In 1924…the first worship service heard over radio was aired
by the British Broadcasting Corporation in England. The service originated from
St. Martin-in-the-Fields Church in London.
In 1925…WMCA signed-on at 880 AM. In 1928 it moved to the 570 kHz frequency, sharing time for
the next three years with municipally-owned WNYC.
In 1945, host Barry Gray began dropping music and adding
talk with celebrities and later call-in listeners; he is thus sometimes
considered "The Father of Talk Radio", and his show lasted on WMCA
through several decades and format changes.
WMCA began playing rock music in the late 1950s with a Top
40 format. Among its disc jockey staff were future legends Scott Muni and
Murray "the K" Kaufman.
In 1960, WMCA 570 AM began promoting itself by stressing its
on-air personalities, who were collectively known as the Good Guys.
Led by
program director Ruth Meyer, the first woman to hold the position in New York
City radio, this was the era of the high-profile Top 40 disc jockey with an
exuberant personality aimed at a certain audience segment. With the advent of
the Good Guys format, WMCA became more"on top" of new music and
started to become known for "playing the hits."
In the early 1960s, the top 40 format was still young, and
the field was crowded in New York City. Two major 50,000-watt stations, WMGM
1050 AM (now WEPN) and WINS 1010 AM, had battled each other for years. Then in
1960, WABC 770 am joined the fray and started featuring top 40 music.
Ultimately, it was WMCA's earnest competition with rival WABC that forced WMGM
(in early 1962) and then WINS (in spring 1965) to abandon the top-40 format.
There was so much attention on the high-profile WMCA-WABC battle that WMGM and
WINS were each summarily forced to find a new niche.
In 1929…RCA Victor formed. Radio Corporation of America (RCA) purchased the Victor
Talking Machine Company, then the world's largest manufacturer of phonographs
(including the famous "Victrola") and phonograph records (in British
English, "gramophone records"). The company then became RCA-Victor.
With Victor, RCA acquired New World rights to the famous Nipper trademark.
In September 1931, RCA Victor introduced the first 33⅓ rpm
records sold to the public, calling them "Program Transcriptions".
These used a shallower and more closely spaced implementation of the large
"standard groove" found on contemporary 78 rpm records, rather than
the "microgroove" used for post-World War II 33⅓ rpm "LP"
(Long Play) records. In the depths of the Great Depression, the format was a
commercial failure, partly because the new playback equipment they required was
expensive. After two or three years the format was abandoned and two-speed
turntables were no longer offered in consumer products, but some Program
Transcriptions lingered in the company's record catalog throughout the decade.
In 1943…Frank Sinatra first appeared as a vocalist on the
radio show, "Your Hit Parade."
In 1974…the "CBS Mystery Theater" premiered on the
CBS Radio Network.
In 1998...Carl Wilson of the Beach Boys died of cancer. He was 51
In 2000…Former WMCA Good Guy
Joe O’Brien retired
In 2005...Karl Haas, host of the long-running syndicated classical music radio program "Adventures in Good Music," died of multiple organ failure at 91. Haas began his radio program Adventures in Good Music on WJR in Detroit, Michigan in 1959. Syndicated broadcasts of the show across the United States began in 1970 on WCLV, Cleveland, Ohio. The show was eventually syndicated to commercial and public radio stations around the world and became the world's most widely listened-to classical music radio program.
In 2006….ABC announced plans to sell 24 radio stations to
Citadel
