April 25 Radio History

➦In 1874...Guglielmo Marconi born (Died – 20 July 1937).  He was an Italian inventor and electrical engineer, known for his pioneering work on long-distance radio transmission, development of Marconi's law, and a radio telegraph system. He is credited as the inventor of radio, and he shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Ferdinand Braun "in recognition of their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy".

Marconi was also founder of The Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company in the United Kingdom in 1897 (which became the Marconi Company). He succeeded in making an engineering and commercial success of radio by innovating and building on the work of previous experimenters and physicists

His father was a wealthy landowner and his mother was a member of Ireland’s Jameson family of distillers. Marconi was educated by tutors and at the Livorno Technical Institute and the University of Bologna.

Marconi 1901

In 1894 Marconi became fascinated with the discovery by German physicist Heinrich Rudolf Hertz of “invisible waves” generated by electromagnetic interactions. Marconi built his own wave-generating equipment at his family’s estate and was soon sending signals to locations a mile away. After failing to interest the Italian government in his work, Marconi decided to try his luck in London.

The 22-year-old Marconi and his mother arrived in England in 1896 and quickly found interested backers, including the British Post Office. Within a year Marconi was broadcasting up to 12 miles and had applied for his first patents. A year later, he set up a wireless station on the Isle of Wight that allowed Queen Victoria to send messages to her son Prince Edward aboard the royal yacht.

By 1899 Marconi’s signals had crossed the English Channel. The same year, Marconi traveled to the United States, where he gained publicity offering wireless coverage of the America’s Cup yacht race from off the coast of New Jersey.



Marconi joined the Italian Fascist party in 1923. In 1930, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini appointed him President of the Royal Academy of Italy, which made Marconi a member of the Fascist Grand Council.

Marconi died in Rome on 20 July 1937 at age 63, following a series of heart attacks, and Italy held a state funeral for him. As a tribute, all radio stations throughout the world observed two minutes of silence on the next day.  His remains are housed in the Villa Griffone at Sasso Marconi, Emilia-Romagna, which assumed that name in his honor in 1938.

In 1943, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down a decision on Marconi's radio patents restoring some of the prior patents of Oliver Lodge, John Stone Stone, and Nikola Tesla.  The decision was not about Marconi's original radio patents and the court declared that their decision had no bearing on Marconi's claim as the first to achieve radio transmission, just that since Marconi's claim to certain patents were questionable, he could not claim infringement on those same patents.




➦In 1908...Edward Roscoe Murrow born  at Polecat Creek, near Greensboro, NC (Died from lung cancer at age 57 – April 27, 1965), He was a broadcast journalist and war correspondent. He first gained prominence during World War II with a series of live radio broadcasts from Europe for the news division of CBS. His live, shortwave broadcasts relayed on CBS electrified radio audiences as news programming never had: previous war coverage had mostly been provided by newspaper reports, along with newsreels seen in movie theaters; earlier radio news programs had simply featured an announcer in a studio reading wire service reports.

During the war he recruited and worked closely with a team of war correspondents who came to be known as the Murrow Boys.

A pioneer of radio and television news broadcasting, Murrow produced a series of reports on his television program See It Now which helped lead to the censure of Senator Joseph McCarthy.

➦In 1949…An article in LOOK magazine predicted that radio was doomed because if the growing popularity of television.  However, radio reinvented itself as a local service and became bigger than ever, while LOOK disappeared in 1971.

By 1948 it sold 2.9 million copies per issue. Circulation reached 3.7 million in 1954, and peaked at 7.75 million in 1969. Its advertising revenue peaked in 1966 at $80 million. Of the leading general interest large-format magazines, Look had a circulation second only to Life and ahead of The Saturday Evening Post, which closed in 1969, and Collier's, which folded in 1956.

Look ceased publication with its issue of October 19, 1971, the victim of a $5 million loss in revenues in 1970 (with television cutting deeply into its advertising revenues), a slack economy and rising postal rates. Circulation was at 6.5 million when it closed.

Don Wilson

➦In 1982...Announcer/personality Don Wilson died of a stroke at age 81. (Born September 1, 1900). He was an announcer and actor in radio and television best remembered best as the rotund announcer and comic foil to the star of The Jack Benny Program.

Wilson began his radio career as a singer over Denver radio station KFEL in 1923.  By 1929, he was working at KFI, and shortly afterwards for Don Lee at KHJ, in Los Angeles. In a 1978 appearance on Tomorrow with Tom Snyder, Wilson claimed he was fired from KHJ because he had bought a Packard from Earle C. Anthony, the business arch-rival of Cadillac dealer Don Lee and owner of KFI and KECA.

Though best known for his comedy work with Benny, Wilson had a background as a sportscaster, covering the opening of the 1932 Summer Olympics.

➦In 1995…Arthur Fleming Fazzin died from pancreatic cancer at age 70 (Born - May 1, 1924). He was an actor and television host. He is most notable for being the original host of the television game show Jeopardy!, which aired on NBC from 1964 until 1975.

After leaving the Navy, Fleming became an announcer at a radio station in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Here, he first shortened his name to "Art Fleming". His radio career later took him to Akron, Ohio, and back home to New York. He was the first announcer to deliver the slogan "Winston tastes good, like a cigarette should" for Winston cigarettes.

Art Fleming On 'Jeopardy' set

His first television role was as a stunt double for Ralph Bellamy in the detective series Man Against Crime.  Fleming also appeared in many television commercials. He was first spotted by Merv Griffin on a commercial for Trans World Airlines. Griffin thought Fleming was "authoritative, yet warm and interesting", and Fleming was invited to audition for the role of host for a quiz show Griffin was developing. Fleming (an actor with no prior TV quiz show experience) was initially skeptical, but his agent encouraged him to "act like a game show host" at his audition, and Fleming ultimately won the job. The show was Jeopardy!, which Fleming hosted from March 30, 1964, to January 3, 1975, and again from October 2, 1978, to March 2, 1979. Although often described as the "host" of the program, announcer Don Pardo's introduction of him announced, "and here's the star of Jeopardy!, Art Fleming." As "the world's greatest quiz show's" first host, Fleming earned two Emmy Award nominations. While he was host of Jeopardy!, Fleming never missed a taping.

Throughout his career, Fleming starred in about 5,000 episodes of television programs and 48 motion pictures. He also hosted a radio version of College Bowl for CBS Radio from 1979 to 1982. He hosted the NBC radio weekend magazine Monitor during 1972.

It was reported that Fleming was asked to reprise his role as Jeopardy! host when Merv Griffin began developing a revival of the show in 1983. He declined, later stating in 1989 that he did not like the direction the show had gone in moving the show to Hollywood (being partial to his native New York, he felt that the Hollywood setting made the show dumber and less realistic).  As a result, Alex Trebek took the position instead and has hosted the program ever since.

From 1980 to 1992, Fleming hosted a daily radio talk show on KMOX in St. Louis, which continued until his retirement.

Len Goodman is 77

🎂HAPPY BIRTHDAY:

• Actor Al Pacino is 81. 
• “Dancing With the Stars” judge Len Goodman is 77. 
• Bassist Stu Cook of Creedence Clearwater Revisited is 76. 
• Singer Bjorn Ulvaeus of ABBA is 76. 
• Actor Talia Shire is 76. 
• Actor Jeffrey DeMunn (“The Green Mile”) is 74. 
• Country singer-songwriter Rob Crosby is 67. 
• Actor Hank Azaria (“The Simpsons”) is 57. 
• Singer Andy Bell of Erasure is 57. 

• 

  Renee Zellweger is 52

  Bassist Eric Avery (Jane’s Addiction) is 56. 
• Guitarist Rory Feek of Joey and Rory is 56. 
• Former “Early Show” host Jane Clayson is 54. 
• Actor Gina Torres (“I Think I Love My Wife”) is 52. 
• Actor Renee Zellweger is 52. 
• Actor Jason Lee (“My Name Is Earl,” ″Almost Famous”) is 51. 
• Actor Jason Wiles (“Third Watch”) is 51. 
• Actor Emily Bergl (“Southland”) is 46. 
• Actor Marguerite Moreau (“The O.C.,” ″Life As We Know It”) is 44. 
• Singer Jacob Underwood (O-Town) is 41. 
• Actor Allisyn Snyder (“A.P. Bio,” “Sonny With A Chance”) is 25. 
• Actor Jayden Rey (“The Conners”) is 12.