➦In 1925...Utah's oldest radio station KSL took over the airwaves at 1160 AM.
KSL/KZN began life as the radio arm of the Deseret News, a Salt Lake City newspaper also owned by the LDS Church. The station's first broadcast aired on May 6, 1922 as KZN. The broadcast was a talk by then-LDS Church president Heber J. Grant. In 1924 the station was sold to John Cope and his father, F.W. Cope, who formed the Radio Service Corporation of Utah. Earl J. Glade (later a four-term mayor of Salt Lake City) joined the station in 1925 and guided KSL's operations for the next fourteen years. John F. Fitzpatrick, publisher of The Salt Lake Tribune (owned by the Kearns Corporation) acquired a quarter interest of KSL for a modest price, as did the LDS Church. This was the Tribune's first business partnership with the LDS Church, though the Church later (re)acquired full interest in the station.
Soon after becoming a clear-channel station, KSL joined the CBS Radio Network. It remained with CBS until 2005, when it switched to ABC News Radio. The station would also gain a television counterpart in 1949, the CBS affiliate KSL-TV. (KSL-TV switched to NBC in 1995 after KUTV Channel 2 came under the ownership of CBS, following its acquisition by Westinghouse). They remained subsidiaries of the Deseret News until 1964, when Bonneville International Corporation was formed as the parent company for the LDS Church's broadcasting interests.
➦In 1932... A radio variety show is broadcast from a moving train for the first time, when Belle Baker hosts a show on a train traveling around the New York area. It was broadcast on the New York City station WABC (now WCBS-AM) . She talked first about the weather then, about local news regarding home-towns or stations of the train with the radio.
➦In 1935...Major Bowes' Original Amateur Hour first aired locally in NYC on WHN in April 1934. On March 24, 1935, on NBC, Chase and Sanborn chose this show to fill The Chase and Sanborn Hour. This arrangement lasted until September 17, 1936, when the show moved to the CBS Radio Network. The show remained on CBS for the remainder of its run on radio.
Each week, Bowes would chat with the contestants and listen to their performances.
Bowes sent the more talented contestants on "Major Bowes" vaudeville tours, often with several units roaming the country simultaneously. Bowes presided over his radio program until his death on his 72nd birthday, June 14, 1946.
Frank Sinatra was perhaps the best-known alumnus of the Bowes program, having appeared as part of the Hoboken Four quartet. Maria Callas also appeared on the program at age 11, performing as Nina Foresti when she sang a selection from Madame Butterfly.
In 1952, the show, now hosted by Ted Mack, made it to NBC-TV. It would run on various networks until 1970.
➦In 1958...Elvis Presley was finally inducted, starting his day as the King of Rock and Roll, but ending it as a lowly buck private in the United States Army.
Elvis’s manager, “Colonel” Tom Parker, made sure to have a photographer on hand to document every moment of the big day, which began at Graceland before six that morning. The photos show Elvis in dark slacks, an opened-collar shirt and a tasteful plaid sports coat, preparing to depart the house with his similarly well-dressed mom and dad for the short ride to the induction center in downtown Memphis.
Elvis reported to Local Draft Board 86 in Memphis, accompanied by his parents, Gladys and Vernon, as well as longtime friend Lamar Fike. Elvis and 12 other recruits were soon bused to Kennedy Veterans Memorial Hospital and inducted into the U.S. Army, where starting pay was $78 a month.
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| Howard Petrie |
He joined WBZ Radio in Boston in 1929 as a junior announcer. After ten months at the WBZ studios, Petrie left for New York City in June, 1930 where he joined the staff of NBC. Petrie soon became the head announcer for many of the network's shows.
His first major network assignment was on Everything Goes, starring Garry Moore. He was the announcer for scores of shows including Abbie's Irish Rose, Big Sister, Camel Caravan, Blondie, The Ray Bolger Show, The Judy Canova Show, The Jimmy Durante Show, and The Garry Moore Show.
➦In 1977...Jean Shepherd aired his final show on WOR 710 AM NYC.
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| Jean Shepherd |
The most famous of the last involved creating a hoax about a non-existent book, I, Libertine, by the equally non-existent author "Frederick R. Ewing", in 1956. During a discussion on how easy it was to manipulate the best seller lists, which at that time were based not only on sales but demand, Shepherd suggested that his listeners visit bookstores and ask for a copy of I, Libertine which led to booksellers attempting to purchase the book from their distributors. Fans of the show eventually took it further, planting references to the book and author so widely that demand for the book led to it being listed on The New York Times Best Seller list.
Shepherd, Theodore Sturgeon and Betty Ballantine later wrote the actual book, with a cover painted by illustrator Frank Kelly Freas, published by Ballantine Books.
Throughout his radio career, he performed entirely without scripts. His friend and WOR colleague Barry Farber marveled at how he could talk so long with very little written down. Yet during a radio interview, Shepherd once claimed that some shows took several weeks to prepare.
He died October 16, 1999 at the age of 78.
In 2005, Shepherd was posthumously inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame, and in November 2013 he was posthumously inducted into the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia Hall of Fame
➦In 1980...Harry Harrison became the morning personality at WCBS 101.1 FM, playing oldie. In 1984, with Lundy joining the station, they were once again heard back-to-back as they were on Musicradio 77WABC .
Harrison would interact with Morning Crew engineer Al Vertucci, Phil Pepe, who reported sports, and joke about "wacky weather" and toupee warnings with Irv “Mr. “G” Gikofsky (weather), Mary Jane Royce, and Sue Evans. At 7:20 AM, Harrison opened the "birthday book" and announced listener and celebrity birthdays.
On March 19, 2003, after a 44-year career in New York radio, Harrison left WCBS-FM, saying "I am not retiring." His farewell to his loyal radio friends (from 5:30 to 10:00am) was held before a live audience at the Museum of Television and Radio in New York City. It offered old airchecks plus guest appearances by WCBS-FM colleagues Don K. Reed, Bobby Jay, Steve O'Brien, Randy Davis and Dan Taylor, his replacement, as well as his son and daughter, Patti. Harrison took phone calls from Bob Shannon, Mike Fitzgerald, Ed Baer, and Ron Lundy. Songs included Gladys Knight's "Neither One of Us (Wants to Be the First to Say Goodbye)" and the Little River Band's "Reminiscing," before closing with "That's What Friends Are For."
Shortly after he left WCBS-FM, Harrison's long-time wife, Patti, who he had always referred to as "Pretty Patti" on the air, died.
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| Ray Goulding, Bob Elliott |
Their format was typically to satirize the medium in which they were performing, such as conducting radio or television interviews, with off-the-wall dialogue presented in a generally deadpan style as though it were a serious broadcast.
Elliott and Goulding began as radio announcers (Elliott a disc jockey, and Goulding a news reader) in Boston with their own separate programs on station WHDH-AM, and each would visit with the other while on the air. Their informal banter was so appealing that WHDH would call on them, as a team, to fill in when Red Sox baseball broadcasts were rained out. Elliott and Goulding (not yet known as Bob and Ray) would improvise comedy routines all afternoon, and joke around with studio musicians.
Elliott and Goulding's brand of humor caught on, and WHDH gave them their own weekday show in 1946. Matinee with Bob and Ray was originally a 15-minute show, soon expanding to half an hour. (When explaining why Bob was billed first, Goulding claimed that it was because "Matinee with Bob and Ray" sounded better than "Matinob with Ray and Bob".) Their trademark sign-off was "This is Ray Goulding reminding you to write if you get work"; "Bob Elliott reminding you to hang by your thumbs".
They continued on the air for over four decades on the NBC, CBS, and Mutual networks, and on New York City stations WINS, WOR, and WHN. From 1973 to 1976 they were the afternoon drive hosts on WOR, doing a four-hour show. In their last incarnation, they were heard on National Public Radio, ending in 1987.
Bob and Ray were inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 1995. Bob and Ray were inducted into the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame in the radio division.
➦In 2005...Former WCCO Radio personality Jm Rogers died at age 64. He began his career working for KLWW in Cedar Rapids while attending Coe College. He went on to host programs for WMT in Cedar Rapids and WCAU in Philadelphia before moving to WCCO Radio in Mpls where he worked from 1983 to 1996
➦In 2016...Former CBC radio personality Jian Ghomeshi was aquitted of all charges in the first of two trials resulting from sexual assault allegations made by various women against the Toronto-based broadcaster.
➦In 2017…Longtime Detroit news anchor Rich Fisher died after a battle with cancer of the esophagus. He was 67.Fisher was known to many Metro Detroiters as the back-up to former Channel 7 anchor Bill Bonds until the early 1990s, when CBS lured him away as their principal anchor at WJBK-TV. When Fox-TV bought out Channel 2 in 1994, Fisher stayed with the new network until leaving in 1997 to spend more time with his family. He later anchored the 11 p.m. nightly news at WWJ (Channel 62) until 2002.
Fisher started his broadcast career with an Alpena radio station in 1968 and was the recipient of awards including the 1993 Michigan Associated Press Award and a 1986 national award from the American Bar Association, according to WJBK-TV (Channel 2). He also secured an Emmy for his broadcasting.
