January 29 Radio History

Walter Winchell

➦In 1929...Newspaper gossip columnist Walter Winchell first appeared on network radio. He made his NYC radio debut over WABC (then a CBS station) in New York on May 12, 1930.

The show, entitled Saks on Broadway, was a 15-minute feature that provided business news about Broadway. He switched to WJZ (later to be renamed WABC) and the NBC Blue (in the '40s to become ABC RadioNework) in 1932 for the Jergens Journal.

Winchell found embarrassing stories about famous people by exploiting his exceptionally wide circle of contacts, and trading gossip, sometimes in return for his silence. His uniquely outspoken style made him both feared and admired, and his newspaper column was syndicated worldwide. In the 1930s, he attacked the appeasers of Nazism, and in the '50s aligned with Joseph McCarthy in his campaign against communists. The McCarthy connection in time made him deeply unfashionable, his talents did not adapt well for television, and his career ended in humiliation.

➦In 1937...On the CBS Radio Network debuted "Aunt Jenny’s Real Life Stories".  The show was a 15-minute radio soap opera that aired January 18, 1937–November 16, 1956.  Unlike most continuing soap operas, on Monday of each week a new, self-contained storyline was begun, one which would then reach its conclusion on Friday.         

➦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 radio-TV  rights garnering a million dollars a year.

➦In 1956...the show "Indictment" was first broadcast on the CBS Radio Network. The well-produced show remained on the air in the rapidly-ending OTR era for three years.

➦In 1964,...The Beatle hit #1 on Billboard's Hot 100 for first time with  “I Want to Hold Your Hand”. This song had worldwide sales of 15 million copies. The same day The Beatle recorded a version in German.

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 WQBH, WJLB, WCHB Detroit personality Martha Jean "The Queen'' Steinberg died at the age of 69.

Martha Jean Steinberg

Her first radio job was on Memphis’ WDIA starting in 1954m where she was one of the first female disc jockeys in the U-S, airing R&B hits along with "household hints".

In 1963 she moved to Detroit, Michigan, where she became a larger-than-life figure on the air and in the black community.  Steinberg cultivated a 46-year career and is a member of the Black Radio Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

During Detroit’s 1967 civil disturbance she remained on-air for 48 straight hours, imploring listeners to stay off the streets. That event evolved into a regular call-in show with the city’s police commissioners called “Buzz the Fuzz.”

In 1972, Steinberg became an ordained minister and founded a church called the Home of Love. Her shows became even more spiritual in nature, tagged by her sign-off, “God loves you and I love you.”

In 1982, Steinberg and several partners bought a Detroit AM station, changed its format to gospel and talk, and changed the call letters to WQBH (which many say stood for “Queen Broadcasts Here”). She bought the station outright in 1997 and remained its star broadcaster until her death three years later. Her impact on the station and its listeners was so profound that WQBH continued airing daily recordings of the Queen’s programs for years after her death. The station was sold in 2004 to Salem Broadcasting and is now a conservative talk station, WDTK.       

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

HOA

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

He was one of the original Swingin' Seven deejays when WABC 770 AM went to a Top40 Format in late 1960.

A longtime fixture on the New York radio station, popular in the metro area and beyond, Anderson began his tenure at WABC in 1960 at a time when the station was honing its Top 40 format. Anderson, who was a fan of big band music, was one of the station’s “Swingin’ 7” on-air personalities, WABC’s answer to the “Good Guys” on rival station WMCA 570 AM, where Anderson previously worked.

Anderson, who was born on May 30, 1928, in South Beloit, Illinois, was raised along with his four siblings at the Odd Fellows orphanage in nearby Lincoln because his widowed mother was too poor to support them. He and his mother were eventually reunited.  He eventually moved to Wisconsin, where he worked as a newspaper reporter. 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. After a three-year stint in the U.S. Army Air Corps, Anderson was hired in 1956 by St. Paul, Minnesota, radio station WDGY to host a Top 40 program.



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.

HOA - circa the '70s

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.

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

Unhappy with changing musical tastes, Anderson left WABC in 1969. his son later stated that a key reason for his father’s departure was because station owner ABC broke its promise to let Anderson host his own talk show. Anderson followed his WABC gig as a DJ at AM radio stations WOR and WHN in the ’70s.

➦Click Here for more historical events that happened on Jan 29.