October 5 Radio History

➦In 1912...Tony Marvin was born (Died at age 86 – October 10, 1998). He was a staff announcer for CBS, and later became most known as the long-time announcer for Arthur Godfrey.

Tony Marvin

Marvin's first job in radio was at WNYC in New York City. From there, he went to CBS as a staff announcer, beginning October 1, 1939. A 1959 article in Radio and Television Mirror reported that at CBS "Tony did everything from daytime serials to symphonies and in 1946, when the Arthur Godfrey morning show was sustaining, Tony was assigned to it." When Godfrey's activities expanded from Arthur Godfrey Time to include Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts and Arthur Godfrey and his Friends, Marvin did the announcing for those shows as well.

Marvin branched out in 1958, adding a two-hour, Monday-Saturday disc jockey show on WABC to his other duties.  In 1961, Marvin became host of My True Story, a radio drama that moved to the Mutual Broadcasting System after having been on ABC and NBC for a total of 17 years. That same year he became a newscaster for Mutual.

In his later years, Marvin had two more stints with programs on local radio stations. In 1976, he had a four-hour afternoon show, "Tony's Time," on WATR in Waterbury, Connecticut.  Beginning in 1977, Marvin had a show on WDJZ in Bridgeport, Connecticut, which at the time was one of the first radio stations playing the "Music of Your Life" format, consisting primarily of music from the big band era. In 1981, Marvin came out of retirement to do "The Tony Marvin Show," a one-hour program broadcast live from the Palm Beach Hilton on WKAO. He said, "I want to bring back live radio." The show originated in the hotel's dining room and featured an orchestra.

➦In 1921....the first World Series to air on radio got underway between the New York Yankees and Giants. KDKA Pittsburgh and WJZ New York broadcast direct from the Polo Grounds, while WBZ Springfield and announcer Thomas Cowan recreated the games in their studios from reports phoned in from the stadium.

➦In 1925...WSM-AM in Nashville signed-on.

WSM is primarily associated with country music through its weekly Saturday night program, the Grand Ole Opry, the longest-running radio program in history.

The Opry began as the WSM Barn Dance in 1925, but after only about a year on the air, the program's host, "Judge" Hay, referred to the programming as being "Grand Ole Opry" in contrast to the preceding grand opera program on NBC.

In 1932, WSM boosted its power to 50,000 watts, becoming Tennessee's first clear-channel station.

In addition to its vast nighttime coverage area, the station boasts one of the largest daytime coverage areas in the country. It provides at least grade B coverage as far east as Chattanooga, as far north as Evansville, Indiana, as far west as Jackson, Tennessee and as far south as Huntsville, Alabama. Under the right conditions, it can be heard in nearly all of Tennessee and much of Kentucky, and can be picked up as far away as the fringes of the St. Louis area.

The station traditionally played country music in the nighttime hours, when listeners from around the United States would tune in.

Before the advent of television, the station broadcast long-form radio (both local and NBC network) programs in addition to music.

After TV became popular (thus largely eliminating the audience for full-length radio programs), WSM adopted a "MOR" (middle of the road) music format during the daytime hours, and continued to play country music at night. It was not until about 1979 that WSM adopted the 24-hour country music format of today.

WSM is credited with shaping Nashville into a recording industry capital. Because of WSM's incredible reach, musical acts from all across the eastern United States would come to Nashville in the early decades of the station's existence, in hopes of getting to perform on WSM. Over time, as more acts and recording companies came to Nashville, the city became known as the center of the country music industry. Disc jockey David Cobb is credited with first referring to Nashville as "Music City USA", a designation that has since been adopted as the city's official nickname by the local tourism board.

WSM's unusual diamond-shaped antenna is visible from I-65 just south of Nashville (in Brentwood). When the 878-foot tower was built in 1932, it was the tallest antenna in North America. Its height was reduced to 808 feet (246 m) in 1939 when it was discovered that the taller tower was causing self-cancellation in the fringe areas of reception of the station (it is now known that 195 electrical degrees, about 810 feet, is the optimum height for a Class A station on that frequency).

➦In 1934...'Hollywood Hotel' became the first network radio show to originate from Hollywood.  It featured Hollywood stars in dramatized versions of then-current movies and "helped to make Hollywood an origination point for major radio programs." The CBS was heavily promoted as being the first program broadcast from the US West Coast, and continued to do so weekly for the next four years.

➦In 1945..."Meet the Press" premiered.  It originally began on the Mutual Broadcasting System in 1945 as American Mercury Presents: Meet the Press, a program to promote The American Mercury, a magazine that Lawrence E. Spivak purchased in 1935.   Before the program aired, Spivak asked journalist Martha Rountree, who had worked in radio and had been employed by Spivak as a roving editor for the magazine, to critique the plans for the new radio show. Based on her advice, Rountree created a new radio program that she called The American Mercury.

On November 6, 1947, while still on the Mutual Broadcasting System, the television rights to the program were purchased by General Foods, which began to air the show on the NBC television network with the title shortened to simply Meet the Press; the radio version also adopted the new name. Although some sources credit Spivak with the program's creation, Rountree developed the idea on her own, and Spivak joined as co-producer and business partner in the enterprise after the show had already debuted.

➦In 1947…The first radio recorded on magnetic tape aired on ABC Radio. It featured a performance by Bing Crosby. The broadcast demonstrated the capabilities of the new Ampex 200 tape recorder.

➦In 1952…After 11½ years on the air, the creaking door of "Inner Sanctum Mysteries" was heard for the last time as the series ended its run on ABC Radio.