THE PLAYERS OF OCT. 30th: WELLES, BERGEN & McCARTHY.
War of The Webs
The 1938-39 Season
7th In A Series
A Big Hand For The Little Network. A six month slowdown hit the economy in April, 1938, and the networks were affected - all but Mutual which continued to carve out its own low budget niche and profit from it. MBS added the 23 station Texas State Network to its affiliate list bringing its 1938 total up to 107 - second only to CBS’s 110. Some Mutual affiliates were “secondary”- requiring the network to take a back seat in program clearances to those stations’ “primary” network. And much of Mutual’s revenue came from regional advertisers who didn’t buy the full network. As a result, many of Mutual’s programs went unrated. The four year old Mutual earned only a fraction of the revenues raked in by CBS, NBC and Blue. Nevertheless, Mutual was headed for a its first $2.5 Million year, topping its 1937 income by over 20% - while its bigger competitors had to be content with less than a one percent growth. (See MBS = Mutual’s Bargain Sales and Mutual Led The Way.)
Any growth was welcome in a slow year and broadcasting had caught up to magazines in advertising revenues in 1938, each earning 17 cents of every advertising dollar spent. Newspapers still led the pack with 59 cents. But momentum was on radio’s side, particularly the networks and their affiliates. The networks continued their steady addition of stations. For the first time, over half of the country’s radio stations - 52% - were affiliated with one of the four national chains. (See The Gold In The Golden Age and Radio Nets' Grosses.)
Time magazine - itself the producer of Blue’s March of Time - reported in September, “..Only a few U. S. publishers, Network Radio's chief competitors for advertising contracts, could be supposed last week to be sitting on an eight-month gross so large and comfortable as that enjoyed by the big three broadcasters.”
NBC News Makes News Again. NBC’s yeoman European correspondent, Max Jordan, 43, already had one major scoop to his credit from the previous March in Vienna when Germany annexed Austria. Six months later he had another exclusive story - this time broadcasting directly from Godesburg, Germany. Jordan beat his CBS competitor, William L. Shirer, by obtaining the actual text of the infamous September 29th Munich Agreement between British Prime Minister Chamberlin and German dictator Hitler that ceded Czechoslovakia to Germany.
Jordan’s procuring, reporting and analyzing the verbatim text was a coup in itself. As a bonus, his four years of negotiations to transmit dispatches directly from European cities, combined with RCA’s worldwide shortwave connections, gave NBC a technical superiority in receiving and rebroadcasting his reports that CBS couldn’t match. At the eve of World War II, NBC had the advantage in network news coverage - a reputation that CBS would eventually overtake through improved content and continual promotion of its trench-coated overseas reporters as celebrated personalities known collectively as Murrow’s Boys.
As war neared, radio clearly had the advantage over newspapers in reporting and analyzing news events as they happened - often from where they happened. The quality of immediacy deepened the resentment that newspapers held against broadcasting despite the fact that by 1940 nearly 50% of the largest dailies held ownership interests in radio stations.
CBS Goes For The Records. Bill Paley wanted a piece of the lucrative phonograph record market that had tripled since 1935 with annual sales around 25 million dollars. RCA-Victor alone sold over 13 million discs in 1938. The company‘s NBC provided exposure to many of the artists and orchestras featured on its three labels - popular music Black, Red Seal classics and budget-priced Bluebird.
CBS bought jukebox giant Wurlitzer’s American Record Company for $700,000, in late 1938. The sale included American’s subsidiary, Columbia Records, from which the Columbia Broadcasting System originally got its name in 1927. Paley was fascinated by the idea of producing complete classical works on a single disc involving the new 33 1/3 “Long Playing” recording techniques being developed in laboratories, but he knew that 85% of the records sold in 1938 were popular swing music. Accordingly, Paley’s new Columbia Records went to work and signed the Benny Goodman, Kay Kyser, Horace Heidt and Orrin Tucker orchestras as its opening headliners.
On The Seventh Day They Crested. America’s two most popular programs both originated on Sunday nights from NBC’s new multi-million dollar Hollywood studios that officially opened for business on October 17, 1938. Jack Benny and ventriloquist Edgar Bergen - with his wooden-headed laugh getter Charlie McCarthy - each broadcast from one of the four 350 seat auditoriums in the three story complex at Sunset and Vine. The programs played to standing room only crowds every Sunday. By this time Benny was making a reported $10,000 a week, from his radio show while Bergen collected $100,000 in annual royalties from the sale of Charlie McCarthy dolls, games and novelties.
The first program to rank Number One every month for two consecutive seasons, Bergen & McCarthy’s Chase & Sanborn Hour was also voted the favorite variety program by the readers of fan magazine Radio Mirror. In addition, Bergen was voted its readers’ favorite comedian. The Chase & Sanborn Hour of October 30th was typical of its star studded variety format with Bergen & McCarthy, host Don Ameche, featured singer Nelson Eddy, movie queen Dorothy Lamour, the comedy trio of Judy, Annie & Zeke Canova and film star Madeleine Carroll. That night the program scored its fourth highest Hooperating to date - a whopping 34.8.
Yet, an unheralded, unsponsored and unrated program opposite Bergen & McCarthy on the same night stole all the headlines - all because some of its listeners weren’t listening closely or couldn’t tell fact from fiction. (See Sunday's All Time Top Ten,)
Historic Halloween Hysteria - Or Hype? CBS prided itself on its public affairs and cultural offerings - which were usually placed in its schedule during less popular times or were offered as sustaining sacrificial lambs against competing programs considered unbeatable. Such was the case on Sunday nights when Columbia programmed The People’s Platform opposite NBC’s Jack Benny and Orson Welles’ Mercury Theatre of The Air against Bergen and McCarthy. It was Welles’ October 30th Mercury presentation of H.G. Wells’ War of The Worlds that caused an uproar which is still the stuff of broadcasting legend.
The powerful update of Wells’1898 novel scripted by Howard Koch and produced by John Houseman was made to sound like an actual on-the-spot report of a Martian invasion in New Jersey. It was difficult for casual listeners to separate fact from fiction unless they heard the frequent disclaimers before, during and after the broadcast.
Separating the facts of its impact on the radio audience from journalistic fiction is another matter. An impartial and objective review of the facts surrounding the broadcast and its aftermath plus a recording of the program itself are found at War of The Worlds on this site.
Shampoo Gets A Head Start. There was no better timeslot for a new program than between the season’s two most popular programs. That plum was picked in September by Iowa hair products manufacturer F.W. Fitch for its “dandruff remover” shampoo. The Fitch Bandwagon, featuring a different popular dance band each week plus guest stars, settled in for a cushy run at 7:30 between the Jack Benny and Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy shows on NBC. Bandwagon lost over half of Benny’s audience, never rising above the mid-teens in ratings, yet was solid enough to finish in the season’s Top 50 for eight consecutive years.
The Charge of The Heidt Brigade. Three music shows rounded out Sunday’s Top Ten - Frank & Anne Hummert’s Manhattan Merry Go Round and The American Album of Familiar Music, plus a newcomer to the night’s schedule, Horace Heidt’s Brigadiers orchestra. Heidt and his show band - the Heidt Brigade - had been in Network Radio since 1932’s Ship of Joy. His latest show and bounced around for three seasons, going from CBS to Blue to NBC, all under the sponsorship of Stewart Warner’s Alemite automotive oils and chemicals. Although the show finally ranked in the season’s Top 50, the sponsor was disappointed with single digit ratings and cancelled in December.
But Heidt wasn’t finished. He was a master showman with a keen sense for popular trends and proved it the following September when he and his band became part of the smash hit of the 1939 season, Pot O Gold. Heidt’s vacated 10:00 p.m. Sunday timeslot on NBC was taken over by one of the most unusual programs ever attempted, The Circle.
Whose Soiree Now? The Circle seemed like a good idea when J. Walter Thompson and NBC developed it for Kellogg Corn Flakes: Recruit a group of popular movie and radio personalities known for their “intellect,” place them into an hour-long party-like format of conversation led by a star with a British accent to emphasize cultural appeal, add a bit of smart humor, mix in a touch of highbrow music and watch the ratings soar. The concept appeared to be just what Kellogg needed to combat the Top 50 variety shows hosted by comedians Al Pearce, Joe Penner and Joe E. Brown sponsored by competitor General Foods’ Post cereals.
The Circle debuted with much fanfare at 10:00 on Sunday, January 15, 1939, featuring host Ronald Colman and guests Cary Grant, Carol Lombard and the two talking Marx brothers, Groucho and Chico. In all, the total talent bill was a whopping $28,000. Music was provided by operatic tenor Lawrence Tibbett and a full studio orchestra. The second week’s program featured the same “conversationalists” - who actually read from prepared scripts - plus famed classical pianist Jose Iturbi. But in February it suddenly became a question of, “Suppose you threw a party and nobody came?”
The program’s flexible contracts allowed its stars to choose if and when they would grace The Circle with their presence. Despite their lucrative $2,000 to $5,000 in talent fees, most chose not to be bothered - except the Marx brothers who faithfully showed up for the party and their paychecks every week.
British playwright/actor Noel Coward was called in to host on the third show, Colman returned for the fourth and Oscar nominated actor Basil Rathbone took over permanent regular host duties in mid-February. British born Madeleine Carroll, 1939's highest paid film actress, was added to the regular cast along with tenor Tibbett and the Marx brothers in April. The Circle hobbled along with an assortment of guests who were hardly the major stars originally envisioned for the series. Deems Taylor, Boris Karloff, Irvin S. Cobb, Grantland Rice and Louis Bromfield were the most notable. By June The Circle’s ratings had drooped to a meager 11.6 when the party finally ended. Burned by its experience, Kellogg would never again sponsor a major prime time program.
CBS Shows Little Logic. Eddie Cantor and Lux Radio Theater, stood out in a puzzling CBS Monday schedule that defied sequential programming logic. Cantor’s popular variety show, in its third different day and time in three seasons, was slotted at 7:30. Cantor lost some 20% of his audience in the move - typical for such switches - but still managed to kick-start the evening for CBS with a healthy 17.3 rating, again finishing in the season’s Top Ten.
Cantor was followed at 8:00 by the prestigious historical anthology drama Cavalcade of America which lost over half his audience. Cavalcade enjoyed an 18 season run under the sponsorship of DuPont Chemical but seldom rose above single digits in ratings. CBS invited audience turnover again at 8:30 by programming The Model Minstrels, (aka Pipe Smoking Time), featuring blackface comedians Pick Malone and Pat Padgett. The low-brow comics struggled along with a 10.4 rating, in a virtual tie opposite NBC’s Voice of Firestone classical concerts.
Star studded Lux Radio Theater followed at 9:00 with Monday’s only program that averaged over a 20 rating. The question remains how much greater the CBS Monday night audience would have been with a stronger programming hammock between Cantor and Lux instead of the hour that sagged. (See Lux...Presents Hollywood!)
Tuesday’s Terrific Twosome. Fibber McGee & Molly - transplanted the previous March from an underdog Monday night timeslot opposite CBS’s top rated Lux Radio Theater - took root in NBC’s Tuesday night schedule at 9:30 and scored the first of its dozen consecutive Top Ten seasons. Jim Jordan began the season solo as Fibber McGee & Company with an expanded supporting cast of characters that he and writer Don Quinn had assembled when Marian Jordan was hospitalized early in 1937-38 season. Finally, after an 18 month absence from the air, Marian returned to her husband’s side on April 18, 1939. (See Fibber McGee Minus Molly.)
Fibber McGee & Molly were together again and listeners responded in big numbers. The couple’s sitcom settled into its familiar format which became Tuesday’s most popular program for seven of the next 15 seasons. To accommodate Marian’s health the show was moved from Chicago to Hollywood.
A Memorable Start. Fibber McGee provided the lead-in boost for Bob Hope’s new Pepsodent Show which finished twelfth among the season’s Top 50 programs. Paramount's film, The Big Broadcast of 1938, released in February, featured Hope and Shirley Ross singing the poignant Academy Award winning duet, Thanks For The Memory. The movie made Hope a star and re-launched his radio career after two mediocre seasons on CBS and Blue. Hope and the Jordan’s provided NBC with its long term Tuesday night comedy cornerstone. Between them, the two shows would give the network Tuesday’s top rated program for twelve consecutive seasons.
Not So Fast! CBS wasn’t about to give up Tuesday night leadership without a fight. Its 90 minute block beginning with Edward G. Robinson’s newspaper drama Big Town at 8:00, followed by Al Jolson’s variety show and We The People, enabled CBS to stay strong and claim over half of Tuesday’s Top Ten programs. (See Big Big Town.) But that situation began to deteriorate when Jolson left radio in April, replaced by singing movie star Dick Powell who lost over 35% of Jolson’s audience to comedian George Jessel’s For Men Only on NBC and an interesting newcomer on Blue, Information Please.
Unscripted Wits. The brainchild of producer Dan Golenpaul, Information Please was given a trial run on Blue over the summer and its own Tuesday night 8:30 slot opposite Jolson and Jessel in November. Its first month rating of was 5.0 - hardly an auspicious beginning for a program that would place among the annual Top 50 over the next five seasons and remain a critical favorite for another five in its decade long run that spanned all four networks.
Hosted by 34 year old New Yorker book critic Clifton Fadiman, Information Please featured a panel of four intellects who laid their knowledge on the line every week by attempting to answer a wide range of questions submitted by listeners for cash and merchandise prizes. Regulars among the rotating panelists included columnists Franklin P. Adams and Walter Kiernan and pianist/actor Oscar Levant. A fourth celebrity panelist was chosen by Golenpaul each week - usually a noted author, politician or show business personality.
Much like NBC’s The Circle, which was designed to be a popular showcase of wit and intellect but failed, Information Please delivered. The panel’s responses to questions became springboards from which clever exchanges and puns were the norm. Further, Information Please quips were spontaneous, not scripted. Proving they needed no script, Circle regulars Basil Rathbone and Groucho Marx made frequent guest appearances on the Information Please panel. (See Information Please.)
The Doctor’s Internship. In mid-October CBS moved the promising Dr. Christian from its Sunday afternoon schedule and put it in direct competition with NBC’s hot newcomer on Tuesday night, Bob Hope. The situation drama, starring veteran Danish character actor Jean Hersholt as the kindly doctor of Rivers End, had many things going for it - not the least were fresh plots submitted in a contest among listeners and a top flight supporting cast led by Rosemary DeCamp as the doctor’s loyal nurse, Judy Price.
Best of all, Dr. Christian had the loyalty of a sponsor who believed in the program, Chesebrough’s Vaseline. That loyalty was tested during the program’s 26 weeks opposite Network Radio’s most popular new show. Dr. Christian closed the season with a weak 6.7 average rating. A new day and time was prescribed to save the program the following season. (See Dr. Christian.)
Heard But Not Seen. Helen Menken was a Broadway legend. She received theater’s highest recognition, The Antoinette Perry Lifetime Achievement Award upon her death in 1966. Yet, the Tony winning Menken’s face wasn’t familiar to most of America because the roles she originated on stage always went to others in the movies - Janet Gaynor in Seventh Heaven, Katherine Hepburn as Mary of Scotland and Bette Davis in The Old Maid.
When Menken outgrew her typical ingénue roles she turned to radio and the lead in Frank & Ann Hummert’s prime time serial, Second Husband - the trials and tribulations related to remarriage. Menken had experience in the subject - she was in her own second marriage after divorcing Humphrey Bogart. Following a 13 week split-run on Blue and NBC in the spring, Sterling Drugs moved Second Husband to CBS where the half hour soap opera took roots at 7:30 on Tuesday for five years - two of them Top 50 seasons. When the serial eventually ran its prime time course down into single digit ratings, Sterling moved the Hummert serial and Menken into weekday, 15-minute form for another four years.
Kyser’s Kollege Joins The Big Ten. Bandleader Kay Kyser’s Kollege of Musical Knowledge was in its sophomore season and rose from 30th to ninth in the annual Top 50. Brought in by Lucky Strike Cigarettes to replace the NBC Wednesday edition of Your Hit Parade in March, 1938, Kyser’s fast paced hour of popular music, comedy and audience participation enjoyed a 55% ratings gain and edged out Fred Allen’s Town Hall Tonight to become Wednesday’s ratings leader.
The season was the first of Kyser’s seven straight Top 15 seasons, giving NBC a dependable Wednesday night anchor. NBC protected the The Ol’ Professor’s ratings over the years with solid lead-in audiences provided by Fred Allen, Eddie Cantor and Mr. District Attorney. (See Wednesday's All Time Top Ten.)
A Stage Vehicle Runs Out of Gas. CBS publicists worked overtime to promote Wednesday's new Texaco Star Theater, an hour long variety program with dramatic elements supplied by “legitimate” actors John Barrymore, Adolphe Menjou, Una Merkel and Charlie Ruggles, all under the direction of legendary stage director Max Reinhardt. The network boasted that Texaco was footing a talent cost of $18,000 per week just to bring this showcase of class to radio. The 60 minute program was slotted on CBS at 9:30 to siphon audience from Fred Allen’s Town Hall Tonight and cut into the first half hour of Kay Kyser’s College of Musical Knowledge.
Instead, Texaco Star Theater opened to single digit ratings in October and trended downward. The strategy to compete with both Allen and Kyser was scrapped in January along with the program’s “legitimate” overtones. Texaco Star Theater was moved back to 9:00 opposite only Allen and the program took on a decidedly lighter approach with comedian Ken Murray as its host. The revamp was rewarded when the program came back to place among the season’s Top 50 - but still 50% short of Fred Allen’s ratings. Texaco dropped the show in June - and picked up sponsorship of Fred Allen a year later.
Kate Rates Great. Led by Bing Crosby’s Kraft Music Hall, Thursday night was dominated by five hour-long variety shows, four of them sponsored by major food manufacturers. Newcomer Kate Smith’s CBS show for General Foods jumped over 66% in its ratings and edged out Standard Brands’ stalwart Rudy Vallee on NBC in their singer to singer competition at 8:00. It was Vallee’s first fall out of a season’s Top Ten and Smith’s first of four consecutive Top 20 seasons..
The rotund contralto didn’t do it alone. Her 1938-39 Kate Smith Hour was loaded with new radio talent - bits by former burlesque comedians Bud Abbott & Lou Costello, plus weekly sitcom skits by The Aldrich Family starring 21 year old Ezra Stone. (See The Aldrich Family on this site.) Ironically, Smith’s producer/partner Ted Collins first heard both acts on Vallee’s show during the previous season.
A song introduced by Smith on her November 10th broadcast to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Armistice Day pushed her popularity beyond that of a pop singer to that of a patriotic icon. Irving Berlin’s God Bless America became the country’s second national anthem. (See Kate’s Great Song.)
A Huskies Hex? General Foods scored another win at 9:00 when its Good News of 1939 for Maxwell House Coffee on NBC topped Major Bowes’ Original Amateur Hour which suffered its third consecutive season of audience decline on the Thursday CBS schedule.
On the so-so side of its ledger, General Foods bought another half hour chunk of CBS time at 7:30 to promote its Huskies breakfast cereal . Joe Penner had just completed two uneventful - and unrated - seasons in a CBS sitcom, The Park Avenue Penners. Penner’s return to prime time sponsored by Huskies lasted only 26 weeks. His routines, most all ending with the predictable, “Wanna buy a duck?” punch line, had become stale. He was replaced by movie comedian Joe E. Brown in April.
Meanwhile, Huskies print and radio advertising featured endorsements by baseball star Lou Gehrig, who died less than three years later in 1941 at age 37. In an odd twist of fate, Joe Penner also died in 1941 at age 36.
Burns & Allen Jump Start Welles. Burns & Allen switched sponsors, networks, days, and times - and lost nearly 20% of their audience. But the couple retained enough listeners to become Friday’s most popular program for CBS against NBC’s Cities Service Concert at 8:30.
They also gave the 23 year old new kid on the block a solid lead-in. Riding high from Halloween’s War of The Worlds incident, Orson Welles’ Mercury Theater troupe took over the 9:00 hour on CBS in December. Campbell Soup replaced its aging Hollywood Hotel with the anthology drama and trusted that listener curiosity would provide it with an early promotional boost. It did.
Campbell Playhouse scored its season high 17.4 in December, placing it among the month’s Top Ten programs. It fell to 21st in January but continued to win its timeslot against NBC’s revenue generating but weak rated Waltz Time and Death Valley Days, sometimes doubling or tripling the competition’s ratings. It would turn out to be a short lived success for Welles & Co.
Haley Switch Turns Off Listeners. Jack Haley’s top rated Saturday show on NBC the previous season became a Friday night also-ran on CBS. Haley lost 30% of his audience in the switch and fell out of the season’s Top 50. The comedian’s variety show for Wonder Bread left the air after a January through April run in single digits. After the August, 1939, release of MGM’s The Wizard of Oz in which he played The Tin Man, Haley became a popular radio guest star, but he didn’t return with a series of his own for four years. When he did, Jack Haley had one of 1943-44’s Top Ten shows.
Parade Rest! Lucky Strike’s Your Hit Parade settled in exclusively at CBS on Saturday nights for the first of almost ten seasons. Singing host Buddy Clark was replaced by Lanny Ross who had enjoyed top popularity as the romantic singing lead of the former Top Ten entry, Maxwell House Showboat. The switch in Hit Parade stars was the first of many that would take place over the next 15 years. Ross would remain with the show for only a year. He was replaced during the next season by Barry Wood.
Despite all the switches, Your Hit Parade finished 19 times in the annual Top 50 - including two times in one season - 1936-37 and 1937-38 - proving that the real attractions of the program were the music and the weekly competition that the show created among the top hits of the day. At least, that was the theory until a singer named Sinatra came along in 1943.
Watch His Lips Move! It was a season for precocious “kids” on radio. Charlie McCarthy and Baby Snooks were both Top Ten stars. Then Quaker Oats brought a new kid to its Quaker Party in the form of a 30 year old man.
Tommy Riggs had a unique vocal condition that was made for radio. He had a natural speaking voice worthy of a network announcer, yet was also able to speak and sing without effort or obvious falsetto as a small girl. His second voice became that of seven year old Betty Lou Barrie. Not a ventriloquist, Riggs stood at a microphone, obviously speaking both parts. After a season of his double-dialogued repartee with Rudy Vallee, Riggs landed his own variety slot on NBC with support from Zasu Pitts and the Larry Clinton band featuring future Your Hit Parade star vocalist Bea Wain. Riggs and his very natural little girl’s voice scored three Top 50 seasons but never ranked higher than 32nd. Critics later observed that Betty Lou was too nice a little girl. She lacked the feisty mean streak found in the other popular kids in radio comedy - Bergen’s Charlie McCarthy, Brice’s Baby Snooks, or Red Skelton’s Mean Widdle Kid.
The Cincinnati Reds. Red Skelton’s radio career began on powerful WLW/Cincinnati with a limited series in January, 1938, headlining country singer Red Foley. A year later Skelton and Foley were briefly teamed on NBC’s Avalon Time from Chicago. The 32 year old Skelton’s breakthrough film, Whistling In The Dark, was still two years away. He was performing in low budget Warner Brothers two-reel shorts when he joined the Avalon Cigarettes show in January.
Ironically, along with Red Skelton and Red Foley, WLW also employed a young sportscaster in 1938 named Red Barber, who broadcast games of the station owned Cincinnati Reds. Barber later became CBS Radio’s Sports Director and a member of Baseball’s Hall of Fame.
Vox Pooped? Phil Finished? NBC and CBS both had problem programs on Saturday at 9:00 due to switches. Kentucky Club Pipe Tobacco moved NBC’s man on the street interview show, Vox Pop, from Tuesday to Saturday and the show dropped from 30th to 62nd place in the season’s rankings. Phil Baker, fresh from three Top 15 seasons with Sunday’s Gulf Headliners was hired in January to host Dole Pineapple’s Honolulu Bound variety show and moved into CBS’ Saturday schedule. Baker lost over 50% of his audience in the switch and plummeted from 12th to 66th.
Both the interview show and Baker would recover in their ratings. But both had the bitter memory of the 1938-39 season when they lost their time period to Blue’s hayseed frolic from Chicago, National Barn Dance, which was in its fourth and final Top 50 season.
A&A Slide Into CBS. The growing national interest in world news, particularly from Europe, was reflected in Lowell Thomas’ 25% ratings increase, placing his nightly newscasts above the slipping Amos & Andy. (See Amos & Andy - Twice Is Nicer.)
Bill Paley convinced Campbell Soup that a network change could revive Amos & Andy’s sagging ratings. The legendary strip show dropped out of the season’s Top Ten in 1935 and showed little promise of returning. Amos & Andy left NBC on Friday, March 31, 1939, and popped up the following Monday on CBS in its familiar 7:00 timeslot.
First returns weren’t very encouraging. Freeman Gosden & Charlie Correll’s first April/May/June rating average on CBS was 10.4, compared to an 11.5 for the same three months the previous season on NBC. It was the beginning of a dismal four and a half year run for the strip show on CBS before there was light at the end of their ratings tunnel.
Ties That Bind. In the most unusual finish of Network Radio's Golden Age, the 1938-39 Top 50 Rankings contained nine ties, two of them three-way ties. Old friends Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor and Fanny Brice & Frank Morgan tied for sixth place, and ties in the teens involved Bob Hope & Orson Welles, Edward G. Robinson & Fred Allen, Kate Smith & One Man's Family and newsmen Lowell Thomas & Walter Winchell.
Network Radio's Top 50 Programs - 1938-39
C.E. Hooper Monthly Network Reports. Sep 1938 - Jun, 1939.
Total Programs Rated 6-11 PM: 114 Programs Rated 13 Weeks & Ranked: 99.
26,667,000 Radio Homes 79.2% Coverage of US. One Rating Point = 266,700 Homes
1 1 Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy 32.2 Standard/Chase & Sanborn Sun 8:00 60 NBC
2 2 Jack Benny Program 27.7 General Foods/Jello Sun 7:00 30 NBC
3 3 Lux Radio Theater 22.5 Lever Brothers/Lux Mon 9:00 60 CBS
4 4 Bing Crosby’s Kraft Music Hall 21.8 Kraft Cheese Thu 10:00 60 NBC
5 20 Fibber McGee & Molly 17.6 Johnson Wax Tue 9:30 30 NBC
6t 10 Al Jolson Show 17.3 Lever Brothers/Lifebuoy Soap Tue 8:30 30 CBS
6t 5 Eddie Cantor Show 17.3 RJ Reynolds Tobacco/Camel Mon 7:30 30 CBS
6t 11 Good News of 1939 17.3 General Foods/Maxwell House Thu 9:00 60 NBC
9 31 Kay Kyser College of Musical Knowledge 16.9 Lucky Strike Wed 10:00 60 NBC
10 6 Major Bowes Original Amateur Hour 16.6 Chrysler Corp Thu 9:00 60 CBS
11 8 Burns & Allen Show 15.6 Ligget & Myers Tobacco/Chesterfield Fri 8:30 30 CBS
12t N Bob Hope Show 15.4 Pepsodent Toothpaste Tue 10:00 30 NBC
12t N Orson Welles' Campbell Playhouse 15.4 Campbell Soup Fri 9:00 60 CBS
14t 18 Big Town 15.3 Lever Brothers/Rinso Tue 8:00 30 CBS
14t 6 Fred Allen’s Town Hall Tonight 15.3 Bristol Myers Wed 9:00 60 NBC
16t 50 Kate Smith Hour 14.5 General Foods/Swansdown & Calumet Thu 8:00 60 CBS
16t 13 One Man’s Family 14.5 Standard Brands/Tenderleaf Tea Wed 8:00 30 NBC
18 9 Rudy Vallee Show 14.4 Standard Brands/Royal Gelatin Thu 8:00 60 NBC
19t 29 Lowell Thomas News 14.0 Sun Oil M-F 6:45 15 Blue
19t 18 Walter Winchell’s Jergens Journal 14.0 Jergens Lotion Sun 9:30 15 Blue
21 16 Hollywood Hotel 13.7 Campbell Soup Fri 9:00 60 CBS
22 26 Your Hit Parade 13.6 American Tobacco/Lucky Strike Sat 10:00 45 CBS
23 15 Al Pearce's Gang 13.3 General Foods/Grape Nuts Cereals Mon 8:00 30 NBC
24 59 We The People 13.0 General Foods/Sanka Coffee Tue 9:00 30 CBS
25 16 Gangbusters 12.8 Colgate Shave Cream Wed 8:00 30 CBS
26 33 Hollywood Playhouse 12.7 Andrew Jergens/Woodbury Soap Sun 9:00 30 Blue
27 N Fitch Bandwagon 12.6 FW Fitch/Fitch Shampoo Sun 7:30 30 NBC
28 N The Circle 12.3 Kellogg Corn Flakes Sun 10:00 60 NBC
29 21 Amos & Andy 12.1 Campbell Soup M-F 7:00 15 CBS (1)
30 N Joe Penner Show 11.7 General Foods/Huskies Cereal Thu 7:30 30 CBS
31 14 First Nighter 11.5 Campana Sales/Italian Balm Tue 8:30 30 CBS
32 N Tommy Riggs & Betty Lou 11.3 Quaker Oats Sat 8:00 30 NBC
33 25 Dick Powell Show 10.9 Lever Brothers/Lifebuoy Tue 8:30 30 CBS
34 N Jack Pearl & Tommy Dorsey 10.7 Brown & Williamson/Raleigh & Kool Wed 8:30 30 NBC
35t N Guy Lombardo Orch 10.4 Lady Esther Cosmetics Mon 10:00 30 CBS
35t 37 Pick & Pat’s Model Minstrels 10.4 US Tobacco/Model Mon 8:30 30 CBS
37 42 Voice of Firestone 10.1 Firestone Tires Mon 8:30 30 NBC
38 N Ken Murray's Texaco Star Theater 10.0 Texaco Wed 9:00 60 CBS (2)
39 26 Professor Quiz 9.9 Noxzema Skin Cream Sat 8:30 30 CBS
40 N Screen Guild Theater 9.8 Gulf Oil Sun 7:30 30 CBS
41 38 Manhattan Merry Go Round 9.6 Sterling Drug/Dr Lyons Tooth Powder Sun 9:00 30 NBC
42 N Battle of The Sexes 9.5 Sterling Drug/Molle Shaving Cream Tue 9:00 30 NBC
43t N Fred Waring Show 9.4 Grove Laboratories/Bromo QuinineTablets Sat 8:30 30 NBC
43t 46 National Barn Dance 9.4 Miles Laboratories/Alka-Seltzer Sat 9:00 60 Blue
45t 58 American Album of Familiar Music 9.3 Sterling Drug/Bayer Aspirin Sun 9:30 30 NBC
45t 83 Horace Heidt Brigadiers Orch 9.3 Stewart Warner Alemite Sun 10:00 30 NBC
45t 57 Second Husband 9.3 Sterling Drug/Bayer Aspirin Tue 7:30 30 CBS
48t N Edwin C Hill News 9.1 Campbell Soup M-W 7:15 15 NBC
48t 64 Grand Central Station 9.1 Listerine Antiseptic Fri 10:00 30 CBS
48t N Joe E Brown Show 9.1 General Foods/Post Toasties Thu 7:30 30 CBS (3)
(1) Amos & Andy Sep - Mar Campbell Soup M-F 7:00 15 NBC
(2) Texaco Star Theater Oct - Dec Texaco Wed 9:30 60 CBS
(3) Joe E Brown Show Oct - Mar General Foods/Post Toasties Sat 7:30 30 CBS
. This post is in part abridged from Network Radio Ratings, 1932-1953.
Copyright © 2012 & 2019, Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
The 1938-39 Season
7th In A Series
A Big Hand For The Little Network. A six month slowdown hit the economy in April, 1938, and the networks were affected - all but Mutual which continued to carve out its own low budget niche and profit from it. MBS added the 23 station Texas State Network to its affiliate list bringing its 1938 total up to 107 - second only to CBS’s 110. Some Mutual affiliates were “secondary”- requiring the network to take a back seat in program clearances to those stations’ “primary” network. And much of Mutual’s revenue came from regional advertisers who didn’t buy the full network. As a result, many of Mutual’s programs went unrated. The four year old Mutual earned only a fraction of the revenues raked in by CBS, NBC and Blue. Nevertheless, Mutual was headed for a its first $2.5 Million year, topping its 1937 income by over 20% - while its bigger competitors had to be content with less than a one percent growth. (See MBS = Mutual’s Bargain Sales and Mutual Led The Way.)
Any growth was welcome in a slow year and broadcasting had caught up to magazines in advertising revenues in 1938, each earning 17 cents of every advertising dollar spent. Newspapers still led the pack with 59 cents. But momentum was on radio’s side, particularly the networks and their affiliates. The networks continued their steady addition of stations. For the first time, over half of the country’s radio stations - 52% - were affiliated with one of the four national chains. (See The Gold In The Golden Age and Radio Nets' Grosses.)
Time magazine - itself the producer of Blue’s March of Time - reported in September, “..Only a few U. S. publishers, Network Radio's chief competitors for advertising contracts, could be supposed last week to be sitting on an eight-month gross so large and comfortable as that enjoyed by the big three broadcasters.”
NBC News Makes News Again. NBC’s yeoman European correspondent, Max Jordan, 43, already had one major scoop to his credit from the previous March in Vienna when Germany annexed Austria. Six months later he had another exclusive story - this time broadcasting directly from Godesburg, Germany. Jordan beat his CBS competitor, William L. Shirer, by obtaining the actual text of the infamous September 29th Munich Agreement between British Prime Minister Chamberlin and German dictator Hitler that ceded Czechoslovakia to Germany.
Jordan’s procuring, reporting and analyzing the verbatim text was a coup in itself. As a bonus, his four years of negotiations to transmit dispatches directly from European cities, combined with RCA’s worldwide shortwave connections, gave NBC a technical superiority in receiving and rebroadcasting his reports that CBS couldn’t match. At the eve of World War II, NBC had the advantage in network news coverage - a reputation that CBS would eventually overtake through improved content and continual promotion of its trench-coated overseas reporters as celebrated personalities known collectively as Murrow’s Boys.
As war neared, radio clearly had the advantage over newspapers in reporting and analyzing news events as they happened - often from where they happened. The quality of immediacy deepened the resentment that newspapers held against broadcasting despite the fact that by 1940 nearly 50% of the largest dailies held ownership interests in radio stations.
CBS Goes For The Records. Bill Paley wanted a piece of the lucrative phonograph record market that had tripled since 1935 with annual sales around 25 million dollars. RCA-Victor alone sold over 13 million discs in 1938. The company‘s NBC provided exposure to many of the artists and orchestras featured on its three labels - popular music Black, Red Seal classics and budget-priced Bluebird.
CBS bought jukebox giant Wurlitzer’s American Record Company for $700,000, in late 1938. The sale included American’s subsidiary, Columbia Records, from which the Columbia Broadcasting System originally got its name in 1927. Paley was fascinated by the idea of producing complete classical works on a single disc involving the new 33 1/3 “Long Playing” recording techniques being developed in laboratories, but he knew that 85% of the records sold in 1938 were popular swing music. Accordingly, Paley’s new Columbia Records went to work and signed the Benny Goodman, Kay Kyser, Horace Heidt and Orrin Tucker orchestras as its opening headliners.
On The Seventh Day They Crested. America’s two most popular programs both originated on Sunday nights from NBC’s new multi-million dollar Hollywood studios that officially opened for business on October 17, 1938. Jack Benny and ventriloquist Edgar Bergen - with his wooden-headed laugh getter Charlie McCarthy - each broadcast from one of the four 350 seat auditoriums in the three story complex at Sunset and Vine. The programs played to standing room only crowds every Sunday. By this time Benny was making a reported $10,000 a week, from his radio show while Bergen collected $100,000 in annual royalties from the sale of Charlie McCarthy dolls, games and novelties.
The first program to rank Number One every month for two consecutive seasons, Bergen & McCarthy’s Chase & Sanborn Hour was also voted the favorite variety program by the readers of fan magazine Radio Mirror. In addition, Bergen was voted its readers’ favorite comedian. The Chase & Sanborn Hour of October 30th was typical of its star studded variety format with Bergen & McCarthy, host Don Ameche, featured singer Nelson Eddy, movie queen Dorothy Lamour, the comedy trio of Judy, Annie & Zeke Canova and film star Madeleine Carroll. That night the program scored its fourth highest Hooperating to date - a whopping 34.8.
Yet, an unheralded, unsponsored and unrated program opposite Bergen & McCarthy on the same night stole all the headlines - all because some of its listeners weren’t listening closely or couldn’t tell fact from fiction. (See Sunday's All Time Top Ten,)
Historic Halloween Hysteria - Or Hype? CBS prided itself on its public affairs and cultural offerings - which were usually placed in its schedule during less popular times or were offered as sustaining sacrificial lambs against competing programs considered unbeatable. Such was the case on Sunday nights when Columbia programmed The People’s Platform opposite NBC’s Jack Benny and Orson Welles’ Mercury Theatre of The Air against Bergen and McCarthy. It was Welles’ October 30th Mercury presentation of H.G. Wells’ War of The Worlds that caused an uproar which is still the stuff of broadcasting legend.
The powerful update of Wells’1898 novel scripted by Howard Koch and produced by John Houseman was made to sound like an actual on-the-spot report of a Martian invasion in New Jersey. It was difficult for casual listeners to separate fact from fiction unless they heard the frequent disclaimers before, during and after the broadcast.
Separating the facts of its impact on the radio audience from journalistic fiction is another matter. An impartial and objective review of the facts surrounding the broadcast and its aftermath plus a recording of the program itself are found at War of The Worlds on this site.
Shampoo Gets A Head Start. There was no better timeslot for a new program than between the season’s two most popular programs. That plum was picked in September by Iowa hair products manufacturer F.W. Fitch for its “dandruff remover” shampoo. The Fitch Bandwagon, featuring a different popular dance band each week plus guest stars, settled in for a cushy run at 7:30 between the Jack Benny and Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy shows on NBC. Bandwagon lost over half of Benny’s audience, never rising above the mid-teens in ratings, yet was solid enough to finish in the season’s Top 50 for eight consecutive years.
The Charge of The Heidt Brigade. Three music shows rounded out Sunday’s Top Ten - Frank & Anne Hummert’s Manhattan Merry Go Round and The American Album of Familiar Music, plus a newcomer to the night’s schedule, Horace Heidt’s Brigadiers orchestra. Heidt and his show band - the Heidt Brigade - had been in Network Radio since 1932’s Ship of Joy. His latest show and bounced around for three seasons, going from CBS to Blue to NBC, all under the sponsorship of Stewart Warner’s Alemite automotive oils and chemicals. Although the show finally ranked in the season’s Top 50, the sponsor was disappointed with single digit ratings and cancelled in December.
But Heidt wasn’t finished. He was a master showman with a keen sense for popular trends and proved it the following September when he and his band became part of the smash hit of the 1939 season, Pot O Gold. Heidt’s vacated 10:00 p.m. Sunday timeslot on NBC was taken over by one of the most unusual programs ever attempted, The Circle.
Whose Soiree Now? The Circle seemed like a good idea when J. Walter Thompson and NBC developed it for Kellogg Corn Flakes: Recruit a group of popular movie and radio personalities known for their “intellect,” place them into an hour-long party-like format of conversation led by a star with a British accent to emphasize cultural appeal, add a bit of smart humor, mix in a touch of highbrow music and watch the ratings soar. The concept appeared to be just what Kellogg needed to combat the Top 50 variety shows hosted by comedians Al Pearce, Joe Penner and Joe E. Brown sponsored by competitor General Foods’ Post cereals.
The Circle debuted with much fanfare at 10:00 on Sunday, January 15, 1939, featuring host Ronald Colman and guests Cary Grant, Carol Lombard and the two talking Marx brothers, Groucho and Chico. In all, the total talent bill was a whopping $28,000. Music was provided by operatic tenor Lawrence Tibbett and a full studio orchestra. The second week’s program featured the same “conversationalists” - who actually read from prepared scripts - plus famed classical pianist Jose Iturbi. But in February it suddenly became a question of, “Suppose you threw a party and nobody came?”
The program’s flexible contracts allowed its stars to choose if and when they would grace The Circle with their presence. Despite their lucrative $2,000 to $5,000 in talent fees, most chose not to be bothered - except the Marx brothers who faithfully showed up for the party and their paychecks every week.
British playwright/actor Noel Coward was called in to host on the third show, Colman returned for the fourth and Oscar nominated actor Basil Rathbone took over permanent regular host duties in mid-February. British born Madeleine Carroll, 1939's highest paid film actress, was added to the regular cast along with tenor Tibbett and the Marx brothers in April. The Circle hobbled along with an assortment of guests who were hardly the major stars originally envisioned for the series. Deems Taylor, Boris Karloff, Irvin S. Cobb, Grantland Rice and Louis Bromfield were the most notable. By June The Circle’s ratings had drooped to a meager 11.6 when the party finally ended. Burned by its experience, Kellogg would never again sponsor a major prime time program.
CBS Shows Little Logic. Eddie Cantor and Lux Radio Theater, stood out in a puzzling CBS Monday schedule that defied sequential programming logic. Cantor’s popular variety show, in its third different day and time in three seasons, was slotted at 7:30. Cantor lost some 20% of his audience in the move - typical for such switches - but still managed to kick-start the evening for CBS with a healthy 17.3 rating, again finishing in the season’s Top Ten.
Cantor was followed at 8:00 by the prestigious historical anthology drama Cavalcade of America which lost over half his audience. Cavalcade enjoyed an 18 season run under the sponsorship of DuPont Chemical but seldom rose above single digits in ratings. CBS invited audience turnover again at 8:30 by programming The Model Minstrels, (aka Pipe Smoking Time), featuring blackface comedians Pick Malone and Pat Padgett. The low-brow comics struggled along with a 10.4 rating, in a virtual tie opposite NBC’s Voice of Firestone classical concerts.
Star studded Lux Radio Theater followed at 9:00 with Monday’s only program that averaged over a 20 rating. The question remains how much greater the CBS Monday night audience would have been with a stronger programming hammock between Cantor and Lux instead of the hour that sagged. (See Lux...Presents Hollywood!)
Tuesday’s Terrific Twosome. Fibber McGee & Molly - transplanted the previous March from an underdog Monday night timeslot opposite CBS’s top rated Lux Radio Theater - took root in NBC’s Tuesday night schedule at 9:30 and scored the first of its dozen consecutive Top Ten seasons. Jim Jordan began the season solo as Fibber McGee & Company with an expanded supporting cast of characters that he and writer Don Quinn had assembled when Marian Jordan was hospitalized early in 1937-38 season. Finally, after an 18 month absence from the air, Marian returned to her husband’s side on April 18, 1939. (See Fibber McGee Minus Molly.)
Fibber McGee & Molly were together again and listeners responded in big numbers. The couple’s sitcom settled into its familiar format which became Tuesday’s most popular program for seven of the next 15 seasons. To accommodate Marian’s health the show was moved from Chicago to Hollywood.
A Memorable Start. Fibber McGee provided the lead-in boost for Bob Hope’s new Pepsodent Show which finished twelfth among the season’s Top 50 programs. Paramount's film, The Big Broadcast of 1938, released in February, featured Hope and Shirley Ross singing the poignant Academy Award winning duet, Thanks For The Memory. The movie made Hope a star and re-launched his radio career after two mediocre seasons on CBS and Blue. Hope and the Jordan’s provided NBC with its long term Tuesday night comedy cornerstone. Between them, the two shows would give the network Tuesday’s top rated program for twelve consecutive seasons.
Not So Fast! CBS wasn’t about to give up Tuesday night leadership without a fight. Its 90 minute block beginning with Edward G. Robinson’s newspaper drama Big Town at 8:00, followed by Al Jolson’s variety show and We The People, enabled CBS to stay strong and claim over half of Tuesday’s Top Ten programs. (See Big Big Town.) But that situation began to deteriorate when Jolson left radio in April, replaced by singing movie star Dick Powell who lost over 35% of Jolson’s audience to comedian George Jessel’s For Men Only on NBC and an interesting newcomer on Blue, Information Please.
Unscripted Wits. The brainchild of producer Dan Golenpaul, Information Please was given a trial run on Blue over the summer and its own Tuesday night 8:30 slot opposite Jolson and Jessel in November. Its first month rating of was 5.0 - hardly an auspicious beginning for a program that would place among the annual Top 50 over the next five seasons and remain a critical favorite for another five in its decade long run that spanned all four networks.
Hosted by 34 year old New Yorker book critic Clifton Fadiman, Information Please featured a panel of four intellects who laid their knowledge on the line every week by attempting to answer a wide range of questions submitted by listeners for cash and merchandise prizes. Regulars among the rotating panelists included columnists Franklin P. Adams and Walter Kiernan and pianist/actor Oscar Levant. A fourth celebrity panelist was chosen by Golenpaul each week - usually a noted author, politician or show business personality.
Much like NBC’s The Circle, which was designed to be a popular showcase of wit and intellect but failed, Information Please delivered. The panel’s responses to questions became springboards from which clever exchanges and puns were the norm. Further, Information Please quips were spontaneous, not scripted. Proving they needed no script, Circle regulars Basil Rathbone and Groucho Marx made frequent guest appearances on the Information Please panel. (See Information Please.)
The Doctor’s Internship. In mid-October CBS moved the promising Dr. Christian from its Sunday afternoon schedule and put it in direct competition with NBC’s hot newcomer on Tuesday night, Bob Hope. The situation drama, starring veteran Danish character actor Jean Hersholt as the kindly doctor of Rivers End, had many things going for it - not the least were fresh plots submitted in a contest among listeners and a top flight supporting cast led by Rosemary DeCamp as the doctor’s loyal nurse, Judy Price.
Best of all, Dr. Christian had the loyalty of a sponsor who believed in the program, Chesebrough’s Vaseline. That loyalty was tested during the program’s 26 weeks opposite Network Radio’s most popular new show. Dr. Christian closed the season with a weak 6.7 average rating. A new day and time was prescribed to save the program the following season. (See Dr. Christian.)
Heard But Not Seen. Helen Menken was a Broadway legend. She received theater’s highest recognition, The Antoinette Perry Lifetime Achievement Award upon her death in 1966. Yet, the Tony winning Menken’s face wasn’t familiar to most of America because the roles she originated on stage always went to others in the movies - Janet Gaynor in Seventh Heaven, Katherine Hepburn as Mary of Scotland and Bette Davis in The Old Maid.
When Menken outgrew her typical ingénue roles she turned to radio and the lead in Frank & Ann Hummert’s prime time serial, Second Husband - the trials and tribulations related to remarriage. Menken had experience in the subject - she was in her own second marriage after divorcing Humphrey Bogart. Following a 13 week split-run on Blue and NBC in the spring, Sterling Drugs moved Second Husband to CBS where the half hour soap opera took roots at 7:30 on Tuesday for five years - two of them Top 50 seasons. When the serial eventually ran its prime time course down into single digit ratings, Sterling moved the Hummert serial and Menken into weekday, 15-minute form for another four years.
Kyser’s Kollege Joins The Big Ten. Bandleader Kay Kyser’s Kollege of Musical Knowledge was in its sophomore season and rose from 30th to ninth in the annual Top 50. Brought in by Lucky Strike Cigarettes to replace the NBC Wednesday edition of Your Hit Parade in March, 1938, Kyser’s fast paced hour of popular music, comedy and audience participation enjoyed a 55% ratings gain and edged out Fred Allen’s Town Hall Tonight to become Wednesday’s ratings leader.
The season was the first of Kyser’s seven straight Top 15 seasons, giving NBC a dependable Wednesday night anchor. NBC protected the The Ol’ Professor’s ratings over the years with solid lead-in audiences provided by Fred Allen, Eddie Cantor and Mr. District Attorney. (See Wednesday's All Time Top Ten.)
A Stage Vehicle Runs Out of Gas. CBS publicists worked overtime to promote Wednesday's new Texaco Star Theater, an hour long variety program with dramatic elements supplied by “legitimate” actors John Barrymore, Adolphe Menjou, Una Merkel and Charlie Ruggles, all under the direction of legendary stage director Max Reinhardt. The network boasted that Texaco was footing a talent cost of $18,000 per week just to bring this showcase of class to radio. The 60 minute program was slotted on CBS at 9:30 to siphon audience from Fred Allen’s Town Hall Tonight and cut into the first half hour of Kay Kyser’s College of Musical Knowledge.
Instead, Texaco Star Theater opened to single digit ratings in October and trended downward. The strategy to compete with both Allen and Kyser was scrapped in January along with the program’s “legitimate” overtones. Texaco Star Theater was moved back to 9:00 opposite only Allen and the program took on a decidedly lighter approach with comedian Ken Murray as its host. The revamp was rewarded when the program came back to place among the season’s Top 50 - but still 50% short of Fred Allen’s ratings. Texaco dropped the show in June - and picked up sponsorship of Fred Allen a year later.
Kate Rates Great. Led by Bing Crosby’s Kraft Music Hall, Thursday night was dominated by five hour-long variety shows, four of them sponsored by major food manufacturers. Newcomer Kate Smith’s CBS show for General Foods jumped over 66% in its ratings and edged out Standard Brands’ stalwart Rudy Vallee on NBC in their singer to singer competition at 8:00. It was Vallee’s first fall out of a season’s Top Ten and Smith’s first of four consecutive Top 20 seasons..
The rotund contralto didn’t do it alone. Her 1938-39 Kate Smith Hour was loaded with new radio talent - bits by former burlesque comedians Bud Abbott & Lou Costello, plus weekly sitcom skits by The Aldrich Family starring 21 year old Ezra Stone. (See The Aldrich Family on this site.) Ironically, Smith’s producer/partner Ted Collins first heard both acts on Vallee’s show during the previous season.
A song introduced by Smith on her November 10th broadcast to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Armistice Day pushed her popularity beyond that of a pop singer to that of a patriotic icon. Irving Berlin’s God Bless America became the country’s second national anthem. (See Kate’s Great Song.)
A Huskies Hex? General Foods scored another win at 9:00 when its Good News of 1939 for Maxwell House Coffee on NBC topped Major Bowes’ Original Amateur Hour which suffered its third consecutive season of audience decline on the Thursday CBS schedule.
On the so-so side of its ledger, General Foods bought another half hour chunk of CBS time at 7:30 to promote its Huskies breakfast cereal . Joe Penner had just completed two uneventful - and unrated - seasons in a CBS sitcom, The Park Avenue Penners. Penner’s return to prime time sponsored by Huskies lasted only 26 weeks. His routines, most all ending with the predictable, “Wanna buy a duck?” punch line, had become stale. He was replaced by movie comedian Joe E. Brown in April.
Meanwhile, Huskies print and radio advertising featured endorsements by baseball star Lou Gehrig, who died less than three years later in 1941 at age 37. In an odd twist of fate, Joe Penner also died in 1941 at age 36.
Burns & Allen Jump Start Welles. Burns & Allen switched sponsors, networks, days, and times - and lost nearly 20% of their audience. But the couple retained enough listeners to become Friday’s most popular program for CBS against NBC’s Cities Service Concert at 8:30.
They also gave the 23 year old new kid on the block a solid lead-in. Riding high from Halloween’s War of The Worlds incident, Orson Welles’ Mercury Theater troupe took over the 9:00 hour on CBS in December. Campbell Soup replaced its aging Hollywood Hotel with the anthology drama and trusted that listener curiosity would provide it with an early promotional boost. It did.
Campbell Playhouse scored its season high 17.4 in December, placing it among the month’s Top Ten programs. It fell to 21st in January but continued to win its timeslot against NBC’s revenue generating but weak rated Waltz Time and Death Valley Days, sometimes doubling or tripling the competition’s ratings. It would turn out to be a short lived success for Welles & Co.
Haley Switch Turns Off Listeners. Jack Haley’s top rated Saturday show on NBC the previous season became a Friday night also-ran on CBS. Haley lost 30% of his audience in the switch and fell out of the season’s Top 50. The comedian’s variety show for Wonder Bread left the air after a January through April run in single digits. After the August, 1939, release of MGM’s The Wizard of Oz in which he played The Tin Man, Haley became a popular radio guest star, but he didn’t return with a series of his own for four years. When he did, Jack Haley had one of 1943-44’s Top Ten shows.
Parade Rest! Lucky Strike’s Your Hit Parade settled in exclusively at CBS on Saturday nights for the first of almost ten seasons. Singing host Buddy Clark was replaced by Lanny Ross who had enjoyed top popularity as the romantic singing lead of the former Top Ten entry, Maxwell House Showboat. The switch in Hit Parade stars was the first of many that would take place over the next 15 years. Ross would remain with the show for only a year. He was replaced during the next season by Barry Wood.
Despite all the switches, Your Hit Parade finished 19 times in the annual Top 50 - including two times in one season - 1936-37 and 1937-38 - proving that the real attractions of the program were the music and the weekly competition that the show created among the top hits of the day. At least, that was the theory until a singer named Sinatra came along in 1943.
Watch His Lips Move! It was a season for precocious “kids” on radio. Charlie McCarthy and Baby Snooks were both Top Ten stars. Then Quaker Oats brought a new kid to its Quaker Party in the form of a 30 year old man.
Tommy Riggs had a unique vocal condition that was made for radio. He had a natural speaking voice worthy of a network announcer, yet was also able to speak and sing without effort or obvious falsetto as a small girl. His second voice became that of seven year old Betty Lou Barrie. Not a ventriloquist, Riggs stood at a microphone, obviously speaking both parts. After a season of his double-dialogued repartee with Rudy Vallee, Riggs landed his own variety slot on NBC with support from Zasu Pitts and the Larry Clinton band featuring future Your Hit Parade star vocalist Bea Wain. Riggs and his very natural little girl’s voice scored three Top 50 seasons but never ranked higher than 32nd. Critics later observed that Betty Lou was too nice a little girl. She lacked the feisty mean streak found in the other popular kids in radio comedy - Bergen’s Charlie McCarthy, Brice’s Baby Snooks, or Red Skelton’s Mean Widdle Kid.
The Cincinnati Reds. Red Skelton’s radio career began on powerful WLW/Cincinnati with a limited series in January, 1938, headlining country singer Red Foley. A year later Skelton and Foley were briefly teamed on NBC’s Avalon Time from Chicago. The 32 year old Skelton’s breakthrough film, Whistling In The Dark, was still two years away. He was performing in low budget Warner Brothers two-reel shorts when he joined the Avalon Cigarettes show in January.
Ironically, along with Red Skelton and Red Foley, WLW also employed a young sportscaster in 1938 named Red Barber, who broadcast games of the station owned Cincinnati Reds. Barber later became CBS Radio’s Sports Director and a member of Baseball’s Hall of Fame.
Vox Pooped? Phil Finished? NBC and CBS both had problem programs on Saturday at 9:00 due to switches. Kentucky Club Pipe Tobacco moved NBC’s man on the street interview show, Vox Pop, from Tuesday to Saturday and the show dropped from 30th to 62nd place in the season’s rankings. Phil Baker, fresh from three Top 15 seasons with Sunday’s Gulf Headliners was hired in January to host Dole Pineapple’s Honolulu Bound variety show and moved into CBS’ Saturday schedule. Baker lost over 50% of his audience in the switch and plummeted from 12th to 66th.
Both the interview show and Baker would recover in their ratings. But both had the bitter memory of the 1938-39 season when they lost their time period to Blue’s hayseed frolic from Chicago, National Barn Dance, which was in its fourth and final Top 50 season.
A&A Slide Into CBS. The growing national interest in world news, particularly from Europe, was reflected in Lowell Thomas’ 25% ratings increase, placing his nightly newscasts above the slipping Amos & Andy. (See Amos & Andy - Twice Is Nicer.)
Bill Paley convinced Campbell Soup that a network change could revive Amos & Andy’s sagging ratings. The legendary strip show dropped out of the season’s Top Ten in 1935 and showed little promise of returning. Amos & Andy left NBC on Friday, March 31, 1939, and popped up the following Monday on CBS in its familiar 7:00 timeslot.
First returns weren’t very encouraging. Freeman Gosden & Charlie Correll’s first April/May/June rating average on CBS was 10.4, compared to an 11.5 for the same three months the previous season on NBC. It was the beginning of a dismal four and a half year run for the strip show on CBS before there was light at the end of their ratings tunnel.
Ties That Bind. In the most unusual finish of Network Radio's Golden Age, the 1938-39 Top 50 Rankings contained nine ties, two of them three-way ties. Old friends Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor and Fanny Brice & Frank Morgan tied for sixth place, and ties in the teens involved Bob Hope & Orson Welles, Edward G. Robinson & Fred Allen, Kate Smith & One Man's Family and newsmen Lowell Thomas & Walter Winchell.
Network Radio's Top 50 Programs - 1938-39
C.E. Hooper Monthly Network Reports. Sep 1938 - Jun, 1939.
Total Programs Rated 6-11 PM: 114 Programs Rated 13 Weeks & Ranked: 99.
26,667,000 Radio Homes 79.2% Coverage of US. One Rating Point = 266,700 Homes
1 1 Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy 32.2 Standard/Chase & Sanborn Sun 8:00 60 NBC
2 2 Jack Benny Program 27.7 General Foods/Jello Sun 7:00 30 NBC
3 3 Lux Radio Theater 22.5 Lever Brothers/Lux Mon 9:00 60 CBS
4 4 Bing Crosby’s Kraft Music Hall 21.8 Kraft Cheese Thu 10:00 60 NBC
5 20 Fibber McGee & Molly 17.6 Johnson Wax Tue 9:30 30 NBC
6t 10 Al Jolson Show 17.3 Lever Brothers/Lifebuoy Soap Tue 8:30 30 CBS
6t 5 Eddie Cantor Show 17.3 RJ Reynolds Tobacco/Camel Mon 7:30 30 CBS
6t 11 Good News of 1939 17.3 General Foods/Maxwell House Thu 9:00 60 NBC
9 31 Kay Kyser College of Musical Knowledge 16.9 Lucky Strike Wed 10:00 60 NBC
10 6 Major Bowes Original Amateur Hour 16.6 Chrysler Corp Thu 9:00 60 CBS
11 8 Burns & Allen Show 15.6 Ligget & Myers Tobacco/Chesterfield Fri 8:30 30 CBS
12t N Bob Hope Show 15.4 Pepsodent Toothpaste Tue 10:00 30 NBC
12t N Orson Welles' Campbell Playhouse 15.4 Campbell Soup Fri 9:00 60 CBS
14t 18 Big Town 15.3 Lever Brothers/Rinso Tue 8:00 30 CBS
14t 6 Fred Allen’s Town Hall Tonight 15.3 Bristol Myers Wed 9:00 60 NBC
16t 50 Kate Smith Hour 14.5 General Foods/Swansdown & Calumet Thu 8:00 60 CBS
16t 13 One Man’s Family 14.5 Standard Brands/Tenderleaf Tea Wed 8:00 30 NBC
18 9 Rudy Vallee Show 14.4 Standard Brands/Royal Gelatin Thu 8:00 60 NBC
19t 29 Lowell Thomas News 14.0 Sun Oil M-F 6:45 15 Blue
19t 18 Walter Winchell’s Jergens Journal 14.0 Jergens Lotion Sun 9:30 15 Blue
21 16 Hollywood Hotel 13.7 Campbell Soup Fri 9:00 60 CBS
22 26 Your Hit Parade 13.6 American Tobacco/Lucky Strike Sat 10:00 45 CBS
23 15 Al Pearce's Gang 13.3 General Foods/Grape Nuts Cereals Mon 8:00 30 NBC
24 59 We The People 13.0 General Foods/Sanka Coffee Tue 9:00 30 CBS
25 16 Gangbusters 12.8 Colgate Shave Cream Wed 8:00 30 CBS
26 33 Hollywood Playhouse 12.7 Andrew Jergens/Woodbury Soap Sun 9:00 30 Blue
27 N Fitch Bandwagon 12.6 FW Fitch/Fitch Shampoo Sun 7:30 30 NBC
28 N The Circle 12.3 Kellogg Corn Flakes Sun 10:00 60 NBC
29 21 Amos & Andy 12.1 Campbell Soup M-F 7:00 15 CBS (1)
30 N Joe Penner Show 11.7 General Foods/Huskies Cereal Thu 7:30 30 CBS
31 14 First Nighter 11.5 Campana Sales/Italian Balm Tue 8:30 30 CBS
32 N Tommy Riggs & Betty Lou 11.3 Quaker Oats Sat 8:00 30 NBC
33 25 Dick Powell Show 10.9 Lever Brothers/Lifebuoy Tue 8:30 30 CBS
34 N Jack Pearl & Tommy Dorsey 10.7 Brown & Williamson/Raleigh & Kool Wed 8:30 30 NBC
35t N Guy Lombardo Orch 10.4 Lady Esther Cosmetics Mon 10:00 30 CBS
35t 37 Pick & Pat’s Model Minstrels 10.4 US Tobacco/Model Mon 8:30 30 CBS
37 42 Voice of Firestone 10.1 Firestone Tires Mon 8:30 30 NBC
38 N Ken Murray's Texaco Star Theater 10.0 Texaco Wed 9:00 60 CBS (2)
39 26 Professor Quiz 9.9 Noxzema Skin Cream Sat 8:30 30 CBS
40 N Screen Guild Theater 9.8 Gulf Oil Sun 7:30 30 CBS
41 38 Manhattan Merry Go Round 9.6 Sterling Drug/Dr Lyons Tooth Powder Sun 9:00 30 NBC
42 N Battle of The Sexes 9.5 Sterling Drug/Molle Shaving Cream Tue 9:00 30 NBC
43t N Fred Waring Show 9.4 Grove Laboratories/Bromo QuinineTablets Sat 8:30 30 NBC
43t 46 National Barn Dance 9.4 Miles Laboratories/Alka-Seltzer Sat 9:00 60 Blue
45t 58 American Album of Familiar Music 9.3 Sterling Drug/Bayer Aspirin Sun 9:30 30 NBC
45t 83 Horace Heidt Brigadiers Orch 9.3 Stewart Warner Alemite Sun 10:00 30 NBC
45t 57 Second Husband 9.3 Sterling Drug/Bayer Aspirin Tue 7:30 30 CBS
48t N Edwin C Hill News 9.1 Campbell Soup M-W 7:15 15 NBC
48t 64 Grand Central Station 9.1 Listerine Antiseptic Fri 10:00 30 CBS
48t N Joe E Brown Show 9.1 General Foods/Post Toasties Thu 7:30 30 CBS (3)
(1) Amos & Andy Sep - Mar Campbell Soup M-F 7:00 15 NBC
(2) Texaco Star Theater Oct - Dec Texaco Wed 9:30 60 CBS
(3) Joe E Brown Show Oct - Mar General Foods/Post Toasties Sat 7:30 30 CBS
. This post is in part abridged from Network Radio Ratings, 1932-1953.
Copyright © 2012 & 2019, Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
