Germany’s invasion of Poland in September, 1939,
put network news departments on a wartime
status. All maintained bureaus in London, Paris
and Berlin. CBS and NBC also established Rome
offices and NBC had additional reporters
stationed in Geneva, Shanghai, Tokyo and Danzig,
(Gdansk), Poland. NBC maintained
larger staffs working in each city but CBS was
promoting its
Edward R. Murrow
and
H.V.
Kaltenborn
in London,
Eric
Sevareid
in Paris,
William L. Shirer
in Berlin and
Cecil
Brown
in Rome as star personalities with their
frequent appearances on Today
In Europe,
the network’s twice daily predecessor to The
World Today.
As
Americans became more news hungry as world
tensions continued to build. Walter Winchell
fed raw meat to the hungry public every Sunday
night with his own brand of rapid fire “insider”
news and gossip. Blue moved the syndicated
columnist’s frantic 15 minute Jergens
Journal back
from 9:30 to 9:00 p.m. Winchell’s. rating
jumped 38% for his first of eight consecutive
Top Ten seasons The program remained at 9:00
for 15 years, registering an overall total of
twelve Top Ten finishes.
NBC's James Bowen scored radio's scoop of
the year from Montevideo, Uruguay, on December
12th when he described via short wave the
scuttling of the German battleship Graf
Spree,
which was barricaded in the harbor by British
warships. Bowen’s reports were the first
eyewitness descriptions of encounters between
World War II combatants.
CBS introduced a five minute news summary and
commentary carved from the end of the hour at
8:55, seven nights a week. Neither
mellow-voiced Bob Trout nor John Daly
were chosen to deliver the newscast.
Instead, CBS chose 50 year old former New
York Times editor,
Elmer Davis who went on the air on
September 18, 1939. His nasal,
matter-of-fact delivery of the news
interspersed with incisive comments quickly
established him as a major voice ... Within
several years Davis would have an even greater
influence on the news that America heard when
President Roosevelt appointed him Director
of The U.S. Office of War Information.
The
networks and the entire radio industry enjoyed
the first of three consecutive years of double
digit revenue growth. To stifle grumbles in the
press about over-commercialization, The
National Association of Broadcasters
stayed a step ahead of public resentment and
government scrutiny in July by adopting a well
publicized
Commercial Code
for its member stations and networks. Among
other regulations which banned the advertising
of hard liquor and fortune tellers, it ruled
that sponsored nighttime hours would be limited
to six minutes of commercial copy.
General
Foods reported selling the most goods in its
history in 1939, netting over $15 Million while
advertising more than 80 products on 14 network
radio programs. None of those programs was more
important than Jack Benny’s Sunday night
show on NBC for Jello which became the nation’s
most popular program with an season average
rating of 30.9 ... No
program was more important to General Foods’
competitor Standard Brands than its Sunday night
Chase & Sanborn Hour with Edgar Bergen
& Charlie McCarthy on NBC which racked up 22
consecutive months as the nation’s Number One
program until Benny edged it out in November.
ASCAP
wanted a 50% increase in its blanket music
license fees for stations and networks, raising
the ante to seven and a half percent of gross
revenues. Based on 1939’s billings, the increase
threatened to raise the industry’s toll to
nearly $14 Million a year. Instead of folding
to ASCAP’s demands, the National Association of
Broadcasters established Broadcast Music
Incorporated , (BMI), on September 15, 1939,
as an alternate music licensing source with a
fee structure less than half of ASCAP’s rate ...
The new BMI invited compositions from fledgling
songwriters who didn’t meet ASCAP’s standards
for membership which favored established
composers and virtually shut out newcomers. The
last maneuver resulted in over a thousand new
songs a week flooding into BMI … BMI began its
licensing operations on April 1, 1940, with a
roster of 250 member stations plus all four
networks. All agreed to trim their use of ASCAP
music in favor of BMI compositions, ready for
the inevitable showdown that was nine months
away.
CBS led
the 1939-40 Hooperatings race with 28 of the Top
50 programs. NBC fell back to 18 and Blue
again trailed with four.