J. CARROLL NAISH - THE LITTLE IMMIGRANT WHO TOOK DOWN BOB HOPE
Listeners Become Viewers
The 1950-51 Season
19th In A Series
Your Slips Are Showing. Television was hot and getting hotter. In a period reminiscent of radio’s growth spurt 20 years earlier, every family wanted a television receiver and 8,000 new sets were being delivered to American homes every day. By mid-1950, TV was boasting a reach that was double the size of the most widely circulated magazine, Reader’s Digest. Audience surveys estimated up to four viewers in every TV household every evening - four less listeners for prime time radio.
Audiences deserting to television and competition from independent stations began to take a heavy toll on Network Radio. The season’s Top 50 average program rating was down 20% for the first time since audience polling began.
None of radio’s most popular programs achieved a season average rating of 20 or higher.
The season’s Top 50 programs had a combined rating average of only 10.4 - a new low.
More telling, by mid-season radio network revenues had slipped below the $200 Million mark, while the entire radio industry’s total income increased to over $600 Million.
The reaction from ABC, CBS and NBC to this crisis was concern - but backed with little action because their attention had turned to television, too. Network television revenues for 1950 were reported at $85 Million. Although the amount was less than half the radio networks’ income for 1950, it had climbed by 190% in just one year. The question was no longer if television network revenues would overtake Network Radio, but when.
Nets’ Worth. Johnson Wax cancelled its 15 year sponsorship of Fibber McGee & Molly and sent shock waves through the industry. Advertisers were taking a closer, critical look at Network Radio costs. Nielsen introduced Program Costs provided by cooperating networks and sponsors to its rating reports The figures enabled observers to determine the cost efficiencies of sponsors’ investments by dividing the cost of each broadcast by the program’s rating, resulting in a Cost Per (rating) Point.
Program costs were the total of two items. The first, Network Time Charges, were based on program length to cover AT&T line costs and the number of affiliate stations paid to carry the program. The average time charge for a half hour prime time program was in the neighborhood of $535 per minute, for a 30 minute total of $16,000. With falling ratings, the networks were under pressure to lower their charges.
A bigger variance lay in the Talent & Production Charges associated with the different programs. These charges could range from less than $5,000 to almost $35,000. This was the area under closest scrutiny by advertisers scrambling to find money to invest in television.
Network Radio Prime Time Program Costs - 1950-51 Season
Time Talent Total Rating Cost
Charge & Prod Cost Average Per
(000) (000) (000) Point
Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet 17.9 10.9 28.8 8.7 $ 3,310.
The Aldrich Family 16.0 7.5 23.5 9.1 2,582.
American Album of Familiar Music 16.0 4.0 20.0 4.9 4,081.
Amos & Andy 16.7 28.8 45.5 14.0 3.250.
Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts 16.8 10.4 27.2 13.4 2,029.
Bing Crosby Show 17.7 34.5 52.2 9.8 5,327.
Bob Hawk Show 17.1 6.9 24.0 10.5 2,286.
Bob Hope Show 16.5 34.5 51.0 9.6 5,313.
Carnation Contented Hour 16.7 9.2 25.9 7.3 3,548.
Casey Crime Photographer 16.2 4.6 20.8 10.0 2,080.
Cities Service Band of America 12.6 7.5 20.1 4.7 4,277.
Club 15 (15 Min) 12.6 7.5 20.1 7.2 2,792.
A Day In The Life of Dennis Day 15.3 13.8 29.1 8.8 2,560.
Dr Christian 17.7 4.6 22.3 10.2 2,186.
Dragnet 16.5 4.6 21.1 8.7 2,425
Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy 18.5 25.9 44.4 14.7 3,020.
Fanny Brice as Baby Snooks 15.8 7.5 23.3 9.7 2,402.
The Fat Man 16.8 5.8 22.6 10.5 2,152.
Father Knows Best 16.3 8.6 24.9 9.5 2,621.
Fibber McGee & Molly 15.8 26.5 42.3 11.1 3,811.
Gangbusters 16.1 5.8 21.9 10.1 2,168.
Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch 17.3 17.3 34.6 10.2 3,392.
Grand Ole Opry 16.1 5.2 21.3 8.0 2,663.
Great Gildersleeve 16.1 11.5 27.6 9.7 2,845.
Hallmark Playhouse 17.6 11.5 29.1 9.7 3,000.
Hollywood Star Playhouse 16.5 6.9 23.4 10.3 2,272.
Horace Heidt Youth Oppty Prog 17.7 11.5 29.2 9.7 3,010.
Jack Benny Program 16.3 28.8 45.1 15.6 2,891.
Judy Canova Show 15.9 10.9 27.8 9.4 2,957.
The Life of Riley 15.6 10.9 26.5 8.1 3,272.
Life With Luigi 17.2 7.5 24.7 11.1 2,225.
Lowell Thomas News (15 Min) 7.4 1.4 8.8 7.1 1,239.
Lux Radio Theater (60 Min) 29.3 20.1 49.4 17.9 2,760.
Meet Corliss Archer 16.7 4.6 21.3 9.3 2,290.
Mr. & Mrs. North 15.3 7.5 22.8 11.2 2,036.
Mr. District Attorney 16.7 7.4 24.1 10.7 2,252.
Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons 16.6 4.6 21.2 10.7 1,981.
My Favorite Husband 16.5 8.1 20.1 8.8 2,284.
My Friend Irma 17.6 10.9 28.5 13.3 2,143.
NBC News of The World (15 Min) 10.4 0.9 11.3 6.0 1,883.
Nick Carter, Master Detective 12.0 2.5 14.5 6.7 2,164.
One Man’s Family (15 Min) 10.6 1.4 11.4 6.3 1,810.
Our Miss Brooks 14.4 8.6 23.0 9.8 2,347.
People Are Funny 6.4 8.6 25.0 10.3 2,427.
The Railroad Hour 16.9 14.4 31.3 8.3 3,771.
Red Skelton Show 16.5 21.0 37.5 11.9 3,151.
Richard Diamond, Priv Detective 16.6 5.2 21.8 8.2 2,659.
Roy Rogers Show 14.3 8.3 22.6 8.1 2,790.
Suspense 17.1 8.1 25.2 9.3 2,710.
The Telephone Hour 16.4 13.8 30.2 6.6 4,576.
Theater Guild On The Air (60 Min) 27.6 20.5 48.1 8.1 5,938.
Truth Or Consequences 16.0 10.9 26.9 9.0 2,989.
Vaughn Monroe Show 17.1 11.6 28.7 8.6 3,337.
Voice of Firestone 15.2 12.0 27.2 7.2 3,778.
Walter Winchell (15 Min) 13.0 8.5 21.5 12.4 1,734.
You Bet Your Life 16.8 13.2 30.0 11.8 2,542.
Your Hit Parade 16.1 12.7 28.8 7.7 3,740.
What Price Glory? How much did it actually cost the sponsoring advertisers to reach their shares of Network Radio’s dwindling prime time audience? The average charge to produce and distribute a half hour prime time network program to affiliated stations was $27,750. The average Cost Per Point to reach 1% of homes with radios was $2,930.
Costs To The Point of Cancellation. Two of the higher priced programs on a Cost Per Point basis, The American Album of Familiar Music and The Life of Riley, were gone from Network Radio at the end of the season.
Three others stood out with a Nielsen Cost Per Point in excess of $5,000. U.S. Steel’s hour long Theatre Guild On The Air was expensive because of its length and production charges. But NBC didn’t worry as long as the sponsor was happy. The steelmaker finally cancelled the high priced, prestigious program at the end of the 1952-53 season. Mean- while, the half hour shows hosted by Bing Crosby and Bob Hope also cracked the $5,000 mark with ratings that sank to single digits.
“ABC” On NBC & CBS. Liggett & Myers Tobacco was on an advertising splurge for its major brand, Chesterfield cigarettes. Bob Hope’s falling NBC radio ratings didn’t seem to be of any concern to the tobacco company, any more than Bing Crosby’s tumble on CBS.
Network Radio’s most expensive properties were bought to help push the brand's slogan, “A-B-C...Always Buy Chesterfields.” The fact that ABC was also the identity of their up and coming competitor was of no concern to the two networks. The sponsor’s money was good and that was all that mattered. What mattered to Chesterfield was the endorsement value of the two stars in colorful full page ads that were splashed across the back covers of the country’s leading magazines - and on Christmas gift cartons of cigarettes that bore their pictures. When the association was established, Liggett & Myers dropped both shows in 1952.
Shadowing A Bargain. One of the best buys wasn’t a major network prime time show, but lowly Mutual’s late Sunday afternoon offering, The Shadow. With a 7.9 rating and total cost of $12, 600, Lamont Cranston and his company from WOR/New York City registered a Cost Per Point of less than $1,600. (See The Shadow Nos.)
1932 Redeux. Jack Benny and Eddie Cantor were among a handful of Network Radio’s first stars from the 1932-33 season who began appearing regularly on the flickering television screens that were rapidly filling America’s living rooms. They weren't alone...
George Burns, 54, and 55 year old Gracie Allen launched their familiar radio sitcom on CBS-TV. Gertrude Berg, 52, brought her Goldbergs family to television for a weekly reunion. Fifty year old Fred Waring fronted a far larger orchestra and choral group on television than appeared on his first radio shows 18 years earlier and Wayne King, also 50, was still serenading viewers with romantic waltzes on TV as he had at the dawning of Network Radio’s Golden Age in 1932.
Sixty year old Paul Whiteman was even busier than his days in early radio, performing 90 minutes of live television on ABC-TV every weekend. And comedian Ed Wynn, 64, who made his first radio appearance in 1922, won the second annual Emmy as, “Television’s Most Outstanding Live Personality.”
As Seen On TV... The four television networks opened the 1950-51 season with 46 series rooted in Network Radio. The adaptations and simulcasts accounted for one-third of TV’s prime time programming.
CBS took its cue from NBC-TV’s heavy conversion of familiar radio titles to television the previous season. CBS-TV boasted 16 shows familiar to radio audiences: The Alan Young Show, Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts, (simulcast), Big Town, Blue Ribbon Bouts, The Burns & Allen Show, Perry Como’s Chesterfield Supper Club, The Frank Sinatra Show, The Fred Waring Show, The Gene Autry Show, The Goldbergs, The Horace Heidt Show, The Jack Benny Program, Lux Video Theater, Sing It Again, (simulcast), Truth Or Consequences and The Vaughn Monroe Show.
NBC-TV continued to draw from radio popularity with 16 programs: The Aldrich Family, The Big Story, Break The Bank, Friday Night Boxing, Kay Kyser’s College of Musical Knowledge, Leave It To The Girls, Lights Out, Martin Kane Private Eye, One Man’s Family, The Original Amateur Hour, The Quiz Kids, The Voice of Firestone, (simulcast), Wayne King’s Serenade, We The People, You Bet Your Life and Your Hit Parade.
ABC -TV trailed with a dozen: Beulah, Blind Date, Buck Rogers, Can You Top This?, Chance of a Lifetime, Dick Tracy, Don McNeill’s TV Club, First Nighter, Life Begins at 80, The Lone Ranger, Stop The Music, and Twenty Questions. The struggling DuMont Television Network added two more: Famous Jury Trials and The Adventures of Ellery Queen.
As listeners became viewers and flocked to see their radio favorites on television, Network Radio was left to wonder what to do about its loss of popularity and profits.
TV Takes Toll. CBS dominated Sunday radio with eight of the Top Ten programs - four of them lifted from NBC. Nevertheless, ratings continued to fall as television loaded Sunday night with star attractions.
Radio was faced with competition from some of its own with NBC-TV’s Colgate Comedy Hour at 8:00, starring rotating hosts Eddie Cantor, Fred Allen and Bob Hope. The 8:00 p.m. hour on Sunday had been radio’s peak prime time just two years earlier when Edgar Bergen, Fred Allen and Stop The Music! combined for 47.8 rating points. By 1950-51 only Bergen was left and his season’s average rating fell to a personal low 14.7. (1)
CBS-TV added to its Sunday star power on October 28th with the first of Jack Benny’s four television shows of the season. The programs were simply adaptations of his popular radio format, co-starring Eddie (Rochester) Anderson, singer/stooge Dennis Day and announcer/foil Don Wilson. Benny’s television schedule would gradually increase to a bi-weekly basis in 1953 - immediately following his 7:00 CBS radio show.
The Big Flop. NBC-TV chief Pat Weaver was given the added responsibility to run NBC Radio. His biggest and most expensive blunder in Network Radio was The Big Show. Weaver called the 90 minute extravaganza, “NBC’s Sunday Spectacular at Six.” It was intended to blunt the rating damage done by the defections of Jack Benny, Edgar Bergen and Amos & Andy to CBS. The Big Show was hosted by Broadway actress Tallulah Bankhead with Meredith Willson’s orchestra and chorus, and a weekly guest star list of famous singers, comedians and actors that would have scored double digit ratings - before television came along to steal radio’s audience.
The Big Show opened on November 5, 1950, backed by multiple, participating sponsors and a guest lineup that included Jimmy Durante, Fred Allen, Danny Thomas and singers Ethel Merman and Frankie Laine. Despite heavy advertising and its roster of stars, the show scored a disappointing 5.7 rating. It peaked the following month with an 8.0 and finished the season with a meager 5.5 average.
Adding insult to injury, The Big Show finished dead last in its 90 minute time period, beaten by CBS’s Our Miss Brooks and Jack Benny, ABC’s Drew Pearson commentary and Don Gardiner newscast plus Mutual’s Roy Rogers Show and Nick Carter, Master Detective. The Big Show sagged even further in the ratings the following season to a sorrowful 5.2 when NBC finally pulled the plug on the highly expensive failure in April, 1952. (See Tallulah's Big Show and Meredith Willson.)
Neat Corliss Archer. Bouncing into Sunday’s Top Ten was the night’s only program that gained audience over its previous season, albeit only one-tenth of a rating point. Meet Corliss Archer, was a family sitcom with 30 year old Janet Waldo in the title role of a breezy teenager. The show had kicked around the CBS schedule since 1943 before settling in for a five year stand on Sunday and three Top 50 seasons. Meet Corliss Archer remained with CBS for another year before moving on to a final season on ABC. However, Waldo’s young voice and unique delivery forever typecast her as a teenager. She was featured in scores of animated television shows including a 13 year run as Judy Jetson, the teenage daughter of The Jetsons. Janet Waldo was in her fifties and sixties at the time.
Happy Trails To The Top 50. Television brought new popularity to movie cowboy heroes.
Roy Rogers starred in eight Republic westerns during the 1950-51 season, all directed to the Saturday afternoon kids’ matinee audience with titles pegged to each film’s locale, Twilight In The Sierras, Sunset In The West, North of The Great Divide, In Old Amarillo, etc. In reality, most were filmed in Hollywood’s backyard, the San Fernando Valley.
The Roy Rogers Show became Mutual’s third prime time program to reach a season’s Top 50. The combination adventure and music show, similar in format to Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch, was sponsored by Quaker Oats. And like most of Rogers’ movies, the show co-starred his wife, singer Dale Evans. The couple’s closing duet, Happy Trails, written by Evans, became their signature song over the program’s seven year, two network run, bouncing between Mutual and NBC. The two were supported in the show by their movies’ sidekick comedians and musical groups. “The King of The Cowboys” and his wife jumped back to NBC the following season which coincided with the debut of their half-hour filmed adventure series that ran for six years on NBC-TV.
The Album’s Last Page. Sterling Drug’s Bayer Aspirin had sponsored The American Album of Familiar Music on NBC’s Sunday schedule since 1931 where it had finished in the season’s Top 50 nine times. For 17 of the its 19 years it had been a fixture at 9:30 p.m. - in nine of those years it was among Sunday’s Top Ten programs. The drug company abruptly ended the NBC association in mid-November when it shifted Frank & Anne Hummert’s concert of standards to the same time period on ABC without any appreciable loss of its dwindling ratings. Regardless, the program quietly left the air in June. (See Gus Haenschen and Frank Munn's Golden Voice.)
Wild Rooted In Commercials. Wildroot Cream Oil replaced its popular Adventures of Sam Spade on NBC with a new detective series carrying the blatantly commercial title, Charlie Wild, Private Detective. It’s no coincidence that the milky hair tonic’s jingle, already familiar to millions, began, “Ya better get Wildroot Cream Oil, Chaaarlie!” Listeners didn’t sing along. The half hour camouflaged commercial lost over half of Spade’s ratings. It was moved to CBS at 6:00 in January and became the only program ever to be out-rated by NBC’s lowly Big Show.
Hello, Americans! Chicago based newscaster Paul Harvey, 33, began his legendary network broadcasting career over 119 ABC stations on December 10th. His late Sunday night news and commentary drew a 2.3 rating for the season. The distinctive Harvey added his long running series of weekday newscasts on April 2, 1951, replacing veteran commentator H.R. Baukage on ABC’s midday schedule. He remained there for the next 58 years.
The Price Is Right. Lever Brothers happily endured the high costs of Monday night's Lux Radio Theater on CBS that approached $50,000 a week because radio’s Number One program carried a Cost Per Point that was just slightly above programs that were half its length and nowhere near its popularity. For the fourth consecutive season Lever and CBS dominated Monday with Lux, Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts and My Friend Irma in the Top Three positions. Camel cigarettes’ Bob Hawk quiz show repeated as the runner-up behind the Lever’s top trio, while a short-lived newcomer, Hollywood Star Playhouse, replaced Inner Sanctum to round out Monday’s Top Five.
The Real Mystery Is Why? Emerson Drugs’ Bromo Seltzer abruptly cancelled its long running Inner Sanctum in April, 1950, and replaced it with yet another mystery anthology series, Hollywood Star Playhouse. It was a questionable move because Inner Sanctum had enjoyed four consecutive seasons as a Top 25 program since moving to the CBS Monday schedule in 1946. It had placed among Monday’s Top Five in each of those seasons. (See Inner Sanctum.)
Hollywood Star Playhouse hit the air running in late April with original playlets starring Academy Award winners Jimmy Stewart, Broderick Crawford, Ray Milland and Claire Trevor. But that was a tough and expensive opening act to follow. The show opened the 1950-51 season featuring lesser names from the movies like Richard Widmark, Mercedes McCambridge, Anne Bancroft and Ida Lupino, but continued to present solid material with high production values. Despite its quality, Hollywood Star Playhouse lost 20% of Inner Sanctum’s ratings and was cancelled at the end of the season.
Meanwhile, Inner Sanctum was picked up by Mars Candy and moved to ABC in the 8:00 timeslot opposite Hollywood Star Playhouse on CBS and NBC’s high powered musical series, The Railroad Hour. Inner Sanctum lost 65% of its audience in the move and was cancelled after its one season run on ABC. (See The Railroad Hour.)
The Bands Pay On... NBC expanded Monday’s prestigious and profitable music programming of earlier seasons and slotted the NBC Symphony under the direction of Fritz Reiner into the ten o’clock hour against My Friend Irma and The Bob Hawk Show on CBS. The concerts hardly dented the ratings but were underwritten by drug manufacturer Squibb and rounded out four hours of classical, semi-classical and show music in NBC’s prime time that were fully sponsored by image seeking advertisers who obligingly footed the bills.
Bye, Bye, Baby. Fanny Brice joined Will Rogers and Joe Penner as another of radio’s great early comedians to die before the end of the Golden Age. Fresh from her comeback year on NBC's Tuesday night schedule when Baby Snooks finished in the annual Top 20 against the popular Mr. & Mrs. North on CBS, Brice didn’t quite make it to the end of the 1950-51 season. Her last performance as Baby Snooks was on May 22nd. She succumbed to a cerebral hemorrhage one week later. On that evening’s memorial broadcast her longtime co-star, Hanley (Daddy) Stafford, eulogized the 59 year old Brice as, “...A very real, a very warm and very wonderful person.” (See Baby Snooks.)
Milking The Laughs. Fibber McGee & Molly didn’t miss a beat when Johnson Wax cancelled its sponsorship of the venerable sitcom after 15 years. Pet Evaporated Milk promptly picked up the show that was coming off three consecutive seasons as Tuesday’s Number One program. The show didn’t change in the least with its new sponsor and it remained NBC’s top Tuesday entry. But Fibber McGee & Molly lost over 35% of its ratings and dropped out of the season’s Top Ten for the first time in a dozen years. A major reason for the sitcom’s loss of audience was the new competition offered in its time period by CBS, Truth Or Consequences.
The Truth Be Goin’. Ralph Edwards’ Truth Or Consequences had become a Saturday night fixture on NBC for ten years, all of them sponsored by Procter & Gamble’s Duz laundry soap. But the show had slipped since its Top Ten season in 1947-48 and P&G cancelled it in June, 1950. Philip Morris Cigarettes picked up the show and moved it to the CBS Tuesday schedule opposite Fibber McGee & Molly on NBC. (2) The maneuver set up a unique situation in which both of Network Radio’s big stunt shows, Truth Or Consequences on CBS and NBC's People Are Funny, were broadcast on the same night within half an hour of each other - and both finished in Tuesday’s Top Ten. (See Truth Or Consequences and People Are Funny.)
Thanks For The Memory of First Place. Fibber McGee & Molly bounced back into the next season’s Top Ten after its one year drop in ratings. The same wasn’t true for Bob Hope, whose Tuesday show had either preceded or followed Jim & Marian Jordan’s sitcom on NBC’s Tuesday schedule since 1938. Over the dozen years, Hope had five Number One seasons. From 1941 to 1947, Hope and Fibber McGee & Molly were radio’s unbeatable Tuesday combination that led NBC’s greatest years of dominance.
Bob Hope was popular as ever in his films, his increasing television schedule and his stage appearances. But the comedian’s radio ratings plummeted over 35% during the season into single digits, pushing him down to 33rd place in the annual rankings. More embarrassing to the comedian, his show finished second in its time period to a simplistic, low budget sitcom on CBS, Life With Luigi.
Howard’s Happy Hits. Cy Howard was the creator of two CBS comedy hits - Monday’s My Friend Irma and the Tuesday show that took down Bob Hope, Life With Luigi. The story of a humble Italian immigrant learning the ways of his new country in Chicago’s Little Italy district, Life With Luigi was dependent on the dialectal skills of its cast, headed by J. Carroll Naish in the title role. He was supported in Life With Luigi by character actors Alan Reed and Hans Conreid, both also members of My Friend Irma’s cast. (3)
The success of Howard’s Irma convinced CBS to develop Luigi and put it on the network schedule as a sustaining feature in 1948 then carry it until Wrigley Gum picked up its sponsorship in 1950. The network’s faith in its homegrown show paid off. Life With Luigi was given a timeslot that was once considered suicide opposite Bob Hope. Instead, the Italian accented sitcom developed a following against the overexposed comedian that resulted in a successful four year run and two finishes in the annual Top Ten. (See CBS Packages Unwrapped.)
Hello, I Must Be Going... Groucho Marx made it a hat trick by jumping to his third network in three years. The move to NBC pushed his You Bet Your Life comedy quiz into the season’s Top Ten - helped along by producer John Guedel’s insightful insistence that the show remain in the same Wednesday night time slot that it had occupied on CBS. Marx’s long term contract with NBC also included a television version of You Bet Your Life, which debuted on Thursdays in October, 1950. Both the radio and television editions of the quiz were sponsored by Chrysler Motors’ DeSoto and Plymouth automobiles.
With You Bet Your Life going for him on both radio and television, Marx was one of the few stars from radio’s earliest days whose popularity increased as Network Radio’s Golden Age slowly passed into history. You Bet Your Life became Wednesday’s top rated radio show for three consecutive years, during which it also finished among the seasons’ Top Ten programs. (See The One...The Only...Groucho! and A John Guedel Production.)
Bing’s Songs Fall Flat. Without the solid lead-in provided by Groucho Marx the previous season, Bing Crosby’s ratings on CBS at 9:30 suffered a 40% hit. Wednesday’s Number One show of 1949-50 fell into single digits - an all time low for Crosby’s Network Radio career that dated back to 1932. Like his pal Bob Hope on Tuesday, Crosby found himself a runner-up in his time period - in this case to NBC’s Mr. District Attorney. The 47 year old singer’s radio popularity would never again reach its earlier heights. One reason for his loss of audience can be attributed to the feeble lead-in provided by a rotund comedian who didn’t know how good he had it as The Great Gildersleeve on NBC and jumped to CBS in a new role - Hal Peary.
Weary Peary Walks Into Failure. Hal Peary had grown tired of his title role as The Great Gildersleeve which had become a fixture on the NBC schedule under Kraft Foods sponsorship since its spinoff from Fibber McGee & Molly in 1941. The sitcom had been a Top 50 show in each of its nine seasons, reaching the Top 25 in seven of them. In addition, Peary had been featured as Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve in nine film comedies.
Nevertheless, the 42 year old Peary left Gildersleeve and signed with CBS to star in a new sitcom he had created for himself, Honest Harold - a character in plots both remarkably similar to Gildersleeve. In a questionable scheduling move, CBS never gave Honest Harold a chance, slotting it in the 9:00 time period opposite Groucho Marx’s top rated You Bet Your Life. Unsponsored and unrated, Honest Harold left the air after one season.
Meanwhile, NBC had an immediate replacement for The Great Gildersleeve’s title role when Hal Peary walked. Willard Waterman was a veteran radio actor who both sounded and looked like Peary. Waterman made the most of his opportunity to star as the blustery water commissioner of Summerfield, and kept The Great Gildersleeve a solid ratings contender for the remaining seven years of its NBC radio run. Waterman also starred in 1955's television version of the sitcom on NBC-TV. (See The Great Gildersleeve(s))
Two Of Three Isn’t Bad. Only three of the year’s Top 50 weekly programs could boast rating increases over the previous season. Two were on NBC’s Thursday schedule. Father Knows Best added one tenth of a point and Dragnet’s rating was two-tenths higher. The increases were minimal but they were still better than the CBS competition fared. Father Knows Best was slotted against Thursday’s Number One program, Mr. Keen, which clung to first place despite a 23% loss of audience. Meanwhile, Suspense lost 30% opposite Dragnet. The overall downward trend in Network Radio's evening audience was obvious and would become even greater so the following season. Ironically, both Robert Young of Father Knows Best and Dragnet's Jack Webb hedged their bets with successful television adaptations of their radio shows. (See Jack Webb's Dragnet.)
Hear Spot! Although it didn’t reach and season’s Top 50 and never would, Screen Directors’ Playhouse showed a rare rating increase of 11% and broke into Thursday’s Top Ten. It was cancelled at the beginning of the following season. Nevertheless, the program made history within the industry as one of NBC Radio’s first prime time shows to be offered to a group of non-competing, participating advertisers for their spot announcements as opposed to a single advertiser sponsoring the entire program. Within a few years almost all radio and television programs would be sold in the same manner.
Casey Strikes Out. Casey, Crime Photographer had bounced around the CBS schedule since 1943, often used as a sustaining filler. The newspaper crime drama, featuring unique jazz piano interludes at the hero’s favorite hangout bar, Casey finally snared Anchor Hocking Glass as its sponsor in 1947 and scored the first of four consecutive Top 50 seasons, all of them ranking among Thursday’s Top Ten. The glass company dropped the program after one season but CBS had no problem in selling it to Toni Home Permanents for two years and Philip Morris Cigarettes beginning in 1949. The formulaic series starring veteran radio actor Staats Cotsworth as the sleuthing photographer was a ratings and commercial success. (4)
Casey was on its way to its fifth successful season, registering a 10.0 rating two months into the 1950-51 season, when it was cancelled by Philip Morris. Instead of carrying the show on a sustaining basis and using its proven track record as the lure for a new sponsor, CBS dumped the program. The network reasoned that post-war listeners wanted realistic crime dramas - evidenced by NBC’s Dragnet - not the simplistic, pulp fiction plots and heroes that were popular during the 1930's and 40's. Nevertheless, CBS-TV programmed a video version of Casey, Crime Photographer the following year and the radio series returned for 14 month encore run in 1954.
Copy Cat Cops? CBS installed a new network-developed melodrama at 10:00 p.m. on Thursdays, billed as, "...an authentic new police drama stressing realistic situations and dialogue, The Lineup." . Coming when it did on the CBS schedule, a half-hour following NBC’s Dragnet, comparisons between the two cop shows were natural. The Lineup was given strong a strong cast which included some of Hollywood’s best radio actors behind star Bill Johnstone - Joseph Kearns, Wally Maher, Raymond Burr, John McIntire and Sheldon Leonard. Despite its high production values, The Lineup was always considered a CBS attempt to cash in on Jack Webb’s ground-breaking approach to police drama in Dragnet. The Lineup remained on the CBS schedule for two and a half years. All but two months of the program’s run were sustaining - a reflection that Network Radio was becoming a tough sell.
Number One To Number None. Author Dashiell Hammett was radio poison. The political faction he headed, The Civil Rights Congress of New York, was branded a Communist front group by the Attorney General’s office in 1947. One by one, the programs with which Hammett’s name was associated, all disappeared. The Adventures of The Thin Man was gone in 1949, The Adventures of Sam Spade followed in 1950 and in January, 1951, it was The Fat Man’s turn despite its Number One ranking on Friday. It was moved to Wednesday, vanished from the Nielsen ratings and was gone nine months later. (See The Curse of Dashiell Hammett.)
Dick Is Another Name for Detective. When ABC’s 8:00 p.m. Friday timeslot became available with the departure of The Fat Man, Camel cigarettes plucked Richard Diamond, Private Detective from NBC and moved it into the upstart network’s popular Friday lineup.
The series was created by Blake Edwards who later contributed suave Peter Gunn to television and Peter Sellers’ bumbling Inspector Clouseau to films. Edwards tailored Richard Diamond for the talents of Dick Powell, Warner Brothers’ leading musical comedy star of the 1930's who was reshaping his image as a tough guy in a series of film noir mysteries for RKO.
Richard Diamond combined the two Powell persona. It was a light-hearted mystery series in which the happy go lucky hero would invariably break into a song before or after the business of pursuing the villain of the week. The smartly written show - with support given to Powell by some of Hollywood’s best radio actors - and finished in the season’s Top 50 for two consecutive years before the star turned his attention to television’s Four Star Playhouse in 1952. (See Dick Powell.)
Ride ’Em Cowboys! CBS corralled television’s cowboy craze for Network Radio on Saturday night. Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch was one of only a few weekly prime time programs to show a ratings increase over the previous season. After eight years on the air without a Top 50 finish, the singing cowboy vaulted into the season’s 22nd place with double digit ratings. Like Roy Rogers, who would later have a radio and television contract with NBC, Autry already had his own deal with CBS. His weekly half-hour filmed western adventure series debuted on CBS-TV’s prime time Sunday schedule in July, 1950, and remained with the network for six seasons.
Hip Hoppy. The synergy between radio and television to propel the popularity of cowboy movie stars was never more evident than the unlikely star who followed Autry on Saturday nights. Handsome, silver haired William Boyd had starred in 66 low budget Hopalong Cassidy westerns from 1935 through 1948.
The 53 year old Boyd saw the potential of television in 1948 and borrowed $350,000 to obtain the television rights to his 13 year library of films. He then successfully syndicated his movies to television stations which hungered for programming. Boyd was discovered by a new generation of fans and was on his way to becoming a multi-millionaire. Black clad Hopalong Cassidy aboard his white horse Topper was suddenly as popular with juvenile audiences as Roy Rogers and Trigger or Gene Autry and Champion.
General Foods and its ad agency, Foote, Cone & Belding, were quick to hop on Hoppy’s wagon with a nine month Sunday afternoon radio run on Mutual in early 1950. General’s Grape Nuts cereal moved the show to CBS in September to follow Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch on Saturday at 8:30. The transcribed Hopalong Cassidy adventures from Commodore Productions, literally shot their way into Saturday’s Top Ten and the annual Top 30 for two years until the cowboy fad ran its course.
To Make A Long Title Short. A Day In The Life of Dennis Day was faced with new competition when CBS and General Foods slotted Lucille Ball’s My Favorite Husband against the Irish tenor/comedian in September. The 9:30 time period became a ratings race between the two sitcoms until midway through the season when Colgate decided that Day’s format with the long-winded title had run its course after four Top 50 seasons and two consecutive Top 25 finishes. The show was converted to a variety format in January and became The Dennis Day Show, with the singer as its host. The mid-season switch didn’t work. Day’s ratings sank 30%.
The maneuver handed Ball the time period’s sitcom audience. As a result, the two shows finished the season in a dead heat. The tie was enough to give the red-headed comedienne her only Top 50 Network Radio season. (6)
Repeats Build Ratings. People Are Funny and You Bet Your Life producer John Guedel is rightfully hailed as an innovator. One of his ideas, however, didn’t seem to work at the time. In retrospect, he was simply ahead of his time.
Guedel was a pioneer in transcribed programming. His productions were recorded, edited and polished on tape as soon as technology and network permission allowed. But Guedel also saw an additional benefit to recorded programs - repeat broadcasts. He and his People Are Funny host/partner Art Linkletter introduced taped rebroadcasts of their Tuesday hit to NBC’s Saturday schedule in September, 1950. The concept provided sponsor Brown & Williamson Tobacco with relatively inexpensive programming that lacked most of its original production costs. It also gave NBC the revenue of 30 minutes’ network time that might have otherwise gone unsold faced with television’s increasing competition for Saturday night’s audience.
The one year run of People Are Funny rebroadcasts on NBC’s Saturday schedule averaged only a 3.7 rating. But combined with People’s Tuesday rating of 10.3, the two broadcasts’ total rating of 14.0 would have pushed People Are Funny into the season’s Top Five at a bargain basement price. Regardless, Brown & Williamson cancelled at the end of the season. Abandoned at the time, Guedel’s concept to build cumulative rating points through repeat programs is common in both broadcast and cable television today. (See A John Guedel Production.)
A CBS First. Amos & Andy couldn’t do it for CBS. Neither could Myrt & Marge nor I Love A Mystery. But Beulah did. The serialized sitcom became the first program broadcast by CBS to ever reach Number One in the Multiple Run category. Hattie McDaniel’s portrayal of the jolly and warm-hearted housemaid led CBS to its third of six consecutive seasons dominating the Multiple Run Top Ten.
Henry & Fanny’s Golden Years. One Man’s Family had enjoyed a peaceful three year semi-retirement on NBC’s Sunday afternoon schedule until Standard Brands dropped the show in 1949. The network carried the serial as a sustaining Sunday feature through the 1949-50 season but cancellation was imminent. Then, Miles Laboratories came to its rescue in June, 1950, and thrust the Barbour family back into prime time as a Monday through Friday strip at 7:45 p.m.
The success of the program’s conversion from a weekly half hour to the new nightly quarter hour format was immediate. Henry and Fanny Barbour’s clan broke into the Multiple Run Top Ten, edging out the CBS competition in their time period, newscaster Edward R. Murrow.
One Man’s Family outlived Network Radio’s Golden Age by half a dozen years, remaining in the 7:45 NBC timeslot until May, 1959. Its creator, Carleton E. Morse, supervised the entire 27 year run - all 3,256 episodes of the family saga.
How To Kill A Hero. ABC and sponsor General Mills broke the spirit of America’s favorite late afternoon adventure serial in 1947. Jack Armstrong, The All American Boy was converted from a daily 15 minute strip to half-hours of self-contained stories, alternating every other day with another conversion to the 30 minute format, Sky King.
Gone were the extended stories that could drag on for months and the cliff hanging Friday episodes that kept kids hooked on the shows over weekends. The network and sponsor rebuffed these two soap opera elements that also contributed to listener loyalty among juvenile serial fans. Nevertheless, the two watered-down half hour melodramas remained on the ABC schedule for three seasons until June, 1950, when Sky King moved to Mutual, where it stayed alive for four more years.
Jack Armstrong wasn’t so lucky. After a three month hiatus over the summer of 1950, “The All American Boy” suddenly grew up as Armstrong of The SBI and moved into ABC’s prime time on Tuesday and Thursday at 7:30, alternating with The Lone Ranger’s Monday-Wednesday-Friday broadcasts. Both shows were sponsored by General Mills.
Charles Flynn had played teenager Jack Armstrong since 1939. At age 30 he could finally use his adult speaking voice as a government agent in pursuit of villains for the Scientific Bureau of Investigation. But listeners didn’t buy the new storyline. Armstrong of The SBI trailed The Lone Ranger’s ratings in the 7:30 time period by over 25%, sinking into low single digits. The series was cancelled in June and the once legendary role-model for a generation of kids was gone. (See Serials, Cereals & Premiums.)
(1) The Colgate lineup also featured the hot new comedy team, Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis, whose NBC radio show was having a hard time catching on.
(2) Pitted against the stiff competition of Fibber McGee & Molly on NBC, Truth Or Consequences’ rating fell into single digits and its lowest-ever ranking, barely remaining in the season’s Top 50. Edwards, Philip Morris and CBS parted ways at the end of the season. Ironically, Truth Or Consequences popped up next on NBC in the summer of 1952 as the vacation replacement for its former competition, Fibber McGee & Molly.
(3) J. Carroll Naish’s versatility in ethnic characterizations was on full display as Chief Sitting Bull in MGM’s 1950 musical Annie Get Your Gun and as television’s Charlie Chan in the late 1950's.
(4) Staats Cotsworth was the latest in a string of actors who played Casey, Crime Photographer. He was supported by veteran radio talents Jan Miner and John Gibson plus top New York studio actors.
(5) The flood of revenue from his old movies, personal appearances and merchandise sales enabled Boyd to produce another 54 hour and half hour episodes of Hopalong Cassidy tales for television. His 1950-51 Sunday series on NBC-TV ranked ninth among all television programs for the season.
(6) Lucille Ball left radio in April, 1951. Taking My Favorite Husband's producer, Jess Oppenheimer, and its two writers, Bob Carroll and Madelyn Pugh, with her, she and husband Desi Arnaz introduced their legendary CBS-TV sitcom, I Love Lucy, seven months later.
Top 50 Network Programs - 1950-51
A.C. Nielsen Radio Index Sept 1950-June 1951
Total Programs Rated, 6-11p.m.: 163 Programs Rated 13 Weeks & Ranked: 126.
40,700,000 Radio Homes 94.7% Coverage of US One Rating Point = 407,000 Homes
1 1 Lux Radio Theater 17.9 Lever Bros./Lux Soap Mon 9:00 60 CBS
2 2 Jack Benny Program 15.6 American Tobacco/Lucky Strike Sun 7:00 30 CBS
3 7 Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy 14.7 Coca Cola Sun 8:00 30 CBS
4 9 Amos & Andy 14.0 Rexall Drug Stores Sun 7:30 30 CBS
5 3 Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts 13.4 Lever Bros./Lipton Tea Mon 8:30 30 CBS
6 5 My Friend Irma 13.3 Lever Bros./Pepsodent Toothpaste Mon 10:00 30 CBS
7 6 Walter Winchell’s Journal 12.4 Andrew Jergens/Hudnut Cosmetics Sun 9:00 15 ABC
8 14 Red Skelton Show 11.9 Procter & Gamble/Tide Detergent Sun 8:30 30 CBS
9 11 You Bet Your Life 11.8 Chrysler Corp./Plymouth & DeSoto Wed 9:00 30 NBC (1)
10 15 Mr Chameleon 11.6 Sterling Drug/Bayer Aspirin Wed 8:00 30 CBS
11 16 Mystery Theater 11.4 Sterling Drug/Bayer Aspirin Tue 8:00 30 CBS
12 26 Mr& Mrs North 12.3 Colgate Palmolive/Halo Shampoo Tue 8:30 30 CBS
13t 4 Fibber McGee & Molly 11.1 Pet Milk Tue 9:30 30 NBC
13t 32 Life With Luigi 11.1 Wrigley Chewing Gum Tue 9:00 30 CBS
15t 24 Mr District Attorney 10.7 Bristol Myers/Vitalis & Sal Hapatica Wed 9:30 30 NBC
15t 12 Mr Keen 10.7 American Home Prods./Kolynos Toothpaste Thu 7:30 30 CBS
17t 19 Bob Hawk Show 10.5 R,J, Reynolds/Camels Mon 10:30 30 CBS
17t 32 The Fat Man 10.5 Pepto Bismol Fri 8:00 30 ABC
19 28 The Big Story 10.4 American Tobacco/Pall Mall Cigarettes Wed 10:00 30 NBC
20t N Hollywood Star Playhouse 10.3 Emerson Drug/Bromo Seltzer Mon 8:00 30 CBS
20t 13 People Are Funny 10.3 Brown & Williamson/Raleigh & Kool Tue 10:30 30 NBC
22t 38 Dr. Christian 10.2 Vaseline Wed 8:30 30 CBS
22t 26 The FBI In Peace & War 10.2 Procter & Gamble/Lava Hand Soap Thu 8:00 30 CBS
22t 53 Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch 10.2 Wrigley Chewing Gum Sat 8:00 30 CBS
25 36 Gangbusters 10.1 General Foods/Grape Nuts Cereal Sat 9:00 30 CBS
26t 8 Bing Crosby Show 9.8 Liggett & Myers/Chesterfield Wed 9:30 30 CBS
26t N Hopalong Cassidy 9.8 General Foods/Grape Nuts Cereal Sat 8:30 30 CBS
26t 40 Our Miss Brooks 9.8 Colgate Palmolive/Lustre Creme Shampoo Sun 6:30 30 CBS
29t 16 Fanny Brice Baby Snooks Show 9.7 Lewis Howe/Tums Tue 8:30 30 NBC
29t 24 Great Gildersleeve 9.7 Kraft Foods/Parkay Margarine Wed 8:30 30 NBC
29t 32 Hallmark Playhouse 9.7 Hallmark Cards Thu 9:30 30 CBS
29t 28 Horace Heidt Youth Oppty Program 9.7 Philip Morris Cigarettes Sun 9:30 30 CBS
33 10 Bob Hope Show 9.6 Lever Bros./Swan Soap Tue 9:00 30 NBC
34 53 Father Knows Best 9.5 General Foods/Grape Nuts & Jello Thu 8:30 30 NBC
35t 48 Beulah 9.4 Procter & Gamble/Dreft Laundry Soap M-F 7:00 15 CBS
35t 22 Big Town 9.4 Lever Bros/Lifebuoy Soap Tue 10:00 30 NBC
35t 30 Judy Canova Show 9.4 Colgate Palmolive/Colgate Dental Cream Sat 10:00 30 NBC
38t 58 Meet Corliss Archer 9.3 Electric Companies Co-op Sun 9:00 30 CBS
38t 16 Suspense 9.3 Electric Autolite Thu 9:00 30 CBS
40 52 Aldrich Family 9.1 General Foods/Jello & Grape Nuts Cereal Thu 8:00 30 NBC
41 37 Truth Or Consequences 9.0 Philip Morris Tue 9:30 30 CBS
42t 23 The Dennis Day Show 8.8 Colgate Palmolive/Lustre Creme Sat 9:30 30 NBC (2)
42t 85 My Favorite Husband 8.8 General Foods/Maxwell House Sat 9:30 30 CBS
42t 35 This Is Your FBI 8.8 Equitable Life Assurance Fri 8:30 30 ABC
45t 60 Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet 8.7 Heinz Foods Fri 9:00 30 ABC
45t 64 Dragnet 8.7 Liggett & Myers/Fatima Cigarettes Thu 9:00 30 NBC
47 53 Vaughn Monroe Show 8.6 R.J. Reynolds/Camels Sat 7:30 30 CBS
48 70 The Railroad Hour 8.3 American Railroad Assn Mon 8:00 30 NBC
49 N Richard Diamond, Priv Detective 8.2 R.J. Reynolds/Camels Fri 8:00 30 ABC (3)
50t 44 Life of Riley 8.1 Pabst Beer Fri 10:00 30 NBC
50t 66 Roy Rogers Show 8.1 Quaker Oats Sun 6:00 30 MBS
50t 48 Theater Guild On The Air 8.1 US Steel Sun 8:30 60 NBC
(1) You Bet Your Life/Groucho Marx Oct - Dec Elgin-American Wed 9:00 30 NBC
(2) A Day In The Life of Dennis Day Oct - Jan Lustre Creme Shampoo Sat 9:30 30 NBC
(3) Richard Diamond, Private Detective Sep - Dec Rexall Drug Stores Wed 10:30 30 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 1950-51 Season
19th In A Series
Your Slips Are Showing. Television was hot and getting hotter. In a period reminiscent of radio’s growth spurt 20 years earlier, every family wanted a television receiver and 8,000 new sets were being delivered to American homes every day. By mid-1950, TV was boasting a reach that was double the size of the most widely circulated magazine, Reader’s Digest. Audience surveys estimated up to four viewers in every TV household every evening - four less listeners for prime time radio.
Audiences deserting to television and competition from independent stations began to take a heavy toll on Network Radio. The season’s Top 50 average program rating was down 20% for the first time since audience polling began.
None of radio’s most popular programs achieved a season average rating of 20 or higher.
The season’s Top 50 programs had a combined rating average of only 10.4 - a new low.
More telling, by mid-season radio network revenues had slipped below the $200 Million mark, while the entire radio industry’s total income increased to over $600 Million.
The reaction from ABC, CBS and NBC to this crisis was concern - but backed with little action because their attention had turned to television, too. Network television revenues for 1950 were reported at $85 Million. Although the amount was less than half the radio networks’ income for 1950, it had climbed by 190% in just one year. The question was no longer if television network revenues would overtake Network Radio, but when.
Nets’ Worth. Johnson Wax cancelled its 15 year sponsorship of Fibber McGee & Molly and sent shock waves through the industry. Advertisers were taking a closer, critical look at Network Radio costs. Nielsen introduced Program Costs provided by cooperating networks and sponsors to its rating reports The figures enabled observers to determine the cost efficiencies of sponsors’ investments by dividing the cost of each broadcast by the program’s rating, resulting in a Cost Per (rating) Point.
Program costs were the total of two items. The first, Network Time Charges, were based on program length to cover AT&T line costs and the number of affiliate stations paid to carry the program. The average time charge for a half hour prime time program was in the neighborhood of $535 per minute, for a 30 minute total of $16,000. With falling ratings, the networks were under pressure to lower their charges.
A bigger variance lay in the Talent & Production Charges associated with the different programs. These charges could range from less than $5,000 to almost $35,000. This was the area under closest scrutiny by advertisers scrambling to find money to invest in television.
Network Radio Prime Time Program Costs - 1950-51 Season
Time Talent Total Rating Cost
Charge & Prod Cost Average Per
(000) (000) (000) Point
Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet 17.9 10.9 28.8 8.7 $ 3,310.
The Aldrich Family 16.0 7.5 23.5 9.1 2,582.
American Album of Familiar Music 16.0 4.0 20.0 4.9 4,081.
Amos & Andy 16.7 28.8 45.5 14.0 3.250.
Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts 16.8 10.4 27.2 13.4 2,029.
Bing Crosby Show 17.7 34.5 52.2 9.8 5,327.
Bob Hawk Show 17.1 6.9 24.0 10.5 2,286.
Bob Hope Show 16.5 34.5 51.0 9.6 5,313.
Carnation Contented Hour 16.7 9.2 25.9 7.3 3,548.
Casey Crime Photographer 16.2 4.6 20.8 10.0 2,080.
Cities Service Band of America 12.6 7.5 20.1 4.7 4,277.
Club 15 (15 Min) 12.6 7.5 20.1 7.2 2,792.
A Day In The Life of Dennis Day 15.3 13.8 29.1 8.8 2,560.
Dr Christian 17.7 4.6 22.3 10.2 2,186.
Dragnet 16.5 4.6 21.1 8.7 2,425
Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy 18.5 25.9 44.4 14.7 3,020.
Fanny Brice as Baby Snooks 15.8 7.5 23.3 9.7 2,402.
The Fat Man 16.8 5.8 22.6 10.5 2,152.
Father Knows Best 16.3 8.6 24.9 9.5 2,621.
Fibber McGee & Molly 15.8 26.5 42.3 11.1 3,811.
Gangbusters 16.1 5.8 21.9 10.1 2,168.
Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch 17.3 17.3 34.6 10.2 3,392.
Grand Ole Opry 16.1 5.2 21.3 8.0 2,663.
Great Gildersleeve 16.1 11.5 27.6 9.7 2,845.
Hallmark Playhouse 17.6 11.5 29.1 9.7 3,000.
Hollywood Star Playhouse 16.5 6.9 23.4 10.3 2,272.
Horace Heidt Youth Oppty Prog 17.7 11.5 29.2 9.7 3,010.
Jack Benny Program 16.3 28.8 45.1 15.6 2,891.
Judy Canova Show 15.9 10.9 27.8 9.4 2,957.
The Life of Riley 15.6 10.9 26.5 8.1 3,272.
Life With Luigi 17.2 7.5 24.7 11.1 2,225.
Lowell Thomas News (15 Min) 7.4 1.4 8.8 7.1 1,239.
Lux Radio Theater (60 Min) 29.3 20.1 49.4 17.9 2,760.
Meet Corliss Archer 16.7 4.6 21.3 9.3 2,290.
Mr. & Mrs. North 15.3 7.5 22.8 11.2 2,036.
Mr. District Attorney 16.7 7.4 24.1 10.7 2,252.
Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons 16.6 4.6 21.2 10.7 1,981.
My Favorite Husband 16.5 8.1 20.1 8.8 2,284.
My Friend Irma 17.6 10.9 28.5 13.3 2,143.
NBC News of The World (15 Min) 10.4 0.9 11.3 6.0 1,883.
Nick Carter, Master Detective 12.0 2.5 14.5 6.7 2,164.
One Man’s Family (15 Min) 10.6 1.4 11.4 6.3 1,810.
Our Miss Brooks 14.4 8.6 23.0 9.8 2,347.
People Are Funny 6.4 8.6 25.0 10.3 2,427.
The Railroad Hour 16.9 14.4 31.3 8.3 3,771.
Red Skelton Show 16.5 21.0 37.5 11.9 3,151.
Richard Diamond, Priv Detective 16.6 5.2 21.8 8.2 2,659.
Roy Rogers Show 14.3 8.3 22.6 8.1 2,790.
Suspense 17.1 8.1 25.2 9.3 2,710.
The Telephone Hour 16.4 13.8 30.2 6.6 4,576.
Theater Guild On The Air (60 Min) 27.6 20.5 48.1 8.1 5,938.
Truth Or Consequences 16.0 10.9 26.9 9.0 2,989.
Vaughn Monroe Show 17.1 11.6 28.7 8.6 3,337.
Voice of Firestone 15.2 12.0 27.2 7.2 3,778.
Walter Winchell (15 Min) 13.0 8.5 21.5 12.4 1,734.
You Bet Your Life 16.8 13.2 30.0 11.8 2,542.
Your Hit Parade 16.1 12.7 28.8 7.7 3,740.
What Price Glory? How much did it actually cost the sponsoring advertisers to reach their shares of Network Radio’s dwindling prime time audience? The average charge to produce and distribute a half hour prime time network program to affiliated stations was $27,750. The average Cost Per Point to reach 1% of homes with radios was $2,930.
Costs To The Point of Cancellation. Two of the higher priced programs on a Cost Per Point basis, The American Album of Familiar Music and The Life of Riley, were gone from Network Radio at the end of the season.
Three others stood out with a Nielsen Cost Per Point in excess of $5,000. U.S. Steel’s hour long Theatre Guild On The Air was expensive because of its length and production charges. But NBC didn’t worry as long as the sponsor was happy. The steelmaker finally cancelled the high priced, prestigious program at the end of the 1952-53 season. Mean- while, the half hour shows hosted by Bing Crosby and Bob Hope also cracked the $5,000 mark with ratings that sank to single digits.
“ABC” On NBC & CBS. Liggett & Myers Tobacco was on an advertising splurge for its major brand, Chesterfield cigarettes. Bob Hope’s falling NBC radio ratings didn’t seem to be of any concern to the tobacco company, any more than Bing Crosby’s tumble on CBS.
Network Radio’s most expensive properties were bought to help push the brand's slogan, “A-B-C...Always Buy Chesterfields.” The fact that ABC was also the identity of their up and coming competitor was of no concern to the two networks. The sponsor’s money was good and that was all that mattered. What mattered to Chesterfield was the endorsement value of the two stars in colorful full page ads that were splashed across the back covers of the country’s leading magazines - and on Christmas gift cartons of cigarettes that bore their pictures. When the association was established, Liggett & Myers dropped both shows in 1952.
Shadowing A Bargain. One of the best buys wasn’t a major network prime time show, but lowly Mutual’s late Sunday afternoon offering, The Shadow. With a 7.9 rating and total cost of $12, 600, Lamont Cranston and his company from WOR/New York City registered a Cost Per Point of less than $1,600. (See The Shadow Nos.)
1932 Redeux. Jack Benny and Eddie Cantor were among a handful of Network Radio’s first stars from the 1932-33 season who began appearing regularly on the flickering television screens that were rapidly filling America’s living rooms. They weren't alone...
George Burns, 54, and 55 year old Gracie Allen launched their familiar radio sitcom on CBS-TV. Gertrude Berg, 52, brought her Goldbergs family to television for a weekly reunion. Fifty year old Fred Waring fronted a far larger orchestra and choral group on television than appeared on his first radio shows 18 years earlier and Wayne King, also 50, was still serenading viewers with romantic waltzes on TV as he had at the dawning of Network Radio’s Golden Age in 1932.
Sixty year old Paul Whiteman was even busier than his days in early radio, performing 90 minutes of live television on ABC-TV every weekend. And comedian Ed Wynn, 64, who made his first radio appearance in 1922, won the second annual Emmy as, “Television’s Most Outstanding Live Personality.”
As Seen On TV... The four television networks opened the 1950-51 season with 46 series rooted in Network Radio. The adaptations and simulcasts accounted for one-third of TV’s prime time programming.
CBS took its cue from NBC-TV’s heavy conversion of familiar radio titles to television the previous season. CBS-TV boasted 16 shows familiar to radio audiences: The Alan Young Show, Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts, (simulcast), Big Town, Blue Ribbon Bouts, The Burns & Allen Show, Perry Como’s Chesterfield Supper Club, The Frank Sinatra Show, The Fred Waring Show, The Gene Autry Show, The Goldbergs, The Horace Heidt Show, The Jack Benny Program, Lux Video Theater, Sing It Again, (simulcast), Truth Or Consequences and The Vaughn Monroe Show.
NBC-TV continued to draw from radio popularity with 16 programs: The Aldrich Family, The Big Story, Break The Bank, Friday Night Boxing, Kay Kyser’s College of Musical Knowledge, Leave It To The Girls, Lights Out, Martin Kane Private Eye, One Man’s Family, The Original Amateur Hour, The Quiz Kids, The Voice of Firestone, (simulcast), Wayne King’s Serenade, We The People, You Bet Your Life and Your Hit Parade.
ABC -TV trailed with a dozen: Beulah, Blind Date, Buck Rogers, Can You Top This?, Chance of a Lifetime, Dick Tracy, Don McNeill’s TV Club, First Nighter, Life Begins at 80, The Lone Ranger, Stop The Music, and Twenty Questions. The struggling DuMont Television Network added two more: Famous Jury Trials and The Adventures of Ellery Queen.
As listeners became viewers and flocked to see their radio favorites on television, Network Radio was left to wonder what to do about its loss of popularity and profits.
TV Takes Toll. CBS dominated Sunday radio with eight of the Top Ten programs - four of them lifted from NBC. Nevertheless, ratings continued to fall as television loaded Sunday night with star attractions.
Radio was faced with competition from some of its own with NBC-TV’s Colgate Comedy Hour at 8:00, starring rotating hosts Eddie Cantor, Fred Allen and Bob Hope. The 8:00 p.m. hour on Sunday had been radio’s peak prime time just two years earlier when Edgar Bergen, Fred Allen and Stop The Music! combined for 47.8 rating points. By 1950-51 only Bergen was left and his season’s average rating fell to a personal low 14.7. (1)
CBS-TV added to its Sunday star power on October 28th with the first of Jack Benny’s four television shows of the season. The programs were simply adaptations of his popular radio format, co-starring Eddie (Rochester) Anderson, singer/stooge Dennis Day and announcer/foil Don Wilson. Benny’s television schedule would gradually increase to a bi-weekly basis in 1953 - immediately following his 7:00 CBS radio show.
The Big Flop. NBC-TV chief Pat Weaver was given the added responsibility to run NBC Radio. His biggest and most expensive blunder in Network Radio was The Big Show. Weaver called the 90 minute extravaganza, “NBC’s Sunday Spectacular at Six.” It was intended to blunt the rating damage done by the defections of Jack Benny, Edgar Bergen and Amos & Andy to CBS. The Big Show was hosted by Broadway actress Tallulah Bankhead with Meredith Willson’s orchestra and chorus, and a weekly guest star list of famous singers, comedians and actors that would have scored double digit ratings - before television came along to steal radio’s audience.
The Big Show opened on November 5, 1950, backed by multiple, participating sponsors and a guest lineup that included Jimmy Durante, Fred Allen, Danny Thomas and singers Ethel Merman and Frankie Laine. Despite heavy advertising and its roster of stars, the show scored a disappointing 5.7 rating. It peaked the following month with an 8.0 and finished the season with a meager 5.5 average.
Adding insult to injury, The Big Show finished dead last in its 90 minute time period, beaten by CBS’s Our Miss Brooks and Jack Benny, ABC’s Drew Pearson commentary and Don Gardiner newscast plus Mutual’s Roy Rogers Show and Nick Carter, Master Detective. The Big Show sagged even further in the ratings the following season to a sorrowful 5.2 when NBC finally pulled the plug on the highly expensive failure in April, 1952. (See Tallulah's Big Show and Meredith Willson.)
Neat Corliss Archer. Bouncing into Sunday’s Top Ten was the night’s only program that gained audience over its previous season, albeit only one-tenth of a rating point. Meet Corliss Archer, was a family sitcom with 30 year old Janet Waldo in the title role of a breezy teenager. The show had kicked around the CBS schedule since 1943 before settling in for a five year stand on Sunday and three Top 50 seasons. Meet Corliss Archer remained with CBS for another year before moving on to a final season on ABC. However, Waldo’s young voice and unique delivery forever typecast her as a teenager. She was featured in scores of animated television shows including a 13 year run as Judy Jetson, the teenage daughter of The Jetsons. Janet Waldo was in her fifties and sixties at the time.
Happy Trails To The Top 50. Television brought new popularity to movie cowboy heroes.
Roy Rogers starred in eight Republic westerns during the 1950-51 season, all directed to the Saturday afternoon kids’ matinee audience with titles pegged to each film’s locale, Twilight In The Sierras, Sunset In The West, North of The Great Divide, In Old Amarillo, etc. In reality, most were filmed in Hollywood’s backyard, the San Fernando Valley.
The Roy Rogers Show became Mutual’s third prime time program to reach a season’s Top 50. The combination adventure and music show, similar in format to Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch, was sponsored by Quaker Oats. And like most of Rogers’ movies, the show co-starred his wife, singer Dale Evans. The couple’s closing duet, Happy Trails, written by Evans, became their signature song over the program’s seven year, two network run, bouncing between Mutual and NBC. The two were supported in the show by their movies’ sidekick comedians and musical groups. “The King of The Cowboys” and his wife jumped back to NBC the following season which coincided with the debut of their half-hour filmed adventure series that ran for six years on NBC-TV.
The Album’s Last Page. Sterling Drug’s Bayer Aspirin had sponsored The American Album of Familiar Music on NBC’s Sunday schedule since 1931 where it had finished in the season’s Top 50 nine times. For 17 of the its 19 years it had been a fixture at 9:30 p.m. - in nine of those years it was among Sunday’s Top Ten programs. The drug company abruptly ended the NBC association in mid-November when it shifted Frank & Anne Hummert’s concert of standards to the same time period on ABC without any appreciable loss of its dwindling ratings. Regardless, the program quietly left the air in June. (See Gus Haenschen and Frank Munn's Golden Voice.)
Wild Rooted In Commercials. Wildroot Cream Oil replaced its popular Adventures of Sam Spade on NBC with a new detective series carrying the blatantly commercial title, Charlie Wild, Private Detective. It’s no coincidence that the milky hair tonic’s jingle, already familiar to millions, began, “Ya better get Wildroot Cream Oil, Chaaarlie!” Listeners didn’t sing along. The half hour camouflaged commercial lost over half of Spade’s ratings. It was moved to CBS at 6:00 in January and became the only program ever to be out-rated by NBC’s lowly Big Show.
Hello, Americans! Chicago based newscaster Paul Harvey, 33, began his legendary network broadcasting career over 119 ABC stations on December 10th. His late Sunday night news and commentary drew a 2.3 rating for the season. The distinctive Harvey added his long running series of weekday newscasts on April 2, 1951, replacing veteran commentator H.R. Baukage on ABC’s midday schedule. He remained there for the next 58 years.
The Price Is Right. Lever Brothers happily endured the high costs of Monday night's Lux Radio Theater on CBS that approached $50,000 a week because radio’s Number One program carried a Cost Per Point that was just slightly above programs that were half its length and nowhere near its popularity. For the fourth consecutive season Lever and CBS dominated Monday with Lux, Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts and My Friend Irma in the Top Three positions. Camel cigarettes’ Bob Hawk quiz show repeated as the runner-up behind the Lever’s top trio, while a short-lived newcomer, Hollywood Star Playhouse, replaced Inner Sanctum to round out Monday’s Top Five.
The Real Mystery Is Why? Emerson Drugs’ Bromo Seltzer abruptly cancelled its long running Inner Sanctum in April, 1950, and replaced it with yet another mystery anthology series, Hollywood Star Playhouse. It was a questionable move because Inner Sanctum had enjoyed four consecutive seasons as a Top 25 program since moving to the CBS Monday schedule in 1946. It had placed among Monday’s Top Five in each of those seasons. (See Inner Sanctum.)
Hollywood Star Playhouse hit the air running in late April with original playlets starring Academy Award winners Jimmy Stewart, Broderick Crawford, Ray Milland and Claire Trevor. But that was a tough and expensive opening act to follow. The show opened the 1950-51 season featuring lesser names from the movies like Richard Widmark, Mercedes McCambridge, Anne Bancroft and Ida Lupino, but continued to present solid material with high production values. Despite its quality, Hollywood Star Playhouse lost 20% of Inner Sanctum’s ratings and was cancelled at the end of the season.
Meanwhile, Inner Sanctum was picked up by Mars Candy and moved to ABC in the 8:00 timeslot opposite Hollywood Star Playhouse on CBS and NBC’s high powered musical series, The Railroad Hour. Inner Sanctum lost 65% of its audience in the move and was cancelled after its one season run on ABC. (See The Railroad Hour.)
The Bands Pay On... NBC expanded Monday’s prestigious and profitable music programming of earlier seasons and slotted the NBC Symphony under the direction of Fritz Reiner into the ten o’clock hour against My Friend Irma and The Bob Hawk Show on CBS. The concerts hardly dented the ratings but were underwritten by drug manufacturer Squibb and rounded out four hours of classical, semi-classical and show music in NBC’s prime time that were fully sponsored by image seeking advertisers who obligingly footed the bills.
Bye, Bye, Baby. Fanny Brice joined Will Rogers and Joe Penner as another of radio’s great early comedians to die before the end of the Golden Age. Fresh from her comeback year on NBC's Tuesday night schedule when Baby Snooks finished in the annual Top 20 against the popular Mr. & Mrs. North on CBS, Brice didn’t quite make it to the end of the 1950-51 season. Her last performance as Baby Snooks was on May 22nd. She succumbed to a cerebral hemorrhage one week later. On that evening’s memorial broadcast her longtime co-star, Hanley (Daddy) Stafford, eulogized the 59 year old Brice as, “...A very real, a very warm and very wonderful person.” (See Baby Snooks.)
Milking The Laughs. Fibber McGee & Molly didn’t miss a beat when Johnson Wax cancelled its sponsorship of the venerable sitcom after 15 years. Pet Evaporated Milk promptly picked up the show that was coming off three consecutive seasons as Tuesday’s Number One program. The show didn’t change in the least with its new sponsor and it remained NBC’s top Tuesday entry. But Fibber McGee & Molly lost over 35% of its ratings and dropped out of the season’s Top Ten for the first time in a dozen years. A major reason for the sitcom’s loss of audience was the new competition offered in its time period by CBS, Truth Or Consequences.
The Truth Be Goin’. Ralph Edwards’ Truth Or Consequences had become a Saturday night fixture on NBC for ten years, all of them sponsored by Procter & Gamble’s Duz laundry soap. But the show had slipped since its Top Ten season in 1947-48 and P&G cancelled it in June, 1950. Philip Morris Cigarettes picked up the show and moved it to the CBS Tuesday schedule opposite Fibber McGee & Molly on NBC. (2) The maneuver set up a unique situation in which both of Network Radio’s big stunt shows, Truth Or Consequences on CBS and NBC's People Are Funny, were broadcast on the same night within half an hour of each other - and both finished in Tuesday’s Top Ten. (See Truth Or Consequences and People Are Funny.)
Thanks For The Memory of First Place. Fibber McGee & Molly bounced back into the next season’s Top Ten after its one year drop in ratings. The same wasn’t true for Bob Hope, whose Tuesday show had either preceded or followed Jim & Marian Jordan’s sitcom on NBC’s Tuesday schedule since 1938. Over the dozen years, Hope had five Number One seasons. From 1941 to 1947, Hope and Fibber McGee & Molly were radio’s unbeatable Tuesday combination that led NBC’s greatest years of dominance.
Bob Hope was popular as ever in his films, his increasing television schedule and his stage appearances. But the comedian’s radio ratings plummeted over 35% during the season into single digits, pushing him down to 33rd place in the annual rankings. More embarrassing to the comedian, his show finished second in its time period to a simplistic, low budget sitcom on CBS, Life With Luigi.
Howard’s Happy Hits. Cy Howard was the creator of two CBS comedy hits - Monday’s My Friend Irma and the Tuesday show that took down Bob Hope, Life With Luigi. The story of a humble Italian immigrant learning the ways of his new country in Chicago’s Little Italy district, Life With Luigi was dependent on the dialectal skills of its cast, headed by J. Carroll Naish in the title role. He was supported in Life With Luigi by character actors Alan Reed and Hans Conreid, both also members of My Friend Irma’s cast. (3)
The success of Howard’s Irma convinced CBS to develop Luigi and put it on the network schedule as a sustaining feature in 1948 then carry it until Wrigley Gum picked up its sponsorship in 1950. The network’s faith in its homegrown show paid off. Life With Luigi was given a timeslot that was once considered suicide opposite Bob Hope. Instead, the Italian accented sitcom developed a following against the overexposed comedian that resulted in a successful four year run and two finishes in the annual Top Ten. (See CBS Packages Unwrapped.)
Hello, I Must Be Going... Groucho Marx made it a hat trick by jumping to his third network in three years. The move to NBC pushed his You Bet Your Life comedy quiz into the season’s Top Ten - helped along by producer John Guedel’s insightful insistence that the show remain in the same Wednesday night time slot that it had occupied on CBS. Marx’s long term contract with NBC also included a television version of You Bet Your Life, which debuted on Thursdays in October, 1950. Both the radio and television editions of the quiz were sponsored by Chrysler Motors’ DeSoto and Plymouth automobiles.
With You Bet Your Life going for him on both radio and television, Marx was one of the few stars from radio’s earliest days whose popularity increased as Network Radio’s Golden Age slowly passed into history. You Bet Your Life became Wednesday’s top rated radio show for three consecutive years, during which it also finished among the seasons’ Top Ten programs. (See The One...The Only...Groucho! and A John Guedel Production.)
Bing’s Songs Fall Flat. Without the solid lead-in provided by Groucho Marx the previous season, Bing Crosby’s ratings on CBS at 9:30 suffered a 40% hit. Wednesday’s Number One show of 1949-50 fell into single digits - an all time low for Crosby’s Network Radio career that dated back to 1932. Like his pal Bob Hope on Tuesday, Crosby found himself a runner-up in his time period - in this case to NBC’s Mr. District Attorney. The 47 year old singer’s radio popularity would never again reach its earlier heights. One reason for his loss of audience can be attributed to the feeble lead-in provided by a rotund comedian who didn’t know how good he had it as The Great Gildersleeve on NBC and jumped to CBS in a new role - Hal Peary.
Weary Peary Walks Into Failure. Hal Peary had grown tired of his title role as The Great Gildersleeve which had become a fixture on the NBC schedule under Kraft Foods sponsorship since its spinoff from Fibber McGee & Molly in 1941. The sitcom had been a Top 50 show in each of its nine seasons, reaching the Top 25 in seven of them. In addition, Peary had been featured as Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve in nine film comedies.
Nevertheless, the 42 year old Peary left Gildersleeve and signed with CBS to star in a new sitcom he had created for himself, Honest Harold - a character in plots both remarkably similar to Gildersleeve. In a questionable scheduling move, CBS never gave Honest Harold a chance, slotting it in the 9:00 time period opposite Groucho Marx’s top rated You Bet Your Life. Unsponsored and unrated, Honest Harold left the air after one season.
Meanwhile, NBC had an immediate replacement for The Great Gildersleeve’s title role when Hal Peary walked. Willard Waterman was a veteran radio actor who both sounded and looked like Peary. Waterman made the most of his opportunity to star as the blustery water commissioner of Summerfield, and kept The Great Gildersleeve a solid ratings contender for the remaining seven years of its NBC radio run. Waterman also starred in 1955's television version of the sitcom on NBC-TV. (See The Great Gildersleeve(s))
Two Of Three Isn’t Bad. Only three of the year’s Top 50 weekly programs could boast rating increases over the previous season. Two were on NBC’s Thursday schedule. Father Knows Best added one tenth of a point and Dragnet’s rating was two-tenths higher. The increases were minimal but they were still better than the CBS competition fared. Father Knows Best was slotted against Thursday’s Number One program, Mr. Keen, which clung to first place despite a 23% loss of audience. Meanwhile, Suspense lost 30% opposite Dragnet. The overall downward trend in Network Radio's evening audience was obvious and would become even greater so the following season. Ironically, both Robert Young of Father Knows Best and Dragnet's Jack Webb hedged their bets with successful television adaptations of their radio shows. (See Jack Webb's Dragnet.)
Hear Spot! Although it didn’t reach and season’s Top 50 and never would, Screen Directors’ Playhouse showed a rare rating increase of 11% and broke into Thursday’s Top Ten. It was cancelled at the beginning of the following season. Nevertheless, the program made history within the industry as one of NBC Radio’s first prime time shows to be offered to a group of non-competing, participating advertisers for their spot announcements as opposed to a single advertiser sponsoring the entire program. Within a few years almost all radio and television programs would be sold in the same manner.
Casey Strikes Out. Casey, Crime Photographer had bounced around the CBS schedule since 1943, often used as a sustaining filler. The newspaper crime drama, featuring unique jazz piano interludes at the hero’s favorite hangout bar, Casey finally snared Anchor Hocking Glass as its sponsor in 1947 and scored the first of four consecutive Top 50 seasons, all of them ranking among Thursday’s Top Ten. The glass company dropped the program after one season but CBS had no problem in selling it to Toni Home Permanents for two years and Philip Morris Cigarettes beginning in 1949. The formulaic series starring veteran radio actor Staats Cotsworth as the sleuthing photographer was a ratings and commercial success. (4)
Casey was on its way to its fifth successful season, registering a 10.0 rating two months into the 1950-51 season, when it was cancelled by Philip Morris. Instead of carrying the show on a sustaining basis and using its proven track record as the lure for a new sponsor, CBS dumped the program. The network reasoned that post-war listeners wanted realistic crime dramas - evidenced by NBC’s Dragnet - not the simplistic, pulp fiction plots and heroes that were popular during the 1930's and 40's. Nevertheless, CBS-TV programmed a video version of Casey, Crime Photographer the following year and the radio series returned for 14 month encore run in 1954.
Copy Cat Cops? CBS installed a new network-developed melodrama at 10:00 p.m. on Thursdays, billed as, "...an authentic new police drama stressing realistic situations and dialogue, The Lineup." . Coming when it did on the CBS schedule, a half-hour following NBC’s Dragnet, comparisons between the two cop shows were natural. The Lineup was given strong a strong cast which included some of Hollywood’s best radio actors behind star Bill Johnstone - Joseph Kearns, Wally Maher, Raymond Burr, John McIntire and Sheldon Leonard. Despite its high production values, The Lineup was always considered a CBS attempt to cash in on Jack Webb’s ground-breaking approach to police drama in Dragnet. The Lineup remained on the CBS schedule for two and a half years. All but two months of the program’s run were sustaining - a reflection that Network Radio was becoming a tough sell.
Number One To Number None. Author Dashiell Hammett was radio poison. The political faction he headed, The Civil Rights Congress of New York, was branded a Communist front group by the Attorney General’s office in 1947. One by one, the programs with which Hammett’s name was associated, all disappeared. The Adventures of The Thin Man was gone in 1949, The Adventures of Sam Spade followed in 1950 and in January, 1951, it was The Fat Man’s turn despite its Number One ranking on Friday. It was moved to Wednesday, vanished from the Nielsen ratings and was gone nine months later. (See The Curse of Dashiell Hammett.)
Dick Is Another Name for Detective. When ABC’s 8:00 p.m. Friday timeslot became available with the departure of The Fat Man, Camel cigarettes plucked Richard Diamond, Private Detective from NBC and moved it into the upstart network’s popular Friday lineup.
The series was created by Blake Edwards who later contributed suave Peter Gunn to television and Peter Sellers’ bumbling Inspector Clouseau to films. Edwards tailored Richard Diamond for the talents of Dick Powell, Warner Brothers’ leading musical comedy star of the 1930's who was reshaping his image as a tough guy in a series of film noir mysteries for RKO.
Richard Diamond combined the two Powell persona. It was a light-hearted mystery series in which the happy go lucky hero would invariably break into a song before or after the business of pursuing the villain of the week. The smartly written show - with support given to Powell by some of Hollywood’s best radio actors - and finished in the season’s Top 50 for two consecutive years before the star turned his attention to television’s Four Star Playhouse in 1952. (See Dick Powell.)
Ride ’Em Cowboys! CBS corralled television’s cowboy craze for Network Radio on Saturday night. Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch was one of only a few weekly prime time programs to show a ratings increase over the previous season. After eight years on the air without a Top 50 finish, the singing cowboy vaulted into the season’s 22nd place with double digit ratings. Like Roy Rogers, who would later have a radio and television contract with NBC, Autry already had his own deal with CBS. His weekly half-hour filmed western adventure series debuted on CBS-TV’s prime time Sunday schedule in July, 1950, and remained with the network for six seasons.
Hip Hoppy. The synergy between radio and television to propel the popularity of cowboy movie stars was never more evident than the unlikely star who followed Autry on Saturday nights. Handsome, silver haired William Boyd had starred in 66 low budget Hopalong Cassidy westerns from 1935 through 1948.
The 53 year old Boyd saw the potential of television in 1948 and borrowed $350,000 to obtain the television rights to his 13 year library of films. He then successfully syndicated his movies to television stations which hungered for programming. Boyd was discovered by a new generation of fans and was on his way to becoming a multi-millionaire. Black clad Hopalong Cassidy aboard his white horse Topper was suddenly as popular with juvenile audiences as Roy Rogers and Trigger or Gene Autry and Champion.
General Foods and its ad agency, Foote, Cone & Belding, were quick to hop on Hoppy’s wagon with a nine month Sunday afternoon radio run on Mutual in early 1950. General’s Grape Nuts cereal moved the show to CBS in September to follow Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch on Saturday at 8:30. The transcribed Hopalong Cassidy adventures from Commodore Productions, literally shot their way into Saturday’s Top Ten and the annual Top 30 for two years until the cowboy fad ran its course.
To Make A Long Title Short. A Day In The Life of Dennis Day was faced with new competition when CBS and General Foods slotted Lucille Ball’s My Favorite Husband against the Irish tenor/comedian in September. The 9:30 time period became a ratings race between the two sitcoms until midway through the season when Colgate decided that Day’s format with the long-winded title had run its course after four Top 50 seasons and two consecutive Top 25 finishes. The show was converted to a variety format in January and became The Dennis Day Show, with the singer as its host. The mid-season switch didn’t work. Day’s ratings sank 30%.
The maneuver handed Ball the time period’s sitcom audience. As a result, the two shows finished the season in a dead heat. The tie was enough to give the red-headed comedienne her only Top 50 Network Radio season. (6)
Repeats Build Ratings. People Are Funny and You Bet Your Life producer John Guedel is rightfully hailed as an innovator. One of his ideas, however, didn’t seem to work at the time. In retrospect, he was simply ahead of his time.
Guedel was a pioneer in transcribed programming. His productions were recorded, edited and polished on tape as soon as technology and network permission allowed. But Guedel also saw an additional benefit to recorded programs - repeat broadcasts. He and his People Are Funny host/partner Art Linkletter introduced taped rebroadcasts of their Tuesday hit to NBC’s Saturday schedule in September, 1950. The concept provided sponsor Brown & Williamson Tobacco with relatively inexpensive programming that lacked most of its original production costs. It also gave NBC the revenue of 30 minutes’ network time that might have otherwise gone unsold faced with television’s increasing competition for Saturday night’s audience.
The one year run of People Are Funny rebroadcasts on NBC’s Saturday schedule averaged only a 3.7 rating. But combined with People’s Tuesday rating of 10.3, the two broadcasts’ total rating of 14.0 would have pushed People Are Funny into the season’s Top Five at a bargain basement price. Regardless, Brown & Williamson cancelled at the end of the season. Abandoned at the time, Guedel’s concept to build cumulative rating points through repeat programs is common in both broadcast and cable television today. (See A John Guedel Production.)
A CBS First. Amos & Andy couldn’t do it for CBS. Neither could Myrt & Marge nor I Love A Mystery. But Beulah did. The serialized sitcom became the first program broadcast by CBS to ever reach Number One in the Multiple Run category. Hattie McDaniel’s portrayal of the jolly and warm-hearted housemaid led CBS to its third of six consecutive seasons dominating the Multiple Run Top Ten.
Henry & Fanny’s Golden Years. One Man’s Family had enjoyed a peaceful three year semi-retirement on NBC’s Sunday afternoon schedule until Standard Brands dropped the show in 1949. The network carried the serial as a sustaining Sunday feature through the 1949-50 season but cancellation was imminent. Then, Miles Laboratories came to its rescue in June, 1950, and thrust the Barbour family back into prime time as a Monday through Friday strip at 7:45 p.m.
The success of the program’s conversion from a weekly half hour to the new nightly quarter hour format was immediate. Henry and Fanny Barbour’s clan broke into the Multiple Run Top Ten, edging out the CBS competition in their time period, newscaster Edward R. Murrow.
One Man’s Family outlived Network Radio’s Golden Age by half a dozen years, remaining in the 7:45 NBC timeslot until May, 1959. Its creator, Carleton E. Morse, supervised the entire 27 year run - all 3,256 episodes of the family saga.
How To Kill A Hero. ABC and sponsor General Mills broke the spirit of America’s favorite late afternoon adventure serial in 1947. Jack Armstrong, The All American Boy was converted from a daily 15 minute strip to half-hours of self-contained stories, alternating every other day with another conversion to the 30 minute format, Sky King.
Gone were the extended stories that could drag on for months and the cliff hanging Friday episodes that kept kids hooked on the shows over weekends. The network and sponsor rebuffed these two soap opera elements that also contributed to listener loyalty among juvenile serial fans. Nevertheless, the two watered-down half hour melodramas remained on the ABC schedule for three seasons until June, 1950, when Sky King moved to Mutual, where it stayed alive for four more years.
Jack Armstrong wasn’t so lucky. After a three month hiatus over the summer of 1950, “The All American Boy” suddenly grew up as Armstrong of The SBI and moved into ABC’s prime time on Tuesday and Thursday at 7:30, alternating with The Lone Ranger’s Monday-Wednesday-Friday broadcasts. Both shows were sponsored by General Mills.
Charles Flynn had played teenager Jack Armstrong since 1939. At age 30 he could finally use his adult speaking voice as a government agent in pursuit of villains for the Scientific Bureau of Investigation. But listeners didn’t buy the new storyline. Armstrong of The SBI trailed The Lone Ranger’s ratings in the 7:30 time period by over 25%, sinking into low single digits. The series was cancelled in June and the once legendary role-model for a generation of kids was gone. (See Serials, Cereals & Premiums.)
(1) The Colgate lineup also featured the hot new comedy team, Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis, whose NBC radio show was having a hard time catching on.
(2) Pitted against the stiff competition of Fibber McGee & Molly on NBC, Truth Or Consequences’ rating fell into single digits and its lowest-ever ranking, barely remaining in the season’s Top 50. Edwards, Philip Morris and CBS parted ways at the end of the season. Ironically, Truth Or Consequences popped up next on NBC in the summer of 1952 as the vacation replacement for its former competition, Fibber McGee & Molly.
(3) J. Carroll Naish’s versatility in ethnic characterizations was on full display as Chief Sitting Bull in MGM’s 1950 musical Annie Get Your Gun and as television’s Charlie Chan in the late 1950's.
(4) Staats Cotsworth was the latest in a string of actors who played Casey, Crime Photographer. He was supported by veteran radio talents Jan Miner and John Gibson plus top New York studio actors.
(5) The flood of revenue from his old movies, personal appearances and merchandise sales enabled Boyd to produce another 54 hour and half hour episodes of Hopalong Cassidy tales for television. His 1950-51 Sunday series on NBC-TV ranked ninth among all television programs for the season.
(6) Lucille Ball left radio in April, 1951. Taking My Favorite Husband's producer, Jess Oppenheimer, and its two writers, Bob Carroll and Madelyn Pugh, with her, she and husband Desi Arnaz introduced their legendary CBS-TV sitcom, I Love Lucy, seven months later.
Top 50 Network Programs - 1950-51
A.C. Nielsen Radio Index Sept 1950-June 1951
Total Programs Rated, 6-11p.m.: 163 Programs Rated 13 Weeks & Ranked: 126.
40,700,000 Radio Homes 94.7% Coverage of US One Rating Point = 407,000 Homes
1 1 Lux Radio Theater 17.9 Lever Bros./Lux Soap Mon 9:00 60 CBS
2 2 Jack Benny Program 15.6 American Tobacco/Lucky Strike Sun 7:00 30 CBS
3 7 Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy 14.7 Coca Cola Sun 8:00 30 CBS
4 9 Amos & Andy 14.0 Rexall Drug Stores Sun 7:30 30 CBS
5 3 Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts 13.4 Lever Bros./Lipton Tea Mon 8:30 30 CBS
6 5 My Friend Irma 13.3 Lever Bros./Pepsodent Toothpaste Mon 10:00 30 CBS
7 6 Walter Winchell’s Journal 12.4 Andrew Jergens/Hudnut Cosmetics Sun 9:00 15 ABC
8 14 Red Skelton Show 11.9 Procter & Gamble/Tide Detergent Sun 8:30 30 CBS
9 11 You Bet Your Life 11.8 Chrysler Corp./Plymouth & DeSoto Wed 9:00 30 NBC (1)
10 15 Mr Chameleon 11.6 Sterling Drug/Bayer Aspirin Wed 8:00 30 CBS
11 16 Mystery Theater 11.4 Sterling Drug/Bayer Aspirin Tue 8:00 30 CBS
12 26 Mr& Mrs North 12.3 Colgate Palmolive/Halo Shampoo Tue 8:30 30 CBS
13t 4 Fibber McGee & Molly 11.1 Pet Milk Tue 9:30 30 NBC
13t 32 Life With Luigi 11.1 Wrigley Chewing Gum Tue 9:00 30 CBS
15t 24 Mr District Attorney 10.7 Bristol Myers/Vitalis & Sal Hapatica Wed 9:30 30 NBC
15t 12 Mr Keen 10.7 American Home Prods./Kolynos Toothpaste Thu 7:30 30 CBS
17t 19 Bob Hawk Show 10.5 R,J, Reynolds/Camels Mon 10:30 30 CBS
17t 32 The Fat Man 10.5 Pepto Bismol Fri 8:00 30 ABC
19 28 The Big Story 10.4 American Tobacco/Pall Mall Cigarettes Wed 10:00 30 NBC
20t N Hollywood Star Playhouse 10.3 Emerson Drug/Bromo Seltzer Mon 8:00 30 CBS
20t 13 People Are Funny 10.3 Brown & Williamson/Raleigh & Kool Tue 10:30 30 NBC
22t 38 Dr. Christian 10.2 Vaseline Wed 8:30 30 CBS
22t 26 The FBI In Peace & War 10.2 Procter & Gamble/Lava Hand Soap Thu 8:00 30 CBS
22t 53 Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch 10.2 Wrigley Chewing Gum Sat 8:00 30 CBS
25 36 Gangbusters 10.1 General Foods/Grape Nuts Cereal Sat 9:00 30 CBS
26t 8 Bing Crosby Show 9.8 Liggett & Myers/Chesterfield Wed 9:30 30 CBS
26t N Hopalong Cassidy 9.8 General Foods/Grape Nuts Cereal Sat 8:30 30 CBS
26t 40 Our Miss Brooks 9.8 Colgate Palmolive/Lustre Creme Shampoo Sun 6:30 30 CBS
29t 16 Fanny Brice Baby Snooks Show 9.7 Lewis Howe/Tums Tue 8:30 30 NBC
29t 24 Great Gildersleeve 9.7 Kraft Foods/Parkay Margarine Wed 8:30 30 NBC
29t 32 Hallmark Playhouse 9.7 Hallmark Cards Thu 9:30 30 CBS
29t 28 Horace Heidt Youth Oppty Program 9.7 Philip Morris Cigarettes Sun 9:30 30 CBS
33 10 Bob Hope Show 9.6 Lever Bros./Swan Soap Tue 9:00 30 NBC
34 53 Father Knows Best 9.5 General Foods/Grape Nuts & Jello Thu 8:30 30 NBC
35t 48 Beulah 9.4 Procter & Gamble/Dreft Laundry Soap M-F 7:00 15 CBS
35t 22 Big Town 9.4 Lever Bros/Lifebuoy Soap Tue 10:00 30 NBC
35t 30 Judy Canova Show 9.4 Colgate Palmolive/Colgate Dental Cream Sat 10:00 30 NBC
38t 58 Meet Corliss Archer 9.3 Electric Companies Co-op Sun 9:00 30 CBS
38t 16 Suspense 9.3 Electric Autolite Thu 9:00 30 CBS
40 52 Aldrich Family 9.1 General Foods/Jello & Grape Nuts Cereal Thu 8:00 30 NBC
41 37 Truth Or Consequences 9.0 Philip Morris Tue 9:30 30 CBS
42t 23 The Dennis Day Show 8.8 Colgate Palmolive/Lustre Creme Sat 9:30 30 NBC (2)
42t 85 My Favorite Husband 8.8 General Foods/Maxwell House Sat 9:30 30 CBS
42t 35 This Is Your FBI 8.8 Equitable Life Assurance Fri 8:30 30 ABC
45t 60 Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet 8.7 Heinz Foods Fri 9:00 30 ABC
45t 64 Dragnet 8.7 Liggett & Myers/Fatima Cigarettes Thu 9:00 30 NBC
47 53 Vaughn Monroe Show 8.6 R.J. Reynolds/Camels Sat 7:30 30 CBS
48 70 The Railroad Hour 8.3 American Railroad Assn Mon 8:00 30 NBC
49 N Richard Diamond, Priv Detective 8.2 R.J. Reynolds/Camels Fri 8:00 30 ABC (3)
50t 44 Life of Riley 8.1 Pabst Beer Fri 10:00 30 NBC
50t 66 Roy Rogers Show 8.1 Quaker Oats Sun 6:00 30 MBS
50t 48 Theater Guild On The Air 8.1 US Steel Sun 8:30 60 NBC
(1) You Bet Your Life/Groucho Marx Oct - Dec Elgin-American Wed 9:00 30 NBC
(2) A Day In The Life of Dennis Day Oct - Jan Lustre Creme Shampoo Sat 9:30 30 NBC
(3) Richard Diamond, Private Detective Sep - Dec Rexall Drug Stores Wed 10:30 30 NBC
This post is in part abridged from Network Radio Ratings, 1932-1953.
Copyright © 2012 & 2019, Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com