➦In 1939…The radio soap drama Kate Hopkins, Angel of Mercy debuted CBS Radio. It remained on-the-air until April 3, 1942. The show's initial premise was that after Kate Hopkins' husband died in a fire, she became a visiting nurse to support herself and her young son in the mythical American town of Forest Falls.
➦In 1940…"Portia Faces Life" debuted on the CBS Radio Network after starting in syndication seven months earlier. The program starred veteran radio actress Lucille Wall, who had been on Your Family and Mine and other radio dramas since the mid-1920s.
Stations airing the series included WNAC in Boston, WLS in Chicago, KRLD in Dallas, KGW in Portland, Oregon and KFI in Los Angeles, according to newspaper advertisements.
Portia Faces Life continued on CBS until April 25, 1941. Three days later, it moved to NBC where it continued until March 31, 1944. It then returned to CBS as a summer series from April 3 to September 29, 1944. Heard on NBC from October 3, 1944 to June 29, 1951, the series continued until 1953, according to scripter Mona Kent who wrote every episode. General Foods remained the sponsor through all 13 years of the radio series.
➦In 1952...“Bob Horn’s Bandstand” aired for the first time on WFIL-TV Philadelphia. Dick Clark joined in 1955 as a substitute-host, and took over permanently in July ’56. The program went network on ABC-TV as “American Bandstand” this same date in 1957.
➦In 1966...WOR 98.7 FM New York, which had been airing Top40 music without DJs added personalities to the air. The original WOR-FM disc jockeys were Scott Muni (formerly of WABC and WMCA), Murray “the K” Kaufman (formerly of WINS), Rosko (Bill Mercer) and Johnny Michaels.
Even though the format began on July 30, there were union problems with AFTRA. RKO did not want to pay FM disc jockeys the equivalent pay of their AM counterparts. As a result, the station segued from one record to another.
➦In 1970...Intel introduced the computer memory chip.
➦In 1985...Spokane, WA station heard at 590 AM for decades, KHQ signed off.
The station originated in Seattle on February 8, 1922 as the third commercial station in Seattle. The first station licensed was KFC on December 8, 1921, operated jointly by the Northern Radio and Electric Company and the Post-Intelligencer newspaper. Vincent I. Kraft's KJR received a license March 9, 1922, however Kraft had been broadcasting over an Experimental station since 1920. Louis Wasmer launched a new station in late February 1922, it was described at the time as "the third broadcaster".
Wasmer was a former United Wireless Telegraph Company radiotelegraph operator, who opened the Excelsior Motorcycle and Bicycle Co. in 1911, and also sold radio equipment. Wasmer's first license was issued with the randomly assigned call letters KHQ on February 28, 1922.
In May 1925 it was announced that KHQ was temporarily going off the air in order to give Bush & Lane time to "make extensive alterations in the studio", while making a major upgrade in the facilities. Instead, after broadcasting in Seattle for three years, Wasmer moved the station to Spokane. KHQ was Spokane's fifth radio station, preceded by KFZ, KOE, KFIO (now KSBN) and KFPY (now KXLY), although only KFIO and KFPY were still licensed at the time of KHQ's arrival.
KHQ changed its transmitting frequency a number of times in the mid-twenties, until November 11, 1928, when, under the provisions of a major reallocation resulting from the Federal Radio Commission's (FRC) General Order 40, it was reassigned to 590 kHz which it and its successors have used ever since.
The August 1941 adoption of the Federal Communications Commission's "duopoly" rule restricted licensees from operating more than one radio station in a given market. At this time Louis Wasmer, Inc. owned two Spokane stations: KHQ and KGA. To conform with the FCC order, in 1946 Wasmer sold KHQ to the Cowles Publishing Company, publisher of The Seattle Spokesman-Review newspaper, which used it to launch an FM station (now KISC) and a television station (which still bears the KHQ-TV calls).
Cowles sold off its radio interests in 1984. Because of a FCC rule in place at the time that prohibited TV and radio stations in the same market but with different ownership from sharing the same call letters, AM 590 changed its call to KLSN, with the slogan "Listen 5-90". On December 1, 1986 the station changed its call sign to KAQQ, which was phonetically similar to the original KHQ call letters. On New Year's Day 2002 the call letters became KQNT.
➦In 1988....WNBC 660 AM's final broadcast took place and Sports WFAN moved from 1050 AM to 660 AM.
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