November 24 Radio History

➦In 1890... French investor Edouard Branly coins the term "radioconductor"; the first use of the word "radio".

Ireene Wicker

➦In 1905...actress Ireene Wicker of early radio quality kids show fame, was born in Quincy Illinois. She was “The Singing Story Lady” on network radio for twenty years, dramatizing the children’s stories with her own acting & singing ability.  Her radio show was first sponsored by the Kellogg Company, beginning in 1931. Her show was promoted as America’s first radio network program for children. Despite the title of her show, The Singing Lady, most of it involved Wicker telling adaptations of stories for children, ranging from fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen through to Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories. Also in the 1930s and early 1940s, she portrayed Jane Lee on the serial Judy and Jane on NBC-Blue. In the 1940s, Wicker was a regular on Deadline Drama on NBC and the Blue Network. In the 1950s, she told stories on Big Jon and Sparkie on ABC radio.  She also played bit parts on other radio & TV programs out of Chicago.  She died Nov. 17 1987 at age 81.

➦In 1906...actor Don MacLaughlin was born in Webster, Iowa.

He was the star of ABC Radio’s ‘David Harding, Counterspy’ in the 1940’s, and continued in the role when it moved to NBC Radio and Mutual in the 1950’s.  In 1956 he created the role of lawyer Chris Hughes on CBS-TV’s ‘As the World Turns’ and continued to play him over the next 30 years!

Howard Duff

He died at age 79 on May 28 1986.


➦In 1913...actor Howard Duff was born in Bremerton Wash.

He first hit the bigtime on radio in The Adventures of Sam Spade, Detective in the CBS series sponsored by Brylcreem.  On TV he starred in the series Felony Squad, Mr. Adams and Eve, Flamingo Road, Knots Landing, and Dallas.

He died following a heart attack July 8, 1990 at age 76.

➦In 1920...The first radio play-by-play broadcast of a football game was aired by Texas A&M University station 5XB, later to be known as WTAW in College Station, Texas. The University of Texas defeated Texas A&M, 7-3.  The call letters stood for Watch The Aggies Win.  Today, the calls are used by a locally-owned station at 1620 AM.


➦In 1926...WLAC Nashville signed-on. The call letters were chosen to contain an acronym for the first owner of the station, the Life and Casualty Insurance Company of Tennessee. Studios were located on the fifth floor of the Life and Casualty building in downtown Nashville. In 1928, it became Nashville's CBS Radio affiliate, while its main competitor, 650 WSM, was affiliated with NBC, the other major Radio network in the early days of broadcasting.

The early years of the station featured, as most big-city stations of that time, network programming, local news, studio-orchestra musical features (accompanied by an in-studio pipe organ), farm reports, and some educational programming. Its main competitor in that era, WSM, became known as the radio station where country music essentially developed and became a national phenomenon. When country music became a big business in the late 1940s, WLAC added early-morning and Saturday-afternoon shows in an attempt to steal some of WSM's thunder. Otherwise, the station prided itself as a pillar of the community and placed emphasis on general full-service programs.

➦In 1926...KVI-AM, Seattle, Washington began broadcasting.

KVI's legacy can be traced back to its debut on November 24, 1926, where it was licensed to Tacoma, Washington at 1280 AM. By the spring of 1928 its signal would be shifted to 1060 AM, followed by a larger shift to 760 AM, in the fall. By September 1932, it had moved to its permanent 570 AM frequency. In 1949, KVI relocated its studios and city of license to Seattle. KVI broadcasts from a single tower on Vashon Island.

In 1959, Gene Autry's Golden West Broadcasters added KVI to its portfolio. KVI switched to a very successful personality adult contemporary format in 1964. By 1973, KVI had evolved into a middle-of-the-road (MOR) direction. It was during this period that it became established as a dominant player in the market. KVI was the original flagship station for the ill-fated Seattle Pilots in 1969 and for the Seattle Mariners, from their inaugural season of 1977 until 1984.

By 1982, KVI had begun to gradually add more talk programming. In July 1984, KVI switched to oldies. That direction would last less than a decade. By 1992, KVI had a talk-format again. At first, the station used the slogan "the balanced alternative" with a lineup alternating liberal and conservative talk hosts, but in 1993, KVI dropped all its liberal hosts except Mike Siegel. Siegel, formerly a liberal, swung right in his views during this period and remained on the station. By May 1994, the year KVI was sold (along with KPLZ-FM) to Fisher Communications, KVI had an almost entirely conservative-talk format.


Seattle Radio History - 570AM (KVI) from Twisted Scholar on Vimeo.

KVI returned to a full service format at 4 p.m. on November 7, 2010, with a base music rotation of classic hits along with news and traffic updates.

Due to the failure of the format, which only garnered an average of a 0.5 share of the market, and losing the ratings battle against KJR-FM and KMCQ, KVI began stunting with Christmas music on Thanksgiving Day. On January 3, 2012, the station flipped back to talk, this time as "Smart Talk", with an emphasis on entertainment news, lifestyle and health reports, and local news.

On April 11, 2013, Fisher announced that it would sell its properties, including KVI, to the Sinclair Broadcast Group. Although Sinclair primarily owns television stations, the company intends to retain KVI, KPLZ-FM, and KOMO. The deal was completed on August 8, 2013.

➦In 1958…

• Jackie Wilson released the single "Lonely Teardrops," co-written by Berry Gordy, Jr.
• Ritchie Valens released the single "Donna" b/w "La Bamba."
• Brenda Lee released the single "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree."

➦In 1963…On live national television, Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald, President John F. Kennedy's accused assassin, as authorities were preparing to transfer Oswald by armored car from the police basement to the nearby county jail. Ruby's 1964 conviction and death sentence were overturned in 1966 when an appellate court ruled that his motion for a change of venue before the original trial should have been granted. In December 1966, before a new trial could be arranged, Ruby died of pneumonia while suffering from liver, lung, and brain cancer.

➦In 1974…During his infamous "Lost Weekend," John Lennon rehearsed with Elton John for Elton's upcoming Madison Square Garden performance, at which Lennon planned to make a surprise cameo appearance.


➦In 1991...Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury died of AIDS-related pneumonia at age 45. Queen’s biggest hits were the No. 1 songs “Another One Bites the Dust,” which sold more than 2 million copies, and the million-selling “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.” The group is also well known for the double-sided hit “We Are the Champions/We Will Rock You.”


➦In 1991...Kiss drummer Eric Carr died of cancer at age 41. Doctors removed a cancerous tumor in Carr’s heart in April but the cancer had already spread to his lungs. He joined Kiss in 1982 when founding drummer Peter Criss left the group.


➦In 1993...Michael Jackson, embroiled in sex and drug addiction scandals, managed to pull off the biggest deal in music publishing history. Jackson sold his publishing operation, A-T-V Music, to E-M-I Music Publishing, in a deal worth more than 200-million dollars. Sources said Jackson himself received half that amount. Among the four-thousand titles under A-T-V’s control are most of the classic Lennon-McCartney Beatles compositions.