➦In 1913...Les Tremayne born (Died at age 90 from heart failure - December 19, 2003). He was a radio, film and television actor.
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| Les Tremayne |
In 1974, Tremayne commented, "I've been in more than 30 motion pictures, but it's from radio ... that most people remember me."
His radio career began in 1931, and during the 1930s and 1940s, Tremayne was often heard in more than one show per week. Replacing Don Ameche, he starred in The First Nighter Program from 1936 to 1942. He starred in The Adventures of the Thin Man and The Romance of Helen Trent during the 1940s. He also starred in the title role in The Falcon, and played detective Pat Abbott in The Abbott Mysteries in 1946–47. Tremayne was once named one of the three most distinctive voices on American radio. The other two were Bing Crosby and President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
In his later years, Tremayne was active in Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters as the group's historian and archivist. Those roles included interviewing people who were active in early radio to provide source material for researchers
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| Joan Alexander |
Initially, the show, which ran through to 1951, was syndicated through the Mutual Broadcasting System's cornerstone station, WOR in New York, subsequently taken up by the Mutual network and finally to ABC.
Alexander also was heard on Dimension X and Philo Vance, Against the Storm and on Perry Mason, in the first portrayal of supporting character Della Street, secretary to defense attorney Mason. She also played Althea on The Brighter Day on radio. Alexander additionally provided Lois Lane's voice in the 1940s Fleischer Studios/Paramount Pictures (Famous Studios) animated Superman shorts. She reprised the role of Lois Lane for one season of the 1966 Filmation animated series The New Adventures of Superman.
➦In 1922....KFI 640 AM signed-on in Los Angeles. Currently owned and operated by iHeartMedia. It received its license to operate on March 31, 1922 and began operating on this date and after succession of power increases, became one of the United States' first high-powered, clear-channel stations. KFI is a Class A 50,000 watt, non-directional station.
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| KFI Original 1922 50-Watt Transmitter |
KFI initially used a 50-watt transmitter made from a crank telephone. Early on, Earl Anthony operated the station from his garage, and later from atop his Packard automobile dealership. In its early days, it was typically on the air for only four and a half hours a day.
From the time of its inception in 1926, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) operated two networks, the Red Network and the Blue Network. The Red Network carried sponsored commercial programs, while the Blue Network carried the sustaining ones (those without commercial sponsors). The red and blue designations came from the colors of the lines drawn on network maps. In 1931, NBC reorganized its West Coast operations, creating Orange and Blue networks for that area to replace its previous Pacific Coast network. KFI was part of the Orange group, along with KGO, Oakland; KGW, Portland, KOMO, Seattle, and KHQ, Spokane.
KFI was an affiliate of the NBC Red Network and Early Anthony's other raido station KECA 1430 AM carried programming from the Blue Network. In 1939, KECA moved to 780 kHz, the frequency of the former KEHE. Anthony sold KECA in 1944 and it moved to 790 kHz and became KABC.
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| KFI and KECA Building - 1939 |
KFI's call letters were assigned sequentially but many people assumed that the "FI" stood for "Farmers Information." Every winter evening between 1924 and 1956, KFI would deliver a frost report at 8 pm that would tell citrus farmers whether to turn on wind machines or light "smudge pots" to keep their orange and lemon groves from freezing. The frost warnings moved to 7 pm until the late 1970s when they were removed from the schedule.
On November 29, 1944, KFI officials broke ground on Mount Wilson for construction of a new FM and TV transmitting facility. The ceremony was broadcast live over KFI (AM) from Mount Wilson from noon to 12:15 pm that afternoon. KFI-FM went on the air from that site at 105.9 megacycles (Megahertz today) in July 1946 with its first test program, though some later sources say the station went on the air in 1947.
The station only lasted until 1951 when the owner, Earle C. Anthony, decided to turn off the FM station and returned the license to the FCC. This was common at the time, when some station owners saw no money from FM and no future in FM. In the early 1950s, while the audio quality was much better than AM, FM radios were not widely available, the AM-FM combination radios were expensive and stereo broadcasting on FM didn't exist until 1961.
➦In 1935...1st radio broadcast of "Fibber McGee & Molly"
➦In 1962...Walter Cronkite succeeded Douglas Edwards as anchorman of the CBS Evening News.
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