January 14 Radio History

In 1907...De. Lee DeForest patented the Audion tube. De Forest is generally thought of as the "Father of Radio". The Audion tube allowed amplification which made Radio transmission more practical for voice and music.

The Audion was the fastest electronic switching element of the time, and was later used in early digital electronics (such as computers). The triode was vital in the development of transcontinental telephone communications, radio, and radar until the 1948 invention of the transistor.

In 1927…Jack Benny married Sadye Marks. Five years later, Marks started playing Mary Livingstone, a character on Benny's radio show, and became so identified with the part that she legally changed her name to Mary Livingstone.


In 1939..."Honolulu Bound" first aired on the CBS Radio Network.


In 1949...The detective series "Yours Truly Johnny Dollar," starring Charles Russell, then Edmond O'Brien and later John Lund, began its 12-year run on CBS Radio. The show was revived as a nightly radio serial in 1955 with Bob Bailey as the lead actor and continued in various forms until 1962.


In 1955...disc jockey Alan Freed held his first Rock `n’ Roll Party stage show in New York. Acts included the Clovers, Fats Domino and the Drifters.


In 1957...actor Humphrey Bogart, the major Hollywood star who co-starred with his wife Lauren Bacall in the wildly successful syndicated radio show “Bold Venture,” succumbed to cancer of the esophagus at age 57.


In 1966...Singer David Jones changed his last name to Bowie to avoid confusion with Davy Jones of the Monkees.




In 1973...Elvis Presley drew the largest single television audience ever for his "Aloha From Hawaii" concert, broadcast live via satellite from Honolulu's International Center Arena to more than one billion people in 40 countries. Viewers in North America didn't get to see the show live, or at all, until April 4 when it was aired by NBC-TV. The audio from the concert was released as a double-album later that year.


In 1981...The Federal Communications Commission freed U.S. broadcasting stations to air as many commercials per hour as they wish.




In 1985...Dan Ingram started at WKTU 92.3 FM in NYC. Station is now WBMP and is owned by CBS Radio.


In 2013...WFME 94.7 FM In the NYC market changed call letters to WRXP