January 25 In Radio History

In 1919...Longtime Radio/TV journalist Edwin Newman was born. He died August 13, 2010 at 91.




In 1937...NBC Radio debuted the soap opera The Guiding Light. The longest running daytime drama in history, it moved to CBS-TV in 1952 and aired there for 57 years until the final episode on September 18, 2009.


In 1938...Blues singer Etta James was born. She died on January 20, 2012 at 73.



In 1961...President John F. Kennedy gave the first live Radio/TV presidential news conference from Washington, DC which was broadcast on radio and television.


In 1999…Radio and television announcer/radio newsman (WOR-New York's Jean Shepherd and Long John Nebel shows) Ted Mallie died at the age of 74.

Mallie started at WOR-Mutual Radio in New York in the mid-1940s. There he announced on such programs as John Steele, Adventurer and I Love a Mystery. He is perhaps better-known to old-time radio buffs, however, as the final announcer for The Shadow during its last two seasons (1953–1954) on the air.

Following the end of WOR's affiliation with Mutual in 1959, Mallie remained with the station as announcer, handling such duties for, and occasionally serving as newsman on, the Long John Nebel and Jean Shepherd shows. After WOR's FM outlet (now WRKS-FM) launched its progressive rock format on July 30, 1966, he even served a spell as a disc jockey for a time, due to a strike by its regular disc jockeys that lasted until October of that year.

Not long afterward, Mallie gravitated towards the station's TV outlet (now WWOR-TV), where he handled station identifications, promos, bumpers and program introductions, most notably for their long-running Million Dollar Movie and horror-movie series Fright Night. By the time Channel 9 moved its studios to Secaucus, New Jersey in 1986, three years after they transferred their city of license there, he and Phil Tonken were the last of the WOR radio announcers from the old-time radio era to still be employed at the station. His last major announcing duties for channel 9 included handling voice-overs for the children's show Steampipe Alley, and announcing for The Richard Bey Show. Mallie's announcing career at WWOR ended in 1994.