Saturday, September 7, 2024

Radio History: Sep 8


➦In 1907...actor John 'Jack" Mather Born. (Died from heart attack at age 58 – August 16, 1966). He a radio and television actor, best known for playing The Cisco Kid on Mutual radio from 1947 to 1956. and for being the original voice of Wally Walrus.

➦In 1930...WBEN signed on in Buffalo, NY.  However, its history dates to the 1920s. WBEN initially used the facility built by the Norton Laboratories organization from Boston, as part of an experiment to send voice transmissions between Niagara Falls, New York, and Cambridge, Massachusetts, as WMAK.

When WMAK was launched in 1922 it operated initially from Lockport, New York at 833 kHz. The station later moved its transmitter to North Tonawanda, New York (broadcasting at 1130 kHz there) and then landing on 900 kHz, with 1000 watts of power, as a result of General Order 40, which realigned American AM radio allocations in 1927–28. In the late 1920s WMAK was acquired by the Buffalo Broadcasting Company, based at Buffalo's Rand Building, which also controlled WGR and WKBW in Buffalo. WMAK was a charter member of the CBS Radio Network, being one of the 16 stations that aired the first CBS network program on September 18, 1927.

WMAK was closed in the spring of 1930 as federal regulators began probing concentration of media ownership in the nation's largest radio markets. Buffalo Broadcasting Company chose to retain WGR and WKBW while shutting down WMAK and another daytime-only station, WKEN in suburban Kenmore, New York.

At the same time, the Buffalo Evening News was granted a broadcast license of its own, purchased the decommissioned transmitting facility of WMAK on Shawnee Road in Martinsville (North Tonawanda, New York) and re-licensed it as WBEN.

A new studio complex was built at the Statler-Hilton Hotel in downtown Buffalo (chosen primarily for access to the live orchestra there), and served WBEN, its sister FM station and sister television station (which opened in the spring of 1948) for more than 25 years.

In 1941, the station moved to its current position on the dial, at 930 kHz, as a result of the North American Radio Broadcasting Agreement (NARBA).

The station also relocated its transmitter to Grand Island at during this time, increasing full-time power to its current 5,000 watts. The Grand Island transmitter and two towers are still in use today.

Click Here for more WBEN History.

The Hoboken Four with Major Bowes

➦In 1935...A singing group called the Hoboken Four, one of whose members is named Frank Sinatra, made their first national appearance, performing on WOR's radio show Major Bowes Amateur Hour.

The Hoboken Four won the contest that night. Bowes said: “They walked right into the hearts of their audience.” The prize was a 6-month contract to perform on stage and on radio and they were earning a lot more than before.

The Bickersons

➦In 1946...The Bickersons was a radio comedy sketch series debuted on NBC, moving the following year to CBS where it continued until August 28, 1951. The show's married protagonists, portrayed by Don Ameche and Frances Langford, spent nearly all their time together in relentless verbal war.

➦In 1954...Alan Freed departed Cleveland, Ohio for New York City and 1010 WINS radio.

The station eventually became an around-the-clock Top 40 rock and roll radio station, and would remain so until April 19, 1965—long after Freed left and three months after he had died— when it became an all-news outlet.

➦In 1969...the radio voice of Superman (and TV game show host)  Clayton “Bud” Collyer (Beat the Clock, To Tell the Truth), died of a circulatory ailment at age 61.

Collyer's best-remembered radio starring role began in early 1940 in The Adventures of Superman on the Mutual Broadcasting System, a role he also performed in the subsequent Superman cartoons.

Collyer supplied the voices of both Superman and his alter ego Clark Kent, opposite radio actress Joan Alexander as Lois Lane. Every Superman episode featured a scene in which Clark Kent changed into his Superman costume, an effect which Collyer conveyed by shifting voices while speaking the phrase "This is (or "looks like") a job for Superman!" his voice always dropping when becoming Superman.

Also pictured is Superman announcer Jackson Beck is on the left.

Willie Tyler is 84
🎂HAPPY BIRTHDAYS:
  • Ventriloquist Willie Tyler (with Lester) is 84. 
  • Actor Alan Feinstein is 83. 
  • Singer Sal Valentino of The Beau Brummels is 82. 
  • Bassist Will Lee of the CBS Orchestra (“Late Show with David Letterman”) is 72. 
  • Actor Heather Thomas (“The Fall Guy”) is 67. 
  • Singer Aimee Mann is 64. 
  • Bassist David Steele of Fine Young Cannibals is 64. 
  • Actor Thomas Kretschmann (“The Pianist”) is 62. 
  • Singer Marc Gordon of Levert is 60. 
  • Gospel singer Darlene Zschech is 59. 
  • Singer Neko Case is 54. 
  • Actor David Arquette is 53. 
  • TV personality Brooke Burke is 53. 
  • Actor Martin Freeman (“Black Panther,” ″The Hobbit”) is 53. 
  • TV personality Kennedy is 52. 
  • Drummer Richard Hughes of Keane is 49. 
  • Actor Larenz Tate is 49. 
  • Actor Nathan Corddry (“Mom”) is 47. 
  • Singer Pink is 45. 
  • Singer-songwriter Eric Hutchinson is 44. 
  • Actor Jonathan Taylor Thomas (“Home Improvement”) is 43. 
  • Rapper Wiz Khalifa is 37. 
  • Actor Gaten Matarazzo (“Stranger Things”) is 22.

✞REMEMBRANCES
  • In 1969..Bud Collyer, American TV emcee (Beat the Clock, To Tell the Truth), dies at 61
  • In 1970..Percy Spencer, American inventor of the microwave oven, dies at 76
  • In 2017..Donald "Don" Williams, American country singer ("I Believe in You"), dies from emphysema at 78
  • In 2022..Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland (country's longest reigning monarch 1952-2022), dies at 96

NBC Cuts ‘The Tonight Show' To Four Nights A Week


NBC’s “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” will have four fresh editions a week instead of five when the fall TV season begins this month.

The LA Times reports Fallon’s show aired four nights a week throughout the summer, the same frequency as other late-night shows, including NBC’s “Late Night With Seth Meyers,” CBS’ “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show.”

An NBC representative had no official comment, but a person with knowledge of the plan confirmed that the show will stick to the summer schedule going forward.

“The Tonight Show” is the granddaddy of the desk-and-sofa format, debuting in 1954 with Steve Allen as host and reaching its cultural apex with the three-decade run of Johnny Carson. The New York-based show has aired continually on a five-days-a-week basis since, with Fallon taking over the host chair from Jay Leno in 2014.

Late-night talk shows were long a massively lucrative genre for broadcast networks, with hosts seeing salaries that approached $30 million a year. The shows were highly desirable to advertisers because they were effective at reaching younger viewers.

But the programs are having to adjust their budgets as the erosion of traditional TV viewing habits due to streaming has reduced their audiences considerably over the years.

Many young fans of the late-show hosts know them through videos of segments on social media and YouTube.

The trends have led to budget tightening across the genre. After Trevor Noah departed “The Daily Show” in 2022, the program used guest hosts for years before bringing back Jon Stewart on a once-a-week basis. “Daily Show” correspondents show up as hosts on other nights.

Earlier this year, NBC cut the live band that was long a part of “Late Night With Seth Meyers.”

While NBC is reducing costs, the network has signed new multiyear deals with Fallon and Meyers that keep them in their roles through 2028.

TV Ratings: 33M Watched NFL Kick-Off Game

 A rematch of last season’s AFC Championship Game headlined by star quarterbacks Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson, Ravens-Chiefs averaged an NFL Kickoff Game-record Total Audience Delivery (TAD) of 28.9 million viewers on NBC and Peacock, based on live plus same day custom fast nationals from Nielsen and digital data from Adobe Analytics. Ravens-Chiefs topped viewership for last year’s NFL Kickoff Game opener by 5% (27.5 million for Lions-Chiefs).


NBC Sports’ coverage peaked at 33 million viewers in the second quarter (between 9:30-9:45 p.m. ET).

The Average Minute Audience (AMA) for last night’s live stream via Peacock, NBC Sports Digital platforms, and NFL Digital platforms, was 4.6 million viewers – the 2nd most simulstreamed NBC NFL game ever, topping three NBC Super Bowls (trailing only Super Bowl LVI in 2022) – and up 65% from last year’s NFL Kickoff Game (2.8 million).

Last night’s game (8:45 p.m.-11:55 p.m. ET) registered a national TV household rating of 12.6/37. The 37 share is NBC’s largest for any regular-season game since debuting the SNF package in 2006.


Utilizing Nielsen’s new Big Data + Panel methodology, Ravens-Chiefs would stand as the only NFL Kickoff game with an estimated TAD topping 30 million viewers. Under the new methodology, the Nielsen average viewership is projected to increase from 24.3 million viewers to 25.7 million viewers. Adding the 4.6 million streaming viewers, the TAD is 30.3 million viewers.

Watching the NFL on TV Has Gotten Ridiculously Expensive


Being a football fan in 2024 means having to shell out for a bevy of streaming platforms that until recently have never had exclusive rights to games.

In total, four different streamers will exclusively air games this year, according to The Wall Street Journal

Amazon’s Prime Video will continue to have the biggest chunk, headlined by Thursday Night Football, which it began airing in 2022. This year, Amazon has added to its roster with a playoff game, one year after debuting a Black Friday matchup. Also new in 2024: Netflix got its first NFL games when it bought the rights to the league’s Christmas action, a pair of high-profile Wednesday showdowns: the reigning champion Kansas City Chiefs against the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens taking on the Houston Texans. 

Additionally, ESPN+ will have a Los Angeles Chargers-Arizona Cardinals game as part of a Monday night double-header in October. 

Paying for all four services can run you nearly $50 a month. Even with annual plans that offer discounted rates, that can add up to more than $500 for the year. For the complete die-hards, adding the out-of-market Sunday games through Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV would add another $479 to the bill.  

All of which means that an NFL fan who wants access to every snap could wind up paying over $1,000 including monthly cable bills.

WSJ Graphic

While the games are increasingly spread out across various platforms, the ones on streaming services only represent a small percentage of the NFL’s overall inventory. Only 20 of the league’s 272 regular-season games this season, or 7.4%, will air exclusively on the four streamers nationally. Those games, like all nationally televised ones, are also available on free networks in local markets. 

The vast majority of matchups are still on CBS and Fox, and with additional Sunday night and Monday night games on NBC and ABC, respectively, 85.3% of the action will air on network television. That’s a far higher percentage than other major American sports leagues, which often rely on regional sports networks or cable channels for their nationally televised games.

The Associated Press Eats Crow

The Associated Press deleted a post it had made on X that claimed GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance urged the public to accept school shootings as a “fact of life.”

The NY Post reports the news service ran the partial quote after the Ohio Senator spoke in the wake of the massacre at Apalachee High School in Winder, Ga., which left four people dead and nine wounded on Wednesday

“JD Vance says school shootings are a ‘fact of life,’ calls for better security,” the AP posted to the social media platform on Thursday.

The AP’s post on X was soon flooded with angry responses which accused the news agency of taking his comments out of context.

Critics noted that Vance’s full quote was: “I don’t like that this is a fact of life. But if you are a psycho and you want to make headlines, you realize that our schools are soft targets. And we have got to bolster security at our schools.”

In a follow-up X post, the AP amended its headline to read: “JD Vance says he laments that school shootings are a ‘fact of life’ and says the US needs to harden security to prevent more carnage like the shooting this week that left four dead in Georgia.”

William Martin, a spokesperson for Vance, blasted the AP, telling Fox News Digital: “This is yet another case of the fake news media brazenly lying about a Republican politician.”

CBS News, Radio To Provide Coverage of Presidential Debate


CBS News will deliver AMERICA DECIDES: CAMPAIGN '24 coverage of the presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday, Sept. 10, across shows and streams. CBS News' live, multiplatform debate coverage begins at 5:00 PM, ET, on CBS News 24/7, followed by primetime coverage at 8:00 PM, ET on the CBS Television Network, CBS News 24/7 and Paramount+.

CBS News will simulcast the presidential debate hosted by ABC News across television and streaming platforms starting at 9:00 PM, ET. Following the debate, CBS News' team of political journalists will provide original reporting, fact-checking and analysis from CBS News' election headquarters in Times Square and at the debate site in Philadelphia.

CBS News Radio will begin coverage at 8:30 PM with a pre-debate program hosted by White House reporter Linda Kenyon. Washington D.C. reporter Michael Toscano will also be a part of the pre-debate programming.

Norah O'Donnell will anchor the primetime coverage from New York and will be joined in-studio by CBS News chief political analyst John Dickerson, FACE THE NATION moderator and chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Brennan, chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes and senior White House and political correspondent Ed O'Keefe. CBS News chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett will lead CBS News Confirmed fact-checking, and executive director of elections and surveys Anthony Salvanto will deliver new CBS News battleground state polling.

CBS News' digital platforms, including CBSNews.com, the CBS News app and CBS News social channels will provide dedicated coverage. CBS News' debate programming will stream everywhere CBS News 24/7 is distributed, including Paramount+ and Pluto TV. CBS News Radio will provide special coverage starting at 8:30 PM, ET, including a simulcast of the debate. Jarred Hill and Natalie Brand will report from Philadelphia for CBS Newspath.

Salem Radio Network Providing Radio Coverage of Debate


Salem Radio Network talk host (and former political candidate) Larry Elder will host a two-hour Trump/Harris Pre-Debate Special from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm Eastern Tuesday, September 10th prior to the start of the ABC News debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

The program will air live on the Salem Radio Network (SRN) and on Salem News Channel (SNC).

SRN's Vice President/News & Talk Programming Tom Tradup said, "We are grateful to ABC News for allowing SRN to simulcast this important debate just days before five states-Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Virginia, Vermont and Illinois-begin in-person early voting during September."

He added, "SRN's live simulcast of the ABC News Presidential Debate and our own Trump/Harris Pre-Debate Special are part of SRN's continuing commitment to keep affiliates and listeners informed on major breaking news stories throughout Campaign 2024."

LA Radio: Kevin and Sluggo Out At KLOS


The “Kevin & Sluggo Show” was noticeably missing Friday afternoon on Los Angeles’ KLOS-FM, as hosts Kevin Ryder and Doug “Sluggo” Roberts were given their walking papers. 

The decision to eliminate the afternoon drivetime slot at KLOS comes as owner Meruelo Media has made drastic cuts at several of its local radio stations, which also include KPWR-FM “Power 106,” KDAY-FM and KLLI-FM “Cali 93.9.”

Meruelo had earlier this year eliminated all of the midday hosts at all four of its L.A. stations, as well as some part-timers and off-air staffers. At KLOS, that included midday jock Marci Wiser, who had been there since 2015. Also in February, Meruelo let go of Power 106 afternoon host DJ Felli Fel (real name James Andrew Corrine), who had been at that station since 2000/

Ryder revealed the news of his and Roberts’ departure on Friday via social media, noting that earlier that day KLOS had strangely announced a “Where’s Kevin?” marketing campaign with Honda… right before letting him go.

Ryder and Roberts launched “Kevin & Sluggo” on KLOS in 2021.

Ryder has been a fixture of the local radio airwaves for decades. He was previously with KROQ-FM (106.7), where he helmed the morning program “Kevin and Bean” for roughly three decades with his longtime on-air partner, Gene “Bean” Baxter.

iHM Promotes Jill Strada To SVP Based In Atlanta


iHeartMedia announced Friday that Jill Strada has been named Senior Vice President of Programming for Atlanta, effective immediately. She will report to Spencer Bynes, Market President for iHeartMedia Atlanta.

Jill Strada
“We are thrilled to welcome Jill Strada to the iHeart Atlanta team,” says Bynes. “Jill has a remarkable talent for launching, developing, and elevating brands in fiercely competitive markets. Her proven track record of success and unwavering dedication to excellence make her an outstanding addition to our leadership team.”

Strada joins the Atlanta market from Cox Media Group Miami, where she most recently served as the Director of Operations. She also served as the Assistant Program Director for WBQT in Boston, Program Director for WPOW in Miami, Program Director for WRKS in New York and Assistant Program Director for WHQT in New York. She began her career at Cox Media Group in Orlando.

“I am absolutely delighted to join iHeartMedia Atlanta,” says Strada. “I extend my deepest gratitude to Spencer Bynes and Tony Travatto for this incredible opportunity. This is a company where innovation meets passion, and I’m eager to contribute to the growth of our brands, collaborate with such a brilliant group of people, and to lead such a talented team. Being part of America’s top audio company is an honor, and I’m excited about the incredible journey ahead.”

Hedge Fund Aims To Break-Up Rupert Murdoch's Grip On News Corp


Hedge fund Starboard Value has filed a shareholder resolution to do away with the dual-class shares that allow Rupert Murdoch to control News Corp, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal, according to Reuters citing people familiar with the matter.

Starboard's move comes as the 93-year-old media tycoon is locked in a legal dispute with some of his children to try to ensure that his son Lachlan Murdoch will control News Corp and broadcasting giant Fox Corp after his death.

The move represents a direct challenge to Murdoch's grip on the media conglomerate. While he has overcome such challenges in the past, it is the first he faces since he stepped away from an active role at the company by standing down as board chair last year.

Rupert Murdoch
Starboard called in October for News Corp to spin off its digital-real estate unit to unlock value for shareholders, a few days after Reuters was first to report that the activist investor had amassed a stake in the company.

Now, Starboard has filed privately for a shareholder resolution that calls for the abolition of News Corp's dual-class stock structure, which gives Murdoch 40% of the company's voting stock despite owning an equity stake of about 14%, the sources said.

Starboard Value, run by Jeffrey Smith, is one of the world's most prominent activist investors and has recently been pushing for changes at firms including online-dating company Match Group, design software maker Autodesk, and business software provider Salesforce.

As of June 30, Starboard owned 7.2 million Class A shares of News Corp equivalent to a 1.9% stake, as well as 8.7 million Class B shares, according to a regulatory filing.

Since launching News Corp in 1980 as a holding company for his media empire, Murdoch has maintained a tight grip on the company's governance.

Companies are not obliged to heed the outcome of shareholder resolutions, though many do so if they attract a large number of votes.

News Corp is valued at roughly $15.3 billion and its stock price has climbed 25.5% over the last 52 weeks. The company owns a real estate listing business, book publisher Harper Collins, and a range of newspapers including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, Britain's Times, Sunday Times and Sun, and The Australian.

Murdoch's other big media property, Fox News, is held separately by Fox Corp, since the publishing and broadcast assets were split into separate companies in 2013.

R.I.P.: Sérgio Mendes, Helped Popularize Bossa Nova


Sérgio Mendes, the Brazilian bossa nova impresario and pianist who helped popularize the genre in the ‘60s and toured with Herb Alpert and Frank Sinatra, has died.

The recording artist died “peacefully” Thursday in Los Angeles, with his wife Gracinha Leporace Mendes and their children by his side, his family confirmed in a statement shared with The LATimes. He was 83.

The statement did not reveal a cause of death but said the singer’s health “had been challenged by the effects of long term COVID.” Mendes “leaves us with an incredible musical legacy from more than six decades of a unique sound,” the family said.

Mendes found global acclaim as a solo artist, bandmember in groups like Brasil ’66 and as a collaborator across genre.

Born in 1941 in Niterói, near Rio de Janeiro, he became a popular pianist in the nightclubs on Rio’s Beco das Garrafas (Bottles Alley), a cluster of venues where artists performed the emerging genre of bossa nova while neighbors threw bottles at rowdy partygoers. Bossa Nova blended Brazilian samba rhythms with American jazz. Alongside peers like composer Antônio Carlos Jobim, singer-guitarist João Gilberto, lyricist Vinícius de Moraes and guitarist Roberto Menescal, the music captured the city’s sensuous beach culture and its young and hopeful mood in the late 1950’s and early ‘60s, a sound lovingly evoked in the 1959 film “Black Orpheus.”


Mendes cut his first solo album “Dance Moderno” in 1961, a collection of jazz covers by Duke Ellington and Cole Porter alongside Brazilian compositions by Jobim and Gilberto. He quickly began touring in the U.S., and performed at a legendary 1962 concert at New York’s Carnegie Hall that showcased bossa nova to novice American audiences. That show helped make the movement a sensation worldwide, and hits like Gilberto and Stan Getz’s “The Girl From Ipanema” in 1964 would soon become jazz and pop staples.

Radio History: Sep 7


➦In 1929...the forerunner to 'Let’s Pretend', a Saturday morning radio show for kids was heard for the first time on CBS Radio Network. The Adventures of Helen & Mary became Let’s Pretend 5 years later. Let's Pretend, created and directed by Nila Mack, was a CBS radio series for children. In its most famous form, Let's Pretend, the Peabody Award-winning series ran from 1934 to 1954.

➦In 1934...Daniel Trombley "Dan" Ingram was born.  Ingram is an American radio icon with a fifty-year career on radio stations such as WABC 770 AM and WCBS 101.1 FM in New York. "Big Dan" started broadcasting at WHCH Hofstra College, Hempstead, New York, WNRC, New Rochelle, New York, and WALK-FM, Patchogue, New York.

Dan Ingram
Ingram mastered the talk-up, talking over the intro to a song, ending right before the vocals. Ingram could get the song title, the current temperature and a one-liner in his talk-ups. He wholeheartedly embraced one of radio's golden rules: When you're talking to the audience, do it like you're talking to one person.

Ingram was noted for his quick wit and ability to convey a humorous or satiric idea with quick pacing and an economy of words—a skill which has made him uniquely suited to, and successful within, modern personality-driven music radio.

He is among the most frequently emulated radio personalities, cited as an influence or inspiration by numerous current broadcasters.


He was well known for playing doctored versions of popular songs. The Paul McCartney & Wings song My Love Does it Good became My Glove Does it Good. The stuttering title refrain of Bennie and the Jets went from three or four repetitions to countless. In the same vein, the distinctive refrain added to Hooked on a Feeling by Blue Swede, Ooga-ooga-ooga-chucka would start repeating and listeners would never know when it would end. (Other examples include Paul Simon's 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover, and "rearranging" the spelling of "S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y" on the Bay City Rollers' Saturday Night.)

Dan's longtime closing theme song was "Tri-Fi Drums" by Billy May. An edited version of the song was used for broadcast.

Dan commented occasionally about the pronunciation of his name: jingles often are heard pronouncing his last name as "Ing-ram," but Dan has said it is correctly pronounced "In-gram."

Ingram died June 24, 2018.

In 1936...Early rock & roll icon Buddy Holly was born Charles Hardin Holley in Lubbock Texas. His name was misspelled on his first record contract and he decided to leave it that way.   At age 22, he died in a plane crash Feb 3, 1959 along with Ritchie Valens and J.P.Richardson (The Big Bopper.)





➦In 1949...Windsor (Ont.) radio station CKLW, later to become Canada’s all-time most listened-to station (due to its huge US audience), increased power from 5000 to 50,000 watts. The station had moved from 1030 to 800 KHz, a Canada/Mexico clear channel, in the great frequency shuffle of 1941.

As television's popularity boomed, CKLW, like many other stations, coped with the changes by replacing the dying network radio fare with locally based disc-jockey shows. Throughout most of the 1950s and into the mid-1960s, CKLW was basically a "variety" radio station which filled in the cracks between full-service features with pop music played by announcers like Bud Davies, Ron Knowles (who had a rock-and-roll show on AM 800 as early as 1957), and Joe Van. For a few years in the early 1960s, CKLW also featured a country music program in the evenings called Sounds Like Nashville. This ended in 1963.

➦In 1979...ESPN, the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, made its debut on US cable TV as the world’s first full-time channel devoted to sports.