February 1 Radio History

Hildegarde w/orchestra leader Paul Whitman

In 1906...the 4th most prolific recording artist of all time was born in suburban Milwaukee.  She was known as “the incomparable Hildegarde,” a title bestowed on her by Walter Winchell. She appeared in cabarets & supper clubs up to 45 weeks a year.  The woman born Hildegarde Loretta Sell was the “girl” on CBS Radio’s “Ninety-Nine Men & a Girl” (1939), the hostess on 1943’s “Beat the Band” musical quiz show, and “Hildegarde’s Raleigh Room” on NBC Radio.  She also appeared in several TV specials, and continued performing to age 89.

She died of natural causes July 29 2005 at age 99.

➦In 1926...Flashback...Station news from Radio Digest:

Courtesy American Radio History

➦In 1940...NBC performs the first inter-city television broadcast from its station in New York City to another in Schenectady, New York by General Electric relay antennas.

➦In 1942…Even before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. government’s Office of the Coordinator of Information (COI, in Washington) had already begun providing war news and commentary to the commercial American shortwave radio stations for use on a voluntary basis through its Foreign Information Service (FIS, in New York) headed by playwright Robert E. Sherwood, the playwright who served as president Roosevelt’s speech writer and information advisor.

Direct programming began a week after the United States’ entry into World War II in December 1941, with the first broadcast from the San Francisco office of the FIS via a leased General Electric’s transmitter to the Philippines in English (other languages followed). The next step was to broadcast to Germany, which was called Stimmen aus Amerika ("Voices from America") and was transmitted on February 1, 1942. It was introduced by "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and included the pledge: "Today, and every day from now on, we will be with you from America to talk about the war... The news may be good or bad for us – We will always tell you the truth."

It was Sherwood who actually coined the term "The Voice of America" to describe the shortwave network that began its transmissions on February 1, from 270 Madison Avenue in New York City.

➦In 1949...RCA Victor countered Columbia Records‘ 33-1/3 long play phonograph disk with a new-configured product: the 45-rpm.  It started a revolution made made the 78-rpm record a true oldie.

➦In 1964… The governor of Indiana declared the song “Louie, Louie” by The Kingsmen to be pornographic, even though the average listener wasn’t able to decipher the lyrics. The governor asked the state broadcasters’ association to ban the record. at the time, the song was #6 on the Billobard Hot 100.  The song's publisher, Max Firetag, offered  $1000 to anyone who can prove that the song contains obscene lyrics. The FBI became involved and they determined the lyrics of the song were unintelligible.

➦In 1980... Sears Radio Theater moves from CBS to Mutual Broadcasting System.

➦In 1986....Classic Top40  KHJ-AM in Los Angeles changed its call letters to KRTH-AM.  On the evening of January 31, 1986, regular evening jock Dave Sebastian Williams was joined in studio by Robert W. Morgan. Many disc jockeys from throughout KHJ's heyday of Boss Radio phoned in (including M.G. Kelly, Bobby Ocean, Jimmy Rabbitt, and Boss Radio-era Program Director Ron Jacobs) for a farewell broadcast, playing the songs that had made KHJ a popular AM station in the 1960s and 1970s. At the stroke of midnight, the station changed its call letters to KRTH to match those of its FM sister station, KRTH-FM playing a format called "Smokin' Oldies" that featured hits of the first ten years of rock and roll. The station used "AM 930" as its on-air ID.

RKO General was under nearly continuous investigation by federal regulators from the 1960s onward due to unethical conduct at its television stations, including KRTH-AM/FM's television sister, KHJ-TV (channel 9, now KCAL-TV). It was eventually ruled unfit to be a broadcast licensee and forced by the FCC to sell off its broadcast properties.

In the summer of 1989, KRTH AM/FM were sold to Beasley Broadcasting, which immediately turned around and sold KRTH-AM to Liberman Broadcasting. It became a full-time Spanish-language station, adopting the call letters KKHJ in honor of its historic calls.

As time went by, program director Alfredo Rodriguez and chief engineer Jerry Lewine wanted to bring back the legendary three-letter call sign. However, the FCC hadn't issued three-letter calls to radio stations since the 1930s. So they came up with a plan to convince the FCC that KKHJ could not use the Spanish pronunciation of its call letters on the air. This was purportedly because the pronunciation of the first two letters in Spanish (kah-kah), the Spanish vulgar slang word for feces.

As a result, whenever the call letters were used, they were pronounced in English. This proved somewhat awkward over a decade, so the station collected letters from listeners and community listeners and lobbied the FCC to allow the station to drop one of its Ks. The FCC allowed the station to return to its original calls, KHJ. The change became official on March 15, 2000.

➦In 1985...

➦In 1989…WEVD switched from 97.9 FM to 1050 AM.

In 1988, Emmis Broadcasting acquired the license of WNBC and moved WFAN from 1050 to 660 AM.  Emmis sold the license for 1050 to Spanish Broadcasting System (SBS), which quickly agreed to trade that license with cash to the Forward Association for WEVD-FM. Until the latter transaction was approved, SBS operated 1050 as a Spanish-language station called WUKQ.  

When the deal was finally consummated, WEVD moved its call letters and programming to 1050 and the former WEVD-FM became WSKQ-FM. WEVD gradually replaced much of its brokered ethnic programming with liberal talk shows over the next several years; it gained some loyal listeners, but not enough to keep the station economically viable.

In 2001, the Forward Association entered into a local marketing agreement with ESPN, and WEVD began broadcasting a sports format on September 2 of that year. In 2003 the station was sold outright to ESPN and its call letters changed to WEPN.

➦In 1996....both houses of the U.S. Congress overwhelmingly approved a rewrite of the 1934 Communications Act. Some highlights: it allowed local and long-distance telephone companies, as well as cable TV providers, to offer a mixture of goods and services; Deregulate cable TV rates; allowed consumers access to a greater variety of cable, telephone and other communications services; and, in one of the most controversial changes, it revised the National Multiple Radio Ownership Rule and Local Radio Ownership Rule, allowing most of the stations in the U.S. to be snatched up by a few corporations.

➦In 2004..., Justin Timberlake ripped Janet Jackson‘s top during the Super Bowl halftime show and exposed her right breast on live TV. the incident resulted in US broadcasters adopting a stronger adherence to FCC censorship guidelines.

➦In 2013…Ed Koch, American congressman/New York Mayor (3 terms)/WABC radio talk host, and from 1997 to ’99 the judge on TV’s People’s Court, died due to heart failure at age 88.

➦In 2019... Spotify was in talks to buy podcasting group Gimlet Media, a move that would eventually give a boost to the music-streaming company’s narrative-audio ambitions.

Harry Styles is 29

🎂HAPPY BIRTHDAYS:

• Actor-comedian Garrett Morris is 86. 
• Bluegrass singer Del McCoury is 84. 
• TV personality Joy Philbin is 82. 
• Guitarist Mike Campbell of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers is 73. 
• Blues musician Sonny Landreth is 72. 
• Actor-writer-producer Billy Mumy(“Lost in Space”) is 69. 
• Singer Exene Cervenka of X is 67. 
• Actor Linus Roache (“Law and Order”) is 59. 
• Actor Sherilyn Fenn (“Twin Peaks”) is 58. 
• Comedian Pauly Shore is 55. 
• Actor Brian Krause (“Charmed”) is 54. 
• Jazz saxophonist Joshua Redman is 54. 
• Drummer Patrick Wilson of Weezer is 54. 
• Actor Michael C. Hall (“Dexter,” ″Six Feet Under”) is 52. 
• Rapper Big Boi of Outkast is 48. 
• Musician Jason Isbell is 44. 
• Singer Andrew VanWyngarden of MGMT is 40. 
• TV personality Lauren Conrad (“The Hills,” ″Laguna Beach”) is 37. 
• Actor-singer Heather Morris (“Glee”) is 36. 
• Singer Harry Styles is 29.

✞DEATH ANNIVERSARIES:

• In 1966..Buster Keaton, Actor and comedian (Navigator, Steamboat Bill Jr, The General), dies at 70
• In 1980..Jack Bailey, Actor & TV host (Queen for a Day), dies at 72
• In 1986..Dick James [Leon Vapnick], British dance band vocalist and Beatles' music publisher (Northern Songs), dies of a heart attack at 65
• In 1997..Herb Caen, Columnist (SF Chronicle), dies of lung cancer, at 80
• In 2012..Angelo Dundee, Boxing trainer & cornerman (Muhammad Ali 1960–81 & 15 other world boxing champions), dies at 90
• In 2012..Don Cornelius, Television host, commits suicide by gunshot at 75