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                             FERUARY IN THE GOLDEN AGE
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FEB 1 1932   KJBS/San Francisco operates during the unusual daily hours from midnight until local sunset and advises listeners of network programs during the evening hours when it’s off the air.                           
FEB 1 1933   NBC acquires a five year lease on WMAL as its Blue Network affiliate in Washington, D.C. 
FEB 1 1934   Standard Brands signs a new 18 month contract with Joe Penner guaran-teeing the comic $3,000 per week.
FEB 1 1934   WLS/Chicago neglects to notify NBC of its decision to cancel its affiliation contract with the Blue Network within 60 days of the agreement’s expiration date which results in an automatic one-year extension. 
FEB 1 1935   WGAL/Lancaster, Pennsylvania, is forced to issue tickets for its Sunday programs when local blue laws close theaters and the station’s 500 seat auditorium is jammed with persons seeking entertainment.   
FEB 1 1936   NBC’s Continuity Acceptance department reports 560 “policy enforcement,” (censorship), decisions in its first year of reviewing commercial copy - 164 involved “superlative” or “exaggerated” claims.
FEB 1 1937  Massachusetts Congressman Richard Wigglesworth, an advocate of a license tax for stations, charges that FCC members are, “… either woefully ignorant of what goes on in the broadcasting business or are trying to mislead Congress.”
FEB 1 1937  Eddie Cantor’s stooge for three years,  Harry Einstein, (aka Parkyakarkus), is released from his contract to pursue his own show.
FEB 1 1937  WHAS/Louisville leaves the air at midnight, the first time the station is silent in 187.5 hours since signed on at 6:00 a.m. January 24th with its week of flood coverage and assisting with flood relief work. 
FEB 1 1937  FCC renews the 14 experimental television licenses in the United States for one year.
FEB 1 1938   Bandleader Kay Kyser, 33, begins his College of Musical Knowledge on Mutual.  (See Kay Kyser and Wednesday's All Time Top Ten.
FEB 1 1938   AFRA raises its annual dues for members making less than $10,000 a year from $10 to $25 and members making more than $10,000 are raised from $25 to $50.  
FEB 1 1940   American Tobacco boasts that its Thursday night transcribed repeat of Kay Kyser’s College of Musical Knowledge on 19 Mutual stations scores 40% of its rating as the Wednesday night original broadcast on NBC in those cities where both programs are heard.  (See Kay Kyser and Wednesday's All Time Top Ten.)
FEB 1 1942   Marion Sayles Taylor, known to multi-network and movie audiences since 1932 as The Voice of Experience dispensing advice, much of it sexually oriented, dies in Los Angeles of a heart attack at age 53.  
FEB 1 1942  In remarks on WGY/Schenectady, Amherst Professor C.E. Warne, President of Consumers’ Union, calls for a rationing of reduced power to radio stations as, “…a curtailment of advertising to meet wartime needs.”
FEB 1 1942   The Voice of America makes its first broadcast into Europe, (date disputed).
FEB 1 1943   Charlie Ruggles substitutes for Ben Bernie on the CBS weekday War Workers’ Program when Bernie is sidelined with a pleurisy attack. 
FEB 1 1943   Transradio Press wins a two year fight in the FCC and wins a substantial reduction in AT&T transmission line costs for all wire services and networks.
FEB 1 1943   AT&T reduces its line charges from eight dollars per mile to six dollars - resulting in annual savings of $2.15 Million for the radio industry.
FEB 1 1943   Mutual is the first network to pass the line charge savings along to its affiliates.  (See Mutual Led The Way on this site.)
FEB 1 1944   CBS follows NBC’s lead and makes all of its programs available for AM & FM simulcasting by its affiliates with no additional charge to the sponsors. 
FEB 1 1944   Kate Smith makes 57 live appeals over an 18 hour period on 134 CBS stations and sells $108 Million in U.S. War Bonds. (See Kate’s Great Song.)
FEB 1 1944   Jack Benny stars in the first broadcast of NBC’s War Bond Parade, a seven-night series of variety shows beginning at Midnight ET to sell bonds for the Third War Loan campaign.
FEB 1 1944  The AFRS “Mosquito Network” begins with its first station in Noumea, New Caledonia.
FEB 1 1944   The New York Times buys WQXR and WQXQ(FM)/New York City for a reported to be $1.0 Million.
FEB 1 1945   WWJ/Detroit institutes a ban against commercial jingles and reports receiving “thousands“ of letters supporting its move.
FEB 1 1945   Cecil B. DeMille is given three minutes on Blue’s March of Time to present his case for refusing to pay a one dollar assessment by AFRA to support a California closed shop law. The union is given equal time the following week.
FEB 1 1946   John Cameron Swayze, 39, formerly of KMBC and WHB/Kansas City, is named News Director of NBC’s Western Division.  
FEB 1 1946   CBS-owned WCBW(TV)/New York City films the funeral of former presidential aide Harry Hopkins in the afternoon for broadcast on its evening newscast, four days ahead of theater newsreels.
FEB 1 1946   CBS demonstrates its color television system for the press in New York City.
FEB 1 1947   Joan Edwards leaves Your Hit Parade, succeeded for the rest of the season by  vocalists Dinah Shore, Ginny Simms, Beryl Davis and Martha Tilton.  (See Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
FEB 1 1948   The NAB adopts a Standard Code of Practices governing programming and commercial activities for its members.
FEB 1 1948   AFM boss James Petrillo allows ABC’s continued recording of Bing Crosby’s Philco Radio Time because the transcriptions are broadcast only once for one sponsor and then destroyed.  (See Petrillo!)
FEB 1 1948   Oldmobile takes sponsorship of the ten-minute Sunday night NBC Television Newsreel on WNBT(TV)/ New York City.
FEB 1 1949   ABC lands the television rights to General Dwight Eisenhower’s book Crusade In Europe to be filmed in 26 half-hour segments by The March of Time with 20th Century Fox.
FEB 1 1949   C.E. Hooper adds Chicago to New York City in its television surveys.  (See Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
FEB 1 1949   New York radio stations WNEW,WOV and WQXR cancel the Hooper rating service claiming heavy television ownership in homes with telephones distorts the survey results.
FEB 1 1949   Detroit Archdiocese publication Michigan Catholic demands ABC cancel commentator Drew Pearson for reporting that former “radio priest” Charles Coughlin was sued for alienation of affections.  (See Father Coughlin.)
FEB 1 1949   NBC-owned WNBT(TV)/New York City moves its daily afternoon sign-on from 5:30 to 3:00 p.m. 
FEB 1 1949   The Retail Liquor Dealers of Philadelphia file suit to prevent the Pennsyl-vania Liquor Board from collecting a $120 annual tax on television sets installed in the state’s 15,000 taverns and restaurants.
FEB 1 1950   Mutual names Al Helfer, 38, as lead sportscaster for its Game of The Day baseball broadcasts. 
FEB 1 1950  The Keystone Broadcasting System celebrates its tenth anniversary and boasts 380 small market affiliates.
FEB 1 1951  The networks broadcast the first sounds of an atomic explosion from the Nevada testing grounds. 
FEB 1 1952   CBS cancels Mark Goodson & Bill Todman’s first game show, Winner Take All, after a six year run.
FEB 1 1952   WNBC/New York City begins overnight programming of classical music.
FEB 1 1952   The ILGWU announces lack of financial support will force it to close its third and last FM station, WFDR/New York City.
FEB 1 1953   ABC Radio adopts a single rate policy for its owned stations WABC/New York, WENR/Chicago and WXYZ/Detroit with KECA/Los Angeles and KGO/San Francisco expected to follow suit on March 1st.
FEB 1 1953  The 90-minute Omnibus on CBS-TV presents Die Fledermaus, the first studio performance of an opera by the Metropolitan Opera, requiring 75 hours of rehearsal over two weeks.

FEB 2 1931  NBC buys WENR/Chicago from Samuel Insuli’s Great States Broadcasting Company.
FEB 2 1931  Network announcer Harry Von Zell, struck down by a New York City taxi between assignments the previous week, is diagnosed with fractures in both legs.
FEB 2 1934   Blue cancels its afternoon sustaining serial Babes In Hollywood starring Arthur Lake and his sister, Florence.  (See Bloonn…dee!)
FEB 2 1934   The first known radio program advertising a hard liquor is a 15-minute weekly show by the Sizzlers Trio on WOR/New  York City sponsored by Montrose Gin.
FEB 2 1934   Powel Crosley, head of Crosley Radio Corporation and Cincinnati stations WLW and WSAI, heads a group that buys the Cincinnati Reds baseball team.
FEB 2 1939  CBS and NBC agree to a new pact paying AFRA talent a minimum of $15 for a 15 minute program, $25 for a half hour show and $35 for a 60 minute broadcast.  
FEB 2 1940  NBC begins its series of bi-weekly broadcasts to Admiral Richard Byrd’s Antarctic expedition using the additional facilities of General Electric’s shortwave station, WIGO/Schenectady.
FEB 2 1941 Jack Benny’s cast spends the Jello Show on NBC searching for the "missing" comedian while he takes the week off in New York City.  (See Sunday At Seven.)
FEB 2 1942   One of radio’s oldest sustaining features, Blue’s weekday Farm & Home Hour at noon is trimmed from an 60 to 30 minutes.
FEB 2 1942   CBS introduces The World Today international news roundup anchored by John Daly at 6:45 weeknights. 
FEB 2 1942   Commentator Sam Balter is dropped by Mutual, reportedly at the insistence of WGN owner and network stock holder Colonel Robert McCormick whose Chicago Tribune was accused by Balter as being anti-British. 
FEB 2 1942   A weekly postcard poll conducted by NBC among television set owners in New York City names Thrills & Chills From Everywhere with Doug Allan, (films shot and narrated by explorers), as the area’s most popular program. 
FEB 2 1943   Over 236,000 pieces of mail containing coins are reported received by a Truth Or Consequences contestant when Ralph Edwards asked listeners to send a penny to buy War Bonds for her serviceman son.  (See Truth Or Consequences.)
FEB 2 1945   Navy veteran John Denman of WJR/Detroit exposes a Nazi telephone campaign in Michigan calling relatives of American service personnel to lie that their loved ones had been killed in action.
FEB 2 1946   Panel quiz Twenty Questions begins its eight season Saturday night run on Mutual.  (See Twenty Questions.)
FEB 2 1946   Hoagy Carmichael replaces Dick Todd as Your Hit Parade’s lead male vocalist on CBS.  (See Saturday's All Time Top Ten.)
FEB 2 1948   FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover tells critics of radio crime programs that the shows, “Can be a potential aid in fighting juvenile delinquency.”  (See FBI vs. FBI.)
FEB 2 1948   ABC blitzes advertisers with pitches for the March launch of its new Stop The Music! - offering 15 minute segments at $483,285.40 for 52 weeks, or “less than $55 per station per broadcast.”  (See Stop The Music!)
FEB 2 1948   KFI/Los Angeles activates its new 750 foot antenna, the highest man-made structure on the Pacific Coast and increases its signal strength by an estimated 20%.
FEB 2 1949   Plans are announced for the Transcription Broadcasting System network with 116 stations scheduled to carry 19 programs per week.
FEB 2 1950   ABC is forced to refuse the sale a 15-minute block of Stop The Music! to Sterling Drugs because host Bert Parks’ contract excludes any competitor of Bristol Myers, his Break The Bank sponsor.  (See Stop The Music!) 
FEB 2 1950  Legenday panel show What’s My Line begins its 17 year run on CBS-TV.
FEB 2 1951  The NAB reorganizes and changes its name to The NARTB.  The name reverts back to the NAB on January 1, 1958.
FEB 2 1951  When the biggest blizzard in years closes area schools WMCT(TV)/Memphis begins a week-long series of classroom instructions supervised by the school district.
FEB 2 1951  DuMont signs the first international television affiliation contract with Union Radio-TV of Havana, agreeing to supply the two stations with kinescopes of the network’s boxing and wrestling matches.  (See Dr. DuMont's Predictions.)
FEB 2 1953   Frank & Anne Hummert’s whodunit, Mr. Chameleon, is cancelled after its five season run on CBS. (See Karl Swenson.)
FEB 2 1953  Former Dr. I.Q., Rev. Jimmy McClain, resigns from the ministerial staff of the St. Matthew’s Episcopal Cathedral in Dallas to develop a 600 acre ranch for 150 homeless boys in south Texas. (See Dr. I.Q.)
FEB 2 1953   Dave Garroway, 39, signs a year’s contract renewal to host Today on NBC-TV for $2,500 per week.

FEB 3 1927  President Coolidge signs The Radio Act of 1927, voiding all existing station licenses in 60 days and creating the new five-man Federal Radio Commission to grant new licenses.
FEB 3 1930  RCA obtains a preliminary injunction barring Universal Wireless, Inc., and (Lee) DeForest Radio, Inc., from establishing a radio network infringing on patents owned by the plaintiff.
FEB 3 1932 CBS and NBC both begin coverage of the Winter Olympic Games at Lake Placid, New York.
FEB 3 1933   After four successful years on radio, the Sinclair (Wiener) Minstrels from WENR/Chicago make their first stage appearance for a week at Chicago’s Palace Theater.
FEB 3 1934   CBS establishes a presence in Times Square by obtaining the Hudson Theater on 44th Street and renaming it The CBS Radio Playhouse.
FEB 3 1935   Eddie Cantor becomes the first major Network Radio star to switch networks - moving his 60-minute variety show from NBC to a half hour on CBS - at the same Sunday night time of 8:00 p.m.  (See Network Jumpers and The 1935-36 Season.)
FEB 3 1935   Disc jockey Martin Block’s Make Believe Ballroom is first broadcast by WNEW/Newark.
FEB 3 1936   The NAB suggests creating an independent source of music as an alter-native to ASCAP which eventually becomes Broadcast Music, Inc., (BMI).
FEB 3 1936   WBBM/Chicago broadcasts 15-minute Monday through Friday afternoon descriptions of the Roller Derby from the Chicago Coliseum.  
FEB 3 1937  A gang of five muggers outside the apartment of network announcer Spencer Bentley breaks his jaw and puts him off the air for a month.
FEB 3 1937   After the death in the ring of former Bantamweight Champion Tony Marino, the New York State Boxing Commission suggests stations soften the terms “blood”, “cuts,” “knockdowns,” etc., used in boxing broadcasts, 
FEB 3 1938   Kids’ serial Challenge of The Yukon begins a nine year run on WXYZ/Detroit before beginning its subsequent eight year multi-network run on ABC.  (See Serials, Cereals & Premiums.)
FEB 3 1939   After ten months of negotiations, AFRA threatens to strike and wins its showdown with advertising agencies as the AAAA agrees to the union’s demands for closed shops and increased minimum pay scales.
FEB 3 1940   A crowd of 2,500 pays 75-cents each to see Lew Valentine in a non-broadcast performance of Dr. I.Q. to benefit a charity in Portland, Maine.  (See Dr. I.Q. site.)
FEB 3 1941   Citing no increase in January CAB ratings from December and rating decreases in the major music shows, network and advertising executives express con-cerns that the ASCAP boycott may be taking its toll.  
FEB 3 1941   SAG refuses to allow its members to appear gratis for interviews on Louella Parsons’ planned new program for Lever Brothers on CBS.
FEB 3 1942   Demanding an investigation of the FCC, Georgia Congressman E.E. Cox accuses FCC Chairman James Fly of, “…maintaining an active Gestapo putting shackles on the freedom of thought, press and speech without restraint.”
FEB 3 1942   Western serial Red Ryder begins its nine year muti-network run on ABC’s West Coast network.  (See Serials, Cereals & Premiums.)
FEB 3 1942   Tallulah Bankhead replaces Una Merkel as hostess and star of NBC’s Johnny Presents, (aka The Philip Morris Playhouse), on NBC.  (See Tallulah’s Big Show.)
FEB 3 1944   Mutual announces the death of commentator Raymond Clapper, 51, killed in a mid-air plane collision and crash in the Marshall Islands, becoming the 16th U.S. newsman killed in World War II.
FEB 3 1944   Both C.E. Hooper’s Hooperatings and the CAB ratings directed by Archibald Crossley announce an increase in charges for their surveys, seen by observers as a winner take all showdown for survival between the two services. (See Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
FEB 3 1947   ABC premieres the quarter-hour Zeke Manners Show weekday mornings at 7:30 a.m. in every time zone requiring four live performances every day. 
FEB 3 1947 The Los Angeles Times selects a site in the city’s downtown area to build a $300,000 building for its television station until a location in Hollywood is available. 
FEB 3 1949  NBC becomes the last of the four major networks to allow the broadcast of transcribed programs. 
FEB 3 1950  Dr. Allen DuMont blames Colorado Senator Edward Johnson and FCC Commissioner Robert Jones for, “…the 17-month millstone, (television station freeze), insisted by these two laymen that we standardize a color system before new channels for regular black and white television are allocated.”  
FEB 3 1950   DuMont suprises reporters with an impromptu unveiling of its color television system similar to the CBS process but intended only for research purposes.  (See Dr. DuMont's Predictions.)
FEB 3 1951  John K.M. McKaffrey, host of We Take Your Word on CBS, meets with network officials to discuss his refusal to sign its loyalty oath.
FEB 3 1952   Legendary disc jockey Ed McKenzie, (aka Jack The Bellboy), leaves WJBK/Detroit for its crosstown rival, WXYZ.

FEB 4 1930   CBS introduces The American School of The Air which will run as a sustain-ing program for 18 years.
FEB 4 1933   The Blue Network attempts a 135-minute “vaudeville like” Saturday night revue hosted by Ray Perkins which Variety reviews as, “…neither good vaudeville nor good radio.”  
FEB 4 1935  NBC boosts rates on its Red Network of 65 stations by 6%  and its 62 station Blue Network by 2%. 
FEB 4 1935   Kid’s serial Dick Tracy, based on Chester Gould’s popular comic strip, opens its 13 year sporadic multi-network run on CBS.  (See Serials, Cereals and Premiums.)
FEB 4 1936  NBC offers a 25% discount to all advertisers spending $1.2 Million or more on the network within a 52 week period. 
FEB 4 1937  WLW/Cincinnati returns to 500,000 watts after cutting back to 50,000 watts for ten days to save electricity during flood conditions.
FEB 4 1938  Edgar Bergen and his Charlie McCarthy appear in their first full length film, MGM’s Goldwyn Follies.  (See Sunday's All Time Top Ten.)
FEB 4 1940  Detroit priest Charles Coughlin’s Sunday afternoon program for the week is replaced with organ and choir music without explanation but speculation centers on a censorship dispute between Coughlin and his Archdiocese.  (See Father Coughlin.)
FEB 4 1941   Elliott Roosevelt files claims with receivers for his defunct Transcontinental Broadcasting System network for $70,000, the value of his 4,000 shares of its stock.
FEB 4 1945   The Detroit AFM local refuses to allow a choir of 80 schoolchildren sing spirituals on the Board of Education’s Soul of America broadcast on WJR.  (See Petrillo!)
FEB 4 1945   Standard Brands premieres its expensive Eddie Bracken Show on NBC following Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy, with a weekly package budget of $17,500 - later regarded a 26 week failure.
FEB 4 1946  Mr. District Attorney producer Ed Byron moonlights for 13 weeks and $6,500 as a consultant for Kellogg’s serial Superman to develop storylines dealing with tolerance and juvenile delinquency.  (See Mr. District Attorney.)
FEB 4 1950   Crossley’s WLWD(TV)/Dayton, Ohio, begins a series of Saturday night in-studio wrestling matches relayed to its sister stations, WLWT/Cincinnati and WLWC/ Columbus. 
FEB  4 1951 Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis set a new ratings record for Sunday night’s Colgate Comedy Hour, scoring a 49.5 ARB rating on NBC-TV against Ed Sullivan’s Toast of The Town on CBS-TV which returned a 23.9. 
FEB 4 1952   Gertrude Berg adapts her Goldbergs family serial to a Monday-Wednesday-Friday evening quarter hour on NBC-TV.
FEB 4 1952  Dan Seymour, 37, host of We The People on NBC-TV and producer of the program for Young & Rubicam, is promoted to Executive Producer for the agency.
FEB 4 1952   Charles Antell Formula Nine hair pomade pitchman Richard Lewellen, sues the company for $150,000 charging it reneged on an agreement to pay him 1% of the proceeds from his 29-minute commercial, A Hair Raising Story.
FEB 4 1952  Twenty-five film companies report 32 television series in production.
FEB 4 1953   Arthur Godfrey, editorializes on his radio show for two days to urge the confirmation of Charles E. Wilson as Defense Secretary.  CBS offers an opposition spokesman equal time.  (See Arthur Godfrey.) 

FEB 5 1929   “King of Jazz” Paul Whiteman, 39, becomes the CBS network’s first major star with a two season run of Old Gold Time, and begins sporadic multi-network career that extends into 1954.
FEB 5 1932  FRC allows daytime station KMLB/Monroe, Louisiana, to broadcast unlimited hours for ten days during the emergency caused by the flooding Ouachita River. 
FEB 5 1934  James Barrett, former City Editor of The New York American, is appointed head of the new Press-Radio Bureau to distribute newscast material to broadcasters.  (See The Press-Radio Bureau.)
FEB 5 1934  Gulf Oil signs Will Rogers to star in its Blue Network Headliners Show for the rest of 1934 with the provision that he will not be censored in his political commentaries. 
FEB 5 1936  FCC rules that all future applications for new stations or power increases involving directional antenna systems be accompanied by full and complete specifications of their details and coverage.
FEB 5 1937  CBS President Bill Paley says television is two years away, sets will be around $400 and Hollywood will be a major broadcast center. 
FEB 5 1939  Movie star Tyrone Power quits as host of NBC’s Hollywood Playhouse in a dispute over sponsor Woodbury Soap’s commercials.
FEB 5 1940  Frank & Anne Hummert’s weekday serial Amanda of Honeymoon Hill begins its six year multi-network run.
FEB 5 1941  The U.S. Justice Department files a criminal anti-trust suit against ASCAP.
FEB 5 1945  Tenor Morton Downey’s 15 minute weekday Coke Club, a Blue mid-afternoon show for two years, moves to Mutual at noontime for two seasons.  
FEB 5 1947  A rush of 33 applications for new AM stations is filed with the FCC to beat the Commission’s freeze beginning two days later.
FEB 5 1947  Philco’s WPTZ(TV)/Philadelphia begins programming one hour, three afternoons a week to help appliance dealers demonstrate television sets to their customers.
FEB 5 1948  KMPC/Los Angeles news director Clete Roberts resigns after 13 months citing “editorial interference.”
FEB 5 1950  Ford extends its short term buys of sustaining network programs with two week sponsorships of six shows to advertise its 1950 model cars. 
FEB 5 1951  ABC reports a windfall in co-op business from it’s affiliates with 731 local sponsors, up 28% in a year.
FEB 5 1953   A New York Federal Court rejects the FCC’s ruling that giveaway shows are lotteries and grants permanent injunctions to CBS, ABC and NBC against its enforce-ment. 
FEB 5 1953   CBS-owned WCBS/New York introduces the sale of five-second “midget” commercials of no more than 18 words in length.
FEB 5 1953   ABC cancels This Is Your FBI after eight seasons on its Friday night schedule, six in the Annual Top 50.  (See FBI vs. FBI.)

FEB 6 1932  CBS bans the lyrics of the novelty song Mrs.Winchell’s Boy, about NBC personality Walter Winchell.  (See Walter Winchell.) 
FEB 6 1933  CBS commissions a Price-Waterhouse popularity poll employing 207,000 postcards mailed to the ten largest cities which show CBS to be the favorite network in six of the cities while NBC is favored in four.  
FEB 6 1933  Popular pianist/singer Tom (Fats) Waller leaves WLW/Cincinnati after three months claiming he can make more money on the stage than in radio.
FEB 6 1935  The new Mutual rejects NBC’s offer to become its sales representative. 
FEB 6 1936  Stations in states as far south as Texas assume emergency status as record cold temperatures in those areas trigger massive snowstorms and blizzards.  
FEB 6 1938  Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy’s Chase & Sanborn Hour scores a record 41.2 Hooperating for regularly scheduled programs.  (See The 1937-38 Season.)
FEB 6 1939  The U.S. House Appropriations Committee refuses to grant the FCC’s budget request for $2.04 Million pending a possible reformation of the agency.
FEB 6 1939  The U.S. Senate confirms FDR’s reappointment of former Rhode Island Governor Norman Case to a full seven year term to the FCC.
FEB 6 1939  NBC Chicago Program Manager Clarence Menser issues the 300-page book for beginners, So You Want To Go Into Radio?
FEB 6 1940  Color television is first demonstrated to the FCC at RCA’s Camden, New Jersey, laboratories. 
FEB 6 1941  ASCAP reports a total of 171 commercial stations have signed its new five year license.
FEB 6 1943  Transradio Press increases the speed of its news wire to an industry leading 60 words per minute.
FEB 6 1943  Frank Sinatra replaces Barry Wood as singing host of Your Hit Parade.  (See Saturday’s All Time Top Ten.)
FEB 6 1944   Phil Spitalny’s 35-member, all-girl Hour of Charm orchestra sells $4.0 Million in War Bonds in a benefit appearance at the Cleveland Arena. (See The Hour of Charm.)
FEB 6 1945  Bristol-Myers cancels Blue’s Gracie Fields Show citing war shortages that curtailed tube production for its Ipana Toothpaste. 
FEB 6 1947  Columbia Pictures releases its 15 chapter serial, Jack Armstrong, with John Hart, 29, portraying “The All-American Boy” in his struggle against Doctor Grood and his death ray orbiting Earth.  (See Serials, Cereals & Premiums.)
FEB 6 1948  Mutual cancels its weekday adventure strip Hop Harrigan after a five year multi-network run.
FEB 6 1949  Children’s personality Uncle Don, (Don Carney), leaves WOR/New York City after a 23 year run.
FEB 6 1950  Newspaper melodrama Nightbeat starring Frank Lovejoy begins its sporadic two year run on NBC.
FEB 6 1951  Los Angeles television stations KTLA and KTTV capture images of the 5:47 a.m. atomic blast at the Las Vegas Proving Grounds from their transmitter sites atop Mount Wilson 250 miles away.
FEB 6 1951  Radio and television networks give immediate coverage throughout evening to the Woodbridge, N.J., train wreck that kills 83 and injures over 300. 
FEB 6 1951  ABC newsman Paul Harvey, 32, is captured trying to climb a fence into the top-secret Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago, claiming that he wanted to see if the atomic laboratory was really secure.
FEB 6 1952  The networks relay BBC’s first news of the death of Britain’s King George VI of a heart attack at age 56.

FEB 7 1936  WCLO/Janesville, Wisconsin, reports receiving 4,500 phone calls in re-sponse to its announcements asking listeners for road conditions during the weekend blizzard.
FEB 7 1938  Young & Rubicam producer Sylvester (Pat) Weaver, 29, returns to New York from the West Coast to oversee Fred Allen’s Town Hall Tonight.
FEB 7 1939   Transcripts from testimony to the U.S. House Appropriations Committee reveal that FCC Chairman Frank McNinch is considering proposing a tax for radio station licenses.
FEB 7 1939   Brash comedienne Patsy Kelly replaces soft-spoken Honey Chile, (Patricia Wilder), as Bob Hope’s female stooge.
FEB 7 1939   Big band remotes from Chicago hotels, off the air for 13 months when the hotels refused to pay $100 a week in line charges, resume on a nightly basis.  (See Big Band Remotes on this site.)
FEB 7 1940   Former NBC President Miles Aylesworth is hired by Lewis-Howe’s Tums to defend its Pot O Gold giveaway show from lottery charges in an investigation by the U.S. Justice Department. 
FEB 7 1940  FCC grants WMCA/New York City’s power increase from 1,000 to 5,000 watts and the move of its transmitter from Flushing, Long Island to Kearny, New Jersey.
FEB 7 1941  FCC mails frequency assignments dictated by The North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement to all stations with the warning that all must comply or fall silent until they can.  (See The March of Change.)
FEB 7 1943   CBS and BBC debut Transatlantic Call, an exchange of interviews heard simultaneously in both countries.
FEB 7 1944   The War Department refuses Bob Hope’s request to broadcast from military camps outside the U.S. in Cuba and the Caribbean. He substitutes with personal appear-ances in those areas between broadcasts from bases in southern states.  (See Hope From Home.)
FEB 7 1945   The U.S. recapture of Manila is reported live on NBC by affiliate KZRH announcer Bert Silen, who had spent 37 months in a Japanese prison camp, opening his report with, “As I was saying when I was so rudely interrupted over three years and a month ago…”
FEB 7 1946   His legal difficulties with sponsor Kraft Foods settled, Bing Crosby returns for a final 13 weeks as host of NBC’s Kraft Music Hall and its ratings jump 35%. (See Frank Morgan and Thursday’s All Time Top Ten.)
FEB 7 1946  FCC issues its first “conditional” grant to WGAR/Cleveland pending hearings caused by the bid for its 1220 kc. channel by WADC/Tallmadge, Ohio, deemed earlier by the Commission as, “…not in the public‘s interest.”
FEB 7 1947  FCC begins a three month freeze on applications for new AM stations and changes in facilities to clear its backlog of 823 existing applications plus the flood of another 250 that arrive at the last minute to beat the deadline..
FEB 7 1947   Mutual signs its 400th network affiliate, WMID/Atlantic City.
FEB 7 1949   West coast kids’ serial Straight Arrow moves from the Don Lee network to Mutual for a two year run.
FEB 7 1949  Mutual and CBS join forces against 400 “professional” audience members who repeatedly obtain tickets to daytime audience participation shows, often under false pretenses, and raise commotions if not chosen as contestants.
FEB 7 1949   FCC renews the license of WJOL, Joliet, Illinois, despite local police objections to its horse racing programs that were cancelled in 1947.
FEB 7 1949   Philco Corp. lays off 1,000 workers for a week due to a shortage of picture tubes for its television sets.
FEB 7 1950   KQV/Pittsburgh personality Cleda Jones, 30, is found near death beside Pennsylvania Railroad tracks after being struck by a commuter train.  Foul play is suspected. 

FEB 8 1931   Maurice Chevalier signs a 26 week contract to host NBC’s Sunday night Chase & Sanborn Hour for $5,000 a show.
FEB 8 1932   FRC rules that television stations can broadcast commercials to help defray costs of video’s development.
FEB 8 1933   Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians make their network debut on CBS, beginning a 23 year multi-network run of programs. 
FEB 8 1935   Iowa’s Attorney General asks the FCC to reject the application for a 5,000 watt station in Muscatine by Norman Baker, accused of practicing medicine without a license.  
FEB 8 1935   RCA President David Sarnoff testifies before the FCC that television will someday be more important in the communications field than radio.
FEB 8 1936   The Managing Editor of The Des Moines Register-Tribune, stranded aboard a Rock Island train stalled by a snow bank 50 miles north of the city, calls the newspaper-owned KRNT/Des Moines with a first hand report.
FEB 8 1937  Responding to complaints from theater owners claiming radio is cutting their attendance, MGM bans radio appearances by its contract players unless stipulated in their individual agreements.  (See Good News.)
FEB 8 1937   American Tobacco’s Lucky Strike cigarettes plans a testimonial campaign involving the written endorsements of twelve U.S. Senators read on the air by actors.  Those congressmen who do not smoke will be asked to comment on the company’s manufacturing cleanliness.  (See Unfiltered Cigarette Claims.)
FEB 8 1939   Ronald Colman negotiates his release from NBC’s The Circle, blaming poor scripts.  (See The 1938-39 Season and Your Money Or Your Life.)
FEB 8 1940   FCC transmits its findings for possible action under the lottery laws to the Justice Department after hearings focused on NBC’s Pot O Gold giveaway program.
FEB 8 1940   NBC commissions a coverage study by C.E. Hooper requiring the mailing of questionnaires to 1,425,000 families.  (See Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
FEB 8 1943   Tenor Morton Downey begins an eight season multi-network series of day-time broadcasts for Coca Cola.
FEB 8 1943   The U.S. Army establishes WVCX/Sitka, Alaska, to provide news and infor-mation to the armed forces and civilian population with entertainment provided by tran-scriptions of popular shows from all four networks.
FEB 8 1943   CBS allows its  first beer advertiser in eight years, Ballentine Ale, to sponsor its Monday night Guy Lombardo Show on a limited network of 24 stations.  (See Guy Lombardo.)
FEB 8 1944  Curtis Publications introduces The Listening Post, quarter-hour serializations of stories from its Saturday Evening Post four mornings a week on 66 Blue Network stations.  The series will continue for four years.
FEB 8 1945   Major Edward Bowes introduces his Shower of Stars on CBS.  (See Major Bowes’ Original Money Machine.)
FEB 8 1945   AFM boss James Petrillo prohibits the union’s members from performing for television until further notice.  (See Petrillo!)
FEB 8 1946  The Press Association, a subsidiary of Associated Press, signs contracts with NBC and CBS to provide its news service to the networks and their owned and operated stations for a reported $125,000 per year.
FEB 8 1946   Bing Crosby turns down a reported $15,000 a week to join Lucky Strike’s Your Hit Parade for fear that, “…selling cigarettes would harm his reputation.”  (See Smoke Gets In Your Ears.)
FEB 8 1946   KHQ/Spokane is sold to The Spokane Tribune for a sum reported to be “…at least” $1.3 Million.  (See Three Letter Calls.)
FEB 8 1947   FCC Chairman Charles Denny tells broadcasters that if asked, the Commis-sion is open to reconsidering its Mayflower Decision banning stations from editorializing. 
FEB 8 1947   The St. Louis Post Dispatch opens the country’s first post-war television station, KSD-TV/St. Louis.
FEB 8 1948   C.E. Hooper begins telephone coincidental polling of television audiences in the New York City area on Sunday nights during the five and a half hours of station operation.   (See Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
FEB 8 1950   RCA demonstrates its improved color television system to the press in NBC's Washington, D.C. studios.
FEB 8 1950   Professional wrestlers in the Los Angeles area say they will no longer perform for television because it cut into the attendance of the arenas where they perform.  All six stations in the market carry pro matches every week. 
FEB 8 1952   Dennis Day begins his bi-weekly musical sitcom on NBC-TV.   
FEB 8 1953   Hallmark Hall of Fame replaces Hallmark Playhouse on the CBS Sunday schedule for two seasons.

FEB 9 1935   Will Rogers and Amos & Andy headline NBC’s half-hour salute to its new affiliate, WHIO/Dayton, Ohio.
FEB 9 1936  Ten performers from NBC/Chicago are forced to take refuge in a farm house when a snowstorm forces them off the road enroute to the formal opening of WTAQ/Green Bay, Wisconsin.
FEB 9 1936   WKZO/Kalamazoo, Michigan, is three hours late signing-on when snow-blocked highways force engineers to walk the final few miles in sub-zero temperatures to its transmitter.
FEB 9 1938   Hurricane force winds topple the transmitter towers of California stations KFBK/Sacramento and KGDM/Stockton while all San Francisco stations except KFRC and KSFO lose power temporarily from the same storm.
FEB 9 1939  Montana Senator Burton Wheeler introduces a controversial bill to replace the seven-member FCC with a new three-member panel. 
FEB 9 1939  The Associated Press resumes wire service to NBC after the network drops the Press-Radio Bureau as its news source.  (See The Press-Radio Bureau on this site.)
FEB 9 1939   CBS replaces The Press-Radio Bureau with United Press and International News Service wires.  (See The Press-Radio Bureau.)
FEB 9 1940  Jack Benny and General Foods agree to a new multi-year contract calling for a lump sum of $18,500 per week to cover all production costs and salaries.  (See Sunday At Seven.)
FEB 9 1942   Year-round Daylight Saving, known as War Time, becomes effective throughout the U.S. until September, 1945.
FEB 9 1942   Network news departments give full spot coverage to the fire started by a welder’s torch that destroys the luxury liner S.S. Normandie docked at Pier 88 in New York City for its conversion to a troop transport.  
FEB 9 1942   With network lines unavailable during World War II, Hawaiian stations plead for programs to be sent to them by shortwave or transcription.
FEB 9 1943   Blue Network President Mark Woods issues a memo tightening restrictions on “several commentators” - an obvious reference to Walter Winchell and Drew Pearson.  (See Walter Winchell.)
FEB 9 1943  Congressman Carl Vinson, Chairman of the House Naval Affairs Committee, says his  group will investigate the status of Walter Winchell as a reserve officer.
FEB 9 1944   A Foote, Cone & Belding survey indicates 70% of America’s housewives are available as radio audience during an average weekday listening an average of 2.6 hours.
FEB 9 1945   CBS lifts its ban on the popular song Rum & Coca Cola while NBC continues to forbid it.  
FEB 9 1945   Newspaper acquisitions of radio properties continue as The Miami Herald buys 50% of WQAM/Miami for $250,000 and The Newark News acquires WBYN/Brooklyn for $300,000. 
FEB 9 1945   The NLRB rules that NABET, not the AFM, is the proper bargaining agent for “platter turners” at NBC and Blue owned stations outside of Chicago.  (See Petrillo!)
FEB 9 1948   Radio program syndicator Frederick W. Ziv opens a television division and purchases the assets of General Film Library, Inc., for $240,000. (See Fred Ziv - King of Syndication.)
FEB 9 1949   C.E. Hooper figures reveal that CBS has edged ahead of NBC in total sponsored minutes per week - 1,590 to 1,575.  ABC follows with 930 sponsored minutes and Mutual trails with 500.   (See Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
FEB 9 1951   An episode of Edward R. Murrow’s Hear It Now on CBS tracing the path of a donated pint of blood to the Korean battlefront results in a surge of 15,500 inquiries to donate received by 162 Red Cross chapters across the country.
FEB 9 1951   Popular bandleader/pianist Eddy Duchin, billed as “The Ten Magic Fingers of Radio,” dies of leukemia at age 41.  
FEB 9 1953   By a 5-2 vote the FCC approves the $25 Million merger of ABC with United Paramount Theaters.  
FEB 9 1953   By a 4-3 vote the FCC approves the license renewal of KTLA(TV)/Los Angeles involving the eligibility of Paramount Pictures in television.  
FEB 9 1953   Arthur Godfrey leaves for a two week tour of Strategic Air Command bases while CBS fills his radio and television show with guest hosts Garry Moore and Eddie Albert.  (See Arthur Godfrey.) 
FEB 9 1953   Ziv Television reports three of its series, Favorite Story, The Cisco Kid and Boston Blackie have each been sold in 64 markets to cover 98% of country.  (See Fred Ziv - King of Syndication.)

FEB 10 1922 WWJ/Detroit begins the first known series of sponsored programs - the weekly Detroit Symphony broadcasts identified on the air as The Detroit Bank Concerts.  (See Alchemists of The Air.)
FEB 10 1936   WOOD/Grand Rapids, Michigan, is  forced to increase its telephone staff to assist with the surge in emergency messages, cancellations and requests caused by the massive snowfall and sub-zero cold.
FEB 10 1936   WRVA/Richmond, Virginia, temporarily suspends its slogan, “Down Where The South Begins,” after a foot of snow ties up the city and ice halts shipping on the James River.
FEB 10 1936  Named after the New Deal program, WNRA/Muscle Shoals, Alabama moves its 100 watt transmitter to Sheffield, Alabama, and changes its call sign to WMSD.
FEB 10 1939  NBC correspondent Phillip McKenzie in Rome is first to report the death of Pope Pius XI at age 82.
FEB 10 1941   ASCAP discontinues its ASCAP On Parade broadcasts after three perfor-mances when Billy Rose and Oscar Hammerstein II, quit as producer and writer of the show citing overwork.
FEB 10 1941  NBC’s KPO/San Francisco begins reporting daily highlights from the Roller Derby at the city’s Civic Auditorium. 
FEB 10 1941   WMCA/New York City returns to a 1:15 a.m. nightly sign-off when its overnight personality, Alan Courtney, moves to crosstown rival WOV.
FEB 10 1942   Transcription services resume adding ASCAP music to their libraries after six week moratorium. 
FEB 10 1947  To comply with FCC duopoly rules and enable it to buy WCAU/Philadelphia, The Philadelphia Bulletin puts WPEN up for sale for $1.0 Million, the highest price ever asked for an independent station.
FEB 10 1949  The CBS raid of NBC programs continues as International Silver announces an April move to CBS of its Sunday sitcom, The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet.  (See Ozzie & Harriet on this site.) 
FEB 10 1949   C.E. Hooper expands its television rating service to include New York and ten additional East Coast cities.   (See Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
FEB 10 1949   FCC approves CBS selling 55% of WTOP/Washington, D.C. to The Wash-ington Post and WTOP acquiring WINX-FM/Washington.
FEB 10 1949   FCC approves CBS acquiring the remaining 45% and full control of KQW/San Jose-San Francisco from the Brunton family for $425,000.
FEB 10 1949   New York City  stations WINS, WMCA, WMGM, WNEW, WOR, WOV and WQXR ban selected songs from Cole Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate as “too risqué” for radio.
FEB 10 1950   The NAB board votes to replace its Broadcast Measurement Bureau with another million dollar venture, the Audience Measurement Corporation.
FEB 10 1950  ABC Network President Robert Kintner tells the press that he foresees no cross-ownership between television and motion pictures in the future.

FEB 11 1922  AT&T announces plans to establish a network of 38 “radio telephone” stations linked by the company’s long lines, all operating on a “toll” basis.
FEB 11 1935  Procter & Gamble’s Crisco shortening introduces a “Pie Naming” contest on NBC’s Vic & Sade serial, offering a $1,000 grand prize and 1,000 silver-plated pie servers as consolation prizes.  (See Vic & Sade .)
FEB 11 1936   Mary Pickford introduces Parties At  Pickfair, beginning a 26 week run on CBS sponsored by the National Association of Ice Manufacturers.
FEB 11 1937   The two hour, late night all-star broadcast over 250 affiliates of NBC, CBS and Mutual to benefit victims of the massive Ohio and Mississippi River floods raises $20.0 Million in Red Cross donations. 
FEB 11 1938   Paramount releases Bob Hope’s first feature film, The Big Broadcast of 1938, in which he sings the Academy Award winning Thanks For The Memory duet with Shirley Ross.  (See About A Song.)
FEB 11 1938   Republic Pictures releases The Lone Ranger, its 15 chapter serial based on the Mutual radio series from WXYZ/Detroit.  (See The Lone Ranger.)
FEB 11 1939   Ed Wynn returns from the West Indies, writes a check to the Internal Revenue Service for $229,120 to settle a back tax bill from 1932 to 1935, then sails for Bermuda.  
FEB 11 1940   The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street, dedicated to jazz, opens its sporadic six year multi-network run on Blue. 
FEB 11 1942  CBS reports receiving 17,750 requests for rules of the Dr. Christian script writing contest for listeners announced two weeks earlier.  (See Dr. Christian.)
FEB 11 1943   AFM chief Petrillo mails offers to end walkout to recording companies proposing royalty payments to be made to a union unemployment fund.  (See Petrillo!)
FEB 11 1944   Ewell K. Jett, 50, FCC Chief Engineer since 1938, is confirmed by the U.S. Senate to a full seven year term on the Commission, filling the seat vacated by George Henry Payne. 
FEB 11 1946  The Associated Broadcasting System network, based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, cites losses of $300,000 and suspends operations with 22 affiliates.  
FEB 11 1947   Controversial commentator Upton Close leaves his three a week Mutual program after one month.
FEB 11 1948   Producers of Mutual’s Queen For A Day apologize in full page Pittsburgh newspaper ads for the $1.95 charged to see the show on tour by a local promoter and offer refunds for ticket stubs at a local bank. 
FEB 11 1948  Extreme cold and snow storms across the country delay the construction of radio and television transmitter towers and the installation of rooftop television antennas. 
FEB 11 1949  Bob Hope’s radio troupe returns to Hollywood from its whirlwind 35 city tour grossing $650,000.
FEB 11 1949  In response to the CBS raid of its talent, NBC announces that Bob Hope will remain with the network for both his radio and television shows.  (See Hope From Home.)
FEB 11 1949   Paramount Theaters announces plans to form a television network anchored by its WBKB(TV)/Chicago and KTLA(TV)/Los Angeles.
FEB 11 1949   R.J. Reynolds cancels its contract with Fox Movietone News for the nightly, ten minute Camel Newsreel on NBC-TV at 7:50 p.m.  
FEB 11 1950   KSTP-TV/Minneapolis-St. Paul raises awareness for veterans' causes by televising a wheelchair basketball game between paraplegic veterans and former Univer-sity of Minnesota football players from the Minneapolis Auditorium.
FEB 11 1951   Spike Jones receives $40,000 for his band’s television debut on NBC-TV’s Colgate Comedy Hour.
FEB 11 1952   Joe E. Brown hosts Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts for four weeks during Godfrey’s vacation while Robert Q. Lewis takes over Godfrey’s daytime radio shows and singer Frank Parker emcees Wednesday night’s Arthur Godfrey & His Friends on CBS-TV.
FEB 11 1952   NBC-TV premieres its weekday morning show Breakfast With Music starring Morey Amsterdam from 9:00 to 10:00 a.m. following the success of its month-old Today from 7:00 to 9:00 a.m. 

FEB 12 1924  National Carbon Company’s Eveready Hour is linked from WEAF/New York City to WGR/Buffalo and WJAR/Providence, becoming Network Radio’s first sponsored program.
FEB 12 1932   NBC reports receiving five million pieces of fan mail in 1931, an increase of three million over 1930.
FEB 12 1934   CBS commentator Boake Carter begins a separate transcribed nightly series of commentaries on WOR/Newark for Schenley Distilling’s Silver Wedding Gin.
FEB 12 1934  The World Broadcasting System transcription service begins production of recorded programming. (See “By Transcription…”)
FEB 12 1935   The Chicago Cubs impose demands of stations broadcasting its games - WBBM, WGN and WJJD - that commercial copy within the games be limited to 1,000 words in no more than eight announcements. 
FEB 12 1937   Ohio broadcasters protest a bill before the state legislature that would tax stations 10% of their gross income every year.
FEB 12 1938   American Tobacco adds 17 violinists to the string section of Lucky Strike’s Your Hit Parade on CBS, bringing the show’s orchestra up to 48 pieces.
FEB 12 1940   Turned down by the networks, The Adventures of Superman debuts by transcription on WOR/Newark and nine other outlets in the Northeast, pledging to stations it will avoid the topics of war and espionage.  (See Serials, Cerials & Premiums.)
FEB 12 1940   Movie character actress Zasu Pitts joins the cast of the CBS serial Big Sister for 13 weeks.
FEB 12 1940  Jack Benny’s lawyers try to prevent the unauthorized re-editing, insertion of new scenes and re-release of the comedian’s 1931 film, The Medicine Man.
FEB 12 1941  The Allied Printing Trades Council charges radio advertising with, “…costing the jobs of 25,000 printers,” and stations with, “…making abnormal profits on minimal investment.”
FEB 12 1941  Liggett & Myers’ Chesterfield cigarettes renews Glenn Miller’s three-times a week Moonlight Serenade on CBS for another year at $4,850 per week.  (See In The Miller Mood.)  
FEB 12 1942   Mickey Rooney hosts NBC’s Kraft Music Hall for two weeks while Bing Crosby tours Texas with Bob Hope in a series a golf matches to benefit the Red Cross. (See Shorty Bell.)
FEB 12 1942   CBS begins testing its second 50,000 watt shortwave station, WCBX, which will be directed to Europe and North Africa in the daytime and Brazil at night.
FEB 12 1943  Lawyers for CBS and NBC argue before the Supreme Court that the FCC went beyond its legal powers in issuing its chain broadcasting rules. 
FEB 12 1945   Socony Vacuum takes over sponsorship of NBC’s panel quiz Information Please from Heinz Foods for a production cost of $11,000 per week - compared to the $2,500 a week charged Canada Dry when the show debuted in 1938.  (See Information Please.)
FEB 12 1946  Veteran newsman Louis Kaufman of KQV/Pittsburgh is credited by city and union officials, plus competing stations and newspapers with forcing an end to the city’s crippling power strike with his continual broadcasts that brought the two sides together for negotiation and settlement.
FEB 12 1946  NBC, CBS, DuMont and AT&T combine to transmit the first inter-city tele-cast via 225 miles of coaxial cable from Washington, D.C., to New York City.
FEB 12 1949  KMOX/St. Louis is knocked off the air for 80 minutes, during the Spike Jones, Jack Benny and Amos & Andy shows due to a cable break.  A small transmitter fire two days later interrupts programming for another 25 minutes.
FEB 12 1949   Re-enactment of Orson Welles’ War of The Worlds on HCQRX/Quito, Ecuador causes a street panic killing six persons followed by an enraged mob destroying the radio station.  (See The War of The Worlds.)
FEB 12 1950   Jack Benny reunites Fred Allen’s Allen's Alley characters - Senator Claghorn, (Kenny Delmar), Mrs. Neusbaum, (Minerva Pious), Titus Moody, (Parker Fenley) and Ajax Cassidy, (Peter Donald) - for a guest appearance on his program.  (See The Feud.)
FEB 12 1951   AFRA calls its first strike against a transcription company in a dispute with Lang-Worth Feature Programs over an interpretation of The Taft-Hartley Law dealing with retroactive payments to talent.
FEB 12 1952   Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, 56, introduces his award winning Life Is Worth Living on DuMont for a five year multi-network run.
FEB 12 1952   NBC-TV’s Howdy Doody becomes the first network television show to reach 1,000 broadcasts.
FEB 12 1953   Pioneer radio personality and writer, Ray Knight, creator and host of the early Cuckoo Hour among many shows, dies at 54.  
FEB 12 1953   CBS purchases WBKB(TV)/Chicago from ABC-UPT for $6.75 Million and renames it WBBM-TV.

FEB 13 1933   Loews, Incorporated, licensee of WHN/New York City, buys WRNY which shares time on the same 1010 kilocycles frequency with the intent to fold it into WHN.
FEB 13 1934   Legendary New York City independent station WNEW goes on the air from New Jersey with the merger of WAAM/Newark and WODA/Paterson.
FEB 13 1935   The Press Radio Bureau transmits a false Associated Press bulletin to networks and stations that Bruno Hauptmann is acquitted in Lindbergh kidnapping case.  Rival Transradio Press follows 14 minutes later with the correct news of the jury’s guilty verdict.  (See Press Radio Bureau on this site.)
FEB 13 1936   Chrysler Corp. launches Ed Wynn’s Gulliver The Traveler on 90 CBS stations with a contest awarding a  new car every week.  The contest draws an average 17,500 entries per week but the program folds in 13 weeks.
FEB 13 1937   Bandleader/composer Russ Morgan, 33, begins three season run of two half hour shows per week for Philip Morris cigarettes, one on CBS and one on NBC.  (See Big Band Remotes and Spotlight Bands.)
FEB 13 1939   Freeman Gosden & Charles Correll begin six weeks of broadcasting Amos & Andy from the El Mirador Hotel in Palm Springs, California.  (See Amos & Andy - Twice Is Nicer.) 
FEB 13 1939   FCC grants a daytime power increase to 5,000 watts to WNEW/New York City on the station’s fifth anniversary.
FEB 13 194 1 Montana Senator Burton Wheeler charges the networks with, “…not only editorializing but in many instances propagandizing,” on behalf of President Roosevelt’s Lend Lease proposal to aid Great Britain. 
FEB 13 1941   George Hamilton Combes, on WHN/New York City, compares Senator Wheeler’s Interstate Commerce Committee’s call to see the scripts of all commentators over the past year to the methods of dictators Hitler and Mussolini. 
FEB 13 1941   Vox Pop hosts Parks Johnson and Wally Butterworth launch three weeks of remote originations of the CBS show from Mexico City, San Juan and Havana.
FEB 13 1942   Despite threats of reprisal from Mayor LaGuardia, the FCC denies the petition of municipally owned WNYC/New York City to operate past sunset on 830 kc., the clear channel of WCCO/Minneapolis-St. Paul.
FEB 13 1943   Orchestra leader Don Bestor sues General Foods, Young & Rubicam, NBC and Jack Benny for $50,000, claiming ownership of the five-note, J-E-L-L-O, musical signature.
FEB 13 1943   Frank Sinatra debuts on Lucky Strike’s Your Hit Parade on CBS replacing Barry Wood who moves to American Tobacco’s new show, Your All Time Hit Parade on NBC.
FEB 13 1946   The U.S. Supreme Court rules WPEN/Philadelphia was within its rights to refuse renewing the contracts of a group of paid religious programs.
FEB 13 1947   The Family Theater - a commercial free half hour produced by the Holy Cross Fathers to promote family values featuring top Hollywood stars who perform without charge - begins its nine year run on Mutual . 
FEB 13 1948   Phillip Morris cancels It Pays To Be Ignorant, replacing it with a new musical half hour featuring Dinah Shore, Johnny Mercer and Harry James.  (See It Pays To Be Ignorant.)  
FEB 13 1948   Radio veteran Arch Oboler leaves on an eight month African safari to record “animal sounds and other noises” for syndication producer Frederick W. Ziv.  (See Fred Ziv - King of Syndication and Lights Out!)
FEB 13 1949   Jack Webb brings his West Coast hit, Pat Novak For Hire, to ABC for a four month run.  (See Jack Webb’s Dragnet.)
FEB 13 1950   The Port Authority of New York tells the FCC that WOR’s proposal to raise the height of its transmitter towers in Carteret, New Jersey, from 410 to 638 feet would endanger aircraft using the Newark airport.
FEB 13 1950   Procter & Gamble expands its CBS coverage of five soap operas - Ma Perkins, Big Sister, Perry Mason, The Guiding Light and Young Doctor Malone - by adding 50 smaller market stations to reach the full network.
FEB 13 1950   NBC’s Eternal Light becomes the only repeat winner of an award from The National Conference of Christians & Jews in the group’s seven year history.     
FEB 13 1950   FCC grants a fulltime operation license to Liberty network anchor station KLIF/Dallas - previously a daytime only station.
FEB 13 1950   DuMont’s WABD(TV)/New York begins a nightly series of horse races filmed that afternoon at Florida’s Hialeah Race Track then flown to New York City for narration by Clem McCarthy. (See Dr. DuMont’s Predictions.)
FEB 13 1951   NBC buys a full page ad in The New York Times to attract sponsors for its Sunday all-star variety program The Big Show.  (See Tallulah’s Big Show.)
FEB 13 1953   Departing from its duopoly rules the FCC decides 5-2 to grant Macon, Georgia‘s only UHF television license to two competing radio stations, WBML and WNEX.

FEB 14 1931  Robert (Believe It Or Not) Ripley departs on a 69-day, $75,000 cruise around the world sponsored by P. Lorillard’s Old Gold cigarettes in return for one “odd” fact from Ripley every week to be used in its advetising.  (See Believe It Or Not.)
FEB 14 1935   FCC denies a license for a new AM station in Muscatine, Iowa, when the applicant, self-styled cancer doctor Norman Baker, fails to appear before the Commission.
FEB 14 1936   Dispelling rumors of a $25,000 bribe, an FCC five-man Board of Inquiry finds “no irregularities” in the Commission’s handling of the 1240 kilocycle dispute between Binghamton and Schenectady, New York.  
FEB 14 1938   WMCA becomes the New York City outlet for Transamerican Radio Corporation’s programs from WLW/Cincinnati.
FEB 14 1942   All networks simultaneously broadcast This Is War!, a 13 week, half hour series on Saturdays at 7:00 p.m. to explain the government’s wartime activities.
FEB 14 1942   Jack Dempsey begins a weekly half-hour quiz of sportswriters on WOR/New York City.
FEB 14 1943   Jimmy Durante, in New York City for radio and personal appearances, flies back to Los Angeles when notified of the sudden death of his wife, Jean, after a lengthy illness at age 52.  (See Goodnight, Mr. Durante... on this site.)
FEB 14 1944  WOV/New York City agrees to the OWI proposal to produce a series of entertainment programs in Italian for distribution to liberated Italy via shortwave and transcription.
FEB 14 1947   Legendary FBI agent Melvin Purvis buys WOLS/Florence, North Carolina. 
FEB 14 1948   Easy Aces returns to CBS in half-hour form as mr. ace & JANE on Saturday nights.  (See Easy Aces.)
FEB 14 1948   The New York Times’ WQXQ(FM), returns to the air after a brief overhaul with a new 20,000 watt transmitter and a new call-sign, WQXR-FM.
FEB 14 1951   Guy Lombardo takes NBC’s Your Hit Parade on a three month tour, beginning in Philadelphia and originating from a different city every week.  (See Guy Lombardo.)
FEB 14 1951   WDAF-TV/Kansas City carries the Pabst Beer sponsored Sugar Ray Robinson vs. Jake LaMotta Middleweight Championship fight, breaking the long standing ban on alcohol advertising by its Kansas City Star owner.
FEB 14 1952   WWRL/New York City begins radio broadcasts of Roller Derby matches three nights a week. 
FEB 14 1953   Edgar Bergen goes to the White House to discuss better entertainment for hospitalized veterans with President Eisenhower.  (See Sunday's All Time Top Ten.)

FEB 15 1932   George Burns, 36, and Gracie Allen, 37, debut on CBS with Guy Lombardo‘s orchestra, beginning their 18 year multi-network run.
FEB 15 1932   KNX/Los Angeles agrees to pay United Press $1,000 a month to provide it with content for four newscasts per day.
FEB 15 1933   Gunshots from an assassination attempt of President Roosevelt are heard live on CBS affiliate WQAM/ Miami and the network scores a major scoop on the story with Ted Husing who happened to be on the scene. 
FEB 15 1935   WHOM/Jersey City, New Jersey, cancels its programs featuring psychics and racing tips in accordance with FCC objections to its license renewal. 
FEB 15 1935   The Chicago Federation of Labor turns down Hearst Radio’s $150,000 offer for its WCFL/Chicago.
FEB 15 1935   WBT/Charlotte, North Carolina, bans use of the word, “flash”, except when introducing news items of a sudden and important nature.
FEB 15 1936  CBS engineers in Buffalo, New York, for a broadcast by the Carborundum Band, fail to capture the roar of Niagara Falls as record cold temperatures reduce the massive flow to a trickle. 
FEB 15 1938   FCC Chairman Frank McNinch addresses the NAB convention, warning of the dangers of monopolistic trends in the industry. 
FEB 15 1939   Mutual Board Chairman Alfred McCosker tells the FCC’s Chain-Monopoly Hearings that “exclusivity” clauses in CBS and NBC affiliate contracts prevent MBS programs from being broadcast in many markets.
FEB 15 1939   Art Linkletter, 26, begins his weekly Worlds Fair Party series on the Don Lee West Coast network from San Francisco’s Golden Gate International Exposition.  (See People Are Funny on this site.)
FEB 15 1940   The U.S. Justice Department refuses to act on an FCC request to investigate NBC’s Pot O Gold and other quiz shows for lottery law violations. 
FEB 15 1940   Armed with $1.25 Million in funding, Broadcast Music, Inc., (BMI), begins to build a library of ASCAP-free songs.
FEB 15 1941 Donna Damerel, Marge of the early CBS serial Myrt & Marge, dies giving birth to her third child at  age 28.  She was the daughter-partner of Myrtle Vail, (Myrt), with whom she created the serial in 1931. 
FEB 15 1941   NBC begins its series of Saturday night television remotes from the Intercollegiate Track Championships at Madison Square Garden on its experimental W2XAB(TV)/New York City.
FEB 15 1942   WNEW/New York City introduces its tie-in with The New York Daily News by scheduling five-minute news capsules every hour on the half-hour 24 hours a day.
FEB 15 1943   Weekday morning half-hour self-contained My True Story begins its 19 year run on Blue/ABC followed by an encore season on Mutual.
FEB 15 1943   NBC begins a series of five afternoon quarter hour programs, Betty Crocker Explains Food Rationing, as part of the government’s massive campaign to inform the public about its rationing of canned goods and processed foods.
FEB 15 1943  American Tobacco boasts that its saturation campaign of the slogan, “The best tunes of all move to Carnegie Hall!” helped the February 12th premiere of its Your All Time Hit Parade obtain a 17.9 CAB rating.
FEB 15 1943  Recording industry executives and the AFM board reach no decision on the union’s proposal that an unemployment fund be established with royalties to end the six month recording walkout. (See Petrillo!) 
FEB 15 1944   Updated totals from Eddie Cantor’s 24 hour marathon broadcast on KPO/San Francisco indicate over $40.0 Million in War Bonds sold and 17,400 persons passed through the studio during the show.
FEB 15  1945   AFRS produces its memorable Command Performance broadcast of The Marriage of Dick Tracy starring Bing Crosby, Dinah Shore, Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland and Frank Sinatra.  (See Command Performance.)  
FEB 15 1947  Jack Webb, star of Pat Novak For Hire on the ABC Pacific Coast Network, leaves the staff of KGO/San Francisco to free lance in Los Angeles.  (See Jack Webb’s Dragnet.)
FEB 15 1947  William Randolph Hearst files suit in U.S. District Court to require the FCC to correct Blue Book charges against his WBAL/Baltimore. 
FEB 15 1948   Noted pollster Elmo Roper introduces his Sunday afternoon quarter-hour Where The People Stand on CBS, reporting the results of a specific poll taken for the program every week.
FEB 15 1949   Garry Moore takes his NBC Take It Or Leave It quiz to Germany to enter-tain American troops involved in the Berlin Air Lift.  Two programs with GI contestants are recorded for the show’s Sunday broadcasts.
FEB 15 1949   Patricia Ryan, 25, a radio actress since age four, dies in her New York home of an apparent stroke, after appearing on NBC’s Cavalcade of America, portraying a woman with stroke symptoms.
FEB 15 1951   Adam Hat Stores drops sponsorship of ABC commentator Drew Pearson, but denies the cancellation was caused by Senator Joseph McCarthy’s criticisms of Pearson.
FEB 15 1951  NBC-TV proceeds with the groundwork of Operation Frontal Lobe, a project of Executive Vice President Sylvester (Pat) Weaver to make education, “…as entertaining as possible.” 
FEB 15 1952  The U.S. Office of Price Stabilization releases its transcribed series, Stars For Defense, each 15 minute show featuring a top film or radio star headed by Bob Hope, Dinah Shore, Doris Day and Dick Haymes. 
FEB 15 1953   Kids’ panel show Juvenile Jury leaves the air after a sporadic six season multi-network run.

FEB 16 1935   In a switch from the trend, Hearst’s WISN/Milwaukee cancels its affiliation with CBS.
FEB 16 1936   Demand for tickets to soprano Gladys Swarthout’s appearance on the Detroit Sympathy’s Sunday night CBS broadcast forces sponsor Ford to move the event from Detroit’s 1,400 seat Orchestra Hall to the Masonic Temple, capacity 4,600. 
FEB 16 1938   The Anti-Nazi League protests the pro-Hitler remarks made in German by commentator Herbert Oettgen  on WBNX/New York City.
FEB 16 1942   WNEW/New York City justifies its 35% increase in rates with its boost in power from 5,000 to 10,000 watts and its move to clear channel 1130 kc.  
FEB 16 1942   J. Walter Thompson introduces the Sonovox into commercials, using the system of mixing human voice and sound effects in its spots for Shell Oil at a royalty fee of one dollar per station per use.
FEB 16 1943  Citing gas rationing as the reason for more stay-at-homes, the CAB report for February ranks 12 programs with ratings of 30 and above.  The more conservative Hooperatings credit four programs over 30.   (See Radio's Rulers: Crossley,  Hooper & Nielsen.)
FEB 16 1945   Mutual President Ed Kobak turns down Carter Products’ $2.0 Million proposal to bring John J. Anthony’s Goodwill Court to the the weeknight 9:15 to 9:30 for 52 weeks as, “…bad radio.”
FEB 16 1947   The National Conference of Christians & Jews honors Walter Winchell on his ABC program as, “…the person in radio in 1946 who made the greatest contribution to national unity and harmony among all groups of American people.”   (See Walter Winchell.)
FEB 16 1948  ABC kids' serial Jack Armstrong joins the giveaway fad by offering bicycles for the 1,000 best Name The Bike entries accompanied by a Wheaties box top.   (See Serials, Cereals & Premiums.)
FEB 16 1948   Mutual’s Adventures of Superman, cancelled by Kellogg’s in December, is offered as a co-op program to affiliates and immediately sold in 40 major markets.
FEB 16 1948   C.E. Hooper refuses to release its Fall-Winter Report for New Orleans because WNOE conducted a  giveaway for listeners who answered telephones with, “WNOE,” instead of, “Hello”.   (See Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
FEB 16 1948  New York Times station WQXR-FM inaugurates daily facsimile newspaper service.
FEB 16 1948  NBC-TV introduces the ten-minute Camel Newsreel weeknights at 7:50, network television’s first daily newscast with film footage provided by the Movietone Newsreel department of 20th Century Fox. 
FEB 16 1948  Anticipating expenditures of $5.33 Million for television facilities in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles,, San Francisco and Detroit, ABC files a registration with the Securities & Exchange Commission to sell 250,000 shares of its stock.
FEB 16 1948   N.W. Ayer releases its latest count of media outlets showing 2,003 daily newspapers in the United States, 1,520 AM radio stations, 403 FM stations and 17 television stations with over 200 radio and TV stations under construction.
FEB 16 1948   J. Walter Thompson claims to be the first advertising agency to reach $1.0 Million in television time and talent billings.
FEB 16 1949   New England radio pioneer John Shepard III, 63, resigns as chairman and director of the Yankee Network.
FEB 16 1949  Newscaster John Cameron Swayze introduces the weeknight Camel News Caravan at 7:45 p.m. on 14 NBC-TV stations, prepared by a network staff of 60 with a $10,000 weekly budget.
FEB 16 1951   Arturo Toscanini, 84, suddenly retires as Director of the NBC Symphony under doctors’ orders. 
FEB 16 1951   Melvin Purvis, famous former FBI agent and owner of WOLS/Florence, South Carolina, is elected President of the South Carolina Broadcasters Association.
FEB 16 1952   Sid Caesar, Imogene Cocoa, Red Skelton and Your Show of Shows   provide NBC-TV with five of the six Emmys awarded at the fourth annual Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles.  CBS-TV won the sixth with its Studio One dramatic series.
FEB 16 1953   Lum & Abner return to radio after a three year hiatus for an encore 13 week network appearance in a sustaining transcribed series of quarter hour shows on ABC

FEB 17 1930   Edgar Bergen and his Charlie McCarthy appear in their first of 14 Warner Brothers’ shorts, The Operation.  (See Sunday's All Time Top Ten.)
FEB 17 1934   Blackface comics Pick Malone & Pat Padgett begin their five year string of shows on NBC and CBS.
FEB 17 1936   WWSW/Pittsburgh sportscaster Al Helfer, 25, moves to WLW/Cincinnati as assistant to Sports Director Red Barber.
FEB 17 1939   Carole Lombard opts out of her contract to appear regularly on NBC’s The Circle - agreeing to appear only when scripts meet her approval.  Only the Marx Brothers, who employ their own writers, have no complaints with the show.
FEB 17 1939  CBS and NBC ban the song Refugee as too mournful and remindful of war.
FEB 17 1941  For the first time in its eight years of Ma Perkins garden seed offers, Procter & Gamble instructs listeners mail their requests directly to the company instead of local stations so it can measure each station’s coverage.
FEB 17 1942  FCC grants a rare wartime construction permit for a new 250 watt station in Kodiak, Alaska.
FEB 17 1942  ASCAP reports 565 commercial radio stations are under its license.
FEB 17 1945   Billboard’s annual poll of newspaper radio editors selects George Hicks’ descriptions of the Allied D-Day landing at Normandy to be the Outstanding Broadcast of 1944.  (See D-Day On Radio.)
FEB 17 1945   Twin Cities AFM Local 73 and James Petrillo claim victory when KSTP/Minneapolis-St. Paul agrees to a two year contract to hire eight union musicians and end a ten month strike.  (See Petrillo!)
FEB 17 1946   CIO members picket NBC’s Hollywood studios during Jack Benny’s program because the union is on strike against his sponsor, the American Tobacco Company.  Benny, however, is originating that week’s show from Palm Springs. (See Lucky Gets Benny.)
FEB 17 1947   Producer Jack Stanley is awarded $35,000 by a Los Angeles jury that finds CBS guilty of appropriating the title and format of his Hollywood Preview program. 
FEB 17 1948   CBS announces plans to construct the world’s largest television studio at New York City’s Grand Central Station.
FEB 17 1949   Bob Hope withdraws his application to buy WHAS & WHAS-TV/Louisville.
FEB 17 1949   Newsman Taylor Grant celebrates the 1,000th broadcast of ABC’s Headline Edition.
FEB 17 1950   NBC announces the two year renewal of contracts with Phil Harris & Alice Faye for their Sunday evening program.
FEB 17 1953   Philip Morris begins negotiations with Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz to extend its sponsorship of I Love Lucy on CBS-TV at over $40,000 per episode for a total value of $6.5 Million.

FEB 18 1927   Cities Service Concerts, (aka Highways In Melody and Band of America), begins its string of 29 consecutive seasons on NBC.
FEB 18 1932   Freeman Gosden & Charles Correll do their Amos & Andy NBC broadcast from a makeshift studio near the scene of the Jack Dempsey vs. King Levinsky exhibition bout in Chicago - won by Levinsky. 
FEB 18 1933   American Tobacco cancels its Saturday Night Dancing Party on NBC in a cost cutting move resulting from a temporary price war forcing cigarettes to sell as low as ten cents a pack.  (See Smoke Gets In Your Ears.)
FEB 18 1935   WSAI/Cincinnati announces that Red Barber, will become the first sportscaster to accompany a baseball team to its spring training camp, leaving with the Cincinnati Reds for Tampa. 
FEB 18 1935   KNX/Los Angeles adds a late night 15-minute newscast at 11:30 p.m. for listeners in Alaska, Hawaii and the Pacific islands who are two to three hours behind Pacific Time.
FEB 18 1935   WLW/Cincinnati is ordered by the U.S. Court of Appeals to reduce its nighttime experimental power of 500,000 watts to 50,000 watts to prevent interference with Canadian stations. 
FEB 18 1938   KEHE/Los Angeles fires Hollywood reporter Bob Garrett for falsely reporting that MGM turned the camera on actor Robert McWade, 66, who suffered a fatal heart attack on the Of Human Hearts movie set.
FEB 18 1938   FCC shuts down eight unlicensed shortwave operations in New York state used to transmit horse race results in code.
FEB 18 1939   Universal Pictures capitalizes on the popularity of NBC's Chase & Sanborn Hour with its release of You Can’t Cheat An Honest Man co-starring W.C. Fields with Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy.  (See W.C. Fields and Sunday's All Time Top Ten.)
FEB 18 1945   Listeners first hear the system cue, “This is the Blue Network of the American Broadcasting Company.”
FEB 18 1945   Shortwave reports of the U.S. invasion of Iwo Jima are carried from Guam by West Coast network stations at 11:15 p.m. PT, but the broadcast is not fed East where network facilities are shut down for the night.
FEB 18 1946   FCC orders a “sweeping” investigation into the operation of the Don Lee West Coast Network for possible violations of the Commission’s anti-monopoly rules.
FEB 18 1946   FCC approves the sale of WFIL AM&FM/Philadelphia to Triangle Publications for $1.9 Million.
FEB 18 1949   Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar opens its sporadic 13 year run on CBS.  (See CBS Packages Unwrapped.)
FEB 18 1949   Police from the St. Louis County Village of Olivette, Missouri, shut down KXLW in a zoning dispute over the location of the station’s transmitter.
FEB 18 1949   A circuit court of appeals supports the FCC decision to strip Charles Carlson of his license to operate WJBW/New Orleans and award the 250 watt station at 1230 kc. it to his divorced wife, Elsie Carlson. 
FEB 18 1952   NBC celebrates the 25th anniversary and 1,301st consecutive weekly broadcast of Cities Service Concerts with an hour long broadcast, noting program’s growth from a 16 station network in 1927 to 107 affiliates. 
FEB 18 1952  NBC launches our Operation Frontal Lobe with a special presentation of its Lights Out tying in with The Eye Bank For Sight Restoration, Incorporated.
FEB 18 1953   Hailed as the largest contract in television at $8.0 Million, Lucille Ball and husband Desi Arnaz sign a two and a half year pact to keep their I Love Lucy sitcom with CBS and sponsor Philip Morris cigarettes. 
 
FEB 19 1922   Ed Wynn performs a radio adaptation of his Broadway hit, The Perfect Fool, from WJZ/Newark.
FEB 19 1936   WIL/St. Louis is sued for $25,000 by the pastor of the North Presbyterian Church for services rendered including a 15% commission for selling air time to the Third Baptist Church in that city.
FEB 19 1939   Sterling Drugs’ Ironized Yeast begins recording its Good Will Hour with John J. Anthony from Mutual using the Millerfilm tape process for the program’s spot distribution to  an additional 46 stations.
FEB 19 1943   Writer Isaac McAnnally files suit for $32,000 damages against producer Phillips H. Lord charging breach of their 1935 contract in which McAnnally was hired to provided Gangbusters’ feature, Nationwide Clues.
FEB 19 1943   Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll perform their last of over four thousand, 15-minute broadcasts as Amos & Andy.  (See Amos & Andy - Twice Is Nicer .)
FEB 19 1943   American Tobacco replaces Information Please, a Top 50 show for Lucky Strike, with Your All Time Hit Parade and loses 27% of its audience by the end of the season.  (See Information Please.) 
FEB 19 1945   NBC-owned WMAQ/Chicago bans all local newscasts not written by staff members.
FEB 19 1948   The Hamtramck, Michigan, city council passes a resolution supporting groups protesting WJBK/Detroit’s cancellation of its entire schedule of 24 foreign language programs representing 16 nationalities. 
FEB 19 1948   A planned CBS broadcast from a plane flying over the North Pole is cancelled when fire breaks out and forces it to return to its Fairbanks, Alaska base.
FEB 19 1949  National Committee for Mental Hygiene reports receiving $145,000 in donations from Truth Or Consequences’ “Mr. & Mrs. Hush” contest. (See Truth Or Consequences.)
FEB 19 195  1 Don McNeill’s ABC Breakfast Club travels to the West Coast for the first time, originating from Los Angeles for two weeks.
FEB 19 1951   A former engineer for WBT/Charlotte, is sentenced to two years in prison for conspiracy to dynamite the station’s transmitter during a 1950 labor dispute.
FEB 19 1951   FCC revokes the license of KPAB/Laredo, Texas, for changing ownership without Commission approval.
FEB 19 1951   A group called Transit Riders, Incorporated, challenges the District of Columbia Public Utilities’ approval of Transit Radio’s FM broadcasts of music and commercials into buses and other forms of mass transit.  

FEB 20 1922   General Electric opens WGY/Schenectady at the company’s headquarters. 
FEB 20 1932   Sinclair Oil’s Wiener Minstrels from WENR/Chicago is networked to WJZ/New York City, WBAL/Baltimore, WHAM/Rochester and WGAR/Cleveland.
FEB 20 1933   Scanning disc kits designed to be attached to radios and catch the signals transmitted by Don Lee’s experimental television station in Los Angeles go on sale in radio shops for as low as $20.
FEB 20 1936   The War Department asks CBS commentator Boake Carter to correct the impression he gave that the late General William (Billy) Mitchell would not be allowed burial at Arlington National Cemetery. 
FEB 20 1938   George M. Cohan, Lawrence Tibbett, Edwin C. Hill, Al Shean and Andre Kostelanetz headline the 30-minite CBS Brotherhood Day Salute for The National Conference of Christians and Jews. 
FEB 20 1938  Graham McNamee headlines an NBC half-hour commemorative program from the network’s new WTAM/Cleveland studios beginning at midnight.
FEB 20 1939   Sponsor Kraft Foods eliminates the 16-voice choir from its Kraft Music Hall on NBC citing the increased pay dictated by the new AFRA contract.
FEB 20 1939   FCC revokes the license of KUMA/Yuma, Arizona, for false statements about its ownership and control.
FEB 20 1939   FTC announcements ask radio listeners to act as informants in a crack-down on ad-libbed commercials to prevent false and misleading advertising.
FEB 20 1941  Faced with criminal anti-trust charges, ASCAP membership approves a consent decree agreeing to stop practices considered violations of The Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
FEB 20 1941   Color television images are first broadcast from NBC’s Empire State Building transmitter.
FEB 20 1942   Jack Benny agrees to a radio contract with General Foods for the 1942-43 season calling for $22,000 a week for his program’s entire cost over 39 weeks.  (See (Sunday At Seven.)
FEB 20 1942  Writer Alonzo Dean Cole loses his third and final plagiarism suit against Phillips H. Lord over the ownership of Mr. District Attorney.  (See Wednesday's All Time Top Ten.)
FEB 20 1942   CBS drops its eviction suit against KSFO/San Francisco when its former affiliate agrees to vacate the network-owned offices and studios in the Palace Hotel on April 1.
FEB 20 1945  During its on going feud with Blue commentators Drew Pearson and Walter Winchell, The Chicago Tribune editorializes of the network, “…which no respectable man in his right mind would condescend to use…”
FEB 20 1946   FCC approves the sale of KTMR/Los Angeles and KYA/San Francisco to New York Post publisher Dorothy Thackrey  
FEB 20 1947   Paramount’s KTLA(TV) and Don Lee’s W6XAO(TV) provide same day film coverage of the aftermath of the mid-morning downtown Los Angeles industrial explosion that killed 15 and injured 151. 
FEB 20 1950  C.E. Hooper credits Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts with its all-time high rating of 23.9 - only Godfrey was absent on the night in question.  The show was hosted by WCCO/Minneapolis-St. Paul personality, Cedric Adams.  (See Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
FEB 20 1950   Rudy Vallee begins his weekday transcribed disc jockey show on WOR/New York City.
FEB 20 1950   Mutual switches its Washington, D.C. affiliate to WEAM/Arlington, Virginia, 
FEB 20 1950   The United Auto Workers files charges with the FCC claiming Detroit stations WJR and WWJ would not sell the union suitable time to discuss issues of its strike against Chrysler.
FEB 20 1951   CBS-TV kinescope cameras film Arthur Godfrey Time on CBS Radio in an audition for possible simulcasting.  (See Arthur Godfrey.) 
FEB 20 1952   General Electric celebrates the 30th anniversary of WGY/Schenectady.
FEB 20 1952   Kansas City Star owned WDAF-TV/Kansas City, drops Arthur Godfrey & His Friends in response to Godfrey’s verbal attacks on the station after it canceled Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts for his alleged risqué remarks.  (See Arthur Godfrey.)
FEB 20 1953   CBS cancels its Dragnet sound-alike, The Lineup, after a three season run.
FEB 20 1953   Westinghouse buys pioneer television station WPTZ/Philadelphia from Philco for a record $8.5 Million and changes its call sign to that of its Philadelphia radio station, KYW(TV).

FEB 21 1931 Westinghouse-owned stations WBZA/Boston and WBZ/Springfield, Massachusetts, swap facilities and call signs.
​FEB 21 1933   The Milwaukee Journal and its WTMJ begin facsimile experiments with experimental W9XAG  
FEB 21 1935  Seattle stations KJR and KOMO greet the arriving rescue ship President Jackson with 45 crewmen of the Japanese cargo ship, Hokuman Maru, foundered 150 miles off the British Columbia coast on January 22nd.
FEB 21 1936    Ad agency Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn names Howard Petrie its “Announcer of The Year” and gives him an engraved stopwatch.
FEB 21 1937   WGN/Chicago separates itself from its parent, The Chicago Tribune, by removing the location tag , “Tribune Square, Chicago,” from its station breaks.
FEB 21 1938   Jack Benny settles his $7,756 income tax claim with the Internal Revenue Service from 1934 for $4,500.  (See Your Money Or Your Life.)
FEB 21 1938  RCA Victor grants “temporary permission” to 150 stations allowing them to broadcast its records without payment until it says otherwise.
FEB 21 1938   Philco engineers report distortion in television pictures is caused by auto-motive batteries.
FEB 21 1940   The Lowell Thomas newscast sponsored by Sun Oil becomes the first radio program simulcast on television.  (See Multiple Runs All Time Top Ten.)
FEB 21 1946   The U.S. House of Representatives approves the “anti-Petrillo” Lea Bill outlawing feather-bedding practices of the AFM musicians’ union by a vote of 222 to 43.  (See Petrillo!) 
FEB 21 1949  The National Barn Dance, a Saturday night radio feature from WLS/Chicago for 24 years, debuts on ABC-TV‘s Monday night schedule .  
FEB 21 1949   Mutual commentator Fulton Lewis, Jr., begins simulcasting his nightly network newscast on WOIC(TV)/Washington, D.C.
FEB 21 1949   In a move to cut costs, KFI-TV/Los Angeles suspends all nighttime programming and begins an operating schedule of noon to 6:00 p.m. seven days a week.
FEB 21 1950 The NAB expresses dissatisfaction with its new promotional film Lightning That Talks and abruptly cancels the film’s lavish premiere at New York City’s Waldorf-Astoria. 
FEB 21 1951   Maryland Senator Millard Tidings blames his election loss on Mutual commentator Fulton Lewis, Jr., charging electioneering on his opponent’s behalf. 
FEB 21 1952   Gordon McLendon’s Liberty Broadcasting System sues 13 major league baseball teams for $12.0 Million over the LBS loss of its Game of The Day broadcasts.

FEB 22 1932  All New York City newspapers except The Sun and The Herald-Tribune allow CBS and NBC to install teletype machines to deliver network press releases.
FEB 22 1933   The NAB authorizes $30,000 for the formation of a performing rights organization to rival ASCAP, originally named The Radio Program Foundation.
FEB 22 1935   Ad agency J. Walter Thompson sues Walter Winchell for $50,000 after the Blue commentator breaks his $2,000 a week exclusive contract with Jergens Lotion by agreeing to endorse a liquor.  (See Walter Winchell.)
FEB 22 1936   Colgate Palmolive Peet brings The Ziegfield Follies of The Air starring Fannie Brice to CBS for a 26 week run but  Brice misses the premiere due to illness.  (See Baby Snooks.)
FEB 22 1936   Mutual begins a short-lived experimental series of Saturday night dance band remotes lasting until 4:00 a.m..  (See Big Band Remotes.)
FEB 22 1937   NBC rejects Irving Berlin’s idea of giving him name credit whenever one of his songs is broadcast.
FEB 22 1939   The Incredible Hildegarde (aka Hildegarde Snell) debuts in a weekly CBS half-hour with Raymond Paige’s orchestra and chorus, 99 Men & A Girl, sponsored by U.S. Tire.
FEB 22 1939   NBC feeds a midnight rebroadcast of Fred Allen’s Town Hall Tonight to Blue’s WJZ/New York City as the start of month long test of audience reaction to late night variety programming.  (See The Feud.)
FEB 22 1942   B.A. Rolfe introduces his 30 piece all-girl orchestra on the Blue Network’s Daughters of Uncle Sam show.  (See The Hour of Charm.)
FEB 22 1943   Mutual correspondent Frank Cubel is among 25 killed in the crash of a Pan American Clipper off Lisbon.  Popular singer Jane Froman is injured in the crash which is dramatized in her biopic, With A Song In My Heart.
FEB 22 1943   CBS replaces Amos & Andy with Four To Go a weeknight quarter hour variety show starring Joan Edwards, Barney Fields and The Radio Aces. 
FEB 22 1943   WOR/New York City receives 10,000 requests in three weeks for a food rationing instruction chart.
FEB 22 1943   WRVA/Richmond informs CBS that it will not clear the network’s programs sponsored by alcoholic products Pabst Beer, Ballentine Ale or Roma Wine.
FEB 22 1943   Wrigley Gum replaces Ben Bernie’s weekday quarter-hour on CBS with an all-musical show focused on recruiting needed workers for wartime industries, Keep The Home Fires Burning.
FEB 22 1943   Information Please producer Dan Golenpaul accuses the Blue Network of scheming to force the start of FDR’s all-network speech from 10:00 to 10:30 p.m. to interfere with his broadcast.  (See Information Please.) 
FEB 22 1945   Kansas Senator Arthur Capper introduces a bill making the print and broadcast advertising of beer, wine and liquor unlawful, subject to a maximum fine of $1,000 and one year imprisonment.
FEB 22 1947   John Gambling hosts the two-hour 25th anniversary celebration broadcast on WOR/New York City.
FEB 22 1949   Bob Hope and his radio troupe return from a 35 day flying trip of 16 states and 41 performances, racking up a total in box office receipts of $650,000.
FEB 22 1950   The Liberty Broadcasting System  network announces its growth to 150 affiliates.
FEB 22 1952   Phil Harris & Alice Faye sign a new ten-year contract with NBC.
FEB 22 1952   Procter & Gamble and General Mills demand lower nighttime rates from Network Radio - ranging as low as half the daytime rates.
FEB 22 1952   Inability to attract sponsors forces CBS-TV to cancel Steve Allen’s weekday afternoon show.
FEB 22 1952   Oldsmobile cancels its second live broadcast of CBS-TV’s Douglas Edwards & The News for the West Coast at 11:00 p.m. opting instead for a “hot kinescope” film of the East Coast feed for delayed broadcast three hours later.

FEB 23 1927  The five-member Federal Radio Commission, patterned after the Interstate Commerce Commission, is established to govern broadcasting. 
FEB 23 1933   Fisher Flour Mills, operator of KOMO/Seattle since 1927, leases KJR/
Seattle pending FCC approval.
FEB 23 1935   CBS puts a new rate card in effect which raises the network’s overall rates 6.4%.  (See CBS Rates - Go Figure)
FEB 23 1936   Phil Spitalny’s 35-piece all-girl orchestra opens a 26 week Sunday evening half-hour on CBS for Zotos Machineless Permanent Wave.  (See The Hour of Charm.)
FEB 23 1936   In a rare switch in networks, Health Products Corporation’s Feen-A-Mint laxative chewing gum moves its National Amateur Night from CBS to Mutual.
FEB 23 1941   Jack Benny performs his show from Palm Springs with an audience of cadets from nearby March Field.  (See Sunday At Seven.)
FEB 23 1942   Arthur Godfrey begins his M-W-F daytime quarter hour series on CBS, Victory Begins At Home, containing wartime homemaking tips.  (See Arthur Godfrey.)
FEB 23 1942   C.E. Hooper estimates 61,365,000 Americans listened to FDR’s Three Purposes of War speech which also registers an 83.0 CAB rating.   (See Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
FEB 23 1942   CBS bans commercial jingles and all “undue gaiety” in its newscast advertising during World War II.  (See The 1941-42 Season.)
FEB 23 1942   FCC announces a freeze on all new radio station construction for the duration of World War II.
FEB 23 1942   FCC reports 200 stations in America broadcast some programs in foreign language with Polish being the most popular, followed in order by Italian, Spanish, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Swedish, Portuguese, Lithuanian, French, Czech, Finnish, Ukrainian, Slovak, Norwegian, Russian, Romanian, Croatian, Serbian, Danish, Albanian, Arabic, Armenian, Chinese, Dutch and Syrian.   
FEB 23 1945  The National Foundation For Infantile Paralysis reports its largest single batch of donations - $136,553.50 result from the January Truth Or Consequences singing appearance of a ten-year old boy stricken with polio.  (See Truth Or Consequences.)
FEB 23 1945   FCC Chairman Paul Porter tells the U.S. House Interstate Commerce Committee that unless brought under control, small stations will be, “…at the mercy,” of the AFM and other unions.  (See Petrillo!)
FEB 23 1945   C.E. Hooper extends its radio survey samplings to smaller communities of 2,500 to 25,000 in population.  (See Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
FEB 23 1948   CBS announces that its documentary unit’s programs including CBS Is There would be available for sponsorships.  (See You Are There.)
FEB 23 1948   Jack Paar, 29, substitutes two-weeks for ABC”s vacationing Breakfast Club host, Don McNeill.
FEB 23 1948   Bessie Mack, talent coordinator for Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts and formerly auditions head for The Original Amateur Hour, dies of a heart ailment at 56.
FEB 23 1948   FCC authorizes WDGY/Minneapolis-St. Paul, to increase its daytime power from 5,000 to 50,000 watts and begin nighttime operations with 25,000 watts.
FEB 23 1950   RCA, CBS and Color Television, Inc., begin comparative demonstrations their competing color video systems before government and industry officials.
FEB 23 1951   ABC-TV introduces its new half-hour March of Time series as a limited co-op program available for sponsorship by local banks.

FEB 24 1933   Al Jolson leaves his NBC Friday night show in a content dispute with sponsor Chevrolet‘s ad agency, Campbell-Ewald, which will fill the remaining six weeks of his contract with a new show starring Jack Benny.
FEB 24 1934   Federal Radio Commission grants WLW/Cincinnati temporary authorization to broadcast during daytime hours with 500,000 watts of power. 
FEB 24 1936   WIBX/Utica, New York, broadcasts in the bitter cold with the windows open after a gas explosion strikes the 15 story building in which its studios are located and the fire department authorizes it to resume operations after briefly evacuating. 
FEB 24 1939   FCC salutes more than 51,000 amateur (ham) radio operators affiliated with the Army Amateur Reserve System or the Naval Communications Reserve who stand by in events of emergency.
FEB 24 1941   Mutual is the first network to schedule news on weekdays every hour on the hour - either five minute capsules or its regularly scheduled commentators. (See Mutual Led The Way on this site.)  
FEB 24 1941   CBS announces that it no longer will participate in broadcasting charity programs with the other networks. 
FEB 24 1941   AT&T introduces its new 8,000 cycle transmission facilities, upgraded from 5,000 cycles, to improve fidelity of network broadcasts carried on its lines.
FEB 24 1941   Mutual begins broadcasting weekday serials produced by its affiliates - We Are Always Young from WOR/New York City, Government Girl from WOL/Washington and Edith Adams’ Future from WKRC/Cincinnati.
FEB 24 1943   Popular WGN/Chicago personality Wallace Rogerson, whose Fit To Music exercise program was a station fixture for 20 years, dies at 62 after a long illness. 
FEB 24 1944   American Tobacco announces signing Jack Benny for three year sponsorship of his Sunday program at $25,000 per week, ending the comedian’s ten year association with General Foods. (See Lucky Gets Benny.) 
FEB 24 1947   FCC is urged by industry figures not to define “multiple ownership” boundaries by one set of standards but to do so on a case-by-case basis. 
FEB 24 1950   American Tobacco renews Jack Benny’s CBS program through 1952 and Lever Brothers announces cancellation of Bob Hope’s show on NBC.

FEB 25 1935   Frank & Anne Hummert’s Backstage Wife opens on WGN/Chicago before going to Mutual 26 weeks later and beginning its 24 year multi-network run.
FEB 25 1935   Buffalo hotel bandleader Harold Austin asks Federal authorities to catch the person(s) who cut the wire from his bandstand to WGR/Buffalo five times in the past month to prevent his orchestra from broadcasting. (See Big Band Remotes.) 
FEB 25 1935   Nebraska stations KOIL/Omaha, KFAB/Lincoln and KFOR/Lincoln begin promoting their frequent daily Transradio Press newscasts as, “News when its news,” an obvious dig at stations observing the Press-Radio pact.  (See The Press-Radio Bureau.)  
FEB 25 1935   Patent medicine Crazy Water Crystals signs a 52 week contract for ten hours a week on WBT/Charlotte, North Carolina, believed to be one of the the largest single station orders ever placed by an advertiser. 
FEB 25 1935  The New York State Legislature drops consideration of a $1.00 annual tax on all home and auto radios.
FEB 25 1936  FCC reaffirms its decision that AT&T must share its proposed coaxial cable between New York City and Philadelphia with other television developers.
FEB 25 1939   Art Linkletter becomes Roma Wines’ roving reporter on the Don Lee West Coast Network’s World’s Fair Party from San Francisco’s Golden Gate Exposition.  (See People Are Funny.)
FEB 25 1941   Rudy Vallee Show producer Ed Gardner resigns to assume the lead in his new CBS show Duffy’s Tavern.  (See Duffy Ain’t Here.)
FEB 25 1941   FCC grants WINS/New York City permit to increase power from 1,000 to 50,000 watts with a directional pattern.
FEB 25 1942   Kay Kyser’s orchestra leaves Los Angeles on a tour of 50 military camps that receive little entertainment.  (See Kay Kyser and Wednesday's All Time Top Ten.)
FEB 25 1942   FCC, at the urging of the Army and Navy, resumes issuing amateur, (ham), radio licenses to stimulate recruiting. 
FEB 25 1943   CBS breaks its long standing rule against alcoholic beverage advertising by signing contracts with Roma Wine, Pabst Beer and Ballentine Ale.
FEB 25 1944   AFM boss James Petrillo demands that all technicians handling phonograph records and transcriptions at NBC, Blue and Mutual, (aka “platter turners”), become members of his union.  (See Petrillo!)
FEB 25 1944   Philip Morris cancels its five year old dramatic series Philip Morris Playhouse featuring film stars on CBS and replaces it with the low-budget comedy panel show, It Pay To Be Ignorant. (See It Pays To Be Ignorant.) 
FEB 25 1944   NBC-owned WTAM/Cleveland files an application with the FCC to build a television station in the city, “…as soon after the war as possible.”
FEB 25 1945   Helen Hayes returns to radio after a three year absence with a Sunday night quarter hour series, This Is Helen Hayes, on Mutual.
FEB 25 1945   The Blue Network begins television programming with the one-time production of its radio audience participation show Ladies Be Seated with host Johnny Olson and his wife, Penny, from WRGB-TV/Schenectady. 
FEB 25 1948   Milton Berle begins a 24 hour marathon broadcast on WHN/New York that raises $35,000 in donations for the New York Heart Association.
FEB 25 1946   The West Coast Don Lee Network, affiliated with Mutual, loses The Lone Ranger to ABC’s Pacific Network. (See The Lone Ranger.)
FEB 25 1950   A fired engineer at ABC-owned KECA/Los Angeles breaks into a network program with a 20-second tirade against the network before he’s cut-off.
FEB 25 1950   NBC-TV premieres its two and a half hour Saturday Night Revue variety show, with a weekly budget of $50,000 starring comedians Jack Carter and Cass Daley from Chicago and Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca from New York.
FEB 25 1952   Former FCC Chairman Wayne Coy becomes a 50% partner with Time-Life Publisher Henry Luce in the acquisition of KOB-TV/Albuquerque and future television properties.
FEB 25 1952   Broadcasters immediately protest Speaker Sam Rayburn’s ban of radio or television broadcasts from the House of Representatives.

FEB 26 1932   The U.S. Supreme Court refuses to review the appeal of Chicago ballroom owner Andrew Karzas whose stations WOK and WBBM in suburban Homewood were ordered off the air in September, 1928, by the FRC.  (See The Aragon’s Last Stand.)
FEB 26 1935   Objectors pack the FCC’s hearing on Hearst Radio’s application for a power increase from 500 to 5,000 watts for WINS/New York City. 
FEB 26 1935   Edward MacHugh, who performs a program of hymns three times weekly on NBC, sings at a Salvation Army benefit in Bayonne, New Jersey for 50% of the donated proceeds.
FEB 26 1937   Missouri Congressman C. Arthur Anderson denounces, “…useless FCC red tape;” and sponsors a bill calling for longer broadcast licenses, opposed by the Commission.
FEB 26 1939   Freeman Gosden & Charles Correll, appearing in blackface makeup as Amos & Andy, conduct a half hour experimental television preview of the New York World’s Fair sponsored by Campbell Soup.
FEB 26 1941 Kay Kyser’s College of Musical Knowledge originates from the San Diego Marine base, the first of the remote broadcast “camp shows” common with many network variety programs during World War II.  (See Kay Kyser and Wednesday's All Time Top Ten.)
FEB 26 1942  FCC resumes issuing amateur (ham) radio licenses at the request of the War and Navy Departments.
FEB 26 1942   Martin Block originates his Make Believe Ballroom on WNEW/New York City for two days from Richmond, Virginia, home of American Tobacco’s Lucky Strike cigarettes, his new sponsor.
FEB 26 1943   Fibber McGee & Molly sets an all time high 44.5 CAB rating for all programs during February.  C.E. Hooper, meanwhile, rates the sitcom at 34.5, third place behind Bob Hope and Red Skelton.  (See Fibber McGee Minus Molly.)
FEB 26 1945   All networks carry the shortwaved ceremony of U.S. General MacArthur turning control of Philippines back to a civilian government.
FEB 26 1945   The ACLU petitions the FCC to prevent new owners of radio stations from cancelling foreign language programs, “…in the public interest”.    
FEB 26 1945   Ed Wynn, 59, leaves radio after a sporadic 13 year multi-network run. 
FEB 26 1945   A newly enacted wartime curfew of live entertainment after midnight forces the networks to temporarily ban studio audiences from the late night repeat broadcasts of It Pays To Be Ignorant, The Aldrich Family, Your Hit Parade and The Telephone Hour.  (See The Late Shift on this site.)
FEB 26 1948   Al Jolson runs overtime in his studio audience warm-up to NBC’s Kraft Music Hall and blurts into a live microphone, “If you aren’t gonna laugh, get the hell outta here!”
FEB 26 1948   Milton Berle launches his 24 hours of appearances on WHN/New York City in the station’s around the clock fund appeal for the Heart Association of New York.
FEB 26 1948   RKO films a ten minute movie version of the CBS comedy show It Pays To Be Ignorant.  (See It Pays To Be Ignorant.)
FEB 26 1950   The Prudential Family Hour of Stars of Hollywood film adaptations, (fka The Prudential Family Hour of Semi-Classical Music), leaves the air after nine seasons of Sunday afternoon broadcasts on CBS.
FEB 26 1951   WSB-TV/Atlanta begins tests of its new 1,000 foot television tower, the second tallest in the country behind the tower atop New York City’s Empire State Building.
FEB 26 1952   Nineteen sponsors each contribute $1,000 to air the Junior League of New York’s Mardi Gras event on WNBT(TV) starring Charlton Heston, Vaughn Monroe, Victor Borge and Ezio Pinza.  

FEB 27 1922 Commerce Secretary Hebert Hoover convenes the first National Radio Conference to recommend regulations for the fast-growing industry.  (See Alchemists of The Air.)
FEB 27 1933   Meredith Willson, 31, is named West Coast Music Director of NBC.  (See Meredith Willson.)
FEB 27 1933   Jack Pearl, who surged in the Crossley ratings to Number 3 behind Eddie Cantor and Ed Wynn, begins a stage tour for $8,500 a week, a $5,000 weekly raise since his NBC show debuted in September.  
FEB 27 1934   Bills are proposed in both houses of Congress to abolish the Federal Radio Commission and replace it with a seven-member Federal Communications Commission. 
FEB 27 1935   CBS releases its brochure, You Do What You’re Told Today, based on research of Dr. Daniel Starch, which claims that the Crossley-CAB in-home surveys are superior to the telephone-coincidental method. 
FEB 27 1937   U.S. Supreme Court denies NBC’s request to report the jurists' decisions directly from the court’s press room.
FEB 27 1937   Procter & Gamble’s two-week contest on NBC’s two weekday broadcasts of The O’Neill’s soap opera draws 4.27 Million entries.
FEB 27 1939   Freeman Gosden & Charles Correll as Amos & Andy perform the first radio broadcast from the New York World’s Fair grounds, a special half-hour in their 7:00 p.m. NBC timeslot.
FEB 27 1939   Transcription producer Lang-Worth signs with the NAB to produce 300 hours of license-free music over the next two years.  (See "By Transcription...")
FEB 27 1941  FCC cites world conditions and the need to express Americanism in foreign languages as reasons for granting a license to the Hawaiian Broadcasting System, Ltd, for a 250 watt station at 1310 kc. in Honolulu. 
FEB 27 1942   The NAB estimates that the 855 commercial stations in the United States have broadcast 320,000 war related spot announcements since December 7th.  
FEB 27 1943   KXL/Oakland protests that its broadcast lines to the San Francisco auditorium were cut prior to a speech by Madam Chiang Kai Shek giving a monopoly to NBC’s coverage of her address.
FEB 27 1943   NBC introduces The Day of Reckoning, a series of five half-hour “trials” of Hitler, Mussolini, Laval, Quisling and Tojo, with Raymond Massey as the prosecutor and Monty Woolley as The Devil defending them.  (See Monty Woolley.) 
FEB 27 1944   As a public service to tax payers seeking advice from local IRS offices WJR/Detroit provides a series of step-by-step programs telling listeners how to fill out their tax forms.
FEB 27 1947   Disgruntled employees claiming loss of income are granted a ten day injunction prohibiting WJLB/Detroit from cancelling its foreign language programs. 
FEB 27 1948   Producers of Mutual’s Queen For A Day and sponsors Miles Laboratories and Philip Morris refund $10,850 to 5,500 persons who attended the January 27th Pittsburgh broadcast of the show and felt that they were gypped. 
FEB 27 1948  Lucille Wall, female star of daytime soap operas Portia Faces Life and Lorenzo Jones, suffers a fractured skull in a fall at her New York City apartment. 
FEB 27 1948  C.E. Hooper reverses its decision to withhold New Orleans Hooperatings - instead omits the ratings for WNOE which used a telephone promotion considered to inflate its ratings.   (See Radip's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
FEB 27 1948   In response to the book’s notoriety, WMCA/New York City airs a 30 minute roundtable discussion titled, The Kinsey Report - Sexual Behavior of The Human Male.
FEB 27 1949   Crime drama Broadway Is My Beat begins its five year run on CBS.  (See CBS Packages Unwrapped.)
FEB 27 1950   WNBC/New York City personality Mary Margaret McBride begins transcribed syndication of her weekday program to WGN/Chicago for a reported $250,000 per year. 
FEB 27 1950   Ralph Edwards films a sample episode of Truth Or Consequences to test its television potential. (See Truth Or Consequences.)
FEB 27 1951  The opening rally of the annual Red Cross fund drive headlined by President Truman, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Kate Smith and Judy Garland is simulcast by all radio and television networks.

FEB 28 1927  The Federal Radio Commission issues the first U.S. television license to the Jenkins Laboratories of Washington, D.C.
FEB 28 1933   A massive sleet and hail storm takes down power and telephone lines in North Carolina, forcing WSJS/Winton-Salem off the air for 24 hours and interrupting its CBS network service for five days. 
FEB 28 1936   CBS broadcasts the funeral of England’s King George V from London at 8:00 a.m. which receives a 15.7 CAB rating.
FEB 28 1936   Wayne King’s orchestra, opening for a week at Loew’s Theater in Baltimore, carries a new clause in its contract stipulating that the credit line Lady Esther Presents appears above the band’s name in all advertising. (See The Waltz King.)
FEB 28 1936   The Memphis Commercial Appeal, owner of WMC/Memphis, agrees to buy WNBR in that city for $50,000.
FEB 28 1936   The program director of WRAW & WEEU/Reading, Pennsylvania, is hospitalized with minor cuts when attacked by a knife wielding bandleader who felt cheated out of air time.
FEB 28 1937   Gabriel Heatter substitutes for three weeks for Phillips H. Lord on Blue’s Sunday afternoon interview show, We The People, on top of his Sunday night newscast, performed at 6:30, 8:30 and 9:30 p.m. for different Mutual stations.  
FEB 28 1938   A Los Angeles court dismisses $250,000 suit against Hollywood reporter Jimmie Fidler and NBC by actress Constance Bennett, who claimed Fidler had slandered her as being, “…snobbish and high hat.” 
FEB 28 1939   The U.S. Federal Court of Appeals refuses WLW/Cincinnati’s plea to stay the FCC’s order that the station revert from 500,000 to 50,000 watts on March 1.
FEB 28 1940   FCC approves limited commercial television effective September 1st - then reverses its decision three months later.
FEB 28 1940  The Pitt vs. Fordham and Georgetown vs. NYU games from Madison Square Garden become the first collegiate basketball games televised - on NBC’s experimental W2XBS(TV)/New York City.
FEB 28 1943   Standard Brands arranges to cut-away at its mid-commercial time on Sunday night’s Chase & Sanborn Hour over 17 Midwest NBC affiliates to insert a spot for its Stams Vitamins.
FEB 28 1945  FCC opens its allocation hearings with FM interests aligned to fight its proposed frequency band change.
FEB 28 1946   Movie producer Walter Wanger sues Hollywood commentator Jimmie Fidler and ABC for $1.0 Million over Fidler’s criticism of Wanger’s controversial film, Scarlet Street.
FEB 28 1946  Top rated Los Angeles disc jockey Al Jarvis, 37, suddenly leaves KFWB after eleven years to join cross-town rival KLAC for a seven year contract worth $1.17 Million.
FEB 28 1946   Broadcasting and advertising executives meet to consider forming a third rating service, the Broadcast Measurement Bureau with the intent of buying out the CAB.
FEB 28 1946   Acting FCC Chairman Charles Denny predicts 100 television stations will be on the air in 1947.
FEB 28 1946   Acting FCC Chairman Charles Denny predicts 100 television stations will be on the air in 1947.
FEB 28 1947  NBC breaks into programming to report the New York City arrival of a 5,000 mile non-stop fighter flight from Honolulu completed in 14½ hours.   
FEB 28 1948   Former KMPC/Los Angeles newsmen Clete Roberts and George Lewin charge the station with slanting the news, beginning a three year FCC investigation of the station and co-owned WJR/Detroit and WGAR/Cleveland.
FEB 28 1949   NBC drops its ban on crime shows before 9:30 p.m. 
FEB 28 1948  It Pays To Be Ignorant, cancelled by Philip Morris two weeks earlier, (with a surprisingly high 12.3 Hooperating), returns to CBS as a co-op program available for sale by local affiliates.  (See It Pays To Be Ignorant.)
FEB 28 1948  Promoters of the North American Broadcasting Company, billed as the fifth coast-to-coast network, are arraigned in Los Angeles for the illegal sale of $18,000 in stock.
FEB 28 1948   NBC President Niles Trammell tells his affiliates that the network has blunted the CBS raid on its talent by re-signing Bob Hope, Phil Harris & Alice Faye and Jim & Marian Jordan, (aka Fibber McGee & Molly).
FEB 28 1950   A.C. Nielsen buys the Network Radio, Network Television and Pacific Coast rating services of C.E. Hooper for a reported $600,000. (See Radio's Rulers: Crossley, Hooper & Nielsen.)
FEB 28 1950  NBC accuses CBS of spreading rumors that Bob Hope and The Telephone Hour are close to jumping networks.
FEB 28 1951  Trade paper Variety estimates that the eight major film studios possess a total of 4,057 feature films a nd 6,000 one and two reel shorts produced between 1935 and 1945 available for television and worth nearly $250.0 Million.
FEB 28 1952   FCC Commissioner Paul Walker is elevated to Chairman of the agency. 

FEB 29 1928   Early sitcom Snow Village Sketches begins its 18 year sporadic run of weekly multi-network broadcasts on NBC.
FEB 29 1932   An early attempt of a radio talent union, The Microphone Club of America, is announced in Los Angeles.
FEB 29 1936   WSAI/Cincinnati turns on its new $40,000 transmitter plant with its 230-foot tower able to withstand 120 mile per hour winds. 
FEB 29 1936   Fanny Brice, 45, introduces her Baby Snooks on the CBS Ziegfeld Follies program, beginning the character’s 15 year multi-network run.  (See Baby Snooks.)
FEB 29 1940   Dick Powell replaces Edward Arnold as host of NBC’s Good News.  (See Dick Powell and Mr. President.)
FEB 29 1940  Gracie Allen launches her “campaign” for President on Good News with subsequent pop-up speeches scheduled during the week for the Jack Benny, Rudy Vallee, Bob Hope, Fibber McGee & Molly and Dr. I.Q. shows.  (See The 1939-40 Season.)
FEB 29 1940   AFM’s Petrillo threatens to a strike if CBS, NBC and Blue don’t add 30 union musicians each to their staffs and Mutual doesn’t add 20.  (See Petrillo!)
FEB 29 1952   Soap opera Valiant Lady bounced between CBS and NBC from 1938 to 1946 by General Mills, is cancelled after a 26 week encore run on ABC.
FEB 29 1952   CBS buys 45% of KQV/Pittsburgh as it attempts to sell WCCO/Minneapolis -St. Paul.
​                                                                                 GLOSSARY

​AAAA = American Association of Advertising Agencies - ABC = American Broadcasting Company - ACLU = American Civil Liberties Union - AFL = American Federation of Labor - AFM = American Federation of Musicians  - AFRA = American Federation of Radio Artists - AFRS = Armed Forces Radio Service - AFTRA = American Federation of Radio & Television Artists - AGVA = American Guild of Variety Artists - ANA = Association of National Advertisers - ANPA = American Newspaper Publishers Association - AP = Associated Press  - ARB = American Research Bureau - ASCAP = American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers - BBC = British Broadcasting Corporation - BMB = Broadcast Measurement Bureau - BMI = Broadcast Music, Inc. - CAB = Cooperative Analysis of Broadcasting - CBC = Canadian Broadcasting Corporation - CBS = Columbia Broadcasting System - CIO = Congress of Industrial Organizations - CST = Central Standard Time - CWA = Communications Workers of America - EST = Eastern Standard Time - FCC = Federal Communications Commission  - FRC = Federal Radio Commission - FTC = Federal Trade Commission -  IATSE = International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees - IBEW = International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers - ILGW = International Ladies Garment Workers - INS = International News Service - LBS = Liberty Broadcasting System - MBS = Mutual Broadcasting System -  MCA = Music Corporation of America - MST = Mountain Standard Time - NAB = National Association of Broadcasters - NABET = National Association of Broadcast Employees & Technicians - NARBA = North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement - NBC = National Broadcasting Company - NCAA = National Collegiate Athletic Association - NLRB = National Labor Relations Board - PST = Pacific Standard Time - PTA = Parent Teachers Association - RCA = Radio Corporation of America - RMA = Radio Manufacturers Association - SAG = Screen Actors Guild - SESAC = Society of European Stage Authors & Composers - SPCA = Society for The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals - TVA = The Television Authority (union) - UAW = United Auto Workers - UP = United Press

                   Copyright © 2018, Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL    Email: [email protected]


 








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