July 21 Radio History

Himan Brown

➦In 1910...Himan Brown born (Died  at age 99 – June 4, 2010). Known as Hi Brown, he was a producer of radio and television programs. Over seven decades, Brown produced more than 30,000 radio shows, including for major radio networks and syndication.

A recipient of the American Broadcast Pioneer and Peabody Awards, Brown was inducted in 1990s into the National Radio Hall of Fame.

Brown produced The Adventures of the Thin Man, The Affairs of Peter Salem, Bulldog Drummond, CBS Radio Mystery Theater, City Desk, Dick Tracy, Flash Gordon, The General Mills Radio Adventure Theater, Grand Central Station, Green Valley, USA, The Gumps, Inner Sanctum Mysteries, Joyce Jordan, M.D., Marie, the Little French Princess, The NBC Radio Theater, The Private Files of Rex Saunders, Terry and the Pirates and numerous daytime soap operas.

When television arrived, Brown produced 26 episodes of the syndicated Inner Sanctum TV series, plus a daytime show, Morning Matinee. Realizing that "all these guys making TV, they have to have a set," he profited by acquiring the studios in Chelsea; they were used for 35 years by New York TV production firms.

Through his non-profit educational foundation, Brown produced They Were Giants, radio programs dramatizing the lives of such literary figures as Walt Whitman and H. G. Wells, and We, The Living, fact-based dramas about the lives of senior citizens.

After the end of most network radio programming in the early 60’s Brown persisted with such series as the CBS Radio Mystery Theater, thereby keeping the art of radio drama alive for another generation.


➦In 1980...WMCA 570 AM, New York, hosted a reunion of The Good Guys featuring Joe O'Brien, Harry Harrison, Dan Daniels, Jack Spector and B Mitchel Reed.

In 1960, WMCA began promoting itself by stressing its on-air personalities, who were collectively known as The Good Guys. Led by program director Ruth Meyer, the first woman to hold the position in New York City radio,  this was the era of the high-profile Top 40 disc jockey with an exuberant personality aimed at a certain audience segment.

In the early 1960s, the top 40 format was still young, and the field was crowded in New York City. Two major 50,000-watt stations, WMGM 1050 (now WEPN) and 1010 WINS, had battled each other, playing pop music for years. Then in 1960, 77WABC joined the action. Ultimately, it was WMCA's earnest competition with rival WABC that forced WMGM (in early 1962) and then WINS (in spring 1965) to abandon Top 40.

➦In 2011...WRXP 101.9 FM NYC changes call letters to WEMP


 In 

➦In 2013…Page Morton died at age 97. She was a cabaret singer who married William Black, founder of the catering and coffee business Chock full o'Nuts. As Page Morton Black she was known for singing the "Heavenly Coffee" jingle on the company's radio and TV advertisements and sponsored broadcasts. When Black died in 1983, she took over his charitable work with the Parkinson's Disease Foundation.

➦In 2016…Roger Ailes stepped down as CEO/Chairman of Fox News in the wake of sexual harassment allegations made by former Fox anchor Gretchen Carlson and as many as 20 other current or former female employees of the cable news network.

➦In 2016...Pittsburgh radio, TV personality William Robert Cardille died  of liver cancer at age 87 (Born - December 10, 1928). Kown as "Chilly Billy", he had a nightly record program on WDAD radio in Indiana County, PA, in 1951. He first worked in television at WICU in Erie, PA, beginning January 19, 1952. He was for many years a fixture on Channel 11 (formerly call letters WIIC, now WPXI), the NBC affiliate in Pittsburgh, and was the first voice heard when WIIC went on the air on September 1, 1957.

Cardille was a pitchman for Koehler Beer, starring in various roles, baseball umpire, etc. in numerous TV commercials for Uncle Jackson's brews.

➦In 2018...Entercom Communications, based in nearby Bala Cynwyd announced that it was purchasing WBEB 101.1 More FM in Philadelphia from Jerry Lee Radio LLC for $57.5 million. More FM was the last major independent station in the country.