➦In 1898...Author, Columnist and radio minister Dr. Norman Vincent Peale was born in Bowersville Ohio. For 54 years (from 1935 to 1989), Peale hosted the weekly radio program The Art of Living. He was best known for the best selling book The Power of Positive Thinking. He served as mentor to televangelist Robert Schuller. He died Dec 24, 1993 at age 95.
➦In 1908...Entertainer Don Ameche was born Dominic Felix Amici (Died at age 85 from cancer – December 6, 1993), He was an Actor, voice artist and comedian. After playing in college shows, stock, and vaudeville, he became a major radio star in the early 1930s, which led to the offer of a movie contract from 20th Century Fox in 1935.
As a handsome, debonair leading man in 40 films over the next 14 years, he was a popular star in comedies, dramas, and musicals. In the 1950s he worked on Broadway and in television, and was the host of NBC's International Showtime from 1961 to 1965. Returning to film work in his later years, Ameche enjoyed a fruitful revival of his career beginning with his role as a villain in Trading Places (1983) and won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Cocoon (1985).
➦In 1943...The comic strip Archie Andrews came to radio on the Blue Network for the first time. Archie, Veronica and the gang remained on network radio for some nine years.
➦In 194?..Longtime Philadelphia and NYC Radio Personality Ross Brittain was born.
More recently he is working weekends at Classic Hits WWZY 107.1 FM The Boss in Long Branch, NJ and 99.7 WBHX Tuckerton NJ. Previously, stops included morning host at then-CBS owned WOGL 98.1 FM in Philly and he's also worked in Atlanta, New Orleans, Cleveland and Hartford as well as NYC. In 1982, Brittain was cohost of the first morning show Ross & Brittain on 77WABC as a CHR Station and later as a Talk station.
In 1984, he teamed with Scott Shannon on the Z100 Morning Zoo on WHTZ 100.3 FM.
Confer 2014 Ross Brittain Interview from National Radio Talent System on Vimeo.
Brittain is a former Billboard and Radio&Records "Personality of The Year".
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| Mary Margaret McBride |
McBride first worked steadily in radio for WOR in New York City. In 1937, she launched on the CBS radio network the first of a series of similar and successful shows, now as Mary Margaret McBride.
She interviewed figures well known in the world of arts and entertainment, and politics, with a style recognized as original to herself. She accepted advertising only for products she was prepared to endorse from her own experience, and turned down all tobacco or alcohol products.
She followed this format in regular broadcasts on CBS until 1941, NBC (where her audience numbered in the millions) from then until 1950, ABC from then until 1954, NBC again until 1960, and The New York Herald Tribune's radio broadcasts with a wider audience via syndication.
➦In 1958...guitarist Dick Dale introduced “surf music” for the first time when he played “Let’s Go Trippin'” at a concert in Balboa Calif. Dale died in Loma Linda, CA on March 16, 2019, at age 81.
➦In 1966...filming began on The Monkees TV sitcom. Starting on NBC in September the weekly series chronicled the misadventures of a struggling rock band.
Top 40 1010 WINS was the No. 1 hit music station and WMCA 570 AM, which did a similar rock leaning top 40 format, was also a formidable competitor, while WABC barely ranked in the Top Ten. Fortunately for WABC, the other Top 40 outlets could not be heard as well in more distant New York and New Jersey suburbs, since WINS, WMGM 1050 AM, and WMCA were all directional stations.
WABC, with its 50,000-watt non-directional signal, had the advantage of being heard in places west, south, and northwest of New York City – a huge chunk of the growing suburban population – and this is where the station began to draw ratings.
Early in 1962, WMGM, owned by Loew's, which then owned MGM, was sold to Storer Broadcasting. Upon its sale, WMGM reverted to its original WHN call letters and switched to a middle of the road music format playing mostly non-rock artists such as Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole and Andy Williams.
Sam Holman was the first WABC program director of this era. Under Holman, WABC achieved No. 1 ratings during much of 1962, after WMGM reverted to WHN. By the summer of 1963, WMCA led the pack among contemporary stations, with WABC at No. 2 and WINS slipping to third place. It has been said, but is difficult to verify, that WMCA dominated in the city proper, while WABC owned the suburbs. This would be consistent with WMCA's 5,000-watt directional signal.
Under Sklar, the station went to the shortest playlist of any contemporary music station in history. The number one song was heard about every hour during the day and every 75 minutes or so at night. The other top 5 songs were heard nearly as often. Other current songs averaged once to twice per airshift. The station played about 9 current hits per hour and several non-current songs. The non-currents were no more than 5 years old and the station played about 70 of them in total.
Through the years, WABC was known by various slogans, "Channel 77 WABC" and later "Musicradio 77 WABC". Due to the high number of commercials each hour, WABC played no more than two songs in a row and there was frequent DJ talk and personality between every song. The station averaged 6 commercial breaks per hour but they were no more than 3 ads in a row. Often the air personalities delivered live commercials in their own humorous style, so that listeners would consider the spot part of the entertainment.
➦In 2019...After EMF acquired the station on May 31, 2019. WPLJ 95.5 NYC joined the K-LOVE network at 7pm, and now airs Christian contemporary music. K-Love's first piece of audio was a request for listener financial support.
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| Clint Eastwood is 94 |
- Actor-director Clint Eastwood is 94.
- Singer Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary is 86.
- Keyboardist Augie Meyers of the Texas Tornadoes and the Sir Douglas Quintet is 84.
- Actor Sharon Gless (“Cagney and Lacey”) is 81.
- Actor Tom Berenger is 74.
- Actor Gregory Harrison is 74.
- Actor Kyle Secor (“Homicide: Life on the Street”) is 67.
- Actor Roma Maffia (“Nip/Tuck,” ″Profiler”) is 66.
- Comedian Chris Elliott is 64.
- Actor Lea Thompson (“Caroline in the City,” ″Back to the Future”) is 63.
- Singer Corey Hart is 62.
- Rapper DMC of Run-DMC is 60.
- Actor Brooke Shields is 59.
- Country bassist Ed Adkins of The Derailers is 57.
- “The Amazing Race” host Phil Keoghan is 57.
- Jazz bassist Christian McBride is 52.
- Actor Archie Panjabi (“The Good Wife”) is 52.
- Actor Merle Dandridge (“Greenleaf”) is 49.
- Actor Colin Farrell is 48.
- Trumpet player Scott Klopfenstein of Reel Big Fish is 47.
- Actor Eric Christian Olsen (“NCIS: Los Angeles”) is 47.
- Drummer Andy Hurley of Fall Out Boy is 44.
- Rapper Waka Flocka Flame is 38.
- Actor Curtis Williams Jr. (“Parent’Hood”) is 37.
- Singer Normani Hamilton of Fifth Harmony is 28.
- In 1989..Terry Drinkwater, CBS news correspondent, dies at 53 of cancer
- In 1993..Spuds Mackenzie [real name Honey Tree Evil Eye "Evie"], American advertisement dog for Bud Light beer, dies at 9
- In 2000..Johnnie Taylor, R&B and multi-genre singer ("Disco Lady"; "I Believe In You"), dies at 66
- In 2000..Tito Puente, Mambo and Latin jazz bandleader ("Oye Como Va"), dies at 77
- In 2001..Arlene Francis, Actress and radio and television personality (What's My Line?), dies at 93
- In 2010..Chris Haney, Canadian journalist who created the board game "Trivial Pursuit", dies at 59
- In 2013..Jean Stapleton, American actress (Damn Yankees, Klute, All in the Family), dies at 90
- In 2021..Phil Johnstone, British songwriter, keyboardist, and record producer (Robert Plant), dies at 63
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