MAJOR BOWES' AMATEURS SHOWED UP THE PROS
A Major Triumph
The 1935-36 Season
4th In A Series
Where Did All The Listeners Go? Network Radio ratings suffered their first general decline during the 1935-36 season and it was a big one. The seasons’ Top 50 program average rating fell 7.3 points - a 36% loss of audience.
The drastic drop in ratings was blamed on a change in methodology employed by Archibald Crossley’s Cooperative Analysis of Broadcasting, (CAB), polling. (1) The switch was championed by researcher and CAB board member George Gallup who recognized the advantages of the new Telephone Coincidental system introduced by Clark-Hooper, Inc., in 1934. CAB pollsters no longer asked what families listened to during the previous day but within the past few hours. (2) CAB also became less generous with its “Homes Listening” estimates which had swelled to 70% and higher in 1934-35.
CAB’s change coincided with Clark-Hooper’s study, Yardsticks On The Air, published in September by its underwriter, the ANPA newspaper alliance. Distributed to advertisers and agencies, Yardstick’s findings cast doubts on Crossley’s high figures. Based on a sampling of 400,000 random calls in the 1934-35 season, Clark-Hooper reported the rating of an average prime time program between 7:00 and 10:00 p.m. ET to be a mere 9.0! (3)
The effect of CAB’s new system was swift and dramatic. It happened between September and October when ratings historically increase as autumn progresses. The 1935-36 season would be the only exception to the rule - and it was a big one as evidenced by these examples:
Sep 1935 Oct 1935 Difference
Major Bowes’ Original Amateur Hour 57.9 31.0 - 46.5 %
Rudy Vallee’s Fleischmann Yeast Hour 35.1 20.1 - 42.7 %
Maxwell House Showboat 36.2 17.5 - 51.7 %
Fred Allen’s Town Hall Tonight 26.6 17.5 - 34.2 %
Paul Whiteman’s Kraft Music Hall 26.7 14.7 - 45.0 %
Al Jolson’s Shell Chateau 25.8 12.6 - 51.2 %
Twenty network programs finished the 1934-35 season with an average rating above 20. Only five managed to earn a 20 or greater in 1935-36. The ratings honeymoon was over. Nevertheless, advertising money continued to flow into radio. Total industry revenues sailed past the hundred million dollar mark for the first time in 1935 and network sales had doubled in two years. It was the greatest one year spurt the business would ever experience after which it would settle back to healthy annual gains - just not as spectacular. (See Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
Burns & Allen Stand Out. George Burns & Gracie Allen raised their half hour on CBS a minuscule 3/10th's of one rating point over 1934-35. Yet, their tiny increase was enough to distinguish Burns & Allen as the year’s only Top 50 program to finish with a higher rating than the previous season.
Bowes Rumbles & Cantor Tumbles. Crossley’s switch in interviewing and tabulating had little effect Major Bowes. The 61 year old ringmaster of amateurs lost less than half a point from his 1934-35 ratings and emerged with the season’s only program to finish in the 30's. Prior to Crossley’s adjustments that pushed ratings down, Bowes’ Original Amateur Hour of September 8th scored a CAB rating in the mid-50's. Winners of hat Sunday evening’s competition on NBC were Frank Sinatra & The Three Flashes. During the broadcast Bowes renamed the group The Hoboken Four. (See Major Bowes' Original Money Machine.)
After three months of being run over by Bowes’ first place bulldozer on NBC, CBS shifted Eddie Cantor's Pebeco Toothpaste show back to 7:00 p.m. in January. But in doing so, Cantor ran up against Blue’s top rated show and the second most popular program in the country, Jack Benny’s increasingly popular comedy series. Benny easily topped - and twice doubled - Cantor’s ratings in their five months of head to head competition.
Lux Hits Hollywood. Lever Brothers and its ad agency, J. Walter Thompson, left their mark on radio history when they transplanted Lux Radio Theater from New York and Blue’s Sunday afternoon schedule to Hollywood and Mondays at 9:00 p.m. ET on CBS. To reinforce its Hollywood image, the star studded anthology of popular movies adapted for radio was hosted and narrated by legendary film director Cecil B. DeMille. DeMille, 54, also conducted curtain call interviews with the stars, chats that always included actresses’ glowing endorsements of Lux Beauty Soap.
Lux scored a 14.6 season’s average - just one-tenth of one percent higher than its Sunday afternoon rating on Blue a year earlier. That would all change the following year when Lux began a string of 14 straight seasons with average ratings of 20 or better. The show immediately became Monday’s highest rated program, a position it would never relinquish during Network Radio‘s Golden Age by never straying from its format, from CBS or Monday night at 9:00. (See Lux…Presents Hollywood!)
NBC Hails The Fresh Air Taxi. NBC (Red) took Pepsodent’s Amos & Andy from Blue in July, 1935. It was the first in a string of Blue’s hits that would shift to the more powerful of RCA’s two networks. This larceny, however, might be considered justified. For six years the program’s originating station, NBC’s WMAQ, had been required to feed Amos & Andy to the entire Blue network - including its own Chicago competitor, WENR. In a unique arrangement, both stations simultaneously broadcast the program’s second, (West Coast), feed nightly at 10:00 for five years until WENR took sole custody of the feed in 1934. Amos & Andy came home to WMAQ’s air exclusively on July 15th. (See Amos & Andy - Twice Is Nicer.)
Pick & Pat’s Popular Patter. Network Radio’s other blackface comedy team, Pick Malone and Pat Padgett, known to listeners of Maxwell House Showboat as Molasses ‘n’ January, benefited from the success of Lux Radio Theater when sponsor U.S. Tobacco moved their variety show from NBC’s Friday schedule to CBS on Mondays at 8:30. As the lead-in to Lux they benefited from early tune-in’s for the Hollywood extravaganza. The move propelled Pick & Pat into the season’s Top 50, although the comics trailed both Voice of Firestone and Grand Hotel in their time period. It was the first of five consecutive Top 50 finishes for Pick & Pat in the cushy time period, although their ratings were always about half of Lux Radio Theater.
Fibber & Molly’s Slow Start. Jim and Marian Jordan first appeared as Fibber McGee & Molly in the May, 1935, rating books with a dismal 4.3 average on Blue’s Tuesday schedule opposite the 27.4 scored by NBC’s top rated Beauty Box Theater. That 4.3 was the poorest rating ever registered by a future Number One show. But the program’s first Tuesday format hardly resembled that which later became popular with millions. The original FM&M premise placed the bumbling Fibber and his (then) shrewish wife with a thick Irish brogue on a continual car trip. Fibber and a much nicer Molly settled in at 79 Wistful Vista in September and the program began to take shape with its weekly parade of colorful visitors to their front door.
A time change was also due for the developing program. For the 1935-36 season Johnson Wax and Blue moved the McGee’s to Mondays at 8:00 where the pair began to steadily build an audience against Guy Lombardo’s orchestra on CBS. Fibber McGee & Molly finished the season in 62nd place - but better days were ahead. It was the sitcom’s last ranking lower than a season’s Top 25. (See Fibber McGee Minus Molly.)
Two Top Tens Topple. Two of 1934-35’s Top Ten shows left NBC’s Tuesday lineup for CBS and suffered from the move. Palmolive’s Beauty Box Theater moved to CBS’s Saturday schedule and lost over half of its audience. A worse fate awaited Texaco Fire Chief Ed Wynn who came off three Top Ten NBC seasons and moved to CBS on Thursdays as Gulliver for Chrysler’s Plymouth autos opposite NBC’s popular Maxwell House Showboat. Wynn lost over 70% of his audience and dropped from ninth to 49th in the season’s rankings.
Texaco Runs Out of Gas. To replace its departed Fire Chief, Texaco teamed with flamboyant Broadway producer Billy Rose and created one of the most expensive flops in Network Radio history. The Jumbo Fire Chief Show - so named to coincide with Rose’s circus-like stage extravaganza, Jumbo - was a continuing original musical comedy. It was similar in format to the previous season’s ratings disappointment, The Gibson Family, only on a larger scale.
Texaco spent $15,000 a week, to produce The Jumbo Fire Chief, beginning with writers Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur and composers Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart. Beloved comedian Jimmy Durante was the star of the show. With a large cast and orchestra supporting Durante and performing the story and songs written for them by Broadway greats, The Jumbo Fire Chief had everything going for it - except listeners. Despite a huge promotional push from NBC and Texaco, the program never rose above single digits in the ratings. It was outscored by both Fred Waring’s pop concerts on CBS and Helen Hayes’ anthology dramas on Blue. The Jumbo Fire Chief was cancelled at mid-season. (See Goodnight, Mr. Durante...)
Parsons Protests Pickford’s Parties. Legendary screen star Mary Pickford added more glamour to CBS’ Hollywood image with Parties at Pickfair - radio receptions for film stars supposedly held in the Beverly Hills mansion she shared with husband Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. Resembling Hollywood Hotel in format, the program sparked controversy between Pickford and Hotel’s hostess, Hearst columnist Louella Parsons. Parsons complained loudly and threatened to blackball any star who appeared on Pickford's program.
It wasn’t the format similarity that bothered Parsons - it was Pickfair’s practice of paying its guests between a thousand and three thousand dollars to appear. Parsons didn’t pay her Hollywood Hotel guests a cent and insisted that Pickford not set a trend that would spoil her free ride. Pickford’s “parties” also featured impersonations of movie notables as background chatter performed by radio actors that were panned in the press for their flat-out phoniness.
The entire affair was sponsored by the National Ice Advertisers, a group of ice manufacturers attempting to stem the growing popularity of electric refrigerators with copy points like, “Ice is tops in modern scientific refrigeration,” and, “Remember, cold alone is not enough!” The show suffered a melt-down of its own and left the air after five months.
Lord’s Second Coming. Gangbusters, aka Gang Busters, was Phillips H. Lord’s comeback show. His Seth Parker character sank from popularity with the notorious Cruise of The Seth Parker in early 1934 amid gossip of the yacht’s wild parties in ports of call and its subsequent, questionable sinking in the South Pacific. Meanwhile, Warner Brothers made killings - both on film and at the box office - with violent crime and gangster movies in the early 1930's. Sing Sing prison warden Lewis Lawes had brought stories of crimes and criminals to Network Radio with his popular series, Twenty Thousand Years In Sing Sing, in 1933.
Lord decided to capitalize on the trend and launched his series G-Men on NBC in the summer of 1935 with the reluctant co-operation of J. Edgar Hoover’s Bureau of Investigation which would soon become the FBI. Dramatizations of the bureau’s case histories only lasted 13 weeks but Lord knew he was on to something good. He converted the format to focus on local law enforcement agencies and changed its name to Gangbusters. The program opened on CBS in January, 1936, and enjoyed runs on CBS, Blue and ABC for the next 21 years, ranking among the Top 50 programs for twelve seasons of Network Radio’s Golden Age.
A Krafty Move. Thursday night on NBC continued to be the grocery store of the air. Standard Brands, General Foods and Kraft all pitched their products in successful hour long variety formats on NBC, gathering higher ratings than CBS and Blue combined.
Displaying demographic savvy in its appeal to housewives, Chicago cheese manufacturer J.L. Kraft hired 32 year old romantic baritone and emerging movie star Bing Crosby to sell its Velveeta processed cheese and its new mayonnaise-like Miracle Whip Salad Dressing. Crosby replaced rotund orchestra leader Paul Whiteman as the star of Kraft Music Hall in January.
It was a gutsy move as Whiteman had taken KMH to the Annual Top Ten in each of the two previous seasons and his September through December run on the show was destined to finish seventh among all programs for the season. Crosby’s subsequent 26 week series finished eighth. Nevertheless, Crosby began a string of eleven seasons among the Top 15 programs, six in the Top Five. (See Thursday's All Time Top Ten.)
Joley Shuns Shell. Al Jolson vacated Saturday's Shell Chateau in March on the eve of the release of his Warner Brothers film, The Singing Fool - in which he sang 13 of his most recognizable signature melodies. His departure from radio presented the oil company and NBC with the problem of finding a replacement. They turned to the movies for 51 year old character actor, Wallace Beery, star of a string of MGM films, and the show was converted from musical variety format to a comedy oriented variety show. Beery was no Jolson and lost 40% of the singer’s ratings.
Another Spark of Hope. Bob Hope’s sad six week showing earlier in the year on Bromo Seltzer’s Intimate Revue didn’t deter the busy comedian from trying again. He filmed four shorts for Warner Brothers in 1935, joined Fanny Brice, Eve Arden and Judy Canova in the cast of Broadway’s Ziegfeld Follies of 1936, and took on the hosting duties of The Atlantic (Oil) Family on CBS. With blonde Patricia Wilder as his beautiful but dumb southern belle stooge, Honey Chile, Hope’s variety show could only score double digit ratings during one month, yet he managed to finish in 50th place for the season. Hope’s breakthrough season on radio was still two years away.
Broadcasting’s Brat Bows. Baby Snooks made her radio debut on Fanny Brice’s Ziegfeld Follies of The Air in February in the 8:00 o'clock Saturday timeslot vacated by Beauty Box Theater on CBS. Brice was 47 at the time, 19 years older than the first actor to portray her long suffering Daddy, Alan Reed, who 25 years later became the voice of Fred Flintstone. Reed was replaced the following season by Hanley Stafford - ten years Brice’s junior. The Brice-Stafford team would eventually chronicle Snooks’ mischief and mayhem across three networks for 15 years, finishing twelve times in the Annual Top 50 and four times in the Top Ten. (See Baby Snooks.)
Multiple Runs’ Multiple Wins. The March of Time was converted to a 15 minute week-night strip show for the one season. This move led to Friday night of the 1935-36 season becoming the only time that six 15 minute Multiple Run programs - five of them strip shows - monopolized a single night’s Top Ten. (4) (See Multiple Runs All Time Top Ten.)
The Last Waltz. Wayne King’s Lady Esther Serenade was the last 30 minute Multiple Run program reported as such in the ratings until The Lone Ranger rode into the Hooperatings of 1940. King would still be heard twice week on NBC for two more seasons but his programs were rated separately. It was also the last season that Kate Smith, The March of Time and The Shadow were heard in prime time in Multiple Run formats. (See The Waltz King and The Aragon's Last Stand.)
Sports Score. The 1935 World Series and two Heavyweight Championship fights coincided with Crossley/CAB survey periods. Their broadcasts had ratings that regular programming only could dream about. October’s World Series was carried on all four networks and accounted for a combined rating of 34.7, peaking on Sunday the 6th when the Detroit Tigers and Chicago Cubs attracted a 41.5 rating.
The ratings champ was future Heavyweight Champ Joe Louis, then the up and coming boxing sensation from Detroit. His September 24th fight - a victory over former champion Max Baer - was broadcast on both NBC and Blue, and pulled a combined 45.7 rating. Louis’ surprising loss to another past champion, Max Schmeling, on June 19, 1936 - again carried by both Blue and NBC - drew an even greater 57.6. And this was in the season of diminished ratings!
CBS’s First Winning Season. CBS took the season’s honors with 20 of the Top 50 most popular programs. The upstart network won three of the nightly Top Ten races and tied for two more. Monday’s Hollywood based Lux Radio Theater and Friday’s Hollywood Hotel established CBS as the network for film stars and listeners responded in a big way. (See The Network Race.)
(1) Crossley’s original bankroller in 1930, the Association of National Advertisers, was joined in 1934 by the American Association of Advertising Agencies and the National Association of Broadcasters to form the Cooperative Analysis of Broadcasting to finance and market Crossley’s monthly surveys of 33 U.S. radio markets.
(2) Evening listenership was surveyed the following morning.
(3) Time magazine reported these findings, gratuitously adding, “Yardsticks On The Air concluded that most radio advertisers spend a great deal of money competing for an audience which is monopolized by a only few popular programs.” Ironically, Time was one of the competitors for audience popularity. Its March of Time was entering its fifth season on CBS.
(4) The Friday Top Ten strips were Amos & Andy, Lowell Thomas News, The March of Time, Boake Carter News and Myrt & Marge. The sixth, Dangerous Paradise, was aired three times a week.
Network Radio's Top 50 Programs - 1935-36
Cooperative Analysis of Broadcasting, Sept 1935 - June 1936.
Total Programs Rated 6-11 PM: 149 Programs Rated 13 Weeks & Ranked: 131.
21,456,000 Radio Homes 67.3% Coverage of US One Rating Point = 214,560 Homes
1 3 Major Bowes Amateur Hour 37.5 Standard Brands/Chase & Sanborn Sun 8:00 60 NBC
2 5 Jack Benny Program 25.8 General Foods/Jello Sun 7:00 30 Blue
3 4 Rudy Vallee Fleischmann Yeast Hour 22.4 Standard Brands Thu 8:00 60 NBC
4 2 Maxwell House Show Boat 20.8 General Foods/Maxwell House Thu 9:00 60 NBC
5 7 Fred Allen’s Town Hall Tonight 20.0 Bristol Myers Wed 9:00 60 NBC
6 27 Burns & Allen Show 18.6 Campbell Soup Wed 8:30 30 CBS
7 13 Paul Whiteman’s Kraft Music Hall 18.2 Kraft Cheese Thu 10:00 60 NBC
8 N Bing Crosby’s Kraft Music Hall 16.9 Kraft Cheese Thu 10:00 60 NBC
9 11 Al Jolson’s Shell Chateau 16.7 Shell Oil Sat 9:30 60 NBC
10 30 Hollywood Hotel 16.4 Campbell Soup Fri 9:00 60 CBS
11 N Robert Ripley Bakers Broadcast 16.0 Standard/Fleischmann Yeast Sun 7:30 30 Blue
12 14 First Nighter 15.1 Campana Sales/Italian Balm Fri 10:00 30 NBC
13t 1 Eddie Cantor Show 14.9 Pebeco Toothpaste Sun 7:00 30 CBS (1)
13t 22t Phil Baker’s Gulf Headliners 14.9 Gulf Oil Sun 7:30 30 CBS
15 N Lux Radio Theater 14.6 Lever Brothers/Lux Soap Mon 9:00 60 CBS
16 26 One Man’s Family 14.0 Standard/Tenderleaf Tea & Royal Puddings Wed 8:00 30 NBC
17 11 Ben Bernie Show 13.6 American Can Co. Tue 9:00 30 Blue
18 16 Amos & Andy 13.1 Pepsodent Toothpaste M-F 7:00 15 NBC
19 33 Your Hit Parade 13.0 American Tobacco/Lucky Strike Sat 8:00 60 NBC
20 8 Beauty Box Theater 12.6 Colgate Palmolive Peet Palmolive Soap Sat 8:00 60 CBS (2)
21 N Vick’s Open House/Grace Moore 12.3 Vick’s Vap-O-Rub Sun 8:00 30 CBS
22 55 Manhattan Merry Go Round 12.0 Sterling Drug/Dr. Lyons Tooth Powder Sun 9:00 30 NBC
23 69 General Motors Concert 11.4 General Motors Sun 10:00 30 NBC
24 21 Lowell Thomas News 11.2 Sun Oil M-F 6:45 15 Blue
25 28t Cities Service Concert/J Dragonette 11.1 Cities Service Petroleum Fri 8:00 60 NBC
26 59 Grand Hotel/Don Ameche 11.0 Campana Balm Mon 8:30 30 Blue
27t N Helen Hayes Theater 10.9 General Foods/Coffee Tue 9:30 30 Blue
27t N Fanny Brice Ziegfeld Follies 10.9 Colgate Toothpaste Sat 8:00 60 CBS
29t 25 National Barn Dance 10.8 Miles Laboratories/Alka Seltzer Sat 9:30 60 Blue
29t N Rubinoff & His Violin 10.8 Chevrolet Motors Sat 9:00 30 CBS
31 51 Voice of Firestone 10.7 Firestone Rubber Mon 8:30 30 NBC
32t 69 Boake Carter News 10.3 Philco Radios M-F 7:45 15 CBS
32t 37t Fred Waring's Pennsylvanians 10.3 Ford Motors Tue 9:30 60 CBS
34t 31 Lawrence Tibbett Program 9.9 Packard Motors Tue 8:30 30 CBS
34t N Shell Chateau/Wallace Beery 9.9 Shell Oil Sat 9:30 60 NBC
36 17 March of Time 9.5 Remington Rand M-F 10:30 15 CBS
37 N Gangbusters 9.3 Colgate Palmolive Peet/Palmolive Shave Cream Wed 10:00 30 CBS
38t 41 Ford Sunday Evening Hour 9.2 Ford Motors Sun 9:00 60 CBS
38t 45t Walter Winchell’s Jergens Journal 9.2 Jergens Lotion Sun 9:30 15 Blue
40 45t House of Glass/Gertrude Berg 8.9 Palmolive Soap Wed 8:30 30 Blue
41 44 American Album of Familiar Music 8.8 Sterling Drug/Bayer Aspirin Sun 9:30 30 NBC
42t 38t Eno Crime Clues 8.7 Eno Antacid Salts Tue 8:00 30 Blue
42t 37 Wayne King Orch 8.7 Lady Esther Cosmetics Tu-We 8:30 30 NBC
44 70 Pick & Pat 8.6 U.S. Tobacco/Dill’s Best Pipe Tobacco Mon 8:30 30 CBS
45t 20 Guy Lombardo Orch 8.5 Esso Petroleum Mon 8:00 30 CBS
45t N Parties At Pickfair/Mary Pickford 8.5 Ice & Refrigerator Dealers Tue 10:00 30 CBS
47 35 Death Valley Days 8.1 Pacific Borax/20 Mule Team Borax Cleaner Thu 9:00 30 Blue
48 19 Sinclair Wiener Minstrels 8.0 Sinclair Oil Mon 9:00 30 Blue
49 9 Ed Wynn’s Gulliver 7.8 Chrysler Corporation/Plymouth Autos Thu 9:30 30 CBS
50 N Bob Hope’s Atlantic Family 7.7 Atlantic Petroleum Sat 7:00 30 CBS
(1) Eddie Cantor Show Oct-Dec Pebeco Toothpaste Sun 8:00 30 CBS
(2) Beauty Box Theater Sep-Dec Palmolive Soap Fri 9:00 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 1935-36 Season
4th In A Series
Where Did All The Listeners Go? Network Radio ratings suffered their first general decline during the 1935-36 season and it was a big one. The seasons’ Top 50 program average rating fell 7.3 points - a 36% loss of audience.
The drastic drop in ratings was blamed on a change in methodology employed by Archibald Crossley’s Cooperative Analysis of Broadcasting, (CAB), polling. (1) The switch was championed by researcher and CAB board member George Gallup who recognized the advantages of the new Telephone Coincidental system introduced by Clark-Hooper, Inc., in 1934. CAB pollsters no longer asked what families listened to during the previous day but within the past few hours. (2) CAB also became less generous with its “Homes Listening” estimates which had swelled to 70% and higher in 1934-35.
CAB’s change coincided with Clark-Hooper’s study, Yardsticks On The Air, published in September by its underwriter, the ANPA newspaper alliance. Distributed to advertisers and agencies, Yardstick’s findings cast doubts on Crossley’s high figures. Based on a sampling of 400,000 random calls in the 1934-35 season, Clark-Hooper reported the rating of an average prime time program between 7:00 and 10:00 p.m. ET to be a mere 9.0! (3)
The effect of CAB’s new system was swift and dramatic. It happened between September and October when ratings historically increase as autumn progresses. The 1935-36 season would be the only exception to the rule - and it was a big one as evidenced by these examples:
Sep 1935 Oct 1935 Difference
Major Bowes’ Original Amateur Hour 57.9 31.0 - 46.5 %
Rudy Vallee’s Fleischmann Yeast Hour 35.1 20.1 - 42.7 %
Maxwell House Showboat 36.2 17.5 - 51.7 %
Fred Allen’s Town Hall Tonight 26.6 17.5 - 34.2 %
Paul Whiteman’s Kraft Music Hall 26.7 14.7 - 45.0 %
Al Jolson’s Shell Chateau 25.8 12.6 - 51.2 %
Twenty network programs finished the 1934-35 season with an average rating above 20. Only five managed to earn a 20 or greater in 1935-36. The ratings honeymoon was over. Nevertheless, advertising money continued to flow into radio. Total industry revenues sailed past the hundred million dollar mark for the first time in 1935 and network sales had doubled in two years. It was the greatest one year spurt the business would ever experience after which it would settle back to healthy annual gains - just not as spectacular. (See Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
Burns & Allen Stand Out. George Burns & Gracie Allen raised their half hour on CBS a minuscule 3/10th's of one rating point over 1934-35. Yet, their tiny increase was enough to distinguish Burns & Allen as the year’s only Top 50 program to finish with a higher rating than the previous season.
Bowes Rumbles & Cantor Tumbles. Crossley’s switch in interviewing and tabulating had little effect Major Bowes. The 61 year old ringmaster of amateurs lost less than half a point from his 1934-35 ratings and emerged with the season’s only program to finish in the 30's. Prior to Crossley’s adjustments that pushed ratings down, Bowes’ Original Amateur Hour of September 8th scored a CAB rating in the mid-50's. Winners of hat Sunday evening’s competition on NBC were Frank Sinatra & The Three Flashes. During the broadcast Bowes renamed the group The Hoboken Four. (See Major Bowes' Original Money Machine.)
After three months of being run over by Bowes’ first place bulldozer on NBC, CBS shifted Eddie Cantor's Pebeco Toothpaste show back to 7:00 p.m. in January. But in doing so, Cantor ran up against Blue’s top rated show and the second most popular program in the country, Jack Benny’s increasingly popular comedy series. Benny easily topped - and twice doubled - Cantor’s ratings in their five months of head to head competition.
Lux Hits Hollywood. Lever Brothers and its ad agency, J. Walter Thompson, left their mark on radio history when they transplanted Lux Radio Theater from New York and Blue’s Sunday afternoon schedule to Hollywood and Mondays at 9:00 p.m. ET on CBS. To reinforce its Hollywood image, the star studded anthology of popular movies adapted for radio was hosted and narrated by legendary film director Cecil B. DeMille. DeMille, 54, also conducted curtain call interviews with the stars, chats that always included actresses’ glowing endorsements of Lux Beauty Soap.
Lux scored a 14.6 season’s average - just one-tenth of one percent higher than its Sunday afternoon rating on Blue a year earlier. That would all change the following year when Lux began a string of 14 straight seasons with average ratings of 20 or better. The show immediately became Monday’s highest rated program, a position it would never relinquish during Network Radio‘s Golden Age by never straying from its format, from CBS or Monday night at 9:00. (See Lux…Presents Hollywood!)
NBC Hails The Fresh Air Taxi. NBC (Red) took Pepsodent’s Amos & Andy from Blue in July, 1935. It was the first in a string of Blue’s hits that would shift to the more powerful of RCA’s two networks. This larceny, however, might be considered justified. For six years the program’s originating station, NBC’s WMAQ, had been required to feed Amos & Andy to the entire Blue network - including its own Chicago competitor, WENR. In a unique arrangement, both stations simultaneously broadcast the program’s second, (West Coast), feed nightly at 10:00 for five years until WENR took sole custody of the feed in 1934. Amos & Andy came home to WMAQ’s air exclusively on July 15th. (See Amos & Andy - Twice Is Nicer.)
Pick & Pat’s Popular Patter. Network Radio’s other blackface comedy team, Pick Malone and Pat Padgett, known to listeners of Maxwell House Showboat as Molasses ‘n’ January, benefited from the success of Lux Radio Theater when sponsor U.S. Tobacco moved their variety show from NBC’s Friday schedule to CBS on Mondays at 8:30. As the lead-in to Lux they benefited from early tune-in’s for the Hollywood extravaganza. The move propelled Pick & Pat into the season’s Top 50, although the comics trailed both Voice of Firestone and Grand Hotel in their time period. It was the first of five consecutive Top 50 finishes for Pick & Pat in the cushy time period, although their ratings were always about half of Lux Radio Theater.
Fibber & Molly’s Slow Start. Jim and Marian Jordan first appeared as Fibber McGee & Molly in the May, 1935, rating books with a dismal 4.3 average on Blue’s Tuesday schedule opposite the 27.4 scored by NBC’s top rated Beauty Box Theater. That 4.3 was the poorest rating ever registered by a future Number One show. But the program’s first Tuesday format hardly resembled that which later became popular with millions. The original FM&M premise placed the bumbling Fibber and his (then) shrewish wife with a thick Irish brogue on a continual car trip. Fibber and a much nicer Molly settled in at 79 Wistful Vista in September and the program began to take shape with its weekly parade of colorful visitors to their front door.
A time change was also due for the developing program. For the 1935-36 season Johnson Wax and Blue moved the McGee’s to Mondays at 8:00 where the pair began to steadily build an audience against Guy Lombardo’s orchestra on CBS. Fibber McGee & Molly finished the season in 62nd place - but better days were ahead. It was the sitcom’s last ranking lower than a season’s Top 25. (See Fibber McGee Minus Molly.)
Two Top Tens Topple. Two of 1934-35’s Top Ten shows left NBC’s Tuesday lineup for CBS and suffered from the move. Palmolive’s Beauty Box Theater moved to CBS’s Saturday schedule and lost over half of its audience. A worse fate awaited Texaco Fire Chief Ed Wynn who came off three Top Ten NBC seasons and moved to CBS on Thursdays as Gulliver for Chrysler’s Plymouth autos opposite NBC’s popular Maxwell House Showboat. Wynn lost over 70% of his audience and dropped from ninth to 49th in the season’s rankings.
Texaco Runs Out of Gas. To replace its departed Fire Chief, Texaco teamed with flamboyant Broadway producer Billy Rose and created one of the most expensive flops in Network Radio history. The Jumbo Fire Chief Show - so named to coincide with Rose’s circus-like stage extravaganza, Jumbo - was a continuing original musical comedy. It was similar in format to the previous season’s ratings disappointment, The Gibson Family, only on a larger scale.
Texaco spent $15,000 a week, to produce The Jumbo Fire Chief, beginning with writers Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur and composers Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart. Beloved comedian Jimmy Durante was the star of the show. With a large cast and orchestra supporting Durante and performing the story and songs written for them by Broadway greats, The Jumbo Fire Chief had everything going for it - except listeners. Despite a huge promotional push from NBC and Texaco, the program never rose above single digits in the ratings. It was outscored by both Fred Waring’s pop concerts on CBS and Helen Hayes’ anthology dramas on Blue. The Jumbo Fire Chief was cancelled at mid-season. (See Goodnight, Mr. Durante...)
Parsons Protests Pickford’s Parties. Legendary screen star Mary Pickford added more glamour to CBS’ Hollywood image with Parties at Pickfair - radio receptions for film stars supposedly held in the Beverly Hills mansion she shared with husband Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. Resembling Hollywood Hotel in format, the program sparked controversy between Pickford and Hotel’s hostess, Hearst columnist Louella Parsons. Parsons complained loudly and threatened to blackball any star who appeared on Pickford's program.
It wasn’t the format similarity that bothered Parsons - it was Pickfair’s practice of paying its guests between a thousand and three thousand dollars to appear. Parsons didn’t pay her Hollywood Hotel guests a cent and insisted that Pickford not set a trend that would spoil her free ride. Pickford’s “parties” also featured impersonations of movie notables as background chatter performed by radio actors that were panned in the press for their flat-out phoniness.
The entire affair was sponsored by the National Ice Advertisers, a group of ice manufacturers attempting to stem the growing popularity of electric refrigerators with copy points like, “Ice is tops in modern scientific refrigeration,” and, “Remember, cold alone is not enough!” The show suffered a melt-down of its own and left the air after five months.
Lord’s Second Coming. Gangbusters, aka Gang Busters, was Phillips H. Lord’s comeback show. His Seth Parker character sank from popularity with the notorious Cruise of The Seth Parker in early 1934 amid gossip of the yacht’s wild parties in ports of call and its subsequent, questionable sinking in the South Pacific. Meanwhile, Warner Brothers made killings - both on film and at the box office - with violent crime and gangster movies in the early 1930's. Sing Sing prison warden Lewis Lawes had brought stories of crimes and criminals to Network Radio with his popular series, Twenty Thousand Years In Sing Sing, in 1933.
Lord decided to capitalize on the trend and launched his series G-Men on NBC in the summer of 1935 with the reluctant co-operation of J. Edgar Hoover’s Bureau of Investigation which would soon become the FBI. Dramatizations of the bureau’s case histories only lasted 13 weeks but Lord knew he was on to something good. He converted the format to focus on local law enforcement agencies and changed its name to Gangbusters. The program opened on CBS in January, 1936, and enjoyed runs on CBS, Blue and ABC for the next 21 years, ranking among the Top 50 programs for twelve seasons of Network Radio’s Golden Age.
A Krafty Move. Thursday night on NBC continued to be the grocery store of the air. Standard Brands, General Foods and Kraft all pitched their products in successful hour long variety formats on NBC, gathering higher ratings than CBS and Blue combined.
Displaying demographic savvy in its appeal to housewives, Chicago cheese manufacturer J.L. Kraft hired 32 year old romantic baritone and emerging movie star Bing Crosby to sell its Velveeta processed cheese and its new mayonnaise-like Miracle Whip Salad Dressing. Crosby replaced rotund orchestra leader Paul Whiteman as the star of Kraft Music Hall in January.
It was a gutsy move as Whiteman had taken KMH to the Annual Top Ten in each of the two previous seasons and his September through December run on the show was destined to finish seventh among all programs for the season. Crosby’s subsequent 26 week series finished eighth. Nevertheless, Crosby began a string of eleven seasons among the Top 15 programs, six in the Top Five. (See Thursday's All Time Top Ten.)
Joley Shuns Shell. Al Jolson vacated Saturday's Shell Chateau in March on the eve of the release of his Warner Brothers film, The Singing Fool - in which he sang 13 of his most recognizable signature melodies. His departure from radio presented the oil company and NBC with the problem of finding a replacement. They turned to the movies for 51 year old character actor, Wallace Beery, star of a string of MGM films, and the show was converted from musical variety format to a comedy oriented variety show. Beery was no Jolson and lost 40% of the singer’s ratings.
Another Spark of Hope. Bob Hope’s sad six week showing earlier in the year on Bromo Seltzer’s Intimate Revue didn’t deter the busy comedian from trying again. He filmed four shorts for Warner Brothers in 1935, joined Fanny Brice, Eve Arden and Judy Canova in the cast of Broadway’s Ziegfeld Follies of 1936, and took on the hosting duties of The Atlantic (Oil) Family on CBS. With blonde Patricia Wilder as his beautiful but dumb southern belle stooge, Honey Chile, Hope’s variety show could only score double digit ratings during one month, yet he managed to finish in 50th place for the season. Hope’s breakthrough season on radio was still two years away.
Broadcasting’s Brat Bows. Baby Snooks made her radio debut on Fanny Brice’s Ziegfeld Follies of The Air in February in the 8:00 o'clock Saturday timeslot vacated by Beauty Box Theater on CBS. Brice was 47 at the time, 19 years older than the first actor to portray her long suffering Daddy, Alan Reed, who 25 years later became the voice of Fred Flintstone. Reed was replaced the following season by Hanley Stafford - ten years Brice’s junior. The Brice-Stafford team would eventually chronicle Snooks’ mischief and mayhem across three networks for 15 years, finishing twelve times in the Annual Top 50 and four times in the Top Ten. (See Baby Snooks.)
Multiple Runs’ Multiple Wins. The March of Time was converted to a 15 minute week-night strip show for the one season. This move led to Friday night of the 1935-36 season becoming the only time that six 15 minute Multiple Run programs - five of them strip shows - monopolized a single night’s Top Ten. (4) (See Multiple Runs All Time Top Ten.)
The Last Waltz. Wayne King’s Lady Esther Serenade was the last 30 minute Multiple Run program reported as such in the ratings until The Lone Ranger rode into the Hooperatings of 1940. King would still be heard twice week on NBC for two more seasons but his programs were rated separately. It was also the last season that Kate Smith, The March of Time and The Shadow were heard in prime time in Multiple Run formats. (See The Waltz King and The Aragon's Last Stand.)
Sports Score. The 1935 World Series and two Heavyweight Championship fights coincided with Crossley/CAB survey periods. Their broadcasts had ratings that regular programming only could dream about. October’s World Series was carried on all four networks and accounted for a combined rating of 34.7, peaking on Sunday the 6th when the Detroit Tigers and Chicago Cubs attracted a 41.5 rating.
The ratings champ was future Heavyweight Champ Joe Louis, then the up and coming boxing sensation from Detroit. His September 24th fight - a victory over former champion Max Baer - was broadcast on both NBC and Blue, and pulled a combined 45.7 rating. Louis’ surprising loss to another past champion, Max Schmeling, on June 19, 1936 - again carried by both Blue and NBC - drew an even greater 57.6. And this was in the season of diminished ratings!
CBS’s First Winning Season. CBS took the season’s honors with 20 of the Top 50 most popular programs. The upstart network won three of the nightly Top Ten races and tied for two more. Monday’s Hollywood based Lux Radio Theater and Friday’s Hollywood Hotel established CBS as the network for film stars and listeners responded in a big way. (See The Network Race.)
(1) Crossley’s original bankroller in 1930, the Association of National Advertisers, was joined in 1934 by the American Association of Advertising Agencies and the National Association of Broadcasters to form the Cooperative Analysis of Broadcasting to finance and market Crossley’s monthly surveys of 33 U.S. radio markets.
(2) Evening listenership was surveyed the following morning.
(3) Time magazine reported these findings, gratuitously adding, “Yardsticks On The Air concluded that most radio advertisers spend a great deal of money competing for an audience which is monopolized by a only few popular programs.” Ironically, Time was one of the competitors for audience popularity. Its March of Time was entering its fifth season on CBS.
(4) The Friday Top Ten strips were Amos & Andy, Lowell Thomas News, The March of Time, Boake Carter News and Myrt & Marge. The sixth, Dangerous Paradise, was aired three times a week.
Network Radio's Top 50 Programs - 1935-36
Cooperative Analysis of Broadcasting, Sept 1935 - June 1936.
Total Programs Rated 6-11 PM: 149 Programs Rated 13 Weeks & Ranked: 131.
21,456,000 Radio Homes 67.3% Coverage of US One Rating Point = 214,560 Homes
1 3 Major Bowes Amateur Hour 37.5 Standard Brands/Chase & Sanborn Sun 8:00 60 NBC
2 5 Jack Benny Program 25.8 General Foods/Jello Sun 7:00 30 Blue
3 4 Rudy Vallee Fleischmann Yeast Hour 22.4 Standard Brands Thu 8:00 60 NBC
4 2 Maxwell House Show Boat 20.8 General Foods/Maxwell House Thu 9:00 60 NBC
5 7 Fred Allen’s Town Hall Tonight 20.0 Bristol Myers Wed 9:00 60 NBC
6 27 Burns & Allen Show 18.6 Campbell Soup Wed 8:30 30 CBS
7 13 Paul Whiteman’s Kraft Music Hall 18.2 Kraft Cheese Thu 10:00 60 NBC
8 N Bing Crosby’s Kraft Music Hall 16.9 Kraft Cheese Thu 10:00 60 NBC
9 11 Al Jolson’s Shell Chateau 16.7 Shell Oil Sat 9:30 60 NBC
10 30 Hollywood Hotel 16.4 Campbell Soup Fri 9:00 60 CBS
11 N Robert Ripley Bakers Broadcast 16.0 Standard/Fleischmann Yeast Sun 7:30 30 Blue
12 14 First Nighter 15.1 Campana Sales/Italian Balm Fri 10:00 30 NBC
13t 1 Eddie Cantor Show 14.9 Pebeco Toothpaste Sun 7:00 30 CBS (1)
13t 22t Phil Baker’s Gulf Headliners 14.9 Gulf Oil Sun 7:30 30 CBS
15 N Lux Radio Theater 14.6 Lever Brothers/Lux Soap Mon 9:00 60 CBS
16 26 One Man’s Family 14.0 Standard/Tenderleaf Tea & Royal Puddings Wed 8:00 30 NBC
17 11 Ben Bernie Show 13.6 American Can Co. Tue 9:00 30 Blue
18 16 Amos & Andy 13.1 Pepsodent Toothpaste M-F 7:00 15 NBC
19 33 Your Hit Parade 13.0 American Tobacco/Lucky Strike Sat 8:00 60 NBC
20 8 Beauty Box Theater 12.6 Colgate Palmolive Peet Palmolive Soap Sat 8:00 60 CBS (2)
21 N Vick’s Open House/Grace Moore 12.3 Vick’s Vap-O-Rub Sun 8:00 30 CBS
22 55 Manhattan Merry Go Round 12.0 Sterling Drug/Dr. Lyons Tooth Powder Sun 9:00 30 NBC
23 69 General Motors Concert 11.4 General Motors Sun 10:00 30 NBC
24 21 Lowell Thomas News 11.2 Sun Oil M-F 6:45 15 Blue
25 28t Cities Service Concert/J Dragonette 11.1 Cities Service Petroleum Fri 8:00 60 NBC
26 59 Grand Hotel/Don Ameche 11.0 Campana Balm Mon 8:30 30 Blue
27t N Helen Hayes Theater 10.9 General Foods/Coffee Tue 9:30 30 Blue
27t N Fanny Brice Ziegfeld Follies 10.9 Colgate Toothpaste Sat 8:00 60 CBS
29t 25 National Barn Dance 10.8 Miles Laboratories/Alka Seltzer Sat 9:30 60 Blue
29t N Rubinoff & His Violin 10.8 Chevrolet Motors Sat 9:00 30 CBS
31 51 Voice of Firestone 10.7 Firestone Rubber Mon 8:30 30 NBC
32t 69 Boake Carter News 10.3 Philco Radios M-F 7:45 15 CBS
32t 37t Fred Waring's Pennsylvanians 10.3 Ford Motors Tue 9:30 60 CBS
34t 31 Lawrence Tibbett Program 9.9 Packard Motors Tue 8:30 30 CBS
34t N Shell Chateau/Wallace Beery 9.9 Shell Oil Sat 9:30 60 NBC
36 17 March of Time 9.5 Remington Rand M-F 10:30 15 CBS
37 N Gangbusters 9.3 Colgate Palmolive Peet/Palmolive Shave Cream Wed 10:00 30 CBS
38t 41 Ford Sunday Evening Hour 9.2 Ford Motors Sun 9:00 60 CBS
38t 45t Walter Winchell’s Jergens Journal 9.2 Jergens Lotion Sun 9:30 15 Blue
40 45t House of Glass/Gertrude Berg 8.9 Palmolive Soap Wed 8:30 30 Blue
41 44 American Album of Familiar Music 8.8 Sterling Drug/Bayer Aspirin Sun 9:30 30 NBC
42t 38t Eno Crime Clues 8.7 Eno Antacid Salts Tue 8:00 30 Blue
42t 37 Wayne King Orch 8.7 Lady Esther Cosmetics Tu-We 8:30 30 NBC
44 70 Pick & Pat 8.6 U.S. Tobacco/Dill’s Best Pipe Tobacco Mon 8:30 30 CBS
45t 20 Guy Lombardo Orch 8.5 Esso Petroleum Mon 8:00 30 CBS
45t N Parties At Pickfair/Mary Pickford 8.5 Ice & Refrigerator Dealers Tue 10:00 30 CBS
47 35 Death Valley Days 8.1 Pacific Borax/20 Mule Team Borax Cleaner Thu 9:00 30 Blue
48 19 Sinclair Wiener Minstrels 8.0 Sinclair Oil Mon 9:00 30 Blue
49 9 Ed Wynn’s Gulliver 7.8 Chrysler Corporation/Plymouth Autos Thu 9:30 30 CBS
50 N Bob Hope’s Atlantic Family 7.7 Atlantic Petroleum Sat 7:00 30 CBS
(1) Eddie Cantor Show Oct-Dec Pebeco Toothpaste Sun 8:00 30 CBS
(2) Beauty Box Theater Sep-Dec Palmolive Soap Fri 9:00 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