoff to the annual March of Dimes campaign at 11:00 p,m. on all networks.
JAN 22 1940   Erwin, Wasey Advertising reports that its proposal to convert the comic strip Superman into a weekday serial was rejected by all four networks as, “…too horror-like with too many war and espionage elements.”
JAN 22 1940   Elliot Roosevelt’s Texas Broadcasting System network - blocked in its effort to rebroadcast CBS and NBC daytime soap operas at night - shrinks to 14 affiliates.
JAN 22 1941  FCC revokes the licenses of Florida stations WTMC/Ocala and WDLP/ Panama City after disclosures of hidden ownership. .
JAN 22 1943   All Detroit stations clear 9:00 to 9:30 p.m. for an address by Captain Eddie Rickebacker before The Society of Automotive Engineers. 
JAN 22 1945   Cecil B. DeMille refuses to pay AFRA’s one-dollar assessment to combat right-to-work laws and is forced to leave Lux Radio Theater after nine years as its host, losing a $98,200 annual salary.  (See Lux…Presents Hollywood.)
JAN 22 1945   Mutual President Ed Koback tells the press that network owners WOR, WGN and Don Lee Network have agreed to rebuild Mutual, “…from the ground up,” along traditional network lines. 
JAN 22 1947   Tom Breneman’s Breakfast In Hollywood on ABC originates for three days from Cincinnati’s 2,500 seat Taft Auditorium where sell-out audiences pay $1.25 per ticket to benefit The March of Dimes.
JAN 22 1947   Four staff members of KRNT/Des Moines are less than a block from a bank holdup and report the story within ten minutes then followup with the bandit’s capture 30 minutes later.
JAN 22 1947   Paramount Pictures opens the first commercial television station west of the Mississippi, KTLA(TV)/Los Angeles, with a variety show hosted by Bob Hope and featuring other Paramount stars William Bendix, Dorothy Lamour, Kirk Douglas and Ray Milland.
JAN 22 1948  A Los Angeles judge dismisses a plagiarism suit brought against CBS sitcom My Friend Irma by the rights holder to the play and film comedy My Sister Eileen.
JAN 22 1949   WKOB/North Adams, Massachusetts, a 250 watt daytime station founded by a group of ex-GI’s, fails financially, shuts down and returns its license to the FCC.
JAN 22 1950   Hollywood Calling is cancelled by NBC and replaced by the 13 week adventure series Christopher London starring Glenn Ford.  (See Sunday At Seven.)
JAN 22 1952   A 15 year old Detroit boy shoots and kills his deputy sheriff father who was arguing with his mother over the suitability of Suspense for the family’s children.  (See Sus…pense!)

JAN 23 1932   Guy Lombardo begins a weekly series on CBS for Bab-O cleanser, but because of the Lombardo’s contract with Robert Burns Cigars, the band isn’t allowed to be identified by name. (See Guy Lombardo.)
JAN 23 1933   The NAB tells its members that they can freely broadcast phonograph records despite the warnings against it printed on some record labels. 
JAN 23 1933   NBC leases 500 watt WMAL/Washington, D.C., as an outlet for the Blue Network.  
JAN 23 1933   Banjoist Harry Reser’s Cliquot Club Eskimos debut on Blue for a three year multi-network run followed by another decade of syndicated programs for the soft drink maker.
JAN 23 1936   John Mills, 25, senior member and bass of the Mills Brothers quartet, dies at his mother’s Ohio home of pneumonia contracted in the group’s European tour.  
JAN 23 1941   WOR/Newark, 50,000 watt flagship of Mutual, officially moves to New York City.
JAN 23 1942   CBS files an action to evict its former affiliate, KSFO/San Francisco, from network offices and studios in the Palace Hotel. The station’s lease on the space expired on January 1.   
JAN 23 1943   Ralph Edwards “suggests” his Truth Or Consequences audience send pennies to the mother of a serviceman to buy War Bonds for him.  The response is immediate and immense.  (See Truth Or Consequences.)
JAN 23 1943   Veteran commentator Alexander Woollcott, 56, collapses during CBS broadcast of The People’s Platform and dies of a heart attack four hours later.
JAN 23 1943  Stars appear for Blue’s late Saturday night March of Dimes benefit, led by Eddie Cantor, Red Skelton, Burns & Allen, Fannie Brice and Dinah Shore.
JAN 23 1944   Eddie Cantor, Jack Haley, Ida Lupino, Ginny Simms, Monty Woolley, Dick Powell and Lum & Abner head a huge cast in Mutual’s one-hour March of Dimes show. 
JAN 23 1945   After 12 years on NBC Standard Brands bumps One Man’s Family  to ABC to make room for movie  comedian Eddie Bracken’s new sitcom which is cancelled 16 weeks later.  (See Sunday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 23 1950   A U.S. Appeals Court upholds the FCC’s right to deny the Lorain and Mansfield, Ohio, newspaper owners from new radio licenses. 
JAN 23 1951   Zenith Corporation releases viewership figures for its Phonevision test in Chicago from January 8 to 14, showing that 81 of the 300 families equipped with the system ordered a movie for one dollar in an average day.
JAN 23 1952   Syndicated program producer Fredric W. Ziv reports 1951 billings of $20 Million from the sales of its radio properties to 1,100 stations.  (See Fred Ziv - King of Syndication.)
JAN 23 1952  Philip Loeb, fired from his role on NBC-TV’s The Goldbergs for suspected Communist leanings, reaches a $76,500 contract settlement with the show’s producer, Gertrude Berg.
JAN 23 1952   An episode of CBS-TV’s Arthur Godfrey & His Friends performed entirely on ice skates scores a 49.7 rating.  (See Arthur Godfrey.)
JAN 23 1952  Twenty-six film companies in Los Angeles report 32 television series in production.

JAN 24 1937   Fire at the Crosley Broadcasting headquarters in Cincinnati strikes the two floors containing the main studios of WLW and WSAI but the stations remain on the air at reduced power.
JAN 24 1937   WHAS/Louisville is ordered off the air by U.S. engineers to save power for the flooded city.  WSM/Nashville turns its facilities over to WHAS from 8:00 p.m. Sunday until 3:00 a.m. Monday for emergency messages relayed by shortwave.
JAN 24 1938   Barbasol shaving cream begins a new series of 15 minute programs with Arthur Godfrey two nights a week on CBS.  (See Arthur Godfrey.)
JAN 24 1939   AFRA notifies AAAA members that it will go on strike against agencies’ programs, “…at the least convenient time to them,” if its wage and working condition demands aren’t agreed upon immediately.
JAN 24 1940   FCC makes its first outright revocation of an AM license, KUMA/Yuma, Arizona, for, “…the owner’s failure to operate the station in accordance with terms of the license,” when he turned it over to the control of others. 
JAN 24 1941   FCC members and staff attend two days of presentations and demonstra-tions of television systems by competitors RCA-NBC, DuMont, Bell Laboratories, CBS Color and Britain’s Scophony projection. 
JAN 24 1942   Knickerbocker Playhouse spinoff Abie’s Irish Rose begins its two season run on NBC.
JAN 24 1943   Philip Morris revamps the format of its Sunday night CBS melodrama, Crime Doctor, with Everett Sloan as Dr. Ordway replacing Walter Grenza as Dr. Hart and more violence written into the scripts.
JAN 24 1944   CBS follows NBC’s lead and makes all of its programs available to its affiliates FM stations and will not charge advertisers for the extra exposure.
JAN 24 1944   Lowell Thomas’ 6:45 p.m. weeknight newscast moves from Blue to NBC.  (See Multiple Runs All Time Top Ten.) 
JAN 24 1945   The Adventures of Ellery Queen switches sponsors and networks - leaving Emerson Drug’s Bromo Seltzer and NBC for American Home Products Anacin and CBS.
JAN 24 1947  Lawyers for Hearst-owned WBAL/Baltimore ask the FCC to delete references in its Blue Book of program standards which have caused it, “…irreparable damage.”
JAN 24 1949  CBS announces signing NBC stars Edgar Bergen for Coca Cola and Red Skelton for Procter & Gamble show over 1949-50 season.  (See Network Jumpe​rs.)
JAN 24 1950   In a short, hand-written will, Thomas Lee leaves the entire Don Lee radio, television and auto dealership empire valued at $10.0 Million to his retired Seattle lumber tycoon uncle, R. D. Merrill, 72.
JAN 24 1951   Columnist and ABC news commentator Drew Pearson is cleared in a $350,000 libel suit brought by a former California Attorney General accused by Pearson of accepting a bribe.

JAN 25 1931  Meat market butcher George Vallance makes his annual half-hour appear-ance on KFI/Los Angeles with a half-hour solo serenade to honor the birthday of Scottish poet Bobby Burns.
JAN 25 1937   Irna Phillips’ daytime serial, The Guiding Light, begins its 19 year multi-network run on NBC.
JAN 25 1937   Flooding causes power failures that force Cincinnati stations WSAI and WCKY off the air for 24 hours.
JAN 25 1937  Arthur Godfrey, morning personality from WJSV/Washinton, D.C., flies a private plane to Memphis where he conducts interviews with flood survivors at WREC that are fed to CBS.  (See Arthur Godfrey.)
JAN 25 1938   FCC Commissioner T.A.M. Craven estimates the cost of a station to increase power from 50,000 to 500,000 watts to be $300,000 then another $140,000 a year to operate at that power.
JAN 25 1941  To counter networks and stations dropping ASCAP music in protest its new fees, the group presents the hour long musical ASCAP On Parade hosted by Irving Berlin and George M. Cohan on New York stations WNEW, WMCA, WHN and WOV then makes transcriptions of the show available to other ASCAP licensed stations. .
JAN 25 1941   ASCAP allows free use of its music for The March of Dimes kickoff broad-cast starring Jack Benny, Fred Allen, Rudy Vallee, Burns & Allen and Eddie Cantor, aired by the four networks and many independent stations. .
JAN 25 1942   Mary Livingstone, a victim of the flu, faints at the conclusion of NBC’s Jack Benny Jello Program.
JAN 25 1942   Manhattan Merry Go Round star Lucy Monroe takes a leave of absence for a 25,000 mile War Bond tour of concerts sponsored by RCA Victor.
JAN 25 1943   The AFM cancels its no-charge policy for the AFRS program Command Performance, instituting a musicians’ performance fee totaling over $25,000 a year.  (See Command Performance.)
JAN 25 1943   Blue floats the idea of transcribed repeats of its top nighttime shows the following afternoons to enable defense plant swing shift workers to hear them- provided it can get AFRA and AFM union cooperation.
JAN 25 1943  CBS newsman John Daly leaves for Egypt to replace Chet Morrison as the network’s Cairo correspondent.  Douglas Edwards takes Daly’s anchor role on the nightly World Today on CBS.
JAN 25 1944   Marlin Hurt debuts as Beulah, Fibber McGee & Molly’s cook, on the NBC sitcom.  (See Multiple Runs All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 25 1945   Columbia Pictures releases I Love A Mystery, the first of its three low budget films based on the Carleton E. Morse radio series of the same name.  (See I Love A Mystery, I Love A Sequel and Radio Goes To The Movies.)
JAN 25 1946   Sterling Drugs drops its serials Amanda and Second Husband on CBS to buy Bride & Groom on ABC - ABC’s owner, Edward Noble, being a major stockholder of Sterling reported to be a reason.
JAN 25 1947   Striking IBEW engineers take WEVD/New York City, (named for Socialist leader Eugene V. Debs), take the station off the air for most of the day.
JAN 25 1949   Walter O’Keefe hosts the first annual Emmy television awards ceremonies in Los Angeles.
JAN 25 1951   Popular interview show and early simulcast feature We The People is cancelled after a 15 year multi-network run.
JAN 25 1952   Don McNeill’s ABC Breakfast Club troupe completes a two-week series of broadcasts in Florida cities and draws a reported 32,000 fans for the 10 performances.
JAN 25 1952   The Liberty Network announces a 52 week schedule of nearly 600 sports events including baseball, college and professional football, college basketball and boxing.

JAN 26 1937   The flooded Ohio River reaches a record 80 feet in Cincinnati as stations assume emergency status.
JAN 26 1937   CBS and NBC report the floods have interrupted network service with power failures and/or emergency programs at WFBM & WIRE/Indianapolis, WAVE & WHAS/Louisville, WCKY, WLW & WSAI/Cincinnati, WMC & WREC/ Memphis and WSM/Nashville.
JAN 26 1941   KYW/Philadelphia begins a week long celebration of its power increase from 10,000 to 50,000 watts.
JAN 26 1942   RCA reports that NBC and Blue Network programs have been interrupted 534 times with war-related bulletins in the seven weeks since Pearl Harbor.
JAN 26 1942  Kay Kyser becomes the first Network Radio bandleader to join AFRA after the union called for all leaders with regular speaking roles on radio to join its ranks.  (See Kay Kyser and Wednesday's All Time Top Ten.)​
JAN 26 1943   The networks commend the OWI for its smooth coordination of reports from the Casablanca Conference attended by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill,
JAN 26 1943   Sponsor Pepsodent cancels its commercials on Bob Hope’s show with guest Bing Crosby to give the pair extra time to sell U.S. War Bonds.   (See Tuesday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 26 1944   Frank Sinatra’s CBS program for Vimms Vitamins originates from the 6,000 seat Los Angeles Shrine Auditorium with admission of one $25 War Bond.  The house is sold out. 
JAN 26 1944   FM Broadcasters convention in New York attracts 650 registrations and predicts immediate growth in the medium immediately following World War II..
JAN 26 1944   FCC eases its two year ban on station construction or modification for areas under-served by radio.
JAN 26 1944   Orson Welles Almanac, a half hour anthology, begins its 26 week run on the CBS Pacific Coast Network sponsored by Mobil Oil.  
JAN 26 1945   NBC announces its intention to ban sponsors from cross-plugging their programs on competing networks.
JAN 26 1946  NBC breaks its rule against transcribed broadcasts and replaces the West Coast live rebroadcast of Truth Or Consequences with a recording of the show in which Mr. Hush was revealed as Jack Dempsey. (See Truth Or Consequences and Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 26 1946  Baritone Dick Todd is reported fired as Your Hit Parade’s lead vocalist by American Tobacco’s President George Washington Hill on the day of the broadcast.
JAN 26 1947  Singing star Grace Moore, 45, is killed with 21 others in a plane crash at the Copenhagen, Denmark airport..
JAN 26 1947   Biblical dramatic series The Greatest Story Ever Told begins its nine year run on ABC.  (See The Greatest Story Ever Told.)
JAN 26 1948   Transcribed program producer Larry Finley enters into an agreement with Phico to make four of its programs, (Myrt & Marge, The Anderson Family, Diary of Fate and Flight With Music), available on a co-op basis for its 25,000 local dealers.  (See R.I.P. PBS.)
JAN 26 1948   Yankee Network founder John Shepherd III, 62, announces his retirement from “active management” of the regional network. 
JAN 26 1948   FCC Commissioner Robert Jones refuses a television set in his home that RCA offered to lend all FCC officials to acquaint themselves with the medium.
JAN 26 1949   WCOP/Boston newsman Ken Meyers takes a tape recorder and rushes to the scene of a cornered fugitive where he records the gunman’s capture for playback on the station and relay to ABC News.
JAN 26 1950   Liggett & Myers celebrates the opening of its new Chesterfield cigarette factory in Durham, North Carolina with a special 60 minute NBC broadcast featuring Bob Hope, Arthur Godfrey and Perry Como.  
JAN 26 1951   RCA files an appeal in the U.S. Supreme Court over a federal court decision endorsing the CBS color television system.
JAN 26 1951 FCC gives Zenith Corp. permission to run its Chicago Phonevision tests a full 90 days to March 31st.
JAN 26 1953   The Federal Trade Commission challenges Chesterfield Supper Club sponsor Liggett & Myers over its A-B-C claims that the cigarette is Always Milder, Better Tasting and Cooler Smoking.  (See Smoke Gets In Your Ears and Unfiltered Cigarette Claims.)

JAN 27 1927  Entrepreneurs Arthur Judson, George Coats and partners incorporate United Independent Broadcasters, (UIB), the predecessor of CBS.
JAN 27 1931  Early soap opera Clara, Lu & Em moves from WGN/Chicago to begin its sporadic six season multi-network run on Blue.
JAN 27 1933  Goodman & Jane Ace open for a week at the Chicago Theater for $2,500 plus $500 for three supporting players from their Easy Aces radio show.  (See Easy Aces.)
JAN 27 1934   CBS debuts 45 Minutes In Hollywood, one of the first network originations from the West Coast.
JAN 27 1936   Frank & Anne Hummert’s weekday serial David Harum begins its 15 year multi-network run, all under the sponsorship of B.T. Babbitt’s Bab-O scouring powder.  (See Soft Soap & Hard Sell.)
JAN 27 1937   Louisville is 70% under water as the flooded Ohio River crests at 57 feet and stations in the area suspend regular programming to relay  emergency and evacuation messages to affected areas of Ohio and Kentucky.
JAN 27 1937   New York Congressman Emanuel Celler proposes a $700,000 shortwave system to reach Central and South America with non-commercial, government programming.
JAN 27 1939   The radio networks convene a meeting between AFRA and AAAA agen-cies, representing 70% of all network advertisers, in a last minute attempt to avert a strike.
JAN 27 1941   RCA and NBC begin a week-long demonstration of television in Washington, D.C. 
JAN 27 1942  The first American troops arrive in Belfast, North Ireland, to prepare for the invasion of France and CBS broadcasts the news in German on its shortwave stations 15 minutes after the White House announcement but NBC withholds its shortwave announ-cement until the bureaucracy approves it the following day. 
JAN 27 1943   WLW/Cincinnati increases its overnight power to 750,000 watts under a 30 day FCC authorization.
JAN 27 1944   Kitty Kallen, 23, former vocalist with the Jimmy Dorsey orchestra, joins the cast of Bing Crosby’s Kraft Music Hall on NBC. (See Thursday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 27 1945   WINS/New York City is sold by newspaper giant Hearst to Cincinnati’s Crosley Corp for $1,700,000.  The deal also includes a $400,000 trade of newspaper advertising space for radio advertising time. 
JAN 27 1945   CBS and the War Department come under fire from Catholic periodicals for the January 21st episode of Radio Readers Digest involving a Catholic soldier who, in the absence of a priest, makes his confession to a rabbi. 
JAN 27 1947   AFRA and the networks agree on a new contract giving actors and announcers a union scale increase of 25% to $36.25 per half-hour program and $50.75 per hour.
JAN 27 1947 AFRA and transcription companies sign a new two year contract granting performers a 20% raise.  (See "By Transcription"...)
JAN 27 1948   Over 7,000 fans of Mutual’s Queen For A Day wait in the snow for up to three hours and jam Pittsburgh’s Hunt Armory, paying $1.95 each to see the giveaway show’s broadcast.
JAN 27 1949  Jim & Marian Jordan, (aka Fibber McGee & Molly) offer their “literary services” - and their high rated show - to both CBS and NBC for $2.5 Million.  Both networks refuse.  (See Fibber McGee Minus Molly.)
JAN 27 1949   A severe ice storm strikes north Texas and cripples the towers of Dallas radio stations knocking five of them off the air. 
JAN 27 1950   NBC’s WNBT(TV)/New York City begins sharing its Empire State Building transmitter tower with ABC’s WJZ-TV and DuMont’s WABD(TV).   The New York Daily News’ WPIX(TV) follows.
JAN 27 1950   Zenith Radio Corp. stops manufacturing car radios, shifting the factory space to home television sets.
JAN 27 1952   America’s Town Meeting, a Blue/ABC Radio feature since 1935, is adapted for a Sunday evening half hour on ABC-TV. 

JAN 28 1923   Roxy & His Gang debuts on WEAF/New York.  (See Bill Stern.)
JAN 28 1934   Broadcasting is purposely omitted from an Interdepartmental Committee proposal submitted to President Roosevelt calling for tight Federal controls over commun-ications in the country.
JAN 28 1934   WLW/Cincinnati reports it has received mail from every English speaking country on Earth reporting reception of its 500,000 watt signal.
JAN 28 1936   All networks broadcast the lengthy funeral services for King George V from London beginning at 4:30 a.m. E.T.
JAN 28 1937  Three staff members from KWK/St. Louis are injured in an auto accident on their way to cover the flood in Charleston, Missouri.  
JAN 28 1938   WMCA/New York City begins a 14 week run of The Jewish Refugee Theater of The Air, dramatizing stories of Jewish refugees from Germany and eastern Europe.  WHN in the city already has a similar program.
JAN 28 1939  An audience of 2,500 pays a dime apiece to witness the broadcast of Barnyard Frolic on KCRC/Enid, Oklahoma, which included the wedding of the show’s bandleader. 
JAN 28 1940   Jack Benny and his troupe earn $15,500 for The March of Dimes by performing the East and West Coast broadcasts of NBC’s Jello Program from the Oakland Civic Auditorium and charging 75 cents a ticket.  (See Sunday At Seven.)
JAN 28 1940   Garry Moore, 25, makes his prime time debut on NBC’s Beat The Band.
JAN 28 1942   Dr. Christian star Jean Hersholt announces the first of his program’s competitions for amateur and professional radio script writers - offering a $2,000 grand prize for the winning script submitted.  (See Dr. Christian and Wednesday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 28 1942   CBS files suit to evict former affiliate KSFO/San Francisco from the network’s studios in the Palace Hotel.
JAN 28 1943   Bud Abbott & Lou Costello originate their NBC show from New York at the beginning of a month long tour of service camps with network originations from them. 
JAN 28 1943  Information Please creator Don Golenpaul fails to get a court order barring  American Tobacco from repeatedly promoting his program’s replacement, Your All Time Hit Parade, (“The best tunes of all move to Carnegie Hall!“), on the panel show. But Golenpaul’s claim for $100,000 charging the company with violation of their contract was upheld.  (See Information Please.)
JAN 28 1944   Blue’s Meet Your Navy presents the sounds of actual battle aboard a U.S. aircraft carrier when sinking a Japanese submarine recorded by Lieutenant Marvin Royston, a network engineer in civilian life.
JAN 28 1944   A Boston jury awards $4,500 to a former Office of Price Administration official who had sued Mutual commentator Fulton Lewis, Jr, for $100,000 in libel damages.  
JAN 28 1944   CBS swaps 55% of its WBT/Charlotte for 45% of KFAB/Omaha to comply with FCC ownership rules.
JAN 28 1946   Kraft Foods announces an out of court settlement with Bing Crosby releasing him from obligations to the company after a 13-week appearance on NBC’s Kraft Music Hall  beginning February 7, plus two additional shows the following fall.  (See Thursday’s All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 28 1946   The New York local of AFRA elects Clayton (Bud) Collyer its President, succeeding House Jameson. 
JAN 28 1946   DuMont’s W3XWT(TV)/Washington, D.C. begins transmission tests for three short periods a week.  (See Dr. Dumont’s Predictions.)
JAN 28 1946  General Electric and Goodyear Rubber reveal preliminary plans for Stratelevision to transmit television images over long distances by a series of huge, tethered helium-filled balloons.
JAN 28 1948   Promoters of the North American Broadcasting Company, billed as the fifth coast-to-coast network, are arraigned in Los Angeles for the illegal sale of $18,000 in worthless stock. 
JAN 28 1949   NBC President Niles Trammell tells key affiliates if the network’s new Economical Radio policy of putting funds into program development instead of spending it on high-priced personalities.
JAN 28 1949   NBC refuses Ed Gardner’s demand for a three year contract to deliver his Duffy’s Tavern for a weekly package price of $20,000.  (See Duffy Ain't Here .)
JAN 28 1949   The NAB and ANPA appeal a ruling and fine against Baltimore stations WCBM, WFBR and WITH for breaking the city’s gag order on crime news.
JAN 28 1949   The Pennsylvania Athletic Commissioner yields to television viewers’ demands and lifts the common- wealth’s ban on female wrestling.
JAN 28 1949   Admiral Corporation debuts television’s first network variety series, Friday Night Frolic, (aka The Admiral Broadway Revue), starring Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca, carried by both the NBC and DuMont networks and broadcast live by 24 stations in 16 cities, then one week later via kinescope film in another 14 cities. 
JAN 28 1950   CBS Radio introduces Arthur Godfrey’s Digest, a Saturday night half-hour of transcribed highlights from Godfrey’s weekday morning show sponsored by Liggett & Myers’ Chesterfield cigarettes.  (See Arthur Godfrey.)
JAN 28 1952   Popular Los Angeles disc jockey Al Jarvis jumps from KLAC to ABC-owned KECA AM-TV for a seven year contract at $2,000 per week. 
JAN 28 1952   WGN-TV/Chicago pays $75,000 to televise all 1952 home games of the Chicago Cubs.

JAN 29 1907 Lee DeForest files the patent on his Audion tube designed to receive wireless transmissions.  (See Alchemists of The Air.)
JAN 29 1932   James Petrillo’s Chicago AFM local demands and NBC pays $323 for 19 standby musicians before Paul Whiteman’s band is allowed to perform its Friday night for RKO.  (See Petrillo!)
JAN 29 1934  NBC Program Manager John F. Royal insists that actors on the network’s sustaining dramas begin memorizing their lines, “…to raise the level of radio drama.” 
JAN 29 1936   FCC loosens its rule requiring transcribed programs to be interrupted and identified as recorded every 15 minutes.
JAN 29 1936   WWJ/Detroit dedicates its new shortwave station, W8XWJ at 31.6 megacycles. 
JAN 29 1937  After seven years of broadcasts, popular soprano Jessica Dragonette performs her last Cities Service Concert, closing the program with the show-stopping Street Song from Naughty Marietta.  (See Friday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 29 1937  The combination performer and time salesman billed on WJW/Akron as The Singing Shopper, is arrested for embezzling advertising funds from the station.
JAN 29 1937  Garrison Morrfit, 22, (aka Garry Moore), leaves WBAL/Baltimore to free lance in New York City.
JAN 29 1940   Lever Brothers begins a Lifebuoy Soap spot radio campaign at 6:45 a.m. for the early morning shower audience.  (See The Sponsor Sweepstakes.)
JAN 29 1940  WORL/Boston, a 500 watt independent, becomes suddenly popular and sells out with a total schedule of quarter hour blocks titled The Mythical Ballroom, each devoted to a locally favorite dance band. 
JAN 29 1941   FCC admits to spending $1,950 to install FM radios with phonograph attachments in the homes of its commissioners and key staff members, but only on “loan” for demonstration purposes.
JAN 29 1941  Former Louisiana Governor Jared Sanders sues former opponent James Morrison and WDSU/New Orleans for $25,000, charging slanderous, libelous and defamatory remarks in a campaign speech made on the station in November, 1940.
JAN 29 1942   FCC grants permission to WJW/Akron to increase its power from 250 to 5,000 watts and move from 1250 to share 850 kc with KOA/Denver and WHDH/Boston. 
JAN 29 1944   Eddie Cantor appears for 24 consecutive hours on KPO/San Francisco selling $37.6 Million in War Bonds.  (See Sunday's All Time Top Ten and Wednesday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 29 1944   Despite the Memphis AFM local’s protests against NBC outlet WMC, Truth Or Consequences originates its broadcast from the city’s Ellis Auditorium and sells $3.0 Million worth of War Bonds.  (See Truth Or Consequences and Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 29 1944   Mutual debuts This Is Halloran, the first regularly scheduled program originated from an Army hospital featuring interviews with veterans at Staten Island’s Halloran General.Hospital.
JAN 29 1945   For the first time, the FCC travels as a group to the West Coast to inspect military and other Federal installations. 
JAN 29 1945   Actor Lionel Barrymore hosts Lux Radio Theater as the search begins for Cecil B. DeMille’s replacement, but MGM refuses to let Barrymore take the job perma-nently.  (See Lux…Presents Hollywood! and Monday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 29 1945   A team of Americans narrowly beats a group of Brits in the debut of Transatlantic Quiz, produced and broadcast by Blue and BBC. 
JAN 29 1945  WGN/Chicago refuses to carry Mutual’s broadcast of Vice President Henry Wallace’s speech but makes it available to AFL-owned WCFL to carry. 
JAN 29 1945  Longtime West Coast radio personality William (Bill) Sharples, 58, dies after a long illness in Los Angeles.
JAN 29 1948  Comedian Henry Morgan returns to ABC sponsored by Rayve Shampoo five weeks after his show was cancelled by Eversharp Pens. 
JAN 29 1948   Former CBS newsman Robert Trout joins NBC-TV as the host of weekly news program.
JAN 29 1952   A survey commissioned by the four major radio networks concludes there are 105.3 Million radio sets in the United States - one for every citizen of voting age.

JAN 30 1936   Guy Lombardo’s band rotates among the seven Washington, D.C., hotels hosting the Presidential Birthday Balls, partially broadcast by all major networks, with proceeds going to Infantile Paralysis research and treatment.  (See Guy Lombardo.)
JAN 30 1937  Twin City affiliates KSTP, (NBC), and WCCO, (CBS), each originate network programs to cover the opening of St. Paul’s annual Winter Carnival. 
JAN 30 1937  NBC President Lenox Lohr tells reporters that television will arrive in 1939 and limited to metropolitan areas of 100,000 or more.
JAN 30 1938   Mutual carries the Max Schmeling vs. Ben Foord heavyweight fight reported by Eduard Dietze from Hamburg, Germany, beginning at 11:15 a.m. ET.
JAN 30 1938   WMCA/New York City cuts off the speech of New York Congressman Hamilton Fish from the Anti-Nazi League meeting at Carnegie Hall when boos and cat-calls drown him out.
JAN 30 1939   Mutual commentator Fulton Lewis, Jr., renews his campaign to have radio newsmen allowed into the congressional press galleries.
JAN 30 1941   Bell Telephone demonstrates its 15,000 cycle wire to engineers at Philadelphia’s Town Hall comparing it with the typical 5,000 cycle wire using the live sounds of the Philadelphia Orchestra in rehearsal two miles away.
JAN 30 1942   FCC freezes all future construction of broadcast stations during World War II in areas already receiving radio service.
JAN 30 1942   At the order of British authorities, Far East correspondents Martin Agronsky of NBC and Cecil Brown of CBS leave Singapore to establish headquarters in Australia. 
JAN 30 1944 Phil Spitalny announces a “Singing Cinderella” contest on his Sunday Hour of Charm with the winner given a 13-week contract to appear on the NBC show.  (See The Hour of Charm.)
JAN 30 1945   All four networks and many independent stations broadcast a variety hour starring Jack Benny, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Edgar Bergen and Frank Sinatra to kick off the annual March of Dimes campaign.
JAN 30 1946   The Chicago Daily News buys 42% of WIND/Chicago for a reported $1.0 Million.
JAN 30 1947  Milwaukee stations WEMP, WISN and WTMJ drop regular programs and assume emergency status as a blizzard dumps 18 inches of snow and paralyzes the city.  JAN 30 1947  KFWB/Los Angeles stages a 19 hour outdoor show over two days, Dancing On A Dime, featuring over 100 radio and film stars to benefit The March of Dimes attended by an estimated total audience of  25,000 .   
JAN 30 1947   Merrill Lynch becomes Wall Street’s first television sponsor, presenting the New York Stock Exchange film, Money At Work, on WCBS-TV.  
JAN 30 1948   FCC issues its Port Huron Decision by a 4-2 vote and removes the threat of libel against all stations and networks stemming from political broadcasts which they are not allowed to censor.
JAN 30 1948  The Federal Trade Commission bans the use of the word “free” in adver-tising when any strings are attached. 
JAN 30 1948  All four networks and many independent stations carry portions of BBC correspondent  Robert Stimson’s eye-witness account of the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi from Delhi, India.
JAN 30 1948   RKO releases its musical comedy If You Knew Susie starring Eddie Cantor and Joan Davis.  (See Radio Goes To The Movies.)
JAN 30 1950   Comic strip based kids’ serial Mark Trail begins its two year run on Mutual
(See Serials, Cereals & Premiums.) 
JAN 30 1950   Robert Montgomery debuts as Executive Producer and frequent lead actor of NBC-TV’s Lucky Strike Theater, a semi- monthly adaptation of popular films featuring movie stars. 

JAN 31 1933   The Lone Ranger is first heard over the newly established, five station Michigan State Network from WXYZ/Detroit, - the program will continue for over 2,000 episodes spanning 21 years.  (See The Lone Ranger and Multiple Runs All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 31 1934   Rudy Vallee’s Fleischmann Yeast Hour records a Crossley rating of 44.8, the highest monthly rating of the singer’s 18 year career on NBC.  (See Thursday’s All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 31 1936   WOCL/Jamestown, New York, receives a sharp rebuke from the FCC for paraphrasing and broadcasting play-by-play reports of the 1935 World Series games taken from WGR/Buffalo.  
JAN 31 1936   The Green Hornet - originally titled by creator Fran Striker The Adventures of The Hornet - begins its 16 year multi-network run from WXYZ/Detroit.  (See The Green Hornet.)
JAN 31 1938   NBC sales promotion material finally begins to recognize four year old Mutual as a competitor.
JAN 31 1938  Philco claims that 77 of 100 homes in metropolitan areas have radios but 55% of the nation’s 3.8 Million farms aren’t equipped with radios,
JAN 31 1939   A Pennsylvania court finds NBC liable in the $15,000 slander suit brought by Summit Hotel in Allentown for Al Jolson’s ad-lib made in a 1935 Shell Chateau broad-cast , “...That‘s a rotten hotel.”
JAN 31 1941   John R. Brinkley, the notorious “goat gland doctor” who achieved fame and an income reported to be over $1.0 Million annually with radio advertising his clinics for sexual rejuvenation, files for bankruptcy.
JAN 31 1941   Benny Goodman’s band plays the Presidential Ball in Washington, D.C.  (See The King of Swing.)
JAN 31 1942   Mutual registers its first $1.0 Million month of revenue, ($1,024,512), in its seven and a half year history.
JAN 31 1942   The U.S. Office of Facts & Figures convenes a meeting of the four networks and NAB to discuss how to best handle the middle commercials in newscasts, if not eliminate them altogether.
JAN 31 1942  NBC’s National Barn Dance broadcast draws over 12,000 fans at Buffalo’s Municipal Auditorium to benefit the Smokes For Soldiers Fund.  (See Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 31 1943  Walter Winchell, 45, returns to his Sunday night program after six weeks active duty in the Navy.  (See Walter Winchell and Sunday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 31 1944  The first famous orchestra to appear on radio, Vincent Lopez,  returns to Mutual with a Monday-Wednesday-Friday afternoon quarter hour, Luncheon With Lopez.
JAN 31 1945   Kay Kyser’s Kollege of Musical Knowledge troupe begins a 6,000 mile, month long  tour of service camps and hospitals including four remote broadcasts of their Wednesday night NBC program.  (See Kay Kyser and Wednesday's All Time Top Ten.) 
JAN 31 1945  The War Labor Board defeats the AFM’s attempt to force WJJD/Chicago to hire six more of its members as “platter turners” to handle records and transcriptions in addition to the five already employed by the station.
JAN 31 1946   The shortage of sugar for Coca Cola causes the soft drink to cancel Morton Downey’s noontime quarter-hour weekday show on Mutual after a two year run.
JAN 31 1946   Against all odds, Kansas Senator Arthur Capper files an FCC petition to make his WIBW/Topeka a 500,000 watt super-station and switch from 580 to 540 kc.
JAN 31 1946   CBS previews its ultra-high frequency color television system for the press in New York City.  
JAN 31 1947   Blaming the three-month strike by the Newspaper Guild, Philadelphia Record, Camden Post and Camden Courier owner J. David Stern sells his 50,000 watt WCAU/Philadelphia and newspapers to The Philadelphia Bulletin for $12.0 Million. 
JAN 31 1948   Mrs. Ralph Edwards appears at a White House luncheon to present a check for $672,000 to The March of Dimes, raised by Truth Or Consequences’ lengthy Miss Hush contest.  (See Truth Or Consequences and Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 31 1948   The AFM drops its demands of extra pay for its members performing on AM & FM simulcast programs.  (See Petrillo!)
JAN 31 1949   Former Dr. I.Q., Episcopal minister Jimmy McClain, returns to the air as announcer for the transcribed Mrs. Tucker’s Shortening Smile Program to help pay off a loan to his church in Eastland, Texas.  (See Dr. I.Q.)
JAN 31 1949   Counter to industry trends, the New York Post’s WLIB/New York increases its foreign language programming 
JAN 31 1950   The 1949 Broadcast Measurement Bureau report is mailed to its sub-scribers.  The costly eleven month project of the NAB, the AAAA and the ANA involved ballots mailed to 650,000  radio homes in every U.S. county to determine radio station coverage and popularity.  
JAN 31 1951  The Progressive Broadcasting System network suspends operations after two months - Gordon McLendon’s Liberty network picks up 30 of Progressive’s 63 affiliates.  (See R.I.P. PBS.)
JAN 31 1952  A 60th birthday reception honoring Eddie Cantor at New York City’s Commodore Hotel generates $2.63 Million in sales of Israel bonds.  (See Sunday's All Time Top Ten and Wednesday's All Time Top Ten.)
JAN 31 1954   Edwin Armstrong, the inventor of FM, leaps to his death from his 13th story New York apartment, at age 63.

                                                      GLOSSARY
AAAA = American Association of Advertising Agencies - ABC = American Broadcasting Company - ACLU = American Civil Liberties Union - AFL = American Federation of Labor - AFM = American Federation of Musicians  - AFRA = American Federation of Radio Artists - AFRS = Armed Forces Radio Service - AFTRA = American Federation of Radio & Television Artists - AGVA = American Guild of Variety Artists - ANA = Association of National Advertisers - ANPA = American Newspaper Publishers Association - AP = Associated Press  - 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 -  IATSE = International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees - IBEW = International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers - ILGW = International Ladies Garment Workers - INS = International News Service - LBS = Liberty Broadcasting System - MBS = Mutual Broadcasting System -  MCA = Music Corporation of America - MST = Mountain Standard Time - NAB = National Association of Broadcasters - NABET = National Association of Broadcast Employees & Technicians - NBC = National Broadcasting Company - NCAA = National Collegiate Athletic Association - NLRB = National Labor Relations Board - PST = Pacific Standard Time - RCA = Radio Corporation of America - SAG = Screen Actors Guild - SESAC = Society of European Stage Authors & Composers - TVA = The Television Authority (union) - UAW = United Auto Workers - UP = United Press