December 20 In Radio History

In 1939...Radio Australia began its overseas short-wave service.



In 1957...Elvis Presley received his draft notice from the U.S. Army. He immediately applied for, and was granted, a 60-day deferment that allowed him to complete the filming of "King Creole."


In 1971...Talk show host Larry King was arrested in Miami on charges of grand larceny. He'd accepted money on a promise of influence he couldn't deliver, and didn't have the money to pay it back. The charges were eventually dropped because the statute of limitations ran out. King pled guilty to passing a bad check, however, and was out of radio for three years.


In 2002...MIX 101.5 WRAL-FM became the first licensed commercial radio station on the east coast to broadcast in HD Radio.

Les Tremayne

In 2003...Les Tremayne died. Tremayne was a leading man during Radio's Golden Era.  On radio during the 1930s and 1940s, Tremayne was heard in as many as 45 shows a week. Replacing Don Ameche, he starred in The First Nighter Program from 1936 to 1942. He starred in The Adventures of the Thin Man and The Romance of Helen Trent during the 1940s. He also starred in the title role in The Falcon, and played detective Pat Abbott in The Abbott Mysteries in 1946–47.

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Tremayne was married four times. He did a morning talk show: The Tremaynes with his second wife, Alice Reinhardt. When Tremayne died in 2003, he was married to his fourth wife, Joan.  Tremayne was once named one of the three most distinctive voices on American radio. The other two were Bing Crosby and President Franklin D. Roosevelt.