TED HUSING WELCOMES EDDIE CANTOR TO CBS
Cantor Jumps & Falls
The 1934-35 Season
3rd In A Series.
Radio’s Rebounding Revenues. Despite the tough economic times, over 65% of American homes had invested in radios by 1934 and after a one-year lapse, radio revenues again resumed their healthy growth with a 21.7% gain led by the networks‘ 26.0% jump. (See The Gold In The Golden Age and Radio Nets' Grosses.)
The networks’ share of the radio industry’s total income inched up to 59%. Chicago’s Blackett-Sample-Hummert led all advertising agencies in 1934 with over $4.0 Million in network time purchased for its clients. The three radio networks with their combined 184 affiliates - just 32% of the total number of stations - collected a cool $42.6 Million during the year. That kind of money led three very independent broadcasters to think about a new, station-owned network of their own.
A Mutual Love of Money. Bamberger Department Stores’ WOR/Newark, The Chicago Tribune’s WGN and WXYZ/Detroit had discussed the advantages of a cooperative network venture in early 1934. All had been one-time CBS affiliates who objected to relinquishing the time and control that network affiliation required. Yet, they wanted the advantages that a network could provide - the programming and more importantly, the revenue. (1)
WXYZ station manager H. Allen Campbell organized their effort and recruited WLW/Cincinnati to become the network’s fourth charter station. The Mutual Broadcasting System began operations on October 2,1934, with The Lone Ranger as its first program.(See The Lone Ranger.)
Blue Heaven. Led by Sunday night’s Jack Benny and Joe Penner shows, Blue placed 16 programs in the season’s Top 50. It would be an all time high for the WJZ-anchored network, whether known as Blue or ABC. Its more powerful and prestigious sibling, NBC, would soon begin to cherry-pick Blue’s lineup of hit programs for its own schedule.
General Foods hired Jack Benny in October and moved him from NBC’s Friday schedule to Sunday evenings at 7:00 on Blue. (2) A network nomad for two seasons, Benny found a home in the time period and wouldn’t leave it for the next 24 years. Although he would change sponsors and networks over the ensuing seasons, he never budged from the timeslot - and with good reason. Benny never finished out of the Annual Top Ten while he occupied it. (See Sunday At Seven, Benny's Double Plays and Lucky Gets Benny.)
Sunday’s Surprises. Sunday continued to be Network Radio’s most popular night. Four of Sunday’s programs registered a season rating of 30 or higher and the average rating of Sunday’s Top Ten programs reached an all time high of 23.3. Yet there were some shakeups within those numbers.
Eddie Cantor became the first major star to jump from NBC to CBS. He began the season hosting NBC’s Sunday night Chase & Sanborn Hour, averaging a whopping 47.0 Crossley rating in October and November. He left the show in December and reappeared on CBS in February in the same Sunday 8:00 timeslot - with his show reduced to half an hour.
Lehn & Fink, importers of Pebeco Toothpaste, bet the dentifrice’s entire advertising budget on Cantor’s success. Although he lost 25% of his NBC audience in the switch, the comedian still generated an enviable 37.1 average rating during his first three-months on CBS. His combined 41.0 rating average made Cantor’s programs the most popular in America for the third consecutive season and the last time. (See Network Jumpers.)
Cantor’s departure left NBC and Standard Brands with a big void to fill. John Reber, Director of Broadcasting at Standard Brands’ ad agency, J. Walter Thompson, was hailed as a programming genius. With support from NBC programming chief, John F. Royal, Reber’s staff created some of Network Radio’s top hits - and one of its biggest turkeys.
When Cantor left NBC in December, vaudeville was out and Verdi was in. Reber and Royal replaced the comedian with The Chase & Sanborn Opera Guild - famed operas abridged and sung in English.
The Fat Lady sang quickly for the show. It survived for only 13 weeks while Reber and Royal went searching for way to recapture Sunday night supremacy for Standard Brands.
They found it on New York independent station WHN. Major Bowes’ Original Amateur Hour was given the timeslot in March, 1935, and it was an immediate ratings success. The haughty host and his amateurs would produce radio’s highest ratings the following season which allowed Reber and Royal to breathe easier - until Bowes joined Cantor and jumped to CBS in 1936. (See Major Bowes' Original Money Machine.)
Will Rogers Signs Off. Gulf Headliners moved from Blue to CBS in October and occupied no less than six different Sunday night time slots during the 1934-35 season. Like the previous year, Will Rogers appeared in less than half of Headliners’ broadcasts. He alternated the series’ lead with Stoopnagle & Budd, (F. Chase Taylor & Budd Hulick), and character actor Charlie Winninger, the popular personality from NBC’s successful Maxwell House Showboat. But it was the Oklahoma humorist who drew the big ratings on his Headliners broadcasts in October, January, April, May and June.
Rogers bid his final farewell to the Gulf Headliners audience on June 9, 1935. It was more final than anyone could have imagined. Ten weeks later he was dead - killed with aviator Wiley Post in a plane crash near Point Barrow, Alaska.
The Successful Soap Operetta. Over half of the season’s Top 50 programs were music based. Colgate-Palmolive-Peet scored a second season in the Annual Top Ten with one of the best. The Palmolive Beauty Box Theater adapted successful musical comedy material from the Broadway stage and presented it with top flight talent led by rotating stars including Jessica Dragonette, Gladys Swarthout and Jane Froman. Beauty Box was Tuesday’s most popular show with a 27.2 rating at 10:00 p.m., capping the network’s three 20+ performances beginning with the 23.9 registered by Ben Bernie’s band at 9:00 and followed by Ed Wynn’s 27.1 as The Texaco Fire Chief at 9:30.
Good Money After Bad Ratings. Not so successful was Procter & Gamble’s hour long Saturday entry on NBC for Ivory Soap - The Gibson Family - an original, serialized, musical comedy. Its large cast of accomplished performers was supplied with an average of four new songs per show from the famed songwriting team of Arthur Schwartz and Howard Deitz for fee of $2,500 a week and scripts by novelist Courtney Ryley Cooper. (3) The expensive program with Donald Vorhees’ 30 piece orchestra was hailed by critics but could only reach a rating high of 19.1 in February, virtually tied in its timeslot with Blue‘s National Barn Dance. Changes were ordered and The Gibson Family was moved to NBC’s Sunday schedule at 10:00 opposite Wayne King’s Lady Esther Serenade on CBS.
Ratings continued to drift south and more changes were ordered in June that converted The Gibson Family into Uncle Charlie’s Tent Show starring Charlie Winninger, from Maxwell House Showboat but retaining most of the Gibson cast and characters plus the Voorhees orchestra. Procter & Gamble finally pulled the plug on the elaborate, rescheduled, reformatted show after a nine week summertime run with a reported $500,000 in Ivory Soap money down the drain.
Everybody Meets At Town Hall. NBC extended its midweek dominance of prime time to Wednesdays with five of the night’s Top Ten programs. Leader of the pack was Fred Allen who nearly doubled his 1933-34 Wednesday night ratings with a new timeslot, sponsor and format. He settled into Texaco’s Town Hall Tonight at 9:00, outdistanced his time period’s competition by nearly ten rating points and began a string of four consecutive years in the Annual Top Ten. (See Wednesday's All Time Top Ten.)
Four Times In Three-Quarter Time. Allen’s lead in was provided by one of Wayne King’s four prime time half hours a week - two on NBC and two on CBS. The Waltz King’s orchestra with legendary announcer Franklyn MacCormack purring poetry and Lady Esther commercials, had a weekly cumulative audience of an estimated 25 million persons - easily the widest exposure ever given a single dance band on Network Radio. (See The Waltz King.)
Opposite Wayne King on Blue was Lanny Ross, 28, Network Radio’s most popular singer of the season who starred in two Top 50 programs on two different networks, both under the corporate sponsorship of General Foods. Ross hosted Wednesday’s Log Cabin Syrup Orchestra - 40th in the Annual Top 50 on Blue - and was the singing lead of Thursday’s Maxwell House Showboat - second in the Annual Top Ten on NBC.
The handsome Ross also had two 1934 movies going for him - Paramount’s Melody In Spring and College Rhythm, which also featured radio’s Joe Penner and future radio star, Jack Oakie. But the films were lame and Ross’ movie career never took off. Nevertheless, Lanny Ross with his pleasing voice and warm personality enjoyed 20 years of Network Radio popularity - many in 15-minute strip shows.
Henry & Fanny Vs. George & Gracie. Half-hour serial drama One Man’s Family - in its network debut year - lost over a third of Fred Allen’s NBC audience at 9:30 opposite CBS’s Burns & Allen Show. But Henry & Fanny Barbour kept enough listeners to edge out George and Gracie. It was the first of ten consecutive Top 50 seasons for One Man’s Family, two of them in the Top Ten. Standard Brands and agency J. Walter Thompson, always aware of trends, picked up sponsorship of the Carleton E. Morse family drama in April and stayed with the program for the next 14 years.
Pearl Diving. Jack Pearl’s Baron Munchausen routine had run its course on NBC. Standard Brands had dropped its sponsorship after Pearl fell from a 39.4 rating and third place in the Annual Top Ten in 1932-33, to a 16.1 rating and 27th place the following season. Pearl moved to CBS on Wednesday nights in February and created a new character, Peter Pfeiffer - a kinder, gentler variation of Munchausen. Pfeiffer flopped to a 12.7 in its four month run, easily topped by Guy Lombardo’s Pleasure Island
NBC’s Grocery Giants. Standard Brands, General Foods and Kraft gave NBC continued control of Thursday nights with three strong hour long music/variety shows. With Rudy Vallee’s strong Fleishmann Yeast Hour lead-in, Maxwell House Showboat won the night but was showing signs of leaking some of its extremely high ratings. It scored in the 40's for the final time in October. Although Captain Henry’s troupe was down 15% for the season, it still doubled the ratings of its time period’s competition, Blue’s Death Valley Days. (See Thursday's All Time Top Ten.)
Paul Whiteman’s Kraft Music Hall lost 40% of Showboat’s lead-in audience. Whiteman’s drop from the mid to lower 20's gave Kraft and agency J. Walter Thompson thoughts about changing hosts for its high budget production, but the portly bandleader and his guests still delivered the numbers necessary to give NBC a three hour clean sweep.
Death Becomes Her. Pacific Borax, producer of cleansers and laundry additives derived from the borax it mined in the deserts of California and Nevada, - 20 Mule Team Borax and Borax - cleverly associated its mineral’s source with the western anthology series Death Valley Days. Pacific Borax led its mule team across three networks and seven different timeslots in the program’s 14 year run which gave it little chance of establishing a sizable audience. Nevertheless, it scored its highest rating - 15.2 in 1934-35 - on Blue against the formidable Showboat.
Death Valley Days was created by Vassar graduate Ruth Cornwall Woodman, a New York copywriter who made annual treks into the rugged locales of Western desert towns for authentic story material. Her research resulted in hundreds of character driven radio plays, all narrated by The Old Ranger - a role held for many years by character actor Jack MacBryde
Hotel Registers A Hit. AT&T lowered its broadcast line charges from the West Coast in 1934. Campbell Soup and CBS were first to jump at the opportunity to capitalize on the glamour of large scale Hollywood originations. Hollywood Hotel debuted on Friday nights at 9:30 with Hearst movie columnist Louella Parsons as its gushing hostess and handsome Dick Powell as her singing co-host. A flock of film stars paraded through the “hotel lobby” each week to be interviewed by Parsons and sometimes deliver short dramatizations of scenes from their current movies. (See Dick Powell.)
Parsons pressured the actors to appear without a fee and would later boast that she had obtained a million dollars worth of talent for nothing. Despite the show’s Hollywood hoopla and the promotion given her program in Parsons’ columns that were syndicated to hundreds of newspapers, Hollywood Hotel dropped four rating points from its lead-in, The March of Time.
It’s About Time. Time Magazine had jumped into network radio in 1931 with its “Newsreel of The Air,” The March of Time. The radio series began in 1929 at WLW/Cincinnati and was soon syndicated on discs to stations across the country by the magazine’s ad agency, Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborne. By the 1934-35 season it built a 21.5 rating and led the CBS’ Friday schedule. The March of Time recreated news events for radio, employing as many as a dozen actors on one program to impersonate the voices of leading newsmakers. Orson Welles, Agnes Moorhead, Art Carney and Arlene Francis were among the young actors who received regular talent checks from the program
However, The March of Time had one signature voice. The most recognized narrator of its Network Radio run and subsequent movie series was (Cornelius) Westbrook Van Voorhis, whose booming and commanding delivery - known in the trade as a Voice of God - belied the fact that he was only 29 years old when he took the job in 1932. Between March of Time’s radio and film series, Van Voorhis had 20 years of reminding audiences that, “TIME....Marches On!” (See The March of Time.)
Music, Music, Music. Every show in Saturday’s Top Ten was based in music - popular hits, standards, show tunes, classics, even hillbilly ditties - sung and played by everyone from a legendary star to nameless studio performers. Seven of those programs finished among the season’s Top 50.
Al Jolson, cranking out movie musicals for Warner Brothers at the rate of one a year, gave NBC and sponsor Shell Oil one of only three shows to ever to score a rating above 20 on Saturday, the lowest rated night of the week. Shell Chateau of 1934-35 was the second highest rated Saturday show of the Golden Age - runner-up only to Walter O’Keefe’s Lucky Strike Dance Party of 1932-33 and several points ahead of Truth Or Consequences’ biggest season in 1947-48.
Lucky Strike’s Your Hit Parade started its 18 year multi-network radio run in April, 1935, and began to build a following among music fans by presenting the top popular songs of each week according to its “confidential” poll of sheet music and record sales plus disc jockey and dance band requests conducted by American Tobacco‘s agency, Lord & Thomas. The show that eventually featured a dramatic countdown to each week’s Number One Song finished among the season’s Top 50 programs 16 times. (See Top 40 Radio‘s Roots.)
NBC continued to lead the network race with 21 programs in the Annual Top 50. Blue followed with 16 and for the last time CBS finished in third place with only 13 shows among the nation’s favorites. That situation would change dramatically over the following season.
(1) WOR, WXYZ and WLW/Cincinnati had also been part of an earlier, failed networking attempt, 1929's Quality Broadcasting Group. Quality was meant to be a means for independent stations with high-caliber local programming to swap programs with no network strings attached.
(2) Jack Benny’s show was repeated live at 8:30 for West Coast audiences from 1934-35 through 1940-41. The repeat performances were discontinued in 1941-42. NBC affiliates then began carrying the program at 4:00 p.m. and transcribed repeats were broadcast by Blue’s West Coast network later in the evening. (For details see Benny’s Double Plays on this site.
(3) Schwartz & Deitz had written standards including That's Entertainment, You And The Night And The Music, By Myself and Dancing In The Dark.
Network Radio's Top 50 Programs - 1934-35
Cooperative Analysis of Broadcasting, Sep 1934 - Jun 1935
Total Programs Rated 6-11 PM: 161 Programs Rated 13 Weeks & Ranked: 135.
20,400,000 Radio Homes 66.2% Coverage of US. One Rating Point = 204,000 Homes
Previous season ranking is note in the second column. N=New to the Top 50.
1 1 Eddie Cantor Show 41.0 Lehn & Fink/Pebeco Toothpaste Sun 8:00 30 CBS (1)
2 2 Maxwell House Show Boat 37.8 General Foods Thu 9:00 60 NBC
3 N Major Bowes Amateur Hour 36.0 Standard Brands/Chase & Sanborn Sun 8:00 60 NBC
4 3 Rudy Vallee's Fleischmann Yeast Hour 35.6 Standard Brands Thu 8:00 60 NBC
5 16 Jack Benny Program 35.0 General Foods/Jello Sun 7:00 30 Blue (2)
6 11 Joe Penner Bakers Broadcast 31.3 Standard Brands/Fleischmann Yeast Sun 7:30 30 Blue
7 27 Fred Allen Town Hall Tonight 29.7 Bristol Myers Wed 9:00 60 NBC
8 9 Beauty Box Theater 27.2 Colgate Palmolive Peet/Pamolive Soap Tue 10:00 60 NBC
9t 4 Ed Wynn’s Texaco Fire Chief 27.1 Texaco Petroleum Tue 9:30 30 NBC
9t 10 Will Rogers’ Gulf Headliners Show 27.1 Gulf Oil Sun 8:30 30 CBS (3)
11 N Al Jolson’s Shell Chateau 25.2 Shell Oil Sat 9:30 60 NBC
12 7 Ben Bernie Show 23.9 Pabst Beer Tue 9:00 30 NBC
13 9 Paul Whiteman’s Kraft Music Hall 22.8 Kraft Foods Thu 10:00 60 NBC
14 14 First Nighter/Don Ameche 22.7 Campana Sales/ItalianBalm Fri 10:00 30 NBC
15 N Chase & Sanborn Opera Guild 22.4 Standard Brands Sun 8:00 60 NBC
16 5 Amos & Andy 22.3 Pepsodent Toothpaste M-F 7:00 15 Blue
17 22 March of Time 21.5 Remington Rand Fri 9:00 30 CBS
18 N Stoopnagle & Budd Gulf Headliners 21.3 Gulf Oil Sun 9:30 30 CBS (4)
19 12 Sinclair Minstrels 20.7 Sinclair Oil Mon 9:00 30 Blue
20 N Guy Lombardo Orch Pleasure Island 20.1 Plough, Inc. Wed 10:00 30 NBC
21 19 Lowell Thomas News 20.0 Sun Oil M-F 6:45 15 Blue
22t N Mary Pickford & Company 19.8 Standard Brands/Royal Gelatin Wed 8:00 30 NBC
22t 13 Phil Baker The Armour Jester 19.8 Armour Meats Fri 9:30 30 Blue
24 N Let’s Dance 19.4 Nabisco Sat 10:30 90 NBC
25 63 National Barn Dance 19.1 Miles Laboratories/Alka Seltzer Sat 9:30 60 Blue
26 N One Man’s Family 18.7 Standard Brands/Tenderleaf Tea Wed 9:30 30 NBC (5)
27 6 Burns & Allen Show 18.3 General Cigar Corp. Wed 9:30 30 CBS (6)
28t 20 Cities Service Concert/J Dragonette 18.0 Cities Service Petroleum Fri 8:00 60 NBC
28t 21 Myrt & Marge 18.0 Wrigley Gum M-F 7:00 15 CBS
30 N Hollywood Hotel/Louella Parsons 17.5 Campbell Soup Fri 9:30 60 CBS
31 N Lawrence Tibbett Program 17.0 Packard Autos Tue 8:30 30 Blue
32 N Sigmund Romberg Revue 15.6 Swift Meats Sat 8:00 60 NBC
33 N Your Hit Parade 15.5 American Tobacco/Lucky Strike Sat 8 00 60 NBC
34 17 Bing Crosby Show 15.3 Andrew Jergens/Woodbury Soap Tue 9:00 30 CBS
35 34 Death Valley Days 15.2 Pacific Borax/20 Mule Team Borax Thu 9:00 30 Blue
36 N The Gibson Family 15.1 Procter & Gamble Sun 10:00 60 NBC (7)
37 35 Wayne King Orch 15.0 Lady Esther Cosmetics Tu-W 8:30 30 NBC
38t 30 Eno Crime Clues 14.9 Eno Antacid Salts Tue 8:00 30 Blue
38t 45 Fred Waring Show 14.9 Ford Motors Thu 9:30 60 CBS
40 N Lanny Ross Log Cabin Orch 14.8 General Foods/Log Cabin Syrup Wed 8:30 30 Blue
41 N Ford Sunday Evening Hour 14.7 Ford Motors Sun 9:00 60 CBS
42 N Kate Smith’s New Star Revue 14.6 Hudson Autos Mon 8:30 30 CBS
43 N Radio City Party/John B Kennedy 14.0 RCA Victor Sat 9:00 30 Blue
44 33 American Album of Familiar Music 13.9 Sterling Drug/Bayer Aspirin Sun 9:30 30 NBC
45t N House of Glass/Gertrude Berg 13.7 Colgate Palmolive Peet Wed 8:30 30 Blue
45t 48 Walter Winchell’s Jergens Journal 13.7 Andew Jergens/Jergens Lotion Sun 9:30 15 Blue
47 N Roxy & His Gang 13.6 Sterling Drug/Fletcher’s Castoria Laxative Sat 8:00 45 CBS
48t 43 Edwin C Hill News 13.5 Barbasol Shave Cream MWF 8:15 15 CBS
48t 95 Red Davis 13.5 Beechnut Gum MWF 8:00 15 Blue
50 28 Warden Lawes In Sing Sing 13.1 Sloan’s Liniment Wed 9:00 30 Blue
(1) Eddie Cantor Show Oct - Nov Standard Brands Sun 8:00 60 NBC
(2) Jack Benny Program Sep General Tire Fri 10:00 30 NBC
(3) Will Rogers’ Gulf Headliners Oct Gulf Oil Sun 9:30 30 CBS
(4) Stoopnagle & Budd Gulf Headliners Sep Gulf Oil Sun 9:00 30 Blue
(5) One Man’s Family Sep - Mar Kentucky Winner Cigarettes Wed 10:30 30 NBC
(6) aka The Adventures of Gracie
(7) The Gibson Family Sep- Mar Procter & Gamble Sat 9:30 60 NBC
. This post is in part abridged from Network Radio Ratings, 1932-1953.
Copyright © 2012 & 2019, Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
The 1934-35 Season
3rd In A Series.
Radio’s Rebounding Revenues. Despite the tough economic times, over 65% of American homes had invested in radios by 1934 and after a one-year lapse, radio revenues again resumed their healthy growth with a 21.7% gain led by the networks‘ 26.0% jump. (See The Gold In The Golden Age and Radio Nets' Grosses.)
The networks’ share of the radio industry’s total income inched up to 59%. Chicago’s Blackett-Sample-Hummert led all advertising agencies in 1934 with over $4.0 Million in network time purchased for its clients. The three radio networks with their combined 184 affiliates - just 32% of the total number of stations - collected a cool $42.6 Million during the year. That kind of money led three very independent broadcasters to think about a new, station-owned network of their own.
A Mutual Love of Money. Bamberger Department Stores’ WOR/Newark, The Chicago Tribune’s WGN and WXYZ/Detroit had discussed the advantages of a cooperative network venture in early 1934. All had been one-time CBS affiliates who objected to relinquishing the time and control that network affiliation required. Yet, they wanted the advantages that a network could provide - the programming and more importantly, the revenue. (1)
WXYZ station manager H. Allen Campbell organized their effort and recruited WLW/Cincinnati to become the network’s fourth charter station. The Mutual Broadcasting System began operations on October 2,1934, with The Lone Ranger as its first program.(See The Lone Ranger.)
Blue Heaven. Led by Sunday night’s Jack Benny and Joe Penner shows, Blue placed 16 programs in the season’s Top 50. It would be an all time high for the WJZ-anchored network, whether known as Blue or ABC. Its more powerful and prestigious sibling, NBC, would soon begin to cherry-pick Blue’s lineup of hit programs for its own schedule.
General Foods hired Jack Benny in October and moved him from NBC’s Friday schedule to Sunday evenings at 7:00 on Blue. (2) A network nomad for two seasons, Benny found a home in the time period and wouldn’t leave it for the next 24 years. Although he would change sponsors and networks over the ensuing seasons, he never budged from the timeslot - and with good reason. Benny never finished out of the Annual Top Ten while he occupied it. (See Sunday At Seven, Benny's Double Plays and Lucky Gets Benny.)
Sunday’s Surprises. Sunday continued to be Network Radio’s most popular night. Four of Sunday’s programs registered a season rating of 30 or higher and the average rating of Sunday’s Top Ten programs reached an all time high of 23.3. Yet there were some shakeups within those numbers.
Eddie Cantor became the first major star to jump from NBC to CBS. He began the season hosting NBC’s Sunday night Chase & Sanborn Hour, averaging a whopping 47.0 Crossley rating in October and November. He left the show in December and reappeared on CBS in February in the same Sunday 8:00 timeslot - with his show reduced to half an hour.
Lehn & Fink, importers of Pebeco Toothpaste, bet the dentifrice’s entire advertising budget on Cantor’s success. Although he lost 25% of his NBC audience in the switch, the comedian still generated an enviable 37.1 average rating during his first three-months on CBS. His combined 41.0 rating average made Cantor’s programs the most popular in America for the third consecutive season and the last time. (See Network Jumpers.)
Cantor’s departure left NBC and Standard Brands with a big void to fill. John Reber, Director of Broadcasting at Standard Brands’ ad agency, J. Walter Thompson, was hailed as a programming genius. With support from NBC programming chief, John F. Royal, Reber’s staff created some of Network Radio’s top hits - and one of its biggest turkeys.
When Cantor left NBC in December, vaudeville was out and Verdi was in. Reber and Royal replaced the comedian with The Chase & Sanborn Opera Guild - famed operas abridged and sung in English.
The Fat Lady sang quickly for the show. It survived for only 13 weeks while Reber and Royal went searching for way to recapture Sunday night supremacy for Standard Brands.
They found it on New York independent station WHN. Major Bowes’ Original Amateur Hour was given the timeslot in March, 1935, and it was an immediate ratings success. The haughty host and his amateurs would produce radio’s highest ratings the following season which allowed Reber and Royal to breathe easier - until Bowes joined Cantor and jumped to CBS in 1936. (See Major Bowes' Original Money Machine.)
Will Rogers Signs Off. Gulf Headliners moved from Blue to CBS in October and occupied no less than six different Sunday night time slots during the 1934-35 season. Like the previous year, Will Rogers appeared in less than half of Headliners’ broadcasts. He alternated the series’ lead with Stoopnagle & Budd, (F. Chase Taylor & Budd Hulick), and character actor Charlie Winninger, the popular personality from NBC’s successful Maxwell House Showboat. But it was the Oklahoma humorist who drew the big ratings on his Headliners broadcasts in October, January, April, May and June.
Rogers bid his final farewell to the Gulf Headliners audience on June 9, 1935. It was more final than anyone could have imagined. Ten weeks later he was dead - killed with aviator Wiley Post in a plane crash near Point Barrow, Alaska.
The Successful Soap Operetta. Over half of the season’s Top 50 programs were music based. Colgate-Palmolive-Peet scored a second season in the Annual Top Ten with one of the best. The Palmolive Beauty Box Theater adapted successful musical comedy material from the Broadway stage and presented it with top flight talent led by rotating stars including Jessica Dragonette, Gladys Swarthout and Jane Froman. Beauty Box was Tuesday’s most popular show with a 27.2 rating at 10:00 p.m., capping the network’s three 20+ performances beginning with the 23.9 registered by Ben Bernie’s band at 9:00 and followed by Ed Wynn’s 27.1 as The Texaco Fire Chief at 9:30.
Good Money After Bad Ratings. Not so successful was Procter & Gamble’s hour long Saturday entry on NBC for Ivory Soap - The Gibson Family - an original, serialized, musical comedy. Its large cast of accomplished performers was supplied with an average of four new songs per show from the famed songwriting team of Arthur Schwartz and Howard Deitz for fee of $2,500 a week and scripts by novelist Courtney Ryley Cooper. (3) The expensive program with Donald Vorhees’ 30 piece orchestra was hailed by critics but could only reach a rating high of 19.1 in February, virtually tied in its timeslot with Blue‘s National Barn Dance. Changes were ordered and The Gibson Family was moved to NBC’s Sunday schedule at 10:00 opposite Wayne King’s Lady Esther Serenade on CBS.
Ratings continued to drift south and more changes were ordered in June that converted The Gibson Family into Uncle Charlie’s Tent Show starring Charlie Winninger, from Maxwell House Showboat but retaining most of the Gibson cast and characters plus the Voorhees orchestra. Procter & Gamble finally pulled the plug on the elaborate, rescheduled, reformatted show after a nine week summertime run with a reported $500,000 in Ivory Soap money down the drain.
Everybody Meets At Town Hall. NBC extended its midweek dominance of prime time to Wednesdays with five of the night’s Top Ten programs. Leader of the pack was Fred Allen who nearly doubled his 1933-34 Wednesday night ratings with a new timeslot, sponsor and format. He settled into Texaco’s Town Hall Tonight at 9:00, outdistanced his time period’s competition by nearly ten rating points and began a string of four consecutive years in the Annual Top Ten. (See Wednesday's All Time Top Ten.)
Four Times In Three-Quarter Time. Allen’s lead in was provided by one of Wayne King’s four prime time half hours a week - two on NBC and two on CBS. The Waltz King’s orchestra with legendary announcer Franklyn MacCormack purring poetry and Lady Esther commercials, had a weekly cumulative audience of an estimated 25 million persons - easily the widest exposure ever given a single dance band on Network Radio. (See The Waltz King.)
Opposite Wayne King on Blue was Lanny Ross, 28, Network Radio’s most popular singer of the season who starred in two Top 50 programs on two different networks, both under the corporate sponsorship of General Foods. Ross hosted Wednesday’s Log Cabin Syrup Orchestra - 40th in the Annual Top 50 on Blue - and was the singing lead of Thursday’s Maxwell House Showboat - second in the Annual Top Ten on NBC.
The handsome Ross also had two 1934 movies going for him - Paramount’s Melody In Spring and College Rhythm, which also featured radio’s Joe Penner and future radio star, Jack Oakie. But the films were lame and Ross’ movie career never took off. Nevertheless, Lanny Ross with his pleasing voice and warm personality enjoyed 20 years of Network Radio popularity - many in 15-minute strip shows.
Henry & Fanny Vs. George & Gracie. Half-hour serial drama One Man’s Family - in its network debut year - lost over a third of Fred Allen’s NBC audience at 9:30 opposite CBS’s Burns & Allen Show. But Henry & Fanny Barbour kept enough listeners to edge out George and Gracie. It was the first of ten consecutive Top 50 seasons for One Man’s Family, two of them in the Top Ten. Standard Brands and agency J. Walter Thompson, always aware of trends, picked up sponsorship of the Carleton E. Morse family drama in April and stayed with the program for the next 14 years.
Pearl Diving. Jack Pearl’s Baron Munchausen routine had run its course on NBC. Standard Brands had dropped its sponsorship after Pearl fell from a 39.4 rating and third place in the Annual Top Ten in 1932-33, to a 16.1 rating and 27th place the following season. Pearl moved to CBS on Wednesday nights in February and created a new character, Peter Pfeiffer - a kinder, gentler variation of Munchausen. Pfeiffer flopped to a 12.7 in its four month run, easily topped by Guy Lombardo’s Pleasure Island
NBC’s Grocery Giants. Standard Brands, General Foods and Kraft gave NBC continued control of Thursday nights with three strong hour long music/variety shows. With Rudy Vallee’s strong Fleishmann Yeast Hour lead-in, Maxwell House Showboat won the night but was showing signs of leaking some of its extremely high ratings. It scored in the 40's for the final time in October. Although Captain Henry’s troupe was down 15% for the season, it still doubled the ratings of its time period’s competition, Blue’s Death Valley Days. (See Thursday's All Time Top Ten.)
Paul Whiteman’s Kraft Music Hall lost 40% of Showboat’s lead-in audience. Whiteman’s drop from the mid to lower 20's gave Kraft and agency J. Walter Thompson thoughts about changing hosts for its high budget production, but the portly bandleader and his guests still delivered the numbers necessary to give NBC a three hour clean sweep.
Death Becomes Her. Pacific Borax, producer of cleansers and laundry additives derived from the borax it mined in the deserts of California and Nevada, - 20 Mule Team Borax and Borax - cleverly associated its mineral’s source with the western anthology series Death Valley Days. Pacific Borax led its mule team across three networks and seven different timeslots in the program’s 14 year run which gave it little chance of establishing a sizable audience. Nevertheless, it scored its highest rating - 15.2 in 1934-35 - on Blue against the formidable Showboat.
Death Valley Days was created by Vassar graduate Ruth Cornwall Woodman, a New York copywriter who made annual treks into the rugged locales of Western desert towns for authentic story material. Her research resulted in hundreds of character driven radio plays, all narrated by The Old Ranger - a role held for many years by character actor Jack MacBryde
Hotel Registers A Hit. AT&T lowered its broadcast line charges from the West Coast in 1934. Campbell Soup and CBS were first to jump at the opportunity to capitalize on the glamour of large scale Hollywood originations. Hollywood Hotel debuted on Friday nights at 9:30 with Hearst movie columnist Louella Parsons as its gushing hostess and handsome Dick Powell as her singing co-host. A flock of film stars paraded through the “hotel lobby” each week to be interviewed by Parsons and sometimes deliver short dramatizations of scenes from their current movies. (See Dick Powell.)
Parsons pressured the actors to appear without a fee and would later boast that she had obtained a million dollars worth of talent for nothing. Despite the show’s Hollywood hoopla and the promotion given her program in Parsons’ columns that were syndicated to hundreds of newspapers, Hollywood Hotel dropped four rating points from its lead-in, The March of Time.
It’s About Time. Time Magazine had jumped into network radio in 1931 with its “Newsreel of The Air,” The March of Time. The radio series began in 1929 at WLW/Cincinnati and was soon syndicated on discs to stations across the country by the magazine’s ad agency, Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborne. By the 1934-35 season it built a 21.5 rating and led the CBS’ Friday schedule. The March of Time recreated news events for radio, employing as many as a dozen actors on one program to impersonate the voices of leading newsmakers. Orson Welles, Agnes Moorhead, Art Carney and Arlene Francis were among the young actors who received regular talent checks from the program
However, The March of Time had one signature voice. The most recognized narrator of its Network Radio run and subsequent movie series was (Cornelius) Westbrook Van Voorhis, whose booming and commanding delivery - known in the trade as a Voice of God - belied the fact that he was only 29 years old when he took the job in 1932. Between March of Time’s radio and film series, Van Voorhis had 20 years of reminding audiences that, “TIME....Marches On!” (See The March of Time.)
Music, Music, Music. Every show in Saturday’s Top Ten was based in music - popular hits, standards, show tunes, classics, even hillbilly ditties - sung and played by everyone from a legendary star to nameless studio performers. Seven of those programs finished among the season’s Top 50.
Al Jolson, cranking out movie musicals for Warner Brothers at the rate of one a year, gave NBC and sponsor Shell Oil one of only three shows to ever to score a rating above 20 on Saturday, the lowest rated night of the week. Shell Chateau of 1934-35 was the second highest rated Saturday show of the Golden Age - runner-up only to Walter O’Keefe’s Lucky Strike Dance Party of 1932-33 and several points ahead of Truth Or Consequences’ biggest season in 1947-48.
Lucky Strike’s Your Hit Parade started its 18 year multi-network radio run in April, 1935, and began to build a following among music fans by presenting the top popular songs of each week according to its “confidential” poll of sheet music and record sales plus disc jockey and dance band requests conducted by American Tobacco‘s agency, Lord & Thomas. The show that eventually featured a dramatic countdown to each week’s Number One Song finished among the season’s Top 50 programs 16 times. (See Top 40 Radio‘s Roots.)
NBC continued to lead the network race with 21 programs in the Annual Top 50. Blue followed with 16 and for the last time CBS finished in third place with only 13 shows among the nation’s favorites. That situation would change dramatically over the following season.
(1) WOR, WXYZ and WLW/Cincinnati had also been part of an earlier, failed networking attempt, 1929's Quality Broadcasting Group. Quality was meant to be a means for independent stations with high-caliber local programming to swap programs with no network strings attached.
(2) Jack Benny’s show was repeated live at 8:30 for West Coast audiences from 1934-35 through 1940-41. The repeat performances were discontinued in 1941-42. NBC affiliates then began carrying the program at 4:00 p.m. and transcribed repeats were broadcast by Blue’s West Coast network later in the evening. (For details see Benny’s Double Plays on this site.
(3) Schwartz & Deitz had written standards including That's Entertainment, You And The Night And The Music, By Myself and Dancing In The Dark.
Network Radio's Top 50 Programs - 1934-35
Cooperative Analysis of Broadcasting, Sep 1934 - Jun 1935
Total Programs Rated 6-11 PM: 161 Programs Rated 13 Weeks & Ranked: 135.
20,400,000 Radio Homes 66.2% Coverage of US. One Rating Point = 204,000 Homes
Previous season ranking is note in the second column. N=New to the Top 50.
1 1 Eddie Cantor Show 41.0 Lehn & Fink/Pebeco Toothpaste Sun 8:00 30 CBS (1)
2 2 Maxwell House Show Boat 37.8 General Foods Thu 9:00 60 NBC
3 N Major Bowes Amateur Hour 36.0 Standard Brands/Chase & Sanborn Sun 8:00 60 NBC
4 3 Rudy Vallee's Fleischmann Yeast Hour 35.6 Standard Brands Thu 8:00 60 NBC
5 16 Jack Benny Program 35.0 General Foods/Jello Sun 7:00 30 Blue (2)
6 11 Joe Penner Bakers Broadcast 31.3 Standard Brands/Fleischmann Yeast Sun 7:30 30 Blue
7 27 Fred Allen Town Hall Tonight 29.7 Bristol Myers Wed 9:00 60 NBC
8 9 Beauty Box Theater 27.2 Colgate Palmolive Peet/Pamolive Soap Tue 10:00 60 NBC
9t 4 Ed Wynn’s Texaco Fire Chief 27.1 Texaco Petroleum Tue 9:30 30 NBC
9t 10 Will Rogers’ Gulf Headliners Show 27.1 Gulf Oil Sun 8:30 30 CBS (3)
11 N Al Jolson’s Shell Chateau 25.2 Shell Oil Sat 9:30 60 NBC
12 7 Ben Bernie Show 23.9 Pabst Beer Tue 9:00 30 NBC
13 9 Paul Whiteman’s Kraft Music Hall 22.8 Kraft Foods Thu 10:00 60 NBC
14 14 First Nighter/Don Ameche 22.7 Campana Sales/ItalianBalm Fri 10:00 30 NBC
15 N Chase & Sanborn Opera Guild 22.4 Standard Brands Sun 8:00 60 NBC
16 5 Amos & Andy 22.3 Pepsodent Toothpaste M-F 7:00 15 Blue
17 22 March of Time 21.5 Remington Rand Fri 9:00 30 CBS
18 N Stoopnagle & Budd Gulf Headliners 21.3 Gulf Oil Sun 9:30 30 CBS (4)
19 12 Sinclair Minstrels 20.7 Sinclair Oil Mon 9:00 30 Blue
20 N Guy Lombardo Orch Pleasure Island 20.1 Plough, Inc. Wed 10:00 30 NBC
21 19 Lowell Thomas News 20.0 Sun Oil M-F 6:45 15 Blue
22t N Mary Pickford & Company 19.8 Standard Brands/Royal Gelatin Wed 8:00 30 NBC
22t 13 Phil Baker The Armour Jester 19.8 Armour Meats Fri 9:30 30 Blue
24 N Let’s Dance 19.4 Nabisco Sat 10:30 90 NBC
25 63 National Barn Dance 19.1 Miles Laboratories/Alka Seltzer Sat 9:30 60 Blue
26 N One Man’s Family 18.7 Standard Brands/Tenderleaf Tea Wed 9:30 30 NBC (5)
27 6 Burns & Allen Show 18.3 General Cigar Corp. Wed 9:30 30 CBS (6)
28t 20 Cities Service Concert/J Dragonette 18.0 Cities Service Petroleum Fri 8:00 60 NBC
28t 21 Myrt & Marge 18.0 Wrigley Gum M-F 7:00 15 CBS
30 N Hollywood Hotel/Louella Parsons 17.5 Campbell Soup Fri 9:30 60 CBS
31 N Lawrence Tibbett Program 17.0 Packard Autos Tue 8:30 30 Blue
32 N Sigmund Romberg Revue 15.6 Swift Meats Sat 8:00 60 NBC
33 N Your Hit Parade 15.5 American Tobacco/Lucky Strike Sat 8 00 60 NBC
34 17 Bing Crosby Show 15.3 Andrew Jergens/Woodbury Soap Tue 9:00 30 CBS
35 34 Death Valley Days 15.2 Pacific Borax/20 Mule Team Borax Thu 9:00 30 Blue
36 N The Gibson Family 15.1 Procter & Gamble Sun 10:00 60 NBC (7)
37 35 Wayne King Orch 15.0 Lady Esther Cosmetics Tu-W 8:30 30 NBC
38t 30 Eno Crime Clues 14.9 Eno Antacid Salts Tue 8:00 30 Blue
38t 45 Fred Waring Show 14.9 Ford Motors Thu 9:30 60 CBS
40 N Lanny Ross Log Cabin Orch 14.8 General Foods/Log Cabin Syrup Wed 8:30 30 Blue
41 N Ford Sunday Evening Hour 14.7 Ford Motors Sun 9:00 60 CBS
42 N Kate Smith’s New Star Revue 14.6 Hudson Autos Mon 8:30 30 CBS
43 N Radio City Party/John B Kennedy 14.0 RCA Victor Sat 9:00 30 Blue
44 33 American Album of Familiar Music 13.9 Sterling Drug/Bayer Aspirin Sun 9:30 30 NBC
45t N House of Glass/Gertrude Berg 13.7 Colgate Palmolive Peet Wed 8:30 30 Blue
45t 48 Walter Winchell’s Jergens Journal 13.7 Andew Jergens/Jergens Lotion Sun 9:30 15 Blue
47 N Roxy & His Gang 13.6 Sterling Drug/Fletcher’s Castoria Laxative Sat 8:00 45 CBS
48t 43 Edwin C Hill News 13.5 Barbasol Shave Cream MWF 8:15 15 CBS
48t 95 Red Davis 13.5 Beechnut Gum MWF 8:00 15 Blue
50 28 Warden Lawes In Sing Sing 13.1 Sloan’s Liniment Wed 9:00 30 Blue
(1) Eddie Cantor Show Oct - Nov Standard Brands Sun 8:00 60 NBC
(2) Jack Benny Program Sep General Tire Fri 10:00 30 NBC
(3) Will Rogers’ Gulf Headliners Oct Gulf Oil Sun 9:30 30 CBS
(4) Stoopnagle & Budd Gulf Headliners Sep Gulf Oil Sun 9:00 30 Blue
(5) One Man’s Family Sep - Mar Kentucky Winner Cigarettes Wed 10:30 30 NBC
(6) aka The Adventures of Gracie
(7) The Gibson Family Sep- Mar Procter & Gamble Sat 9:30 60 NBC
. This post is in part abridged from Network Radio Ratings, 1932-1953.
Copyright © 2012 & 2019, Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com