October 20 In Radio History

In 1906...Dr. Lee DeForest demonstrated the electrical vaccuum radio tube.

DeForest disliked the term "wireless" and chose a new moniker, "radio."

In 1902 he and his financial backers founded the De Forest Wireless Telegraph Company. In order to dramatize the potential of this new medium of communication, he began, as early as 1902, to give public demonstrations of wireless telegraphy for businessmen, the press, and the military.



A poor businessman and a poorer judge of men, de Forest was defrauded twice by his own business partners. By 1906 his first company was insolvent, and he had been squeezed out of its operation. But in 1907 he patented a much more promising detector (developed in 1906), which he called the Audion; it was capable of more sensitive reception of wireless signals than were the electrolytic and Carborundum types then in use. It was a thermionic grid-triode vacuum tube—a three-element electronic “valve” similar to a two-element device patented by the Englishman Sir John Ambrose Fleming in 1905. In 1907 de Forest was able to broadcast experimentally both speech and music to the general public in the New York City area.

De Forest is credited with the birth of public radio broadcasting when on January 12, 1910, he conducted experimental broadcast of part of the live performance of Tosca and, the next day, a performance with the participation of Italian tenor Enrico Caruso from the stage of Metropolitan Opera House in New York City.


In 1908...Arlene Francis was born in Boston, Massachusetts. She appeared on radio and TV in most notabley the show called "What's My Line?".


In 1930...the "Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" premiered on the NBC Radio Network.



In 1947...the radio rights to the World Series were sold for three years for $475,000.


In 1969...WCBS 101.1 FM switched to live deejays when it launched a freeform rock format, which was becoming increasingly popular, and all other CBS-owned FM stations followed suit.

For the first time, WCBS-FM would have an airstaff. Bill Brown began his long tenure with the station, and Don K. Reed began his late in 1971; both remained there until 2005. Radio personalities such as Bobby "Wizzard" Wayne, Tom Tyler, Ed Williams, Steve Clark, Roby Yonge, K.O. Bayley (Bob Elliott from WOR-FM), Les Turpin, Bob "Bob-A-Lew" Lewis also briefly joined the WCBS-FM "freeform" format. Besides Bill Brown and Don K. Reed, Wizzard Wayne and Ed Williams also stayed into the early part of the oldies format.

Here's a pre-Oldies aircheck of PD Gus Gossert on WCBS-FM (courtesy of nyradioarchive.com)


In 1973...the Family Station Inc. purchased shortwave station WNYW, changed the call letters to WYFR & moved it from New York City to Scituate, Massachusetts.

Assocated Press photo

In 1977...Guitarist Steve Gaines, lead singer Ronnie Van Zandt, and backup singer Cassie Gaines of Lynyrd Skynyrd are all killed when the band's small Convair plane runs out of fuel and does down en route from Greenville, SC, to their next gig in Baton Rouge, LA. Crash landing in a forest near Gillsburg, MS, the accident also takes the lives of the band's assistant road manager as well as the two pilots, not to mention severely injuring the rest of the band and most of the other two dozen passengers. The remaining members would not reunite for another decade.

At the time of the 1977 plane crash, Lynyrd Skynyrd was at the height of its fame, having just released its sixth album, “Street Survivors,” only three days earlier. The original album cover featured a picture of the band surrounded by flames; it was changed shortly after the accident.

In 1984...The Hot 100...Stevie Wonder remained at the top with his eighth #1 song--"I Just Called To Say I Love You".  Billy Ocean closed with "Caribbean Queen" and Chicago was up to #3 with "Hard Habit To Break".

The rest of the Top 10:  Madonna edged up with "Lucky Star", the Cars slipped into reverse with "Drive", the new one from Bruce Springsteen ("Cover Me") was up to #7, John Cafferty & the Beaver Brown Band got their first taste of the Top 10 with "On The Dark Side", Prince shot up from 18 to 9 with "Purple Rain" and the Pointer Sisters were feeling good about their new hit "I'm So Excited".


In 1984...Prince reigned for the 12th week on the Album chart with Purple Rain.  Born in the U.S.A. from Bruce Springsteen was second, followed by Private Dancer from Tina Turner, Sports from Huey Lewis & the News and Heartbeat City by the Cars.  It was the ninth consecutive week that those five releases held down the Top 5 albums, believed to be the only time in the Rock Era that the feat has occurred.