April 28 Radio History

In 1922...WOI-AM, Ames, Iowa, became the country's first licensed educational radio station.

The history of WOI can be traced back to 1911 when Physics Professor "Dad" Hoffman set a transmission line between the Campus Water Tower and the Engineering Building and set up a wireless telegraph station. By 1913 this was known as experimental station 9YI and it was sending and receiving weather reports by morse code on a regular basis. The first sound broadcast was an hour of concert music on November 21, 1921.

The Commerce Department issued a full radio license for station WOI in April 1922 and the first regular broadcast took place on April 28, 1922. It is the oldest fully licensed noncommercial station west of the Mississippi River. The original callsign 9YI is now W0YI and is retained by the ISU Campus Radio Club, with the amateur radio station located in the Electrical Engineering building.  The first regular programming on WOI was farm market reports gathered by ticker tape and morse code and broadcast throughout the state.


In 1932..."One Man's Family" was first broadcast on the NBC Radio Network.

One Man's Family, was an American radio soap opera, heard for almost three decades, from 1932 to 1959. It was the longest-running uninterrupted dramatic serial in the history of American radio. Television versions of the series aired in prime time from 1949 to 1952 and in daytime from 1954 to 1955.



One Man's Family debuted as a radio series on April 29, 1932 in Los Angeles, Seattle and San Francisco, moving to the full West Coast NBC network the following month, sponsored by Snowdrift and Wesson Oil. On May 17, 1933, it expanded to the full coast-to-coast NBC network as the first West Coast show heard regularly on the East Coast. The show was broadcast as a weekly half-hour series (1933-1950) [sustained by Standard Brands from 1935 through 1949], then shifted to daily 15-minute installments, initially originating from the studios of San Francisco radio station KPO, NBC's flagship station for the West Coast, eventually moving to Los Angeles.

In 1958...Herb Oscar Anderson starts at WMCA.  HOA can still be heard on WOSN - 97.1 FM - Vero Beach, FL.


 

In 1972...Arthur Godfrey does last CBS Radio Network show.

Godfrey 1948

Godfrey became nationally known in April 1945 when, as CBS's morning-radio man in Washington, he took the microphone for a live, firsthand account of President Roosevelt's funeral procession. The entire CBS network picked up the broadcast.  Unlike the tight-lipped news reporters and commentators of the day, who delivered news in an earnest, businesslike manner, Godfrey's tone was sympathetic and neighborly, lending immediacy and intimacy to his words. When describing new President Harry S. Truman's car in the procession, Godfrey fervently said, in a choked voice, "God bless him, President Truman." Godfrey broke down in tears and cued the listeners back to the studio. The entire nation was moved by his emotional outburst.

Godfrey made such an impression on the air that CBS gave him his own morning time slot on the nationwide network. Arthur Godfrey Time was a Monday-Friday show that featured his monologues, interviews with various stars, music from his own in-house combo and regular vocalists. Godfrey's monologues and discussions were usually unscripted, and went wherever he chose. "Arthur Godfrey Time" remained a late morning staple on the CBS Radio Network schedule until 1972.





In 1975…Influential radio disc jockey/programmer/manager (KSAN-San Fracisco, KMET-Los Angeles, KPPC-Los Angeles, KMPX-San Francisco, KYA-San Francisco, WIBG-Philadelphia)/record label owner (Autumn)/concert promoter (Beatles at Candlestick Park)/Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Tom Donahue, inventor of "free form,""deep cuts" and "classic rock" radio, died following a heart attack at age 46.


In 1987…For the first time, a compact disc of an album was released before its vinyl version. The album was "The Art of Excellence" by Tony Bennett.


In 2006…After radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh was accused by Florida prosecutors of "doctor shopping" for painkillers, his attorneys announced a deal under which a single prescription fraud charge would be dismissed after 18 months, provided Limbaugh remained drug-free and did not violate any laws.