January 14 Radio History

William Bendix

➦In 1906...actor William Bendix was born in New York City.  Identified as one of the “most cherished” actors in the history of radio, Bendix starred in “The Life of Riley” on NBC Radio from 1944-51, and the TV version from 1953-58. He also had an impressive big screen resume. He died from lobar pneumonia Dec 14, 1964 at age 58.

➦In 1907...Dr. Lee DeForest patented the Audion tube. De Forest is generally thought of as the "Father of Radio". The Audion tube allowed amplification which made Radio transmission more practical for voice and music.

The Audion was the fastest electronic switching element of the time, and was later used in early digital electronics (such as computers). The triode was vital in the development of transcontinental telephone communications, radio, and radar until the 1948 invention of the transistor.

➦In 1927…Jack Benny married Sadye Marks. Five years later, Marks started playing Mary Livingstone, a character on Benny's radio show, and became so identified with the part that she legally changed her name to Mary Livingstone.

➦In 1939..."Honolulu Bound", was heard for the first time on CBS radio. Phil Baker and the Andrews Sisters were featured on the show.

➦In 1955...disc jockey Alan Freed held his first Rock `n’ Roll Party stage show in New York. Acts included the Clovers, Fats Domino and the Drifters.

➦In 1957...Hollyood Star Humphrey Bogart, who co-starred with his wife Lauren Bacall in the wildly successful syndicated radio show “Bold Venture,” died from esophagus cancer at age 57.



➦In 1973...Elvis Presley drew the largest audience for a single TV show to that time — an estimated one billion viewers in 40 countries. “Elvis – Aloha From Hawaii”, a live, worldwide concert from Honolulu International Center Arena (later known as the Neal S. Blaisdell Center Arena). Performed at 12:30 a.m. Hawaiian Time, it was beamed live via Globecam Satellite to Australia, South Korea, Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, South Vietnam and other countries, and was seen on a delayed basis in approximately 30 European countries. The first North American airing was April 4th on NBC-TV. The show was also released as a two-record album, and became one of Elvis’s top-selling LPs.

➦In 1981... the FCC freed radio stations to air as many commercials an hour as they wish.



➦In 1985...Dan Ingram started at WKTU 92.3 FM in NYC. Station is now WBMP and is owned by Entercom Communications.

➦In 2013...WFME 94.7 FM In the NYC market changed call letters to WRXP. WRXP, a call sign was previously used on the 101.9 FM facility in New York City under two different owners and two different stints as an alternative rock station. Today, the station is airing a country format asa WNSH and is owned by Entercom.

➦In 2016…Longtime KCBS Radio anchor Al Hart, a legendary voice in Bay Area broadcasting, died at the age of 88.

Hart joined KCBS in 1966, two years before the all-news format arrived.  During his 34 year career at KCBS, Hart delivered the news of the day, including major Bay Area stories such as the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake and the 1991 Oakland Hills fire.

Hart retired more than 15 earlier to tend to his wife Sally, who was fighting a battle with ALS. After her death, he remarried, but it wasn’t long after he and Pat exchanged vows that Al was diagnosed with a slow killer called Corticobasal Degeneration.