December 16 Radio History

➦In 1898...drummer/bandleader Lud Gluskin was born in Manhattan.  He became director of music at CBS in 1937, and his work was heard all over the radio dial on programs originating in Hollywood for the next 15 years.  He led the orchestra for a year or two of Amos ‘n’ Andy, Suspense, My Friend Irma, Life with Luigi, My Little Margie, Sweeney & March, The Philip Morris Playhouse, Campana Serenade, and dozens of lesser-known, lower-budget programs. He died Oct. 13 1989 at age 90.

Eugenia H Ferrar

➦In 1901...Guglielmo Marconi was officially notified by the Anglo-American Telegraph Company that it would take legal action against him unless he immediately ceased his wireless experiments and removed his equipment from Newfoundland.  Anglo-American had a fifty-year monopoly on electrical communications in Newfoundland, that began in 1858, and it was determined to hinder radio telegraphy, which was a serious threat to its transatlantic electric telegraph business operated by submarine cables.  Marconi soon decided to move his base of operations to Cape Breton Island, and was welcomed there on Dec. 26 with open arms.

➦In 1907...Well known opera performer Eugenia H. Farrar became the first person to sing on the radio. Lee De Forest transmitted her voice from the Brooklyn Naval Yard in New York during the departure of Admiral Robley Dunglison Evans on a cruise with the fleet.

➦In 1925..Dynamic loudspeaker is designed by Chester Rice and Edward Kellogg.



➦In 1951...After more than two years on radio, the TV pilot episode of "Dragnet" aired on NBC. The series, starring and created/produced by Jack Webb, ran until August 1959, then returned from 1967 to 1970. Dragnet ran on NBC radio from June 3, 1949 to September 20, 1955 with repeats lasting until February 26, 1957.

➦In 1990...KUSW, Salt Lake City, Utah, ended shortwave radio transmissions.

➨In 1993...KEZK in St. Louis became the first U.S. radio station to ban Michael Jackson records following recent allegations of Jackson's child sexual abuse.

➦In 2005...Howard Stern did his last terrestrial radio show for Infinity Broadcasting's WXRK-FM (changed to CBS Radio) before moving on to SIRIUS Satellite Radio.

➦In 2006...Paul McCartney left EMI, his record label for 45 years, saying it had become "boring" and he "dreaded going to see" its executives. McCartney told The London Times that the company's handling of his music had become "symbolic of the treadmill." He later signed with Hear Music, the Starbucks label.

➦In 2007...Singer/songwriter (Longer, Same Old Lang Syne, Hard To Say, Leader Of The Band, Run For The Roses) Dan Fogelberg died of prostate cancer at 56.



➦In 2010...Larry King ended his CNN talk show after 25 years.