January 29 Radio History

Walter Winchell

➦In 1929...gossip columnist Walter Winchell first appeared on radio. But it would be more than a year before he got his own show on local New York radio, which led to national success.


➦In 1937...The CBS Radio Network debuted "Aunt Jenny’s Real Life Stories".


➦In 1942...BBC Radio launches a new program called Desert Island Discs . Still on the air today, it's the second-longest-running radio program in existence, next to the Grand Ole Opry.


➦In 1945...Lionel Barrymore took over the host duties temporarily on the “Lux Radio Theatre” on CBS radio. This after longtime host Cecil B. DeMille refused to join the radio performers union.


➦In 1951...Major League Baseball signed a 6 year agreement for TV-radio rights at $6 million.


➦In 1956...the show "Indictment" was first broadcast on the CBS Radio Network. It aired for 3 years.


➦In 1964,...the No. 1 Billboard Pop Hit was “I Want to Hold Your Hand” by The Beatles. This first American release by the Beatles was one of the biggest selling British singles of all time with worldwide sales of 15 million copies.

➦In 1964...Beatles record in German "Komm, Gib Mir Diene Hand" & "Sie Leibt Dich"


In 

➦1980...a true entertainer who conquered vaudeville, radio & TV Jimmy Durante, who was confined to a wheelchair following a 1972 stroke, died of pneumonia at age 86.




➦In 2000...Longtime Detroit radio personality (WQBH, WJLB, WCHB) Martha Jean "The Queen'' Steinberg died at the age of 69.

Martha Jean Steinberg

Her first radio job was on Memphis’ WDIA starting in 1954. There, she was one of the first female disc jockeys in the United States, with a program that included the latest R&B hits along with the typical "household hints" programming that was de rigueur at the time for female radio personalities.

In 1963 she moved to Detroit, Michigan, where she was heard on WCHB-AM and then throughout the late 1960s and 1970s on WJLB. On July 23, 1967 Steinberg convinced WJLB to cancel its normal evening programming and she did an on air program calling for people to calm down and stop rioting. It has been suggested that this prevented the 1967 Detroit Riot from being worse than it was.

During her time at WJLB, she led the station's on-air staff in protest of the fact that the station at the time had no African-American employees outside of the air staff.

In 1980, WJLB converted from AM to the FM dial (where it remains to this day), and Steinberg's show was dropped in the process. The former WJLB-AM became WMZK with an ethnic format. In 1982, Steinberg purchased WMZK-AM and changed the call letters to WQBH in order to offer more gospel music oriented programming. Steinberg remained on the air at WQBH 1400 AM until her death. WQBH is now WDTK.

➦In 2013...WRXP 94.7 FM, NYC changed call letters to WNSH


➦In 2008…Former U.S. First Daughter/singer/network radio series co-host (with Mike Wallace on NBC's Weekday)/author Mary Margaret Truman Daniel died at the age of 83.

HOA

➦In 2017...Herb Oscar Anderson died at age 81 at a hospital in Vermont.

"All The Way With HOA", was a favorite Anderson catch phrase.  He was one of the original Swingin' Seven deejays when WABC 770 AM went to a Top40 Format in late 1960.

At the time WABC is in a competitive battle in the Top40 format, cometing again 1010 WINS, 1050 WMGM and WMCA 570 AM.

He started as a sportswriter at the Jamesville Daily Gazette in Wisconsin. The parent company also owned WCLO radio.  He soon applied for a position at the station, figuring that announcing a sports story for 30 seconds would be more fun than spending three hours writing his high school sports column for the newspaper.

Before long he landed a position as a singer and announcer at WROK in Rockford, Ill.., where he used Les Brown’s “Leap Frog” as his theme song.

Over the following years, Herb served for three years in the Air Force’s 132nd Squadron, and then worked as an air personality at WDBO in Orlando, Fla., at a chain of stations in Iowa and at KSTP in Minnesota.

The huge immediate success at the Storz Top40 WDGY prompted CBS, which had WCCO in the Twin Cities area, to get Herb out of the market by giving him a job at its Chicago station, WBBM.

Before long, he was hired at WABC in New York City.  In the late 1950s, Herb then went on the ABC network and was part of a line-up that included legendary talk show host and game show creator Merv Griffin, actor Jim Backus and singer Jim Reeves.

Herb hosted a show and sang before a live band, but the show didn’t work out.   However, a short time later, he received a telegram from WMCA offering him a job at the 5,000 watt Top40 station.

In December 1960, he rejoined WABC as one of the original "Swingin’ Seven" air personalities when the station started its Top 40 format.