November 20 In Radio History

In 1928…WGH-AM in Newport News, Virginia began broadcasting.  The WGH call letters were not used from 9/1/83 to 12/10/84.

The earliest ancestor of WGH Radio was WPAB, granted a license by the Radio Division, Bureau of Navigation, United States Department of Commerce on December 4, 1926.  The licensee was the Radio Corporation of Virginia, who operated the new station for the Park Avenue Baptist Church in Norfolk.  On December 6, 1926, WPAB signed on the air at 1040 kilocycles with a power of 100 watts.  WPAB later became WRCV and broadcast programming mostly of a religious nature.

In January 1927, the Radio Corporation of Virginia put another station on the air, WSEA, which transmitted on the frequency of 1370 kilocycles with a power of 500 watts.  In April 1927 WSEA began broadcasting from the brand new Cavalier Hotel in Virginia Beach but was dark by the middle of 1928, the Radio Corporation of Virginia having gone bankrupt.  WSEA, however, had one shining moment on June 10, 1927 when Norfolk Mayor S. Heth Tyler became the first American to extend coast to coast radio congratulations to aviator Charles Lindbergh after his successful solo flight from New York to Paris.  Lindbergh heard the message on WSEA as he was passing over the Cape Henry Lighthouse.

Tom Little moved the WSEA allocation to Newport News and changed the call letters to WNEW (signifying its new city of license, Newport News) on August 8, 1928.  Facilities were in the Tidewater Hotel at 2400 Washington Avenue in Newport News.  The studio was on the ground floor, directly behind the front desk and switchboard for the hotel, and the transmitter and antenna were on the top floor.  Shortly thereafter  a new licensee, Hampton Roads Broadcasting Company, changed the frequency  to 1430, and government authorization came through on October 8, 1928.

The WNEW calls lasted for only a few weeks, when they were changed to WGH ("World's Greatest Harbor").  It was also among the first 100 radio stations on the air in the United States.  By 1928, however, the station was gone and the available WGH call letters were requested by Hampton Roads Broadcasting.  An application to the Federal Radio Commission was approved on November 19 of that year and the station began identifying itself as "WGH" the next day.  The abandoned WNEW call letters were later picked up by a Newark, New Jersey radio station on 1130 kilocycles.

In early 1959, a new era was ushered in with a switch to "Top-40" programming under the "Color Radio" banner.  Late 1950's performers included Jim Stanley, Jack Fisher, Lou Nelson, Dick Lamb, Jack Krueger, Frank Drake, Bob Calvert, Dean Collins (who went on to WPGC in Washington as Dean Griffith and later to New York as Dean Anthony, one of the WMCA "Good Guys"), Don Owens, Roger Clark, Bob Calvert's alter ego (and the inspiration for Wolfman Jack) "Baron Bebop", Throckmorton Quiff, and Gene Creasy.  Early newscasters included Ed Meyer, Dick Kidney, Pete Glazer, Bud Buhler and Art Merrill.

By 1960, the station was broadcasting at 5,000 watts from a non-directional daytime tower at the Newport News Small Boat Harbor, switching to the three-tower directional site in Hampton during the evening hours.

1960s on-air performers included George Crawford, Dave Cummins, Bob Calvert, Gene Loving, Keith James, Dick Lamb, Roger Clark (Program Director until 1967), Glenn "The Turtle" Lewis, Russ Spooner, Chuck Adams, Don Robertson, Bob Chesson (Production), Jim Lawrence, John Garry (who was also Program Director from 1967 until 1970, when he left WGH to program WIST-AM in Charlotte), Larry O'Brien, Tom Scott and J.J. Bowman.

In 1929… November 20, 1929…The radio program "The Rise of the Goldbergs," later known as "The Goldbergs," made its debut on the NBC Blue Network. The series continued on radio until 1946. The show's creator/writer/lead actress Gertrude Berg took the show to television – first to CBS, then NBC, the Dumont Network, and syndication – between 1949 and 1956.

In 1938… Father Charles Couglin broadcast the first documented anti-Semitic remarks over U.S. radio.

Father Coughlin

Coughlin began his radio broadcasts in 1926 on station WJR, in response to cross burnings by the Ku Klux Klan on the grounds of his church, giving a weekly hour-long radio program. His program was picked up by CBS four years later for national broadcast. Until the beginning of the Depression, Father Coughlin mainly covered religious topics in his weekly radio addresses, in contrast to the political topics which dominated his radio speeches throughout the 1930s. He reached a very large audience that extended well beyond his own Irish Catholic base.

On November 20, 1938, two weeks after Kristallnacht, Coughlin, referring to the millions of Christians killed by the Communists in Russia, said "Jewish persecution only followed after Christians first were persecuted."  After this speech, some radio stations, including those in New York and Chicago, began refusing to air his speeches without pre-approved scripts; in New York, his programs were cancelled by WINS and WMCA, leaving Coughlin to broadcasting on the Newark part-time station WHBI. On December 18, 1938 thousands of Coughlin's followers picketed the studios of station WMCA in New York City to protest the station's refusal to carry Father Coughlin's broadcasts. A number of protesters made antisemitic statements. The protests continued for several months.


In 1955...At New York City's Warwick Hotel, Sun Records owner and producer Sam Phillips sells Elvis Presley's contract to RCA for an unheard-of $35,000, at that time the largest amount ever paid to sign a recording artist. Elvis receives $13,500 of the total; Phillips invests his share in a local hotel chain called the Holiday Inn.

In 1959… Disc jockey Alan Freed was fired from New York's WABC 770 AM after refusing to sign a statement saying he had never accepted "payola" or gifts from record labels in exchange for airplay, a move that triggered his eventual downfall.

When Freed was employed by WABC, it was about two years before it evolved into one of America's great Top 40 stations by launching its "Musicradio" format. At this time, WABC (unlike Top40 1010 WINS) was more of a full-service station which began implementing some music programming elements.


In 1961....Billboard reports on the stunning popularity of the "Twist" craze: three separate films, starring Chubby Checker, Joey Dee and the Starlighters, and Dion, are scheduled for production, and New York television station WOR is airing hourly twist lessons of between one and five minutes, also featuring Checker.

In 1994… KFWB-AM, Los Angeles' first morning man, Bruce Hayes, died Hayes worked atKFWB, 1958-61; KDAY, 1962; KHJ, 1963-64; KFWB, 1965-67; KFI, 1969.