PAUL WHITEMAN AND SINGER HILDEGARDE TAKE A REHEARSAL BREAK IN DECEMBER, 1943.
THE RADIO HALL OF FAME
Philco had no love for RCA.
The former Philadelphia Storage Battery Company and Radio Corporation of America engaged in a bitter dispute over radio tubes in 1930 that ignited their feud and prompted Philco to pull its weekly series of radio concerts from RCA-owned NBC and move it to CBS. Nearly fourteen years later, Philco’s ill feelings toward RCA and NBC still lingered. The management team of the newly independent Blue Network, led by former NBC executives Mark Woods and Ed Kobak, were aware of this animosity and took advantage of it.
Philco had become the nation’s leading manufacturer of home and auto radios, outselling the giant RCA by more than two to one when World War II started. Since the beginning of the war Philco was among the Top 60 suppliers of military equipment. As a result, the company had an abundance of funds to advertise its promise of postwar radio, phonograph and television products.
Woods and Kobak sold Philco a high profile variety hour during Blue’s first years as an independent competitor to NBC - The Radio Hall of Fame in 1943. It was Blue’s only attempt at a full hour, major league variety show with big name guest stars. The Radio Hall of Fame was produced in conjunction with show business trade journal Variety and Philco reportedly budgeted $1.5 Million for the program.
The show’s concept was simple and all-encompassing. All performers on the show were supposedly recognized by Variety’s editors as deserving membership in (the mythical) Radio Hall of Fame. (1) Variety’s influence and Philco’s top-dollar talent fees assured the show of headline talent every week. The format covered comedy, music, drama and news, all supported by a 31 piece orchestra and large chorus. (2)
To produce the extravaganza, 33 year old DeVere (Dee) Englebach was recruited for the task. It was the first assignment of any consequence for the former NBC page who had worked his way up through the ranks. (3) Englebach was known and well-liked by many of the stars due to appear on the show - personalities who could often be temperamental, including its musical director, Paul Whiteman, who was 20 years older than Englebach. (4)
Blue scheduled The Radio Hall of Fame at 6:00 p.m. ET on Sunday, considered a safe hour before the competition for listeners from NBC and CBS got stiff. (It was also a Sunday afternoon broadcast in most of the country before the bulk of the audience was listening.) We can only wonder how much bigger its audience could have been if the highly entertaining program were scheduled at 9:15, 9:30 or 10:00 p.m. following Walter Winchell’s Jergens Journal, the network’s only consistently Top Ten program
Virtually every top name from radio, movies and the stage appeared on The Radio Hall of Fame over its three season run. Time magazine hailed its December, 1943, premiere from New York City's Ritz Theater starring Bob Hope and Jimmy Durante as promising, “...The most entertaining hour in U.S. radio.” Trade publication Billboard, however, described program host Deems Taylor as, “…a longhair lost behind the mike…They are going to need a personality to emcee the show. Deems isn’t it.” (5)
Three samples of the first season are posted and prove both viewpoints. From December 26, 1943, Taylor hosts Fred Allen, Lauriz Melchoir, Helen Forrest, Lou Holtz and Raymond Edward Johnson reading Stephen Vincent Benet‘s stirring Toward The Future. On January 2, 1944, Burns & Allen are featured along with Milton Berle, Willie Howard, Georgia Gibbs and Raymond Gram Swing. I Am An American Day is celebrated on May 21,1944, by Bob Hope, Jane Froman, (in her comeback broadcast from the February 1943 plane crash off Portugal from entertaining Allied troops), Jackie Gleason, the Art Tatum Trio and Cornelia Otis Skinner in her monologue, Times Square.
Entertaining hour or not, The Radio Hall of Fame was a ratings dud, finishing the 1943-44 season in 111th place with a pathetic 5.4 rating behind its 6:00 p.m. competition Silver Theater on CBS, (7.8), and First Nighter on Mutual, (5.9). But the crusher came at 6:30 when NBC countered with The Great Gildersleeve’s 16.1 rating.
The original plan had Philco running The Radio Hall of Fame during the peak broadcast season, then trimming costs over the summer months with Paul Whiteman’s Philco Summer Hour, filling the 6:00 to 6:30 period with pop concerts and the sustaining Summer Party of classics and semi-classics taking over the second Sunday half-hour. The summer also gave Philco and the network time to regroup for Hall of Fame’s second season.
The show moved from New York to Hollywood’s Earl Carroll Theater for the 1944-45 season, Dramatic readings and classical music elements were all but eliminated and Deems Taylor was replaced as host by rotating guest stars. Announcer Glenn Riggs was ousted by Jimmy Wallington but Paul Whiteman continued as the show’s Musical Director.
A brighter and more informal Radio Hall of Fame resulted as evidenced by the episodes posted here: On December 17, 1944, Judy Garland hosts Jerry Colonna, Lum & Abner and the Les Paul Trio. Breakfast In Hollywood’s Tom Breneman, (three years before his sudden death), introduces Jimmy Durante, Kay Thompson, Carmen Miranda, Arthur Treacher, Gene Austin on the broadcast of January 21, 1945, and Bob Hope returns on February 18, 1945 with Janet Blair, Judy Canova, whistler Fred Lowry and Eddie Green, Charlie Cantor and Bob Graham from Duffy’s Tavern.
Hall of Fame’s ratings increased by 30% but it’s 7.0 wasn’t enough to edge the CBS combination of The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet at 6:00, (8.2), and Fanny Brice’s Toasties Time at 6:30, (9.6), or NBC’s Great Gildersleeve at 6:30. (13.9).
As a result, The Radio Hall of Fame underwent more major changes for its third and final season. The show was moved back to New York and shortened to 30 minutes. Maestro Paul Whiteman was made permanent host and Martha Tilton the show’s resident vocalist. Glenn Riggs returned as Phico’s spokesman and each week was devoted to honoring a different star. The broadcast of December 2, 1945, salutes Kate Smith and is a prime example of this shortened series, climaxed by her stirring rendition of God Bless America. (See Kate’s Great Song on this site.)
The stripped-down Radio Hall of Fame continued to struggle in the ratings, fallling to 114th place with a 6.4. It quietly left the air in April, 1946.
Surprisingly, Philco didn’t give up on the Blue Network which had become ABC since the beginning of Radio Hall of Fame’s run. The network and the radio manufacturer concocted another new show in October, 1946, that literally turned the tables on the industry, Bing Crosby’s pioneering Philco Radio Time, the first major Network Radio program to be pre-recorded. (See The 1946-47 Season.)
(1) Not all Variety employees shared editor Abel Green’s enthusiasm for The Radio Hall of Fame. Some staffers claimed that participation in the program damaged the trade paper’s role as an impartial reviewer. Veteran reporter Ben Bodec resigned in protest.
(2) A partial list of the hundreds of personalities who appeared on The Radio Hall of Fame: COMEDY - Abbott & Costello, Amos & Andy, Bob Burns, Bob Hope, Burns & Allen, Ed Gardner, Eddie Cantor, Fanny Brice, Frank Morgan, Fred Allen, Garry Moore, Groucho Marx, Jimmy Durante, Joe E. Brown, Judy Canova, Mel Blanc, Milton Berle, Red Skelton, William Bendix. MUSIC - Al Jolson, The Andrews Sisters, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, Billy Eckstein, Bing Crosby, Burl Ives, Duke Ellington, Frank Sinatra, Georgia Gibbs, Helen Forrest, Helen O’Connell, Jeanette MacDonald, Jo Stafford, Kate Smith, Lauritz Melchoir, Mary Martin, Perry Como, Rudy Vallee, Sophie Tucker, Xavier Cugat. DRAMA - Agnes Moorhead, Claude Rains, Charles Bickford, Dick Powell, Ethel Barrymore, Franchot Tone, Frederick March, Helen Hayes, Ingrid Bergman, Jennifer Jones, Joan Fontaine, Lionel Barrymore, Orson Welles, Ray Milland, Walter Pidgeon, William Gargan. NEWS - Lowell Thomas, Quentin Reynolds, Raymond Gram Swing, Ted Husing.
(3) When Dee Englebach left Radio Hall of Fame in 1944, he went on to produce string of Network Radio programs, often short-lived: The Doctor Fights, CBS, Summers 1944 & 1945; Rogue’s Gallery, Mutual, 1945-46; Academy Award (Theater), CBS, 1946; This Is Nora Drake (director), NBC, 1947-48; Hallmark Hall of Fame (director), CBS, 1948-1952; The Man Called X (participating director), NBC, 1950-52; The Big Show (producer-director), NBC, 1950-1952, The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street (part director), NBC, 1952, and The Columbia Workshop (part director), CBS, 1956-1957.
(4) Paul Whiteman was “assisted” in his duties by choir master Robert Shaw and conductors Alfred Newman and Joseph Littau.
(5) It should be noted that Time, Incorporated, owned 12.5% of Blue/ABC in 1943 and Billboard was the trade paper rival to Variety which had a promotional interest in The Radio Hall of Fame.
Copyright © 2016, Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
Philco had no love for RCA.
The former Philadelphia Storage Battery Company and Radio Corporation of America engaged in a bitter dispute over radio tubes in 1930 that ignited their feud and prompted Philco to pull its weekly series of radio concerts from RCA-owned NBC and move it to CBS. Nearly fourteen years later, Philco’s ill feelings toward RCA and NBC still lingered. The management team of the newly independent Blue Network, led by former NBC executives Mark Woods and Ed Kobak, were aware of this animosity and took advantage of it.
Philco had become the nation’s leading manufacturer of home and auto radios, outselling the giant RCA by more than two to one when World War II started. Since the beginning of the war Philco was among the Top 60 suppliers of military equipment. As a result, the company had an abundance of funds to advertise its promise of postwar radio, phonograph and television products.
Woods and Kobak sold Philco a high profile variety hour during Blue’s first years as an independent competitor to NBC - The Radio Hall of Fame in 1943. It was Blue’s only attempt at a full hour, major league variety show with big name guest stars. The Radio Hall of Fame was produced in conjunction with show business trade journal Variety and Philco reportedly budgeted $1.5 Million for the program.
The show’s concept was simple and all-encompassing. All performers on the show were supposedly recognized by Variety’s editors as deserving membership in (the mythical) Radio Hall of Fame. (1) Variety’s influence and Philco’s top-dollar talent fees assured the show of headline talent every week. The format covered comedy, music, drama and news, all supported by a 31 piece orchestra and large chorus. (2)
To produce the extravaganza, 33 year old DeVere (Dee) Englebach was recruited for the task. It was the first assignment of any consequence for the former NBC page who had worked his way up through the ranks. (3) Englebach was known and well-liked by many of the stars due to appear on the show - personalities who could often be temperamental, including its musical director, Paul Whiteman, who was 20 years older than Englebach. (4)
Blue scheduled The Radio Hall of Fame at 6:00 p.m. ET on Sunday, considered a safe hour before the competition for listeners from NBC and CBS got stiff. (It was also a Sunday afternoon broadcast in most of the country before the bulk of the audience was listening.) We can only wonder how much bigger its audience could have been if the highly entertaining program were scheduled at 9:15, 9:30 or 10:00 p.m. following Walter Winchell’s Jergens Journal, the network’s only consistently Top Ten program
Virtually every top name from radio, movies and the stage appeared on The Radio Hall of Fame over its three season run. Time magazine hailed its December, 1943, premiere from New York City's Ritz Theater starring Bob Hope and Jimmy Durante as promising, “...The most entertaining hour in U.S. radio.” Trade publication Billboard, however, described program host Deems Taylor as, “…a longhair lost behind the mike…They are going to need a personality to emcee the show. Deems isn’t it.” (5)
Three samples of the first season are posted and prove both viewpoints. From December 26, 1943, Taylor hosts Fred Allen, Lauriz Melchoir, Helen Forrest, Lou Holtz and Raymond Edward Johnson reading Stephen Vincent Benet‘s stirring Toward The Future. On January 2, 1944, Burns & Allen are featured along with Milton Berle, Willie Howard, Georgia Gibbs and Raymond Gram Swing. I Am An American Day is celebrated on May 21,1944, by Bob Hope, Jane Froman, (in her comeback broadcast from the February 1943 plane crash off Portugal from entertaining Allied troops), Jackie Gleason, the Art Tatum Trio and Cornelia Otis Skinner in her monologue, Times Square.
Entertaining hour or not, The Radio Hall of Fame was a ratings dud, finishing the 1943-44 season in 111th place with a pathetic 5.4 rating behind its 6:00 p.m. competition Silver Theater on CBS, (7.8), and First Nighter on Mutual, (5.9). But the crusher came at 6:30 when NBC countered with The Great Gildersleeve’s 16.1 rating.
The original plan had Philco running The Radio Hall of Fame during the peak broadcast season, then trimming costs over the summer months with Paul Whiteman’s Philco Summer Hour, filling the 6:00 to 6:30 period with pop concerts and the sustaining Summer Party of classics and semi-classics taking over the second Sunday half-hour. The summer also gave Philco and the network time to regroup for Hall of Fame’s second season.
The show moved from New York to Hollywood’s Earl Carroll Theater for the 1944-45 season, Dramatic readings and classical music elements were all but eliminated and Deems Taylor was replaced as host by rotating guest stars. Announcer Glenn Riggs was ousted by Jimmy Wallington but Paul Whiteman continued as the show’s Musical Director.
A brighter and more informal Radio Hall of Fame resulted as evidenced by the episodes posted here: On December 17, 1944, Judy Garland hosts Jerry Colonna, Lum & Abner and the Les Paul Trio. Breakfast In Hollywood’s Tom Breneman, (three years before his sudden death), introduces Jimmy Durante, Kay Thompson, Carmen Miranda, Arthur Treacher, Gene Austin on the broadcast of January 21, 1945, and Bob Hope returns on February 18, 1945 with Janet Blair, Judy Canova, whistler Fred Lowry and Eddie Green, Charlie Cantor and Bob Graham from Duffy’s Tavern.
Hall of Fame’s ratings increased by 30% but it’s 7.0 wasn’t enough to edge the CBS combination of The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet at 6:00, (8.2), and Fanny Brice’s Toasties Time at 6:30, (9.6), or NBC’s Great Gildersleeve at 6:30. (13.9).
As a result, The Radio Hall of Fame underwent more major changes for its third and final season. The show was moved back to New York and shortened to 30 minutes. Maestro Paul Whiteman was made permanent host and Martha Tilton the show’s resident vocalist. Glenn Riggs returned as Phico’s spokesman and each week was devoted to honoring a different star. The broadcast of December 2, 1945, salutes Kate Smith and is a prime example of this shortened series, climaxed by her stirring rendition of God Bless America. (See Kate’s Great Song on this site.)
The stripped-down Radio Hall of Fame continued to struggle in the ratings, fallling to 114th place with a 6.4. It quietly left the air in April, 1946.
Surprisingly, Philco didn’t give up on the Blue Network which had become ABC since the beginning of Radio Hall of Fame’s run. The network and the radio manufacturer concocted another new show in October, 1946, that literally turned the tables on the industry, Bing Crosby’s pioneering Philco Radio Time, the first major Network Radio program to be pre-recorded. (See The 1946-47 Season.)
(1) Not all Variety employees shared editor Abel Green’s enthusiasm for The Radio Hall of Fame. Some staffers claimed that participation in the program damaged the trade paper’s role as an impartial reviewer. Veteran reporter Ben Bodec resigned in protest.
(2) A partial list of the hundreds of personalities who appeared on The Radio Hall of Fame: COMEDY - Abbott & Costello, Amos & Andy, Bob Burns, Bob Hope, Burns & Allen, Ed Gardner, Eddie Cantor, Fanny Brice, Frank Morgan, Fred Allen, Garry Moore, Groucho Marx, Jimmy Durante, Joe E. Brown, Judy Canova, Mel Blanc, Milton Berle, Red Skelton, William Bendix. MUSIC - Al Jolson, The Andrews Sisters, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, Billy Eckstein, Bing Crosby, Burl Ives, Duke Ellington, Frank Sinatra, Georgia Gibbs, Helen Forrest, Helen O’Connell, Jeanette MacDonald, Jo Stafford, Kate Smith, Lauritz Melchoir, Mary Martin, Perry Como, Rudy Vallee, Sophie Tucker, Xavier Cugat. DRAMA - Agnes Moorhead, Claude Rains, Charles Bickford, Dick Powell, Ethel Barrymore, Franchot Tone, Frederick March, Helen Hayes, Ingrid Bergman, Jennifer Jones, Joan Fontaine, Lionel Barrymore, Orson Welles, Ray Milland, Walter Pidgeon, William Gargan. NEWS - Lowell Thomas, Quentin Reynolds, Raymond Gram Swing, Ted Husing.
(3) When Dee Englebach left Radio Hall of Fame in 1944, he went on to produce string of Network Radio programs, often short-lived: The Doctor Fights, CBS, Summers 1944 & 1945; Rogue’s Gallery, Mutual, 1945-46; Academy Award (Theater), CBS, 1946; This Is Nora Drake (director), NBC, 1947-48; Hallmark Hall of Fame (director), CBS, 1948-1952; The Man Called X (participating director), NBC, 1950-52; The Big Show (producer-director), NBC, 1950-1952, The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street (part director), NBC, 1952, and The Columbia Workshop (part director), CBS, 1956-1957.
(4) Paul Whiteman was “assisted” in his duties by choir master Robert Shaw and conductors Alfred Newman and Joseph Littau.
(5) It should be noted that Time, Incorporated, owned 12.5% of Blue/ABC in 1943 and Billboard was the trade paper rival to Variety which had a promotional interest in The Radio Hall of Fame.
Copyright © 2016, Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
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