RADIO'S ROYALTY OF 1941-42 - JIM & MARIAN JORDAN AS FIBBER McGEE & MOLLY. .
Heavenly Days Until...
The 1941-42 Season
10th In A Series
The Last of The Good Old Days. The first 13 weeks of the 1941-42 broadcast season were business as usual and business was good. Total radio industry revenues were approaching $250 Million and combined network billings were a little more than half of that - both new all-time highs. Adding to their future profitability, CBS and NBC finally ended their lengthy boycott of ASCAP music on October 28th, and settled for a fraction less than the three percent of revenue negotiated by Mutual. The total loss to ASCAP in the nine month blackout - and savings to the networks - was a reported $2.5 Million. Untold millions more in ASCAP’s future income would be lost to Broadcast Music, Incorporated, (BMI), the music licensing competitor created by the broadcast industry.
NBC Splits, Mutual Profits. In October, the FCC watered down seven of the eight edicts contained in its Report on Chain Broadcasting and temporarily suspended its order that NBC sell one of its two networks. But Blue was already on the auction block and NBC had already established Blue as, “a separate and independent” network. Mutual responded by courting NBC affiliates who got lost in the shuffle of the separation. WFBR/Baltimore and WCAE/Pittsburgh were the first to sign with Mutual rather than affiliate with the “new” Blue network without any access to NBC programming.
Seven year old Mutual quietly became the largest radio network with over 165 affiliates and the network doubled its billings to over $5.0 Million in 1941. Its selling points were simple. In addition to a steady stream of national and international news, member stations exchanged programs and underwrote network line costs. Many Mutual programs were delivered to stations on a “co-op” basis still popular today - the network sold half of the commercial spots within each program and the other half was available for local sale.
Mutual was the simple, no-frills network that operated with a pre-war staff of only 72 full time employees. But just to prove it could play ball with the big boys, Mutual and Gillette renewed exclusive broadcast rights to the World Series. But Mutual lost its original marquee attraction late in the season when General Mills moved The Lone Ranger to Blue. The show’s last broadcast on Mutual was Friday, May 1, 1942 - except on the West Coast, where The Masked Rider of The Plains remained on the Mutual/Don Lee Network until January, 1946. (See The Lone Ranger.)
FM’s False Start. Of the four national chains, Mutual also displayed the most interest in static free Frequency Modulation radio, developed by engineering genius Edwin Armstrong in 1935. Mutual’s New York flagship station and co-owner, WOR, championed the medium in Manhattan with W71NY, the city’s first commercial FM station.
W71NY pioneered a wireless FM network broadcast on November 30th, relaying its powerful signal to FM outlets in Philadelphia, Hartford, Boston, Schenectady, Mount Washington, N.H., and Armstrong’s own facility in Alpine, N.J. It was the first serious attempt in a dozen years to link stations without telephone lines. John Shepard III’s Boston, Providence, Worcester and Bridgeport stations all had FM operations. Shepard was a major proponent of FM and influenced the move to FM among the 17 affiliates of his regional Yankee Network - Mutual’s leg in New England.
Pre-war FM was attracting attention and fans. Some 20 manufacturers were producing combination AM/FM receivers ranging in cost from $70 to $700, ($1,100 to $11,000 in today’s money). By late November FM set ownership had increased ten-fold within the year. Over 150,000 homes had FM receivers and the momentum showed no signs of slowing. But within a few weeks it stopped altogether. FM became a major communications vehicle for the armed forces and production of home receivers was shut down for the duration. (1)
TV Firsts On Channel One. Two months before the 1941-42 Network Radio season began, commercial television was authorized by the FCC. NBC’s WNBT(TV) debuted on Channel One in New York City at 1:30 p.m. on July 1, 1941. CBS owned WCBW(TV) became Channel Two a half hour later. DuMont continued its non-commercial operation of experimental W2XWV on Channel Four.
WNBT aired the first television commercial - the image of a clock identified by an announcer as, “B-U-L-O-V-A... Bulova Watch Time” - for four dollars, ($65 in today‘s money). Lowell Thomas appeared in the first radio/television simulcast when his 6:45 Blue Network news was televised by WNBT. The veteran newsman was seen at a desk beside a pyramid of cans of Sun Motor Oil, his longtime radio sponsor. Sun paid $100, ($1,530), for the first commercial TV newscast.
WNBT climaxed its first day with a variety program to benefit the USO service clubs. The show featured abbreviated video versions of Uncle Jim’s Question Bee sponsored by Lever Brother’s Spry Shortening and the new radio stunt show Truth Or Consequences with a commercial from Procter & Gamble‘s Ivory Soap. Both advertisers paid $100 for a spot in the fund-raising program that was seen on just a few thousand flickering sets in the city. (3)
Shortwave’s Two Way Street. Competition was keen among the networks to obtain shortwave news dispatches from their correspondents in Europe and the Orient. However, shortwave transmission originating from the United States was a different matter. The networks and independent shortwave outlets all joined forces in an international war of words months before Pearl Harbor was attacked in December.
Because of its RCA ownership, NBC had the most experience in the long range transmission of news from America to Europe and South America. Its 1941 budget for shortwave operations was $250,000, enough to employ a staff of 65 producers, writers and linguists. The network cited over 10,000 letters from international listeners in 1941 approving of its straight news approach to blunt fascist propaganda beamed from Europe.
CBS - along with Crosley’s WLWO/Cincinnati, Westinghouse’s WBOS/Boston, GE’s WGEO/Schenectady and independent station WURL/Boston - joined NBC in shortwave’s battle of broadcasting between the warring Allied and Axis powers - each lobbing hours of programming into the others’ backyards.
The New York Times listed the times and frequencies where London, Moscow, Berlin and Rome shortwave broadcasts beamed to North America were available. Its listings later included Berne, Stockholm, Melbourne and Tokyo. In response, U.S. shortwave broad-casters combined to schedule newscasts every 15 minutes by at least one of the stations from noon until late night in Europe. Each news report was delivered in one of a dozen different languages.
Meanwhile, GE’s powerful KGEI/San Francisco, then the only shortwave installation on the West Coast, became an effective tool to broadcast news and strategic communications to remote locations in the Pacific. Between its periods of news and messages broadcast in nine different languages, the station relayed network programming from NBC and Blue - welcome sounds for American army and navy personnel serving so far from home. It proved to be a forerunner of Armed Forces Radio Service.
In the period immediately prior to World War II, shortwave broadcasting became so important that the FCC advised RCA to hire Pinkerton detectives to guard NBC's main control room Another squad, armed with machine guns patrolled the grounds and facilities of company’s shortwave transmitters. They were there to prevent sabotage in the inter-national war of words.
The Shock of ’41. For several years, Network Radio had been the verbal battleground between “Isolationists” versus “Interventionists” debating America’s involvement in the escalating war. Their argument ended abruptly in early December.
December 7, 1941, was a typically slow Sunday afternoon in the network newsrooms until 1:07 - then all hell broke loose. The first Associated Press bulletin of the Pearl Harbor attack - from Honolulu reporter Eugene Burns - sent the short-handed weekend news staffs into a scramble. But remembering the War of The Worlds fiasco, they weren’t about to alarm a war-jittery nation without official confirmation. Their frantic activity continued for over an hour while the last of the “peacetime” programs played on.
NBC offered its affiliates the soft music and poetry of Sunday Serenade from Sammy Kaye’s popular Swing & Sway orchestra. Great Plays on Blue featured an hour long adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. Mutual fed WOR’s broadcast of the New York Giants-Brooklyn Dodgers professional football game to any affiliates who wanted it.
The CBS series at 2:00 p.m. ET, The Spirit of ’41, dealt with military and defense preparedness. Newsman John Daly interviewed his guests from the Brooklyn Navy Yard how damaged warships were repaired - unaware that Japanese bombs were falling on the U.S. Pacific Fleet while they talked.
“We Interrupt This Program…” At 2:25 p.m. - 90 minutes after the first bombs fell - acknowledgment of the attack from the White House cleared the wire services. WOR flashed the news to whatever Mutual affiliates were carrying its football game at 2:26. NBC broke the news on both of its networks simultaneously with a terse, 20-second bulletin read by news writer Bob Eisenbach at 2:29:50. CBS waited until the 2:30 opening of The World Today when Daly read the bulletin.
NBC, Blue and Mutual returned to regular programming while their news departments continued to assemble and attempted to contact Honolulu. CBS already had Daly and commentator Elmer Davis on the air with The World Today. Standing by for the program were Robert Trout with reaction from London plus a shortwave report from Manila where the Philippines were reported under a pre-invasion attack from Japanese bombers.
At 4:06 NBC scored the first scoop of the day with an eyewitness report from KGU/Honolulu, the same station whose broadcast signal Japanese pilots tuned for radio coordinates to reach Pearl Harbor.
The Knows For News. December 7th was the day when radio’s stature as a news source soared. In February, C.E. Hooper reported that the networks’ prime time given to news had risen three hours a week since Pearl Harbor and like the war itself, the trend was just beginning.
Newsmen Lowell Thomas on Blue and NBC’s H.V. Kaltenborn both set their all time rating records, reaching an estimated 4.5 million homes - over ten million listeners - with each broadcast. Gabriel Heatter, working six nights a week, earned $130,000 a year as Mutual’s top attraction. NBC’s News of The World strip at 7:15 p.m. reported by deep voiced explorer John W. Vandercook and his successor, Morgan Beatty, remained among the Top Ten Multiple Run programs for the next twelve years of Network Radio’s Golden Age. (See Multiple Runs All Time Top Ten.)
With its typical promotional fanfare, CBS arbitrarily cut commercial time inside newscasts by 20% - roughly 30 seconds in a 15 minute program. The network also prohibited jingles or any other “undue gaiety” to be heard in its newscast commercials. The NAB chipped in some wartime newscast standards of its own. Among several gratuitous preachments was, “Don’t interrupt a news story with a commercial.” In other words, it was business as usual.
WW & WWII. Walter Winchell’s Jergens Journal - the weekly, rapid fire 15 minute mix of news headlines, gossip, slang, innuendo and opinion separated by Winchell pounding a telegraph key - had steadily gained audience as the threat of war increased. Winchell was a hawk who continually warned his listeners of the dangers if America wasn’t prepared to defend itself. His Sunday night broadcast of December 7th fell within a Hooper survey week. The saber-rattling gossip columnist suddenly became the patriotic prophet and he scored his highest rating to date - a 29.9. His January and February ratings climbed even higher to 33.1 - territory normally occupied by only the most popular variety shows. Winchell’s 1941-42 season average of 26.0 would be his highest of 21 consecutive Top 50 seasons. (See Walter Winchell.)
Wartime Duty. FDR’s address to the nation on December 9, 1941, scored an all-time high Hooperating of 79.0. The United States was at war and Americans now depended on radio for immediate news as well as morale boosting entertainment. The government depended on it, too - for dispersal of official information. The broadcasters were happy to cooperate - they feared another Federal takeover of radio facilities similar to World War I, despite FCC Chairman Fly’s assurances that it would never happen.
The annual problem of Daylight Saving Time upsetting broadcast schedules in areas remaining on Standard Time was solved on February 2, 1942, when the entire nation converted to War Time and set its clocks ahead one hour for the duration.
The networks each pledged, “A generous amount of time,” from every prime time program once per month for Government announcements. In addition, every daytime program was committed to carry one public service announcement every two weeks. It was a small price to remain unfettered in the vital and profitable business climate created by war. But instead of staying at those bare minimums, the networks exceeded themselves and became megaphones for patriotism’s biggest cheerleaders who sold war bonds, entertained troops and continually promoted the war effort with their programs and personal appearances.
Any Bonds Today? Even before America entered the war in June, 1941, when Fred Allen’s Texaco Star Theater went on summer vacation, Texaco gave the Treasury Department a reported $195,000 to pay for the CBS hour plus all production costs involved with Millions For Defense, a weekly star-studded revue designed to sell U. S. Defense Bonds. Jack Benny, Bing Crosby and Bob Hope were among the dozens of film and radio stars who participated in the 13-week series. When Allen reclaimed his Texaco timeslot in September, Bendix Corporation undertook Millions For Defense, renamed it The Treasury Hour and moved it to Blue’s Tuesday schedule.
Tuesday Is Good News Day. Climaxing a climb that began in the 1935-36 season with a 6.6 rating and 62nd place in the Annual Top 50, Fibber McGee & Molly became the Number One show of 1941-42. Jim & Marian Jordan’s 9:30 p.m. Tuesday sitcom scored their personal high rating of 31.6, edging out their ten o’clock companion Bob Hope by nine-tenths of a point at 30.7. With newcomer Red Skelton’s program at 10:30, NBC’s Tuesday night lineup comedy block contained three of the season’s top four programs.
After two movie shorts and supporting roles in three features, Red Skelton’s first starring film, Whistling In The Dark, was released by MGM in August. Riding on the movie’s success, Brown & Williamson Tobacco brought Skelton to NBC’s Tuesday night comedy lineup in November. With the support of Ozzie Nelson‘s band and Nelson's wife/vocalist, Harriet Hilliard Nelson, who were no strangers to radio audiences, Skelton's Raleigh Cigarette Program was an immediate hit. (See First Season Phenoms.)
The 9:30 to 11:00 tandem of Fibber McGee & Molly, Bob Hope and Red Skelton became the most successful 90 minute block in Network Radio history and locked down the top three Tuesday night slots for the next six seasons. NBC’s Tuesday trio of half hour comedies became such a listening habit that during the one season Skelton missed for military service, 1944-45, his replacement show, Hildegarde’s Raleigh Room, scored a third place finish for the night. NBC proceeded to dominate Tuesday’s Top Ten for the next ten seasons.
Hawk Walks & Phil Fills. Bob Hawk had Take It Or Leave It off to a flying start - helping to push Eversharp Pen & Pencils’ comedy quiz into Sunday’s Top Ten in its first full season. From its initial short run in the spring of 1940, the show’s rating climbed steadily to a 1940-41 rating of 12.9. Hawk wanted a raise in salary for his performance but Eversharp wasn’t about to give him one - but R.J. Reynolds Tobacco was. The glib, 33 year old quizmaster left Take It Or Leave It in December, 1941, and showed up a month later as host of a new quiz for Camel Cigarettes, How’m I Doin’? (See The Camel Shuffle below.)
Eversharp, in need of a fast replacement for Hawk, called on 55 year old Phil Baker who had been out of radio for over a year since his Honolulu Bound disaster in 1939's ratings.
Baker brought his accordion and a new kind of humor to Take It Or Leave It. The vaudeville veteran improved on Hawk’s ratings by 15% in his first six months and Baker enjoyed new popularity as host of what would eventually become radio’s top rated quiz show.
Fred Sheds Rating Woes. Texaco vacated its CBS Wednesday timeslot opposite NBC’s Eddie Cantor and Mr. District Attorney in March, moving Fred Allen’s Texaco Star Theater into a less competitive time period in CBS’s Sunday lineup. Ironically, Texaco had moved Cantor from Sunday three years earlier for the same reason. The 9:00 hour became available when Ford Motors cancelled its long running Sunday Evening Hour featuring the Detroit Symphony. It was wartime and the car maker had nothing to sell.
Texaco’s move was smart - Allen’s ratings improved nearly 20% immediately. He benefited from his new timeslot that allowed him to verbally spar with Jack Benny on the same evening. Their “feud” was still very much alive with the 1941 release of Paramount’s Love Thy Neighbor based on their battle of barbs. Although CBS missed its chunk of Ford’s annual $1,400,000 outlay to sponsor the automaker’s hometown symphony, the network could boast of Allen’s 15.6 rating in his new time period versus The Ford Sunday Evening Hour’s mediocre 8.9.
Gildersleeve Spins & Wins. Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve moved from Fibber McGee & Molly’s Wistful Vista and took up residence in nearby Summerfield as The Great Gildersleeve. Although Hal Peary’s new sitcom didn’t make Sunday’s Top Ten with its 10.3 rating, it nevertheless was among the season’s Top 50 - the first of twelve consecutive years - establishing it as the most successful spin-off series in radio history. (See The Great Gildersleeve(s).
The Great Gildersleeve had more than the McGee pedigree. The programs shared FM&M’s creator, Don Quinn, plus the talents of Gale Gordon, Arthur Q. Bryan and the Billy Mills studio orchestra. Peary’s Gildersleeve character was given an extra push in November with a major role in RKO-Radio Pictures’ quickie comedy, Look Who’s Laughing, starring NBC’s Edgar Bergen - plus Charlie McCarthy & Mortimer Snerd - and Fibber McGee & Molly. The plot was a patchwork of the stars’ familiar bits - letting radio audiences see the routines they’d only heard in the past. The film also featured a 30 year old Lucille Ball in a supporting role.
Grape Flavored Soap. Veteran screen actress Irene Rich, the former favorite leading lady of Will Rogers' movies, was in the last of her eight seasons on Blue, finally settling at 9:30 p.m. ET on Sunday. She headlined a series of weekly, serialized quarter hours under the blanket title, Irene Rich Dramas. Her string of melodramatic gems carried chapter titles worthy of romance novels: Jewels of Enchantment, The Lady Counselor, Glorious One and Dear John.
Irene Rich Dramas never scored double digit ratings or finished in a season’s Top 50, despite enjoying Walter Winchell’s Jergens Journal as its lead-in for two years. Yet, Rich’s program was never in jeopardy of cancellation. Welch’s Grape Juice sponsored her entire run on Blue plus two additional seasons on CBS. Her sponsor’s loyalty stemmed from Rich’s longtime, widely advertised endorsements of “The Welch Reducing Plan” - which claimed a glass of Welch’s before meals and at bedtime enabled the 50 year old mother of two to have the same figure as she did at 16 - and produced pictures to prove it.
Another Man’s Family, Another quarter hour curiosity was programmed following Winchell for three seasons and finished twice in the season’s Top 50.. The Parker Family was a fifteen minute sitcom bearing similarity to The Aldrich Family with Leon Janney portraying the clan’s perplexed teenaged son, Richard - for some reason tagged, “Richard The Great”. The Parker patriarch, Walter, was a familiar voice to listeners from another role. Jay Jostyn simply softened the forceful delivery he used as Mr. District Attorney.
The Lux Life. Lux Radio Theater celebrated its fifth consecutive season as the most popular program on CBS. The network distributed a Gallup research study indicating that on an average Monday night, 5.5 Million persons attended the movies while 26 Million stayed at home to hear the movies recreated on Lux. Future advertising guru David Ogilvy oversaw the study which was more generous than the accepted Hooper ratings. Nevertheless, the point was made - CBS and Lever Brothers had a solid hit. (See Lux…Presents Hollywood!)
The Lady Waltzes Again. Lady Esther temporarily dropped syrupy music programming to sell cosmetics in mid-September and gave the half hour following Lux to Orson Welles. Welles, 26, had released his epic Citizen Kane four months earlier and was once again a hot property who made headlines. The Orson Welles Theater was an audio encore for many from his Citizen Kane cast - Joseph Cotton, Agnes Moorehead, Ray Collins, Paul Stewart, Everett Sloane - all members of his Mercury Theater troupe who had participated in his earlier excursions into radio .
Welles’ anthology series was the highest ranked new program of the season despite losing half of the Lux Radio Theater audience week after week. Surprisingly, the audience attrition was greater than the previous season’s drop-off when Lady Esther followed Lux with Guy Lombardo’s “Sweetest Music This Side of Heaven”. The dance band also came with a far lower production cost than Welles’ company of actors and guest stars. (See Guy Lombardo.)
Welles left radio in February to direct his Kane follow-up film, The Magnificent Ambersons. With a prime Monday night half hour to fill, Lady Esther turned to the bandleader who brought her to the network dance in the first place. Wayne King and his Chicago based band, complete with Franklyn MacCormack’s love poems, finished the season in Lady Esther’s Monday timeslot. (See The Waltz King.)
LaTrivia For Gildersleeve. Fibber McGee & Molly writer/partner Don Quinn came up with a new character to replace the couple’s volatile neighbor, Throckmorton Gildersleeve. Gale Gordon, a veteran of occurring roles on the show, was elected to play Mayor Charles LaTrivia of Wistful Vista, a weekly caller at their household. Gordon’s LaTrivia found himself in a weekly verbal sparring match of syntax and metaphors with Fibber & Molly that would invariably leave him in frustrated, sputtering confusion. His characterization was the foundation for Gordon’s subsequent fame as the pompous Osgood Conklin of Our Miss Brooks and as Lucille Ball’s foil in two of the comedienne’s television series, The Lucy Show and Here’s Lucy.
We Did I Do’s! With their fifth new sponsor and fifth different timeslot in five seasons, Burns & Allen, moved into NBC’s Tuesday schedule. Unlike their four previous scheduling shifts, their new Tuesday night show for Lever Brothers’ Swan Soap scored a ratings increase - a hefty 22% audience gain over their previous season. But George and Gracie’s ratings renaissance was the result of more than a change of venue.
Pragmatic showman Burns threw out their format of flirtatious “boy and girl” skits that had become stale over ten years of use. The new Burns & Allen Show was a sitcom in which he and Gracie played a married couple in weekly domestic situations involving wacky neighbors and visiting guest stars. They had been married for 16 years at the time. The show was loaded with top flight supporting character actors including Mel Blanc, Hans Conreid, Gale Gordon, Elvia Allman, announcer Bill Goodwin and Paul Whiteman’s orchestra. The new husband and wife format pushed Burns & Allen back into the season’s Top 20 programs and served them throughout the remainder of their radio and television careers.
Bob Burns Up The Ratings. Bing Crosby’s sidekick, rural comedian Bob Burns, 51, left Kraft Music Hall after five years for a successful solo career. To the delight of CBS and sponsor Campbell Soup, Burns’ Arkansas Traveler sitcom/variety show featuring Spike Jones’ novelty band and singer Ginny Simms became the network’s highest rated Tuesday program and began Burns’ string of five consecutive Top 50 seasons. Giving Burns his own show wasn’t much of a gamble. By 1941 he had logged three seasons as summer host of Kraft Music Hall and was familiar to movie audiences as Crosby’s comic co-star in two Paramount musicals, 1936's Rhythm On The Range and Waikiki Wedding in 1937. In addition, Burns had the lead in eight lesser films, all as the hick hero who out-smarts the smug city slickers.
Burns is forever associated with The Bazooka - his homemade, trombone-like novelty instrument fashioned from plumbing pipes and a distilling funnel which he invented when he was 15. Burns toured vaudeville stages with his jokes and bazooka for ten years before his film and radio careers took off. Although Burns was too old for military service in World War II, his Bazooka became the name adopted by the U.S. Army for its newly developed, shoulder-mounted rocket launcher that was able to pierce the enemy’s heavily armored vehicles. (See Bob Burns.)
Making Heir Waves. Are You A Missing Heir? - known for its first two seasons as The Court of Missing Heirs - was in its third year on CBS. Created and hosted by lawyer James Waters and sponsored by Sterling Drugs’ Ironized Yeast, Heirs was a giveaway program that didn’t give away the sponsor’s money - a fact that especially appealed to the budget-minded Sterling. Instead, the program attempted to locate heirs for inheritances that were locked in probate without claimants. Two cases involving the known facts were dramatized each week, both leading up to the payoff question, “Are you the missing heir?”
The program found over 150 heirs in its three year span and was responsible for the distribution of some $800,000. Over ten percent of the total was awarded to one Chicago couple who didn’t listen to the program but were alerted to their windfall by friends who did..
The Sexy Whodunit’s Whereabouts. When The Adventures of The Thin Man debuted on radio, many listeners thought they were hearing William Powell and Myrna Loy recreate their roles as Nick & Nora Charles, made famous in their six MGM mystery/comedies based on Dashiell Hammett’s married sleuths. Instead, radio’s Nick & Nora were Les Damon and Claudia Morgan, verbal ringers for Powell and Loy.
Director Himan Brown took radio’s portrayal of the sophisticated and sexy couple one step further with prolonged pillow talk accompanied by appropriate murmurs and sighs, concluding each program with Morgan’s sultry, “Goodnight, Nicky darling...” In doing so, Brown let listeners decide if his Nick & Nora were bound by the movies’ puritanical “twin-beds” mandate - although he left little doubt that they weren‘t..
Morgan, the daughter of film actor Ralph Morgan and niece of movie and radio star Frank Morgan, was clearly the star of the program - portraying Nora for the show’s entire eight season run in the ratings. She and her Uncle Frank made the season’s Top 50 simultaneously three times with their two programs. The role of Nick revolved among Damon, Les Tremayne and David Gothard. Notorious for its innuendo at the time, The Adventures of The Thin Man scored only four Top 50 seasons. Listeners had to be sleuths to find the program. Four different sponsors bounced it around to seven separate timeslots on three networks during its eight seasons. (See The Curse of Dashiell Hammett and Married Sleuths.)
Fresh Air Taxi’s Last Stand. The venerable Amos & Andy continued to struggle. Wednesday of the 1941-42 season was the last time their legendary strip show would appear in a nightly Top Ten. Freeman Gosden and Charlie Correll lost another ten percent of their audience and slipped into single digit ratings for the first time. They led their NBC competition, Fred Waring’s Pennsylvanians, by less than half a rating point. Over nine seasons Amos & Andy had tumbled from the annual Top Ten and out of the Top 50 altogether into 61st place - and the worst was yet to come.
Miss Misses. Child star Shirley Temple was no longer a child - and less of a match for NBC‘s Eddie Cantor than Fred Allen had been. When Allen’s Texaco Star Theater was moved to Sunday in March, Procter & Gamble brought in the 13 year old Temple as the teenage lead for another of radio’s growing list of family sitcoms, Junior Miss. The program cost P&G a reported $12,000 per week, much of it taken home by its young star. Cantor doubled the sitcom’s ratings. Junior Miss was cancelled after 26 weeks and Temple retired from series radio. Junior Miss went on the shelf until 1948 when it was brought back as a feature of CBS’s Saturday morning block of juvenile programs with Barbara Whiting in the title role.
Food For Ratings. NBC’s Thursday lineup of winners sponsored by food conglomerates all increased their audiences. Compared to the previous season, Kraft’s Bing Crosby and Sealtest’s Rudy Vallee scored 15% rating gains. General Foods’ Aldrich Family was up 20% to the highest rating of its twelve season run and the Fanny Brice/Frank Morgan Maxwell House Coffee Time audience shot up 32%.
Crosby’s comeback was especially sweet to NBC, reclaiming top spot in the 9:00 p.m. ET timeslot from Major Bowes’ Original Amateur Hour which suffered a 15% audience loss. CBS and Bowes suffered an even greater loss in February when Chrysler Corporation decided to cut the show back to half an hour. The car maker had shut down its Chrysler, Dodge, DeSoto and Plymouth auto production for the duration which left it nothing to sell to the listening public.
To fill the vacant half hour on CBS following Bowes at 9:30, Lever Brothers moved its successful Big Town into the timeslot with only slight ratings harm to the newspaper melodrama starring Edward G. Robinson. But the loss was enough to push Big Town from the season’s Top 20 for the first time in its five years on the air.
The Camel Shuffle. Bob Hawk and R.J. Reynolds’ Camel Cigarettes began their twelve year talent/sponsor association in January with How’m I Doin’?, a personality driven audience participation quiz similar to Hawk’s Take It Or Leave It. Camel’s mid-season addition of Hawk’s new show set up a three network chain reaction: How’m I Doin’? replaced Al Pearce’s Gang on CBS. Camel moved Pearce to NBC on Thursday, replacing Xavier Cugat’s Rumba Revue. Then Camel bought a Tuesday night half hour on Blue for Cugat’s Latin orchestra.
It was a frustrating exercise. Despite the added elements of Vaughn Monroe’s popular band and enthusiastic young announcer Bert Parks, How’m I Doin’? could only muster single digit ratings - a few points less than Pearce had generated. It was a shaky start for Hawk and Camels. A career-saving format change was due the following season.
No Competition, No Sponsor, No Rating. The largest ad-hoc network ever assembled - an estimated 700 stations - joined forces on Valentines Day, 1942, for a 13-week Saturday night series, This Is War! Directed by Norman Corwin, who wrote six of the half-hour dramas, with noted writers Maxwell Anderson, Stephen Vincent Benet, Clifford Odets, Elmer Rice, William Robeson contributing to the effort, the series was a mix of information and patriotic propaganda presented by a string of distinguished actors, film and radio stars. The series was “suggested” by the Federal Office of Facts and Figures’ radio chief, William Lewis, CBS Vice President of Programming on leave for government duty. Lewis described its objective to, “...Instruct and confirm the American spirit.”
The series was translated into a number of foreign languages, performed by separate casts and shortwaved to South America and Europe. This Is War! became the most widely circulated radio series in history. But because the program had no commercial sponsor, it was ignored by the rating books.
NBC/RFD. NBC went rural on Saturday night, pairing the hour-long National Barn Dance from WLS/Chicago with a 30 minute pickup of the Grand Ole Opry from WSM/Nashville. Miles Laboratories’ Alka-Seltzer bought the entire NBC network for the Joe Kelly hosted Barn Dance but R. J. Reynolds Tobacco only bought 13 of Hooper’s 30 rated markets for Opry, sponsored by its Prince Albert Tobacco.
The Nashville program wasn’t heard in New York, Los Angeles or other major cities considered by the sponsor to be too “sophisticated” for country music. For stations in those markets NBC fed Hot Copy, a sustaining newspaper crime drama which lasted 26 weeks and was followed by a variety of non-commercial offerings. (4)
Better Late Than Never? The radio extravaganza of the year was broadcast on Saturday, November 15, when NBC celebrated its 15th Anniversary with a two hour, 45 minute salute to itself carried over both its NBC and Blue networks. Every major star from both chains - from Jack Benny and Bob Hope to the Quiz Kids - plus politicians and network executives appeared in the self-congratulatory marathon which contained the not to subtle message that NBC was doing a great job as a two network operation in spite of the FCC decree that it divest itself of the Blue chain.
The question remains, however, just how many people actually heard the broadcast from the combined 243 station hookup. The program began at 11:15 p.m. ET and ran on until 2:00 the following morning. Nevertheless, NBC had cause to celebrate - for the first time in three seasons it had the majority of shows in the Annual Top 50, beating CBS by a 26 to 21 count with the remaining four going to Blue. (5) NBC would continue to rule the Top 50 list for the next seven years.
(1) Eventually those thousands of pre-war FM sets were all rendered useless when the FCC ordered the FM broadcast band changed in 1948. With that ruling most broadcasters and listeners lost confidence in the technology. FM slid into atrophy for another 20 years before confidence in its potential was restored.
(2) Until July 1, WNBT’s call sign was W2XBS and WCBW was identified as W2XAB.
(3) Like FM, expansion of television also came to a halt on December 7th. Pearl Harbor was the turning point in broadcasting history that extended Network Radio’s Golden Age by shutting down the commercial development its electronic competition. World War II diverted the development of television and FM radio from civilian to military use. The war also delayed the construction of hundreds of new, independent radio stations. As a result, the existing AM stations and their networks would grow in popularity and revenues - all without serious competition - for the next seven seasons.
(4) The WLS National Barn Dance feed to NBC was cut to 30 minutes at 9:00 p.m. ET on July 4, 1942, and WSM's Grand Ole Opry became a half hour feature on the full network at 10:30 p.m. on October 9,1943.
(5) Because of a tie for 50th place the 1941-42 Top 50 list contained 51 programs.
Network Radio's Top 50 Programs - 1941-42
C.E. Hooper Monthly Network Reports, Sep 1941 - Jun, 1942
Total Programs Rated 6-11 PM: 156 Programs Rated 13 Weeks & Ranked: 143.
29,300,000 Radio Homes 81.5% Coverage of US. One Rating Point = 293,000 Homes
1 2 Fibber McGee & Molly 31.7 Johnson Wax Tue 9:30 30 NBC
2 4 Bob Hope Show 30.7 Pepsodent Toothpaste Tue 10:00 30 NBC
3 3 Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy 28.0 Standard/Chase & Sanborn Sun 8:00 30 NBC
4 N Red Skelton Show 27.7 Brown & Williamson Tobacco Tue 10:30 30 NBC
5 1 Jack Benny Program 27.2 General Foods/Jello Sun 7:00 30 NBC
6 7 Aldrich Family 26.6 General Foods/Jello Thu 8:30 30 NBC
7 5 Walter Winchell’s Jergens Journal 26.0 Jergens Lotion Sun 9:00 15 Blue
8 6 Lux Radio Theater 25.1 Lever Bros/ Lux Soap Mon 9:00 60 CBS
9 9 Fanny Brice & Frank Morgan 23.8 General Foods/Maxwell House Thu 8:00 30 NBC
10 17 Eddie Cantor’s Time To Smile 18.7 Bristol Myers Wed 9:00 30 NBC
11t 11 Kay Kyser College of Musical Knollege American Tobacco Wed 10:00 60 NBC
11t 18 Mister District Attorney 18.4 Bristol Myers/Vitalis Hair Tonic Wed 9:30 30 NBC
13 14 Bing Crosby’s Kraft Music Hall 17.4 Kraft Cheese Thu 9:00 60 NBC
14 19 Rudy Vallee Show 16.9 Sealtest Dairies Thu 10:00 30 NBC
15 N Orson Welles Dramas 16.8 Lady Esther Cosmetics Mon 10:00 30 CBS
16 10 One Man’s Family 16.5 Standard Brands/enderleaf Tea Sun 8:30 30 NBC
17t 19 Fitch Bandwagon 15.7 FW Fitch/Fitch Shampoo Sun 7:30 30 NBC
17t 12 Kate Smith Hour 15.7 General Foods/Grape Nuts Cereal Fri 8:00 60 CBS
19t 30 Burns & Allen Show 15.6 Lever Bros/Swan Soap Tue 7:30 30 NBC
19t 21 Lowell Thomas News 15.6 Sun Oil M-F 6:45 15 Blue
21 8 Major Bowes Original Amateur Hour 15.3 Chrysler Corp Thu 9:00 30 CBS (1)
22 38 HV Kaltenborn News 15.2 Pure Oil Tue-Thu-Sat 7:45 15 NBC
23t 13 Big Town 14.8 Lever Bros/Rinso Laundry Soap Thu 9:30 30 CBS (2)
23t 28 Take It Or Leave It 14.8 Eversharp Pens & Pencils Sun 10:00 30 CBS
25t 24 Fred Allen’s Texaco Star Theater 14.2 Texaco Sun 9:00 30 CBS (3)
25t 26 Your Hit Parade 14.2 American Tobacco/Lucky Strike Sat 9:00 45 CBS
27 47 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes 14.1 Grove Labs/Bromo Quinine Sun 10:30 30 NBC
28 N Bob Burns Show 14.0 Campbell Soups Tue 8:30 30 CBS
29 34 Al Pearce Gang 13.6 RJ Reynolds/Camels Thu 7:30 30 NBC
30 33 Gay 90's Revue 13.5 Model Pipe Tobacco Mon 8:30 30 CBS
31 22 Truth Or Consequences 13.4 Procter & Gamble/Ivory Soap Sat 8:30 30 NBC
32 N Frank Fay Show 13.3 Lewis Howe/Tums Thu 10:30 30 NBC
33 15 Screen Guild Theater 13.1 Gulf Oil Sun 7:30 30 CBS
34 N Abie’s Irish Rose 13.0 Procter & Gamble/Drene Shampoo Sat 8:00 30 NBC
35t 37 Blondie 12.9 RJ Reynolds/Camels Mon 7:30 30 CBS
35t 30 First Nighter Program 12.9 Campana Balm Fri 9:30 30 CBS
37 26 The Parker Family 12.8 Andrew Jergens/Woodbury Soap Sun 9:15 15 Blue
38t 57 Meet Mr Meek 12.5 Lever Bros/Lifeboy Wed 8:00 30 CBS
38t 15 We The People 12.5 General Foods/Sanka Tue 9:00 30 CBS
40 47 Silver Theater 12.4 International Silver Sun 6:00 30 CBS
41t 25 Dr Christian 12.2 Chesebrough Ponds/Vaseline Wed 8:30 30 CBS
41t 28 Information Please 12.2 American Tobacco/Lucky Strike Fri 8:30 30 N BC
43 40 Vox Pop 12.0 Emerson Drug/Bromo Seltzer Mon 80:0 30 CBS
44 46 Battle of The Sexes 11.7 Sterling Drug/Molle Shaving Cream Tues 9:00 30 NBC
45 N Philip Morris Playhouse 11.3 Philip Morris Fri 9:00 30 CBS
46 79 Hollywood Premiere 11.2 Lever Bros/Lifeboy Fri 10:00 30 CBS
47 35 Helen Hayes Theater 10.9 Lever Bros/Lipton Tea Sun 8:00 30 CBS
48 35 Gangbusters 10.6 Sloan’s Liniment Fri 9:00 30 Blue
49 N Adventures of Ellery Queen 10.5 Emerson Drug/Bromo Seltzer Sat 7:30 30 NBC
50t N Great Gildersleeve 10.3 Kraft Cheese Sun 6:30 30 NBC
50t 60 Johnny Presents/Ray Bloch Orch 10.3 Philip Morris Tue 8:00 30 NBC
(1) Major Bowes Original Amateur Hour Sep - Jan Chrysler Corporation Thu 9:00 60 CBS
(2) Big Town Oct - Dec Lever Bros/Rinso Wed 8:00 30 CBS
(3) Fred Allen’s Texaco Star Theater Oct - Mar Texaco Wed 9:00 60 CBS
This post is in part abridged from Network Radio Ratings, 1932-1953.
Copyright © 2012 & 2019, Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
The 1941-42 Season
10th In A Series
The Last of The Good Old Days. The first 13 weeks of the 1941-42 broadcast season were business as usual and business was good. Total radio industry revenues were approaching $250 Million and combined network billings were a little more than half of that - both new all-time highs. Adding to their future profitability, CBS and NBC finally ended their lengthy boycott of ASCAP music on October 28th, and settled for a fraction less than the three percent of revenue negotiated by Mutual. The total loss to ASCAP in the nine month blackout - and savings to the networks - was a reported $2.5 Million. Untold millions more in ASCAP’s future income would be lost to Broadcast Music, Incorporated, (BMI), the music licensing competitor created by the broadcast industry.
NBC Splits, Mutual Profits. In October, the FCC watered down seven of the eight edicts contained in its Report on Chain Broadcasting and temporarily suspended its order that NBC sell one of its two networks. But Blue was already on the auction block and NBC had already established Blue as, “a separate and independent” network. Mutual responded by courting NBC affiliates who got lost in the shuffle of the separation. WFBR/Baltimore and WCAE/Pittsburgh were the first to sign with Mutual rather than affiliate with the “new” Blue network without any access to NBC programming.
Seven year old Mutual quietly became the largest radio network with over 165 affiliates and the network doubled its billings to over $5.0 Million in 1941. Its selling points were simple. In addition to a steady stream of national and international news, member stations exchanged programs and underwrote network line costs. Many Mutual programs were delivered to stations on a “co-op” basis still popular today - the network sold half of the commercial spots within each program and the other half was available for local sale.
Mutual was the simple, no-frills network that operated with a pre-war staff of only 72 full time employees. But just to prove it could play ball with the big boys, Mutual and Gillette renewed exclusive broadcast rights to the World Series. But Mutual lost its original marquee attraction late in the season when General Mills moved The Lone Ranger to Blue. The show’s last broadcast on Mutual was Friday, May 1, 1942 - except on the West Coast, where The Masked Rider of The Plains remained on the Mutual/Don Lee Network until January, 1946. (See The Lone Ranger.)
FM’s False Start. Of the four national chains, Mutual also displayed the most interest in static free Frequency Modulation radio, developed by engineering genius Edwin Armstrong in 1935. Mutual’s New York flagship station and co-owner, WOR, championed the medium in Manhattan with W71NY, the city’s first commercial FM station.
W71NY pioneered a wireless FM network broadcast on November 30th, relaying its powerful signal to FM outlets in Philadelphia, Hartford, Boston, Schenectady, Mount Washington, N.H., and Armstrong’s own facility in Alpine, N.J. It was the first serious attempt in a dozen years to link stations without telephone lines. John Shepard III’s Boston, Providence, Worcester and Bridgeport stations all had FM operations. Shepard was a major proponent of FM and influenced the move to FM among the 17 affiliates of his regional Yankee Network - Mutual’s leg in New England.
Pre-war FM was attracting attention and fans. Some 20 manufacturers were producing combination AM/FM receivers ranging in cost from $70 to $700, ($1,100 to $11,000 in today’s money). By late November FM set ownership had increased ten-fold within the year. Over 150,000 homes had FM receivers and the momentum showed no signs of slowing. But within a few weeks it stopped altogether. FM became a major communications vehicle for the armed forces and production of home receivers was shut down for the duration. (1)
TV Firsts On Channel One. Two months before the 1941-42 Network Radio season began, commercial television was authorized by the FCC. NBC’s WNBT(TV) debuted on Channel One in New York City at 1:30 p.m. on July 1, 1941. CBS owned WCBW(TV) became Channel Two a half hour later. DuMont continued its non-commercial operation of experimental W2XWV on Channel Four.
WNBT aired the first television commercial - the image of a clock identified by an announcer as, “B-U-L-O-V-A... Bulova Watch Time” - for four dollars, ($65 in today‘s money). Lowell Thomas appeared in the first radio/television simulcast when his 6:45 Blue Network news was televised by WNBT. The veteran newsman was seen at a desk beside a pyramid of cans of Sun Motor Oil, his longtime radio sponsor. Sun paid $100, ($1,530), for the first commercial TV newscast.
WNBT climaxed its first day with a variety program to benefit the USO service clubs. The show featured abbreviated video versions of Uncle Jim’s Question Bee sponsored by Lever Brother’s Spry Shortening and the new radio stunt show Truth Or Consequences with a commercial from Procter & Gamble‘s Ivory Soap. Both advertisers paid $100 for a spot in the fund-raising program that was seen on just a few thousand flickering sets in the city. (3)
Shortwave’s Two Way Street. Competition was keen among the networks to obtain shortwave news dispatches from their correspondents in Europe and the Orient. However, shortwave transmission originating from the United States was a different matter. The networks and independent shortwave outlets all joined forces in an international war of words months before Pearl Harbor was attacked in December.
Because of its RCA ownership, NBC had the most experience in the long range transmission of news from America to Europe and South America. Its 1941 budget for shortwave operations was $250,000, enough to employ a staff of 65 producers, writers and linguists. The network cited over 10,000 letters from international listeners in 1941 approving of its straight news approach to blunt fascist propaganda beamed from Europe.
CBS - along with Crosley’s WLWO/Cincinnati, Westinghouse’s WBOS/Boston, GE’s WGEO/Schenectady and independent station WURL/Boston - joined NBC in shortwave’s battle of broadcasting between the warring Allied and Axis powers - each lobbing hours of programming into the others’ backyards.
The New York Times listed the times and frequencies where London, Moscow, Berlin and Rome shortwave broadcasts beamed to North America were available. Its listings later included Berne, Stockholm, Melbourne and Tokyo. In response, U.S. shortwave broad-casters combined to schedule newscasts every 15 minutes by at least one of the stations from noon until late night in Europe. Each news report was delivered in one of a dozen different languages.
Meanwhile, GE’s powerful KGEI/San Francisco, then the only shortwave installation on the West Coast, became an effective tool to broadcast news and strategic communications to remote locations in the Pacific. Between its periods of news and messages broadcast in nine different languages, the station relayed network programming from NBC and Blue - welcome sounds for American army and navy personnel serving so far from home. It proved to be a forerunner of Armed Forces Radio Service.
In the period immediately prior to World War II, shortwave broadcasting became so important that the FCC advised RCA to hire Pinkerton detectives to guard NBC's main control room Another squad, armed with machine guns patrolled the grounds and facilities of company’s shortwave transmitters. They were there to prevent sabotage in the inter-national war of words.
The Shock of ’41. For several years, Network Radio had been the verbal battleground between “Isolationists” versus “Interventionists” debating America’s involvement in the escalating war. Their argument ended abruptly in early December.
December 7, 1941, was a typically slow Sunday afternoon in the network newsrooms until 1:07 - then all hell broke loose. The first Associated Press bulletin of the Pearl Harbor attack - from Honolulu reporter Eugene Burns - sent the short-handed weekend news staffs into a scramble. But remembering the War of The Worlds fiasco, they weren’t about to alarm a war-jittery nation without official confirmation. Their frantic activity continued for over an hour while the last of the “peacetime” programs played on.
NBC offered its affiliates the soft music and poetry of Sunday Serenade from Sammy Kaye’s popular Swing & Sway orchestra. Great Plays on Blue featured an hour long adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. Mutual fed WOR’s broadcast of the New York Giants-Brooklyn Dodgers professional football game to any affiliates who wanted it.
The CBS series at 2:00 p.m. ET, The Spirit of ’41, dealt with military and defense preparedness. Newsman John Daly interviewed his guests from the Brooklyn Navy Yard how damaged warships were repaired - unaware that Japanese bombs were falling on the U.S. Pacific Fleet while they talked.
“We Interrupt This Program…” At 2:25 p.m. - 90 minutes after the first bombs fell - acknowledgment of the attack from the White House cleared the wire services. WOR flashed the news to whatever Mutual affiliates were carrying its football game at 2:26. NBC broke the news on both of its networks simultaneously with a terse, 20-second bulletin read by news writer Bob Eisenbach at 2:29:50. CBS waited until the 2:30 opening of The World Today when Daly read the bulletin.
NBC, Blue and Mutual returned to regular programming while their news departments continued to assemble and attempted to contact Honolulu. CBS already had Daly and commentator Elmer Davis on the air with The World Today. Standing by for the program were Robert Trout with reaction from London plus a shortwave report from Manila where the Philippines were reported under a pre-invasion attack from Japanese bombers.
At 4:06 NBC scored the first scoop of the day with an eyewitness report from KGU/Honolulu, the same station whose broadcast signal Japanese pilots tuned for radio coordinates to reach Pearl Harbor.
The Knows For News. December 7th was the day when radio’s stature as a news source soared. In February, C.E. Hooper reported that the networks’ prime time given to news had risen three hours a week since Pearl Harbor and like the war itself, the trend was just beginning.
Newsmen Lowell Thomas on Blue and NBC’s H.V. Kaltenborn both set their all time rating records, reaching an estimated 4.5 million homes - over ten million listeners - with each broadcast. Gabriel Heatter, working six nights a week, earned $130,000 a year as Mutual’s top attraction. NBC’s News of The World strip at 7:15 p.m. reported by deep voiced explorer John W. Vandercook and his successor, Morgan Beatty, remained among the Top Ten Multiple Run programs for the next twelve years of Network Radio’s Golden Age. (See Multiple Runs All Time Top Ten.)
With its typical promotional fanfare, CBS arbitrarily cut commercial time inside newscasts by 20% - roughly 30 seconds in a 15 minute program. The network also prohibited jingles or any other “undue gaiety” to be heard in its newscast commercials. The NAB chipped in some wartime newscast standards of its own. Among several gratuitous preachments was, “Don’t interrupt a news story with a commercial.” In other words, it was business as usual.
WW & WWII. Walter Winchell’s Jergens Journal - the weekly, rapid fire 15 minute mix of news headlines, gossip, slang, innuendo and opinion separated by Winchell pounding a telegraph key - had steadily gained audience as the threat of war increased. Winchell was a hawk who continually warned his listeners of the dangers if America wasn’t prepared to defend itself. His Sunday night broadcast of December 7th fell within a Hooper survey week. The saber-rattling gossip columnist suddenly became the patriotic prophet and he scored his highest rating to date - a 29.9. His January and February ratings climbed even higher to 33.1 - territory normally occupied by only the most popular variety shows. Winchell’s 1941-42 season average of 26.0 would be his highest of 21 consecutive Top 50 seasons. (See Walter Winchell.)
Wartime Duty. FDR’s address to the nation on December 9, 1941, scored an all-time high Hooperating of 79.0. The United States was at war and Americans now depended on radio for immediate news as well as morale boosting entertainment. The government depended on it, too - for dispersal of official information. The broadcasters were happy to cooperate - they feared another Federal takeover of radio facilities similar to World War I, despite FCC Chairman Fly’s assurances that it would never happen.
The annual problem of Daylight Saving Time upsetting broadcast schedules in areas remaining on Standard Time was solved on February 2, 1942, when the entire nation converted to War Time and set its clocks ahead one hour for the duration.
The networks each pledged, “A generous amount of time,” from every prime time program once per month for Government announcements. In addition, every daytime program was committed to carry one public service announcement every two weeks. It was a small price to remain unfettered in the vital and profitable business climate created by war. But instead of staying at those bare minimums, the networks exceeded themselves and became megaphones for patriotism’s biggest cheerleaders who sold war bonds, entertained troops and continually promoted the war effort with their programs and personal appearances.
Any Bonds Today? Even before America entered the war in June, 1941, when Fred Allen’s Texaco Star Theater went on summer vacation, Texaco gave the Treasury Department a reported $195,000 to pay for the CBS hour plus all production costs involved with Millions For Defense, a weekly star-studded revue designed to sell U. S. Defense Bonds. Jack Benny, Bing Crosby and Bob Hope were among the dozens of film and radio stars who participated in the 13-week series. When Allen reclaimed his Texaco timeslot in September, Bendix Corporation undertook Millions For Defense, renamed it The Treasury Hour and moved it to Blue’s Tuesday schedule.
Tuesday Is Good News Day. Climaxing a climb that began in the 1935-36 season with a 6.6 rating and 62nd place in the Annual Top 50, Fibber McGee & Molly became the Number One show of 1941-42. Jim & Marian Jordan’s 9:30 p.m. Tuesday sitcom scored their personal high rating of 31.6, edging out their ten o’clock companion Bob Hope by nine-tenths of a point at 30.7. With newcomer Red Skelton’s program at 10:30, NBC’s Tuesday night lineup comedy block contained three of the season’s top four programs.
After two movie shorts and supporting roles in three features, Red Skelton’s first starring film, Whistling In The Dark, was released by MGM in August. Riding on the movie’s success, Brown & Williamson Tobacco brought Skelton to NBC’s Tuesday night comedy lineup in November. With the support of Ozzie Nelson‘s band and Nelson's wife/vocalist, Harriet Hilliard Nelson, who were no strangers to radio audiences, Skelton's Raleigh Cigarette Program was an immediate hit. (See First Season Phenoms.)
The 9:30 to 11:00 tandem of Fibber McGee & Molly, Bob Hope and Red Skelton became the most successful 90 minute block in Network Radio history and locked down the top three Tuesday night slots for the next six seasons. NBC’s Tuesday trio of half hour comedies became such a listening habit that during the one season Skelton missed for military service, 1944-45, his replacement show, Hildegarde’s Raleigh Room, scored a third place finish for the night. NBC proceeded to dominate Tuesday’s Top Ten for the next ten seasons.
Hawk Walks & Phil Fills. Bob Hawk had Take It Or Leave It off to a flying start - helping to push Eversharp Pen & Pencils’ comedy quiz into Sunday’s Top Ten in its first full season. From its initial short run in the spring of 1940, the show’s rating climbed steadily to a 1940-41 rating of 12.9. Hawk wanted a raise in salary for his performance but Eversharp wasn’t about to give him one - but R.J. Reynolds Tobacco was. The glib, 33 year old quizmaster left Take It Or Leave It in December, 1941, and showed up a month later as host of a new quiz for Camel Cigarettes, How’m I Doin’? (See The Camel Shuffle below.)
Eversharp, in need of a fast replacement for Hawk, called on 55 year old Phil Baker who had been out of radio for over a year since his Honolulu Bound disaster in 1939's ratings.
Baker brought his accordion and a new kind of humor to Take It Or Leave It. The vaudeville veteran improved on Hawk’s ratings by 15% in his first six months and Baker enjoyed new popularity as host of what would eventually become radio’s top rated quiz show.
Fred Sheds Rating Woes. Texaco vacated its CBS Wednesday timeslot opposite NBC’s Eddie Cantor and Mr. District Attorney in March, moving Fred Allen’s Texaco Star Theater into a less competitive time period in CBS’s Sunday lineup. Ironically, Texaco had moved Cantor from Sunday three years earlier for the same reason. The 9:00 hour became available when Ford Motors cancelled its long running Sunday Evening Hour featuring the Detroit Symphony. It was wartime and the car maker had nothing to sell.
Texaco’s move was smart - Allen’s ratings improved nearly 20% immediately. He benefited from his new timeslot that allowed him to verbally spar with Jack Benny on the same evening. Their “feud” was still very much alive with the 1941 release of Paramount’s Love Thy Neighbor based on their battle of barbs. Although CBS missed its chunk of Ford’s annual $1,400,000 outlay to sponsor the automaker’s hometown symphony, the network could boast of Allen’s 15.6 rating in his new time period versus The Ford Sunday Evening Hour’s mediocre 8.9.
Gildersleeve Spins & Wins. Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve moved from Fibber McGee & Molly’s Wistful Vista and took up residence in nearby Summerfield as The Great Gildersleeve. Although Hal Peary’s new sitcom didn’t make Sunday’s Top Ten with its 10.3 rating, it nevertheless was among the season’s Top 50 - the first of twelve consecutive years - establishing it as the most successful spin-off series in radio history. (See The Great Gildersleeve(s).
The Great Gildersleeve had more than the McGee pedigree. The programs shared FM&M’s creator, Don Quinn, plus the talents of Gale Gordon, Arthur Q. Bryan and the Billy Mills studio orchestra. Peary’s Gildersleeve character was given an extra push in November with a major role in RKO-Radio Pictures’ quickie comedy, Look Who’s Laughing, starring NBC’s Edgar Bergen - plus Charlie McCarthy & Mortimer Snerd - and Fibber McGee & Molly. The plot was a patchwork of the stars’ familiar bits - letting radio audiences see the routines they’d only heard in the past. The film also featured a 30 year old Lucille Ball in a supporting role.
Grape Flavored Soap. Veteran screen actress Irene Rich, the former favorite leading lady of Will Rogers' movies, was in the last of her eight seasons on Blue, finally settling at 9:30 p.m. ET on Sunday. She headlined a series of weekly, serialized quarter hours under the blanket title, Irene Rich Dramas. Her string of melodramatic gems carried chapter titles worthy of romance novels: Jewels of Enchantment, The Lady Counselor, Glorious One and Dear John.
Irene Rich Dramas never scored double digit ratings or finished in a season’s Top 50, despite enjoying Walter Winchell’s Jergens Journal as its lead-in for two years. Yet, Rich’s program was never in jeopardy of cancellation. Welch’s Grape Juice sponsored her entire run on Blue plus two additional seasons on CBS. Her sponsor’s loyalty stemmed from Rich’s longtime, widely advertised endorsements of “The Welch Reducing Plan” - which claimed a glass of Welch’s before meals and at bedtime enabled the 50 year old mother of two to have the same figure as she did at 16 - and produced pictures to prove it.
Another Man’s Family, Another quarter hour curiosity was programmed following Winchell for three seasons and finished twice in the season’s Top 50.. The Parker Family was a fifteen minute sitcom bearing similarity to The Aldrich Family with Leon Janney portraying the clan’s perplexed teenaged son, Richard - for some reason tagged, “Richard The Great”. The Parker patriarch, Walter, was a familiar voice to listeners from another role. Jay Jostyn simply softened the forceful delivery he used as Mr. District Attorney.
The Lux Life. Lux Radio Theater celebrated its fifth consecutive season as the most popular program on CBS. The network distributed a Gallup research study indicating that on an average Monday night, 5.5 Million persons attended the movies while 26 Million stayed at home to hear the movies recreated on Lux. Future advertising guru David Ogilvy oversaw the study which was more generous than the accepted Hooper ratings. Nevertheless, the point was made - CBS and Lever Brothers had a solid hit. (See Lux…Presents Hollywood!)
The Lady Waltzes Again. Lady Esther temporarily dropped syrupy music programming to sell cosmetics in mid-September and gave the half hour following Lux to Orson Welles. Welles, 26, had released his epic Citizen Kane four months earlier and was once again a hot property who made headlines. The Orson Welles Theater was an audio encore for many from his Citizen Kane cast - Joseph Cotton, Agnes Moorehead, Ray Collins, Paul Stewart, Everett Sloane - all members of his Mercury Theater troupe who had participated in his earlier excursions into radio .
Welles’ anthology series was the highest ranked new program of the season despite losing half of the Lux Radio Theater audience week after week. Surprisingly, the audience attrition was greater than the previous season’s drop-off when Lady Esther followed Lux with Guy Lombardo’s “Sweetest Music This Side of Heaven”. The dance band also came with a far lower production cost than Welles’ company of actors and guest stars. (See Guy Lombardo.)
Welles left radio in February to direct his Kane follow-up film, The Magnificent Ambersons. With a prime Monday night half hour to fill, Lady Esther turned to the bandleader who brought her to the network dance in the first place. Wayne King and his Chicago based band, complete with Franklyn MacCormack’s love poems, finished the season in Lady Esther’s Monday timeslot. (See The Waltz King.)
LaTrivia For Gildersleeve. Fibber McGee & Molly writer/partner Don Quinn came up with a new character to replace the couple’s volatile neighbor, Throckmorton Gildersleeve. Gale Gordon, a veteran of occurring roles on the show, was elected to play Mayor Charles LaTrivia of Wistful Vista, a weekly caller at their household. Gordon’s LaTrivia found himself in a weekly verbal sparring match of syntax and metaphors with Fibber & Molly that would invariably leave him in frustrated, sputtering confusion. His characterization was the foundation for Gordon’s subsequent fame as the pompous Osgood Conklin of Our Miss Brooks and as Lucille Ball’s foil in two of the comedienne’s television series, The Lucy Show and Here’s Lucy.
We Did I Do’s! With their fifth new sponsor and fifth different timeslot in five seasons, Burns & Allen, moved into NBC’s Tuesday schedule. Unlike their four previous scheduling shifts, their new Tuesday night show for Lever Brothers’ Swan Soap scored a ratings increase - a hefty 22% audience gain over their previous season. But George and Gracie’s ratings renaissance was the result of more than a change of venue.
Pragmatic showman Burns threw out their format of flirtatious “boy and girl” skits that had become stale over ten years of use. The new Burns & Allen Show was a sitcom in which he and Gracie played a married couple in weekly domestic situations involving wacky neighbors and visiting guest stars. They had been married for 16 years at the time. The show was loaded with top flight supporting character actors including Mel Blanc, Hans Conreid, Gale Gordon, Elvia Allman, announcer Bill Goodwin and Paul Whiteman’s orchestra. The new husband and wife format pushed Burns & Allen back into the season’s Top 20 programs and served them throughout the remainder of their radio and television careers.
Bob Burns Up The Ratings. Bing Crosby’s sidekick, rural comedian Bob Burns, 51, left Kraft Music Hall after five years for a successful solo career. To the delight of CBS and sponsor Campbell Soup, Burns’ Arkansas Traveler sitcom/variety show featuring Spike Jones’ novelty band and singer Ginny Simms became the network’s highest rated Tuesday program and began Burns’ string of five consecutive Top 50 seasons. Giving Burns his own show wasn’t much of a gamble. By 1941 he had logged three seasons as summer host of Kraft Music Hall and was familiar to movie audiences as Crosby’s comic co-star in two Paramount musicals, 1936's Rhythm On The Range and Waikiki Wedding in 1937. In addition, Burns had the lead in eight lesser films, all as the hick hero who out-smarts the smug city slickers.
Burns is forever associated with The Bazooka - his homemade, trombone-like novelty instrument fashioned from plumbing pipes and a distilling funnel which he invented when he was 15. Burns toured vaudeville stages with his jokes and bazooka for ten years before his film and radio careers took off. Although Burns was too old for military service in World War II, his Bazooka became the name adopted by the U.S. Army for its newly developed, shoulder-mounted rocket launcher that was able to pierce the enemy’s heavily armored vehicles. (See Bob Burns.)
Making Heir Waves. Are You A Missing Heir? - known for its first two seasons as The Court of Missing Heirs - was in its third year on CBS. Created and hosted by lawyer James Waters and sponsored by Sterling Drugs’ Ironized Yeast, Heirs was a giveaway program that didn’t give away the sponsor’s money - a fact that especially appealed to the budget-minded Sterling. Instead, the program attempted to locate heirs for inheritances that were locked in probate without claimants. Two cases involving the known facts were dramatized each week, both leading up to the payoff question, “Are you the missing heir?”
The program found over 150 heirs in its three year span and was responsible for the distribution of some $800,000. Over ten percent of the total was awarded to one Chicago couple who didn’t listen to the program but were alerted to their windfall by friends who did..
The Sexy Whodunit’s Whereabouts. When The Adventures of The Thin Man debuted on radio, many listeners thought they were hearing William Powell and Myrna Loy recreate their roles as Nick & Nora Charles, made famous in their six MGM mystery/comedies based on Dashiell Hammett’s married sleuths. Instead, radio’s Nick & Nora were Les Damon and Claudia Morgan, verbal ringers for Powell and Loy.
Director Himan Brown took radio’s portrayal of the sophisticated and sexy couple one step further with prolonged pillow talk accompanied by appropriate murmurs and sighs, concluding each program with Morgan’s sultry, “Goodnight, Nicky darling...” In doing so, Brown let listeners decide if his Nick & Nora were bound by the movies’ puritanical “twin-beds” mandate - although he left little doubt that they weren‘t..
Morgan, the daughter of film actor Ralph Morgan and niece of movie and radio star Frank Morgan, was clearly the star of the program - portraying Nora for the show’s entire eight season run in the ratings. She and her Uncle Frank made the season’s Top 50 simultaneously three times with their two programs. The role of Nick revolved among Damon, Les Tremayne and David Gothard. Notorious for its innuendo at the time, The Adventures of The Thin Man scored only four Top 50 seasons. Listeners had to be sleuths to find the program. Four different sponsors bounced it around to seven separate timeslots on three networks during its eight seasons. (See The Curse of Dashiell Hammett and Married Sleuths.)
Fresh Air Taxi’s Last Stand. The venerable Amos & Andy continued to struggle. Wednesday of the 1941-42 season was the last time their legendary strip show would appear in a nightly Top Ten. Freeman Gosden and Charlie Correll lost another ten percent of their audience and slipped into single digit ratings for the first time. They led their NBC competition, Fred Waring’s Pennsylvanians, by less than half a rating point. Over nine seasons Amos & Andy had tumbled from the annual Top Ten and out of the Top 50 altogether into 61st place - and the worst was yet to come.
Miss Misses. Child star Shirley Temple was no longer a child - and less of a match for NBC‘s Eddie Cantor than Fred Allen had been. When Allen’s Texaco Star Theater was moved to Sunday in March, Procter & Gamble brought in the 13 year old Temple as the teenage lead for another of radio’s growing list of family sitcoms, Junior Miss. The program cost P&G a reported $12,000 per week, much of it taken home by its young star. Cantor doubled the sitcom’s ratings. Junior Miss was cancelled after 26 weeks and Temple retired from series radio. Junior Miss went on the shelf until 1948 when it was brought back as a feature of CBS’s Saturday morning block of juvenile programs with Barbara Whiting in the title role.
Food For Ratings. NBC’s Thursday lineup of winners sponsored by food conglomerates all increased their audiences. Compared to the previous season, Kraft’s Bing Crosby and Sealtest’s Rudy Vallee scored 15% rating gains. General Foods’ Aldrich Family was up 20% to the highest rating of its twelve season run and the Fanny Brice/Frank Morgan Maxwell House Coffee Time audience shot up 32%.
Crosby’s comeback was especially sweet to NBC, reclaiming top spot in the 9:00 p.m. ET timeslot from Major Bowes’ Original Amateur Hour which suffered a 15% audience loss. CBS and Bowes suffered an even greater loss in February when Chrysler Corporation decided to cut the show back to half an hour. The car maker had shut down its Chrysler, Dodge, DeSoto and Plymouth auto production for the duration which left it nothing to sell to the listening public.
To fill the vacant half hour on CBS following Bowes at 9:30, Lever Brothers moved its successful Big Town into the timeslot with only slight ratings harm to the newspaper melodrama starring Edward G. Robinson. But the loss was enough to push Big Town from the season’s Top 20 for the first time in its five years on the air.
The Camel Shuffle. Bob Hawk and R.J. Reynolds’ Camel Cigarettes began their twelve year talent/sponsor association in January with How’m I Doin’?, a personality driven audience participation quiz similar to Hawk’s Take It Or Leave It. Camel’s mid-season addition of Hawk’s new show set up a three network chain reaction: How’m I Doin’? replaced Al Pearce’s Gang on CBS. Camel moved Pearce to NBC on Thursday, replacing Xavier Cugat’s Rumba Revue. Then Camel bought a Tuesday night half hour on Blue for Cugat’s Latin orchestra.
It was a frustrating exercise. Despite the added elements of Vaughn Monroe’s popular band and enthusiastic young announcer Bert Parks, How’m I Doin’? could only muster single digit ratings - a few points less than Pearce had generated. It was a shaky start for Hawk and Camels. A career-saving format change was due the following season.
No Competition, No Sponsor, No Rating. The largest ad-hoc network ever assembled - an estimated 700 stations - joined forces on Valentines Day, 1942, for a 13-week Saturday night series, This Is War! Directed by Norman Corwin, who wrote six of the half-hour dramas, with noted writers Maxwell Anderson, Stephen Vincent Benet, Clifford Odets, Elmer Rice, William Robeson contributing to the effort, the series was a mix of information and patriotic propaganda presented by a string of distinguished actors, film and radio stars. The series was “suggested” by the Federal Office of Facts and Figures’ radio chief, William Lewis, CBS Vice President of Programming on leave for government duty. Lewis described its objective to, “...Instruct and confirm the American spirit.”
The series was translated into a number of foreign languages, performed by separate casts and shortwaved to South America and Europe. This Is War! became the most widely circulated radio series in history. But because the program had no commercial sponsor, it was ignored by the rating books.
NBC/RFD. NBC went rural on Saturday night, pairing the hour-long National Barn Dance from WLS/Chicago with a 30 minute pickup of the Grand Ole Opry from WSM/Nashville. Miles Laboratories’ Alka-Seltzer bought the entire NBC network for the Joe Kelly hosted Barn Dance but R. J. Reynolds Tobacco only bought 13 of Hooper’s 30 rated markets for Opry, sponsored by its Prince Albert Tobacco.
The Nashville program wasn’t heard in New York, Los Angeles or other major cities considered by the sponsor to be too “sophisticated” for country music. For stations in those markets NBC fed Hot Copy, a sustaining newspaper crime drama which lasted 26 weeks and was followed by a variety of non-commercial offerings. (4)
Better Late Than Never? The radio extravaganza of the year was broadcast on Saturday, November 15, when NBC celebrated its 15th Anniversary with a two hour, 45 minute salute to itself carried over both its NBC and Blue networks. Every major star from both chains - from Jack Benny and Bob Hope to the Quiz Kids - plus politicians and network executives appeared in the self-congratulatory marathon which contained the not to subtle message that NBC was doing a great job as a two network operation in spite of the FCC decree that it divest itself of the Blue chain.
The question remains, however, just how many people actually heard the broadcast from the combined 243 station hookup. The program began at 11:15 p.m. ET and ran on until 2:00 the following morning. Nevertheless, NBC had cause to celebrate - for the first time in three seasons it had the majority of shows in the Annual Top 50, beating CBS by a 26 to 21 count with the remaining four going to Blue. (5) NBC would continue to rule the Top 50 list for the next seven years.
(1) Eventually those thousands of pre-war FM sets were all rendered useless when the FCC ordered the FM broadcast band changed in 1948. With that ruling most broadcasters and listeners lost confidence in the technology. FM slid into atrophy for another 20 years before confidence in its potential was restored.
(2) Until July 1, WNBT’s call sign was W2XBS and WCBW was identified as W2XAB.
(3) Like FM, expansion of television also came to a halt on December 7th. Pearl Harbor was the turning point in broadcasting history that extended Network Radio’s Golden Age by shutting down the commercial development its electronic competition. World War II diverted the development of television and FM radio from civilian to military use. The war also delayed the construction of hundreds of new, independent radio stations. As a result, the existing AM stations and their networks would grow in popularity and revenues - all without serious competition - for the next seven seasons.
(4) The WLS National Barn Dance feed to NBC was cut to 30 minutes at 9:00 p.m. ET on July 4, 1942, and WSM's Grand Ole Opry became a half hour feature on the full network at 10:30 p.m. on October 9,1943.
(5) Because of a tie for 50th place the 1941-42 Top 50 list contained 51 programs.
Network Radio's Top 50 Programs - 1941-42
C.E. Hooper Monthly Network Reports, Sep 1941 - Jun, 1942
Total Programs Rated 6-11 PM: 156 Programs Rated 13 Weeks & Ranked: 143.
29,300,000 Radio Homes 81.5% Coverage of US. One Rating Point = 293,000 Homes
1 2 Fibber McGee & Molly 31.7 Johnson Wax Tue 9:30 30 NBC
2 4 Bob Hope Show 30.7 Pepsodent Toothpaste Tue 10:00 30 NBC
3 3 Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy 28.0 Standard/Chase & Sanborn Sun 8:00 30 NBC
4 N Red Skelton Show 27.7 Brown & Williamson Tobacco Tue 10:30 30 NBC
5 1 Jack Benny Program 27.2 General Foods/Jello Sun 7:00 30 NBC
6 7 Aldrich Family 26.6 General Foods/Jello Thu 8:30 30 NBC
7 5 Walter Winchell’s Jergens Journal 26.0 Jergens Lotion Sun 9:00 15 Blue
8 6 Lux Radio Theater 25.1 Lever Bros/ Lux Soap Mon 9:00 60 CBS
9 9 Fanny Brice & Frank Morgan 23.8 General Foods/Maxwell House Thu 8:00 30 NBC
10 17 Eddie Cantor’s Time To Smile 18.7 Bristol Myers Wed 9:00 30 NBC
11t 11 Kay Kyser College of Musical Knollege American Tobacco Wed 10:00 60 NBC
11t 18 Mister District Attorney 18.4 Bristol Myers/Vitalis Hair Tonic Wed 9:30 30 NBC
13 14 Bing Crosby’s Kraft Music Hall 17.4 Kraft Cheese Thu 9:00 60 NBC
14 19 Rudy Vallee Show 16.9 Sealtest Dairies Thu 10:00 30 NBC
15 N Orson Welles Dramas 16.8 Lady Esther Cosmetics Mon 10:00 30 CBS
16 10 One Man’s Family 16.5 Standard Brands/enderleaf Tea Sun 8:30 30 NBC
17t 19 Fitch Bandwagon 15.7 FW Fitch/Fitch Shampoo Sun 7:30 30 NBC
17t 12 Kate Smith Hour 15.7 General Foods/Grape Nuts Cereal Fri 8:00 60 CBS
19t 30 Burns & Allen Show 15.6 Lever Bros/Swan Soap Tue 7:30 30 NBC
19t 21 Lowell Thomas News 15.6 Sun Oil M-F 6:45 15 Blue
21 8 Major Bowes Original Amateur Hour 15.3 Chrysler Corp Thu 9:00 30 CBS (1)
22 38 HV Kaltenborn News 15.2 Pure Oil Tue-Thu-Sat 7:45 15 NBC
23t 13 Big Town 14.8 Lever Bros/Rinso Laundry Soap Thu 9:30 30 CBS (2)
23t 28 Take It Or Leave It 14.8 Eversharp Pens & Pencils Sun 10:00 30 CBS
25t 24 Fred Allen’s Texaco Star Theater 14.2 Texaco Sun 9:00 30 CBS (3)
25t 26 Your Hit Parade 14.2 American Tobacco/Lucky Strike Sat 9:00 45 CBS
27 47 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes 14.1 Grove Labs/Bromo Quinine Sun 10:30 30 NBC
28 N Bob Burns Show 14.0 Campbell Soups Tue 8:30 30 CBS
29 34 Al Pearce Gang 13.6 RJ Reynolds/Camels Thu 7:30 30 NBC
30 33 Gay 90's Revue 13.5 Model Pipe Tobacco Mon 8:30 30 CBS
31 22 Truth Or Consequences 13.4 Procter & Gamble/Ivory Soap Sat 8:30 30 NBC
32 N Frank Fay Show 13.3 Lewis Howe/Tums Thu 10:30 30 NBC
33 15 Screen Guild Theater 13.1 Gulf Oil Sun 7:30 30 CBS
34 N Abie’s Irish Rose 13.0 Procter & Gamble/Drene Shampoo Sat 8:00 30 NBC
35t 37 Blondie 12.9 RJ Reynolds/Camels Mon 7:30 30 CBS
35t 30 First Nighter Program 12.9 Campana Balm Fri 9:30 30 CBS
37 26 The Parker Family 12.8 Andrew Jergens/Woodbury Soap Sun 9:15 15 Blue
38t 57 Meet Mr Meek 12.5 Lever Bros/Lifeboy Wed 8:00 30 CBS
38t 15 We The People 12.5 General Foods/Sanka Tue 9:00 30 CBS
40 47 Silver Theater 12.4 International Silver Sun 6:00 30 CBS
41t 25 Dr Christian 12.2 Chesebrough Ponds/Vaseline Wed 8:30 30 CBS
41t 28 Information Please 12.2 American Tobacco/Lucky Strike Fri 8:30 30 N BC
43 40 Vox Pop 12.0 Emerson Drug/Bromo Seltzer Mon 80:0 30 CBS
44 46 Battle of The Sexes 11.7 Sterling Drug/Molle Shaving Cream Tues 9:00 30 NBC
45 N Philip Morris Playhouse 11.3 Philip Morris Fri 9:00 30 CBS
46 79 Hollywood Premiere 11.2 Lever Bros/Lifeboy Fri 10:00 30 CBS
47 35 Helen Hayes Theater 10.9 Lever Bros/Lipton Tea Sun 8:00 30 CBS
48 35 Gangbusters 10.6 Sloan’s Liniment Fri 9:00 30 Blue
49 N Adventures of Ellery Queen 10.5 Emerson Drug/Bromo Seltzer Sat 7:30 30 NBC
50t N Great Gildersleeve 10.3 Kraft Cheese Sun 6:30 30 NBC
50t 60 Johnny Presents/Ray Bloch Orch 10.3 Philip Morris Tue 8:00 30 NBC
(1) Major Bowes Original Amateur Hour Sep - Jan Chrysler Corporation Thu 9:00 60 CBS
(2) Big Town Oct - Dec Lever Bros/Rinso Wed 8:00 30 CBS
(3) Fred Allen’s Texaco Star Theater Oct - Mar Texaco Wed 9:00 60 CBS
This post is in part abridged from Network Radio Ratings, 1932-1953.
Copyright © 2012 & 2019, Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com