September 21 Radio History

Jerry Mather

➦In 1907...actor Jack Mather was born in a northern suburb of Chicago. Early in his career he was a regular actor on the NBC radio anthology series “First Nighter,” and when it moved to Hollywood (1946) he went with it.  He played the lead role in “The Cisco Kid” on Mutual radio (MBS) from 1947-56, and went on to many supporting roles in early TV on such shows as “Bonanza,””Dragnet,” “Maverick,” “M-Squad” and “Death Valley Days.”  He suffered a fatal heart attack Aug. 15th 1966 and died at age 58.

➦In 1941..."The Second Mrs. Burton" premiered on the CBS Radio Network.

➦In 1943...WNYC-FM call letters debut.

WNYC began regularly scheduled broadcasts on the FM band on March 13, 1943 at 43.9 megacycles. Known originally as W39NY, the FM outlet adopted its present WNYC-FM identity and its present frequency of 93.9 MHz within a few years.


➦In 1948..."Life With Luigi" debuted on the CBS Radio Network.

➦In 1965..KYW 1060 AM in Philadelphia flipped to an all-news format.

KYW began in 1921 in Chicago, Illinois. It was jointly owned by Westinghouse Electric Corporation and Commonwealth Edison. Westinghouse later bought out ComEd's share and became sole owner of the station. In 1927, Westinghouse aligned its four radio stations (KYW, KDKA in Pittsburgh, WBZ in Boston and WBZA in Springfield, Massachusetts) with the NBC Blue Network, which originated from former sister station WJZ (the present-day WABC) in New York City. Westinghouse had been a founding partner of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), NBC's original parent company.

On September 21, 1965, shortly after Westinghouse regained control of 1060 AM, the newly rechristened KYW once again dropped its NBC radio affiliation and was converted into one of the first all-news stations in the country.  Newsman Steve Porter read the first newscast. It had been edited by Fred B. Walters, the former Harrisburg bureau chief and eventual Executive Editor.

Five months earlier Westinghouse Broadcasting converted WINS, KYW's New York sister station since 1962, from a Top-40 format to all-news.  A similar move was made three years later at another Westinghouse-owned station, KFWB in Los Angeles.  KYW has been one of the highest-rated radio stations in the country since that point and has been the market leader in Philadelphia for much of that time. The Westinghouse all-news trio, meanwhile, revolutionized and defined the all-news format. KYW's early format elements were shared with WINS, such as the distinctive teletype sound effect playing in the background, and the slogans "All News, All the Time", "The Newswatch Never Stops", "Listen 2, 3, 4 Times a Day" and "You Give Us 22 Minutes, We'll Give You the World".

KYW's present format runs on a 30-minute cycle.[20] Regular segments include contains traffic and mass transit reports from Metro Traffic every ten minutes on the "twos" (six times an hour), sports updates every quarter-hour (twice an hour, at :15 and :45), weather reports as much as six times an hour (four regularly scheduled reports at :07, :14, :37 and :44 past every hour with breaking weather news plus special forecasts for the New Jersey Shore and the Poconos), and business news from Bloomberg twice an hour (at :25 and :55). When breaking news warrants, KYW will break format to provide continuous coverage of any event.



Its television sister took advantage of the radio station's popularity by incorporating a version of KYW's musical sounder into its news themes from 1991 to 2003. In addition, a television program entitled KYW Newsradio 1060 This Morning aired from 5 to 8 a.m. on sister station WPSG (channel 57) in the early 2000s, adapting KYW's "clock" to television. The show was popular among local cable programming in its daypart, and in late 2004 was usurped (due in part to a new affiliation to Traffic Pulse) by television staffers and assumed the name Wake UPNews.

Westinghouse Electric announced its purchase of CBS in 1995, and upon its completion KYW became a sister station to its long-time rival, CBS-owned WGMP (1210 AM, now WPHT). That station, under its original WCAU call letters, attempted to compete with KYW in all-news programming during the late 1970s but failed, dumping the format after only three years.

KYW is currently the easternmost station in the United States whose callsign begins with the letter K. It is also one of three such stations in Pennsylvania, the other ones being KQV and sister station KDKA, both in Pittsburgh.

➦In 1968...The Crazy World of Arthur Brown roared up the chart from 60 to 15 with "Fire".

➦In 1968...Harry Harrison does last show at WMCA 570 AM. He's headed 77 WABC

From '65...

➦In 1970...Bob Grant does first show at WMCA 570 AM as WMCA flips from Top40 to Talk.

➦In 1985...The Album Charts...Dire Straits continued to hold on to #1 on the album chart with Brothers in Arms.  Sting was stuck at 2 with The Dream of the Blue Turtles while Tears For Fears owned #3--Songs From the Big Chair.  Bruce Springsteen was in his 66th week with Born in the U.S.A. and Bryan Adams' Reckless was still at #5 after 44 weeks of release.

The rest of a great Top 10:  Phil Collins and No Jacket Required, Billy Joel with Greatest Hits, Volume I & Volume II, Whitney Houston's debut at #8, the self-titled Heart at 9 and Motley Crue was bringing up the rear with Theatre of Pain.

➦In 2012...radio/TV actor/announcer Rye Billsbury, aka Michael Rye, died at age 94.

He had continuing roles in network radio’s Ma Perkins, The Guiding Light, Backstage Wife and Jack Armstrong the All-American Boy, to name just a few of the Chicago and LA originations on his resume.  In TV he is perhaps best remembered as the cartoon voice of The Lone Ranger (1966-69), with other voice roles on Skyhawks, Adventures of the Gummi Bears, Super Friends, and scores of Hanna-Barbera and Disney cartoons.