Radio History: October 26

➦In 1935...Frances Gumm, a talented twelve-year-old sang on Wallace Beery’s NBC radio show. The young girl would soon be in pictures and at the top of stardom. It would be only four years before the renamed Judy Garland captured the hearts of moviegoers as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.

➦In 1940...Hazelwood Broadcasting put WLOF 1230 AM on the air (We-Love-Orlando-Florida).

It would be Orlando's second radio station. WLOF began broadcasting at 6:30AM with 250 watts of power and radius of 50 miles.

The studios and offices were located on the mezzanine floor of the Angebilt Hotel. The station was an affiliate of the National Broadcasting Co. (NBC), switching to Mutual in 1947.

Also, The station was moved to 950 kHz in 1947 and power was increased to 5,000 Watts.

➦In 1965...The Beatles receive Members of the British Empire (MBE) medals from Queen Elizabeth II in a ceremony staged at Buckingham Palace. It is the first such honor ever given to a rock band, causing many former recipients, many distinguished military personnel, to return their medals in disgust. According to John, the group is so nervous beforehand that it gets high on marijuana in a palace bathroom; during the ceremony, when Her Majesty asks the group how long it's been together, Ringo.

➦In 1968...Having been fired from WOR-FM, Legendary DJ Murray The K moves across town in New York, again becoming one of the WMCA 570 AM "Good Guys" working a weekend shift.

➦In 1990...CBS founder & CEO William S. Paley died at age 89 after a heart attack and kidney failure.

William S Paley 1937

Paley's father Samuel Paley was a Jewish immigrant from Ukraine who ran a cigar company. As the company became increasingly successful, Paley became a millionaire, and moved his family to Philadelphia in the early 1920s. In 1927, Paley's father, brother-in-law and some business partners bought a struggling Philadelphia-based radio network of 16 station called the Columbia Phonographic Broadcasting System.  Samuel Paley's intention was to use his acquisition as an advertising medium for promoting the family's cigar business, which included the La Palina brand. Within a year, under William's leadership, cigar sales had more than doubled, and, in 1928, the Paley family secured majority ownership of the network from their partners. Within a decade, William S. Paley had expanded the network to 114 affiliate stations.

Paley quickly grasped the earnings potential of radio and recognized that good programming was the key to selling advertising time and, in turn, bringing in profits to the network and to affiliate owners. Before Paley, most businessmen viewed stations as stand-alone local outlets or, in other words, as the broadcast equivalent of local newspapers. Individual stations originally bought programming from the network and, thus, were considered the network's clients.

Paley changed broadcasting's business model not only by developing successful and lucrative broadcast programming but also by viewing the advertisers as the most significant element of the broadcasting equation. Paley provided network programming to affiliate stations at a nominal cost, thereby ensuring the widest possible distribution for both the programming and the advertising. The advertisers then became the network's primary clients and, because of the wider distribution brought by the growing network, Paley was able to charge more for the ad time. Affiliates were required to carry programming offered by the network for part of the broadcast day, receiving a portion of the network's fees from advertising revenue. At other times in the broadcast day, affiliates were free to offer local programming and sell advertising time locally.

Paley's recognition of how to harness the potential reach of broadcasting was the key to his growing CBS from a tiny chain of stations into what was eventually one of the world's dominant communication empires. During his prime, Paley was described as having an uncanny sense for popular taste and exploiting that insight to build the CBS network. As war clouds darkened over Europe in the late 1930s, Paley recognized Americans' desire for news coverage of the coming war and built the CBS news division into a dominant force just as he had previously built the network's entertainment division.

➦In 2015...Longtime Washington, DC radio personality/Radio Hall of Famer Ed Walker, whose 60-year broadcasting career included co-hosting "The Joy Boys" with Willard Scott until 1972, died of cancer at 83. (Read More Here)

Pat Sajack is 77

🎂HAPPY BIRTHDAYS:

• Actor Jaclyn Smith (“Charlie’s Angels”) is 78. 
• “Wheel of Fortune” host Pat Sajak is 77. 
• Musician Bootsy Collins is 72. 
• Actor James Pickens Jr. (“Grey’s Anatomy”) is 71. 
• Musician David Was of Was (Not Was) is 71. 
• Guitarist Keith Strickland of The B-52′s is 70. 
• Actor Lauren Tewes (“The Love Boat”) is 70. 
• Actor D.W. Moffett (“Chicago Med”) is 69. 
• Actor-singer Rita Wilson is 67. 
• Actor Patrick Breen (“Madam Secretary”) is 63. 
• Actor Dylan McDermott (“The Practice”) is 62. 
• Actor Cary Elwes is 61. 
• Singer Natalie Merchant is 60. 
• Actor Steve Valentine (“Crossing Jordan”) is 57. 
• Country singer Keith Urban is 56. 
• Actor Tom Cavanagh (“The Flash,” ″Ed”) is 55. 
• Actor Rosemarie DeWitt (“The United States of Tara”) is 52. 
• Actor Anthony Rapp (“Rent”) is 52. 
• Writer-actor Seth McFarlane (“Family Guy”) is 50. 
• TV host Paula Faris (“The View”) is 48. 
• Actor Florence Kasumba (“Black Panther”) is 47. 
• Actor Jon Heder (“Blades of Glory,” ″Napoleon Dynamite”) is 46. 
• Singer Mark Barry of BBMak is 45. 
• Actor Folake Olowofoyeku (“Bob Hearts Abishola”) is 40. 
• Rapper Schoolboy Q is 37. 
• Actor Beulah Koale (“Hawaii Five-0”) is 32.

✞REMEMBRANCES:

• In 1952..Hattie McDaniel, 1st African American actress to win an Oscar (Gone With The Wind -"Mammy"), dies of breast cancer at 57
• In 1960..(Francis Drake) "Pat" Ballard, American songwriter ("Mr. Sandman", "Love Is Mine"), lyricist, script writer, and columnist, dies of a heart attack at 61
• In 1984..Sue Randall, actress (Miss Landers-Leave it to Beaver), dies at 49
• In 1990..William Samuel Paley, American president and CEO of CBS (1928-90), dies of a heart attack at 89
• In 1999..Hoyt Axton, American songwriter, singer ("No No Song"; "Joy To The World"; "I've Never Been To Spain"), and actor (McCloud; Gremlins; The Rousters), dies of a heart attack at 61
• In 2019..Robert Evans, American producer and actor (Love Story, The Godfather, Chinatown), dies at 89
• In 2021..Mort Sahl, American stand-up comedian, political satirist, writer, and TV personality (The Big Party), dies at 94