April 22 Radio History

➦In 1920...actor/quizmaster Hal March was born in San Francisco. He teamed for a time with actor Bob Sweeney & starred in the CBS radio comedy show Sweeney & March.  Early in his television career he appeared on Burns and Allen, The Imogene Coca Show and I Love Lucy. However, he was best known as the host of CBS TV’s $64,000 Question from 1955 to 1958. As a result of the quiz show scandals, the show was canceled and March was out of a job for nearly a decade. He started hosting another show, It’s Your Bet, in 1969, but was diagnosed with lung cancer and died Jan 19 1970 at age 49.

➦In 1935...a half-hour musical variety show headed by personable conductor Meredith Willson began an intermittent run on various radio networks that spanned 19 years.  The first series (eight shows) was on NBC Blue.

➦In 1940...the first all-Chinese commercial radio program was broadcast over KSAN radio in San Francisco. Later, KSAN would become a pioneer in playing “underground rock” music.

NY Times Radio Listing 4/22/1946

➦In 1946...Tex McCrary and (wife) Jinx Falkenburg arrived at WEAF radio in New York City with an entertaining morning show called, Hi, Jinx, which evolved into The Tex & Jinx Show.

The McCrary's radio show was broadcast five mornings a week on New York radio station WEAF, and became a hit with critics and the public for tackling controversial issues like the A-Bomb, the United Nations and venereal disease along with talk about theatre openings and New York nightlife.[Their guests would be a mix of popular entertainers such as Mary Martin, Ethel Waters and Esther Williams and public figures such as Bernard Baruch, Eleanor Roosevelt, Margaret Truman, industrialist Igor Sikorsky and Indian statesman Krishna Menon.

McCrary wrote the scripts and taught Falkenburg the art of interviewing and the basics of broadcast journalism. Over time she was considered the better interviewer, eliciting candid responses, often from the show's more intellectual guests. Her technique was to ask questions until she understood the answer and so presumably, did all the housewives at home listening to her.  "They developed an audience that was ready to start thinking at breakfast," wrote New York Times columnist William Safire who as a teenager was hired by McCrary to do pre-show interviews of guests.

WEAF later became WNBC and finally WFAN SportsRadio 66.





➦In 1985...Soupy Sales started at WNBC 660 AM. His program was between the drive time shifts of Don Imus (morning) and Howard Stern (afternoon), with whom Sales had an acrimonious relationship. An example of this was an incident involving Stern telling listeners that he was cutting the strings in Sales' in-studio piano at 4:05 p.m. on May 1, 1985. On December 21, 2007, Stern revealed this was a stunt staged for "theater of the mind" and to torture Sales; in truth, the piano was never harmed.  Sales' on-air crew included his producer, Ray D'Ariano, newscaster Judy DeAngelis, and pianist Paul Dver, who was also Soupy's manager.


➦In 1993...Mosaic, the first Web browser, was released


➦In 1996...Paul “Cubby” Bryant started at Z-100 WHTZ 100.3 FM.

Paul "Cubby" Bryant

From 2006-2008 Cubby served as the co-host and sidekick to Whoopi Goldberg on the nationally syndicated morning show Wake Up With Whoopi. Before joining Whoopi Goldberg as co-host of the morning show on WKTU, Bryant was at crosstown sister station WHTZ serving as their Afternoon Drive Disc Jockey and Music Director.

Bryant began his radio career in his hometown of Virginia Beach, VA at WGH-FM (97 Star) in 1988, there was where he inherited his current radio name Cubby (a name given to him by WGH DJ's Tony Macrini and Jeff Moreau) for being so young (at the time 16) and in radio. Then, Bryant joined 104.1 KRBE in Houston, TX as Night Host and Music Director from 1990-1996. In 1996, Bryant began his tenure at WHTZ (Z100) in New York as Afternoon Drive Host and Music Director. In 2000, Bryant went around the world with the group Backstreet Boys to promote the release of Black & Blue, the boys traveled around the world in 100 hours to Sweden, Japan, Australia, South Africa, Brazil, and the US; 55 of the hours were spent traveling and 45 were spent making public appearances.

Post by Paul Cubby Bryant.

In mid-2006, Bryant announced he would be leaving WHTZ after a ten-year run with the station to co-host Wake Up With Whoopi. WKTU cancelled Wake Up With Whoopi in November 2007.

In January 2008, Bryant left Wake Up With Whoopi to return to WKTU, this time as the station's morning host.