Radio History: July 19

➦In 1923...WRC-AM, Washington, DC  signed-on.  WRC started at 640 AM and share the frequency with WCAP.

WRC in the Trans Lux Building

WRC was owned and operated by RCA.  By the 1930, 500 watt WRC moved to 950 AM and was part of the NBC's Red Network. The station moved to 980 AM in the late 1940s.

First Home Riggs Bank

The two stations WRC and now WMAL were located in the Trans Lux Building at 14th & New York Ave.

In 1972,  NBC made the decision to take the MOR station to a Top 40 format and challenge DC champ WPGC in the ratings game.

The birth of The Great 98 had a lot of help from some Philly radio vets.  Lee Sherwood was brought in as PD and Bob Gross was Promotions Director.  Both were from WFIL.  The original on air team consisted of Johnny Andrews, Bobby McGee, Simon Trane, James Michael Wilson and Ron Starr.

Being an NBC O&O had its drawbacks:  NBC Hourly News, NBC Monitor on weekends, special features (Graham Kerr, Gene Shalit, etc) had to be carried.

The Top 40 format moved to WRC-FM, and WRC-AM switched to an all-news format in 1975 before switching to news/talk in 1979.

Greater Media bought WRC-AM in 1984, changing the call letters to WWRC. It switched to business news and talk.   In 1998, sports-formatted WTEM-AM 570 moved its programming and call letters to 980 AM.  The WWRC call letters were moved to 1260 AM, which carried the old business news format until switching to all-sports in 2003.

Today, 1260 AM is owned by Salem Communications, carrying a news/talk format.  The call letters still are WWRC, but the station is branded “1260 WRC,” though it has no connection to WRC-TV, Washington’s NBC affiliate.

Eve Arden, Dick Crenna and Gloria McMillian at CBS Mic

➦In 1948..."Our Miss Brooks", starring Eve Arden and Gale Gordon, debuted on CBS radio.

Our Miss Brooks was a sitcom starring Arden as a sardonic high-school English teacher. It began as a radio show broadcast on CBS from 1948 to 1957. When the show was adapted to television (1952–56), it became one of the medium's earliest hits.

Our Miss Brooks was a hit on radio from the outset; within eight months of its launch as a regular series, the show landed several honors, including four for Eve Arden, who won polls in four individual publications of the time. Arden had actually been the third choice to play the title role. Harry Ackerman, at the time CBS's West Coast director of programming, wanted Shirley Booth for the part, but as he told historian Gerald Nachman many years later, he realized Booth was too focused on the underpaid downside of public school teaching at the time to have fun with the role.

Lucille Ball was believed to have been the next choice, but she was committed to My Favorite Husband and did not audition. Then CBS chairman Bill Paley, who was friendly with Arden, persuaded her to audition for the part. With a slightly rewritten audition script—Osgood Conklin, for example, was originally written as a school board president but was now written as the incoming new Madison principal—Arden agreed to give the newly revamped show a try.

According to radio critic John Crosby, her lines were very "feline" in dialogue scenes with principal Conklin and would-be boyfriend Boynton, with sharp, witty comebacks. The interplay between the cast—blustery Conklin, nebbishy Denton, accommodating Harriet, absentminded Mrs. Davis, clueless Boynton, scheming Miss Enright—also received positive reviews.

Arden won a radio listeners' poll by Radio Mirror magazine as the top-ranking comedienne of 1948–49, receiving her award at the end of an Our Miss Brooks broadcast that March. The radio series continued until 1957, a year after its television life ended.

➦In 2012...Top 40 program director Ted J. Atkins, who helped make KHJ, KFRC, WOL, CKLW and many others successful modern radio stations, succumbed to his pancreatic cancer at age 72.

He also had stints at KHJ and KIIS in Los Angeles, KFRC-San Francisco, CKLW Detroit, WOL Washington, WTAE, WWSW, WXMP in Pittsburgh, KROY-Sacramento, KLAK, KIMN, KBTR, KDAB in Denver and KUDL, WHB in Kansas City.

Bill Diehl at a record hop

➦In 2017...Iconic Twin Cities Radio Personality and one time newspaperman Bill Diehl died at age 91.   He worked at the St. Paul Dispatch/Pioneer Press for 53 years. He was at WMIN from 1948-1956; WDGY for 11 years, and WCCO Radio for 26 years.

Radio listeners knew him as “Bill Diehl, the Rajah of the Records, the Deacon of the Discs, the Purveyor of the Platters and the Wizard of the Wax, with all the musical facts.” When he wasn’t ruling the AM airwaves, he appeared on local television, emceed teen dances and concerts, booked and mentored young rock bands, introduced local audiences to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

Vikki Car is 84

🎂HAPPY BIRTHDAYS:

• Actor Helen Gallagher (“Ryan’s Hope”) is 98. 
• Singer Vikki Carr is 84. 
• Actor George Dzundza (“Hack,” “Law and Order”) is 79. 
• Singer-bassist Alan Gorrie of Average White Band is 78. 
• Guitarist Brian May of Queen is 77. 
• Guitarist Bernie Leadon (Eagles, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band) is 77. 
• Actor Beverly Archer (“Major Dad, “Mama’s Family”) is 76. 
• Actor Peter Barton (“Sunset Boulevard,” ″Burke’s Law”) is 68. 
• Drummer Kevin Haskins (Bauhaus, Love and Rockets) is 64. 
• Actor Campbell Scott is 63. 
• Actor Anthony Edwards (“ER”) is 62. 
• Country singer Kelly Shiver (Thrasher Shiver) is 61. 
• Actor Clea Lewis (“Ellen”) is 59. 
• Singer Urs Buhler of Il Divo is 53. 
• Drummer Jason McGerr of Death Cab For Cutie is 50. 
• Actor Benedict Cumberbatch is 48. 
• Actor Erin Cummings (“Astronaut Wives Club”) is 47. 
• TV Chef Marcela Valladolid (“The Kitchen”) is 46. 
• Actor Chris Sullivan (“This Is Us”) is 44. 
• Actor Jared Padalecki (“Supernatural,” ″Gilmore Girls”) is 42. 
• Actor Trai Byers (“Empire,” ″Selma”) is 41. 
• Actor Kaitlin Doubleday (“Nashville,” ″Empire”) is 40. 
• Comedian Dustin Ybarra (“Kevin (Probably) Saves the World”) is 38. 
• Actor Steven Anthony Lawrence (“Even Stevens”) is 34.

✞REMEMBRANCES

• In 1969..Mary Jo Kopechne, American political campaign specialist and Ted Kennedy's car passenger, drowns at 28
• In 1964..Joe Flynn, American character actor (McHale's Navy - "Capt. Binghamton; The Love Bug; The Rescuers), dies of a heart attack while swimming in his pool at 49
• In 1975..(William) "Lefty" Frizzell, American country music singer and songwriter ("If You've Got the Money (I've Got the Time)"; "Saginaw, Michigan"), dies at 47
• In 2003..Bill Bright, American evangelist (b. 1921)
• In 2014..James Garner, Actor (Rockford Files, Bret Maverick), dies of acute myocardial infarction at 86
• In 2015..Van Alexander [Alexander Van Vliet Feldman], Composer, arranger ("A-Tisket, A-Tasket"), and orchestra leader (Dean Martin Show), dies at 100
• In 2016..Garry Marshall, TV writer (The Dick Van Dyke Show), TV producer (The Odd Couple; Happy Days; Laverne & Shirley), and film director (Pretty Woman; Runaway Bride; The Princess Diaries), dies at 81