BING CROSBY RETURNS TO CBS & THE SEASON'S TOP TEN - ON TAPE.
Going Down!
The 1949-50 Season
18th In A Series
What Goes Up... Network Radio revenues dropped for the first time since 1933.
Competition for the broadcast advertising dollar had become keener with over 2,600 AM and FM stations vying for audience and revenues. The United States spent the first ten months of 1949 in a recession which contributed to the radio industry’s lowest revenue growth rate in eleven years. But at least it grew, which was more than the networks could say.
Television was becoming a serious threat to prime time Network Radio. Over a hundred TV stations were on the air, all siphoning off radio’s nighttime audience. Television’s growing impact helped drive radio’s Top 50 program average rating down 30% in two seasons to its lowest level since 1936-37. When the season ended and audience statistics were tallied, only two Network Radio shows remained with ratings in the 20's - CBS’s Jack Benny on Sunday and Lux Radio Theater on Monday. Just two years earlier, 15 programs had averaged a season’s rating of 20.0 or better.
Meanwhile, the television networks reported a combined income of $29.4 Million. But advertisers were learning that television production costs were much greater than radio. The extra money had to come from somewhere - and radio budgets were the likely source.
Hail To The Thief! Bill Paley’s broad smile was no longer confined to broadcasting trade journals and Manhattan society pages. The CBS Chairman’s grin had spread to the front pages of newspapers and weekly news magazines where he was hailed as “Radio’s Robin Hood” - stealing headline talent from the powerful NBC for his “underdog” network. CBS dominated Sunday’s Top Ten for the first time in a dozen years and did it with programs developed on NBC.
Amos & Andy were the first to succumb to Paley’s capital gains lure in 1947. Then Jack Benny jumped midway in the 1948-49 season. By the 1949-50 season, Edgar Bergen, Red Skelton and Horace Heidt’s Youth Opportunity Program talent show were all Sunday newcomers on CBS from NBC. Only Eve Arden’s sitcom, Our Miss Brooks, was a CBS original in the network‘s Sunday lineup. All six were among Sunday’s Top Ten and the season’s Top 40 programs.
Status Quote. NBC reacted defiantly to the loss of its major comedy stars - Jack Benny, Edgar Bergen, Red Skelton, Burns & Allen and Amos & Andy - to CBS.
Time magazine reported that NBC Executive Vice President Charles Denny flatly told his network’s affiliates in 1949 that NBC would remain the Number One network. “It has the money and the resources to back up its plans,” he said, “And above all it has the resolve to use its money, its experience and its every effort for that purpose.”
His boss, NBC President Nils Trammell told the same group, “Radio can’t be satisfied indefinitely with the same material, the same performers and the same programs.” Vice President of Programs Sid Eiges added, “We have new programs in the works - new shows of all kinds, including comedy.”
That said, it was announced that NBC had signed new multi-year contracts with Bob Hope, Fibber McGee & Molly, Duffy’s Tavern and Phil Harris & Alice Faye - none of whom were hardly new to radio. All four programs suffered significant audience losses in the 1949-50 season and CBS dominated the season’s Top 50 for the first time in nine years producing every month‘s Number One program. Despite the bravado of its executives, NBC never regained its stature as America’s most popular radio network.
Old Friends In New Neighborhoods. Radio listeners had cause for confusion - 15 prime time programs switched networks for the new season. CBS took Bing Crosby and Groucho Marx from ABC to add to its newly acquired Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy, Red Skelton, Burns & Allen, Horace Heidt’s Youth Opportunity Program and The Carnation Contented Hour from NBC. Only Crosby, Marx and Heidt gained audience in their first CBS season.
ABC picked up The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet, A Date With Judy, Blondie and Dr. IQ, all from NBC. All lost ratings in the switch.
The best NBC could do in the shuffle was add Break The Bank, Theater Guild On The Air and The Railroad Hour from ABC, plus The Adventures of Sam Spade and We The People from CBS. All lost audience in their jump to NBC. (1) (See Network Jumpers.)
To Air On The Side of Caution. The Top 50 programs of the season were evidence of network and sponsor reluctance to invest in new radio efforts. Only two “new” programs made the list - Fanny Brice’s Baby Snooks, returning to NBC after a season off the air and Life With Luigi, a sitcom that CBS had broadcast for over a year in search of a sponsor before landing Wrigley Gum which resulted in the show’s first appearance in the ratings. The other seven newcomers to the season’s Top 50 were all veteran programs and personalities with a range of five to 16 years’ experience on the air. All had slipped out of the Top 50 for one or more seasons. (2)
MGM Lion Down On Radio. Against the tide of the networks’ diminished original programming, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer jumped into radio with four new transcribed series intended for syndication. The movie studio led with The MGM Musical Comedy Theater, an hour long anthology similar to Lux Radio Theater featuring adaptations of it past hits and starring its contract players.
MGM followed with three half-hour shows based on its low-budget but highly popular and profitable movie series, Dr. Kildare, The Hardy Family and Maisie.. To insure success of the programs, each series was headlined by their movies’ continuing stars - Lew Ayres and Lionel Barrymore of Kildare, Mickey Rooney and Lewis Stone as Andy Hardy and his father, and Ann Sothern reprised her title role in The Adventures of Maisie.
After initial broadcast on the studio’s WMGM/New York, (formerly and subsequently known as WHN), the programs were offered as syndicated features. But sales to individual stations were dismal in the recessionary year when broadcast advertising revenues were flat. MGM finally farmed out the programs to Mutual where, despite their high production values, they found little audience acceptance. The movie studio abandoned its radio projects in 1952 and reluctantly turned its attention to the production of filmed television programming. (See Radio Goes To The Movies.)
"F" For Effort. The FCC pushed ahead with its proposed limits on giveaway and quiz shows with a year of hearings that most broadcasters and observers considered a kangaroo court. The commission subsequently ruled that effective on October 1, 1949, any broadcast game that offered: 1/ A Prize, and, 2/ Any degree of Chance involved in winning the prize, and, 3/ Any Consideration required from a contestant to become eligible to win the prize, constituted a Lottery and was therefore illegal. Few argued with that classic definition of a lottery - as far as it went.
It was the commission’s new definition of Consideration that was questionable. The term originally meant money changing hands. The FCC ruled that any Effort on the part of a contestant - even the requirement of listening to a specific program - would henceforth be ruled Consideration.
ABC took the lead for the networks and filed suit against the ruling, specifically citing the commission’s far-fetched definition of consideration. A temporary injunction was obtained to stall the edict while the broadcasters prepared to battle with the FCC in court. With the FCC enjoined from stopping them, 16 prime time giveaway and quiz shows were rated and ranked during the 1949-50 season. Six reached the season’s Top 50.
The networks’ fight with the commission dragged on for four years, finally working its way up to the U.S. Supreme Court where the FCC lost an embarrassing unanimous verdict. It was a hollow victory for Network Radio. By that time most of the giveaways had lost their popularity and had left the air.
"Stop Staring At Your Radio!” That command was the advertising slogan used by Earl “Mad Man” Muntz on billboards to sell his low-cost, big picture, (16 to 21 inch), television sets. It was also the message that newly installed NBC-TV chief Pat Weaver sent to NBC’s radio listeners. Both men were marketing geniuses and both had the same motive - to sell television sets.
Muntz - a longtime Los Angeles car dealer whose antics and name were made famous by Hollywood-based radio comedians - sold his stripped-down television sets designed for metropolitan areas where video signals were strong and required fewer tubes in receivers. He wanted a piece of the action dominated by RCA, Admiral, Philco and Motorola who were selling over 2,000 new television sets a day and opened his own stores in major cities.
Weaver - a former American Tobacco and Young & Rubicam advertising executive - was charged by RCA to make television set ownership as desirable as possible and as fast as possible. He moved quickly and NBC became the first network to fully exploit radio’s potential as an attractive programming source for television and a lure for new viewers. NBC-TV adapted or simulcast over a dozen familiar Network Radio titles for television in the 1949-50 season - including the first video version of The Life of Riley, starring a relatively obscure comic actor in the title role, Jackie Gleason.
Besides the Riley sitcom, Weaver’s 1949-50 NBC-TV schedule opened with video versions of The Aldrich Family, The Big Story, Chesterfield Supper Club, Leave It To The Girls, Lights Out, Meet The Press, The Life of Riley, The Original Amateur Hour, The Quiz Kids and We The People. In addition, NBC simulcast three of its Network Radio series - The Voice of Firestone, Cities Service Band of America and Break The Bank, plus a video version of ABC’s Friday night boxing bouts, The Gillette Cavalcade of Sports. The 17 programs amounted to 38% of NBC-TV’s 25 ½ hours of prime time service in 1949-50.
Weaver’s use of familiar radio properties to fill his television schedule would spread to ABC and CBS the following season. CBS scheduled only five radio-to-television conversions in 1949-50. It continued to simulcast Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts, and debuted television versions of The Goldbergs and Suspense. It also packaged radio veterans Ed Wynn and Fred Waring in new television formats. ABC telecast video versions of Stop The Music! and Blind Date while the small DuMont network picked up Famous Jury Trials and The Fishing & Hunting Club of The Air.
Programs made popular on radio were responsible for 15 hours of the television networks’ 65½ hours of weekly prime time programming in the 1949-50 season. Meanwhile, boxing, wrestling and Roller Derby accounted for 14 hours.
Ford Motors Into 1950. Ford Motors began January with one of the most unique time buys in Network Radio history. To promote its 1950 models to the country emerging from a recession, Ford bought the sponsorship of 23 sustaining programs on CBS and Mutual for two weeks. Among the familiar titles were Can You Top This, Blondie, Lum & Abner, Escape, The Saint, Hawaii Calls, Philip Marlow and Peter Salem. The automaker repeated the stunt later in the month with five otherwise sustaining television programs.
The month-long blitz, carrying a combined cost of $500,000, was an early example of an advertiser buying prime time Network Radio and TV like local media - to specifically coordinate with marketing campaigns of limited duration. It was a sign of things to come as advertisers began to abandon sponsoring entire programs and the networks reacted by offering time in increments of 30 and 60 second spots.
An Apple for Eve The Teacher. Eve Arden was 40 in 1948 and had plugged along in radio just as she had in the movies - mostly in supporting roles to the stars. She won an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress for her role in 1945‘s Mildred Pierce.
The beautiful redhead had three seasons as co-star of NBC’s Sealtest Village Store when she was offered the lead in the CBS sitcom, Our Miss Brooks, the lovesick high school English teacher with a warm heart, sharp wit and snappy comebacks.
Our Miss Brooks debuted by transcription on the CBS Monday schedule in July, 1948, as a summer replacement for half of Lux Radio Theater’s time period. Two months later the show took its first full season spot on the network at 9:30 on Sundays. But 1948-49 was an uphill season for the sitcom as it suffered from the weak lead-in provided by actress Helen Hayes’ dramatic anthology series, The Electric Theater. With the revamped CBS Sunday schedule of 1949-50, Our Miss Brooks was moved back to 6:30 where it became the lead-in to Jack Benny. The sitcom broke into Sunday’s Top Ten and the season’s Top 50, beginning its four year climb to the annual Top Ten among all prime time programs. (See Our Miss Arden.)
What’s Missing? Five programs from the Sunday Top Ten of the previous season were gone from the 1949-50 list. Without Jack Benny’s lead-in, Phil Harris & Alice Faye lost nearly 40% of their NBC audience. Edgar Bergen and Red Skelton did what the FCC couldn’t do - they shut down ABC’s Stop The Music! The giveaway show lost 40% of its ratings against the CBS tandem of comedians, dropping from 18th to 57th place in the season’s rankings.
NBC acquired The Adventures of Sam Spade from CBS and scheduled it opposite Bergen. The private eye series lost 25% of its audience and sank into single digit ratings. NBC lost Fred Allen to retirement and Manhattan Merry Go Round was cancelled after its 16 years of sponsorship by Sterling Drug’s Dr. Lyons Tooth Powder.
Less Moore Is More Less. Another missing Sunday star was Garry Moore. Eversharp replaced the young comic as host of NBC’s Take It Or Leave It by Eddie Cantor. Cantor found himself out of place as an ad-libbing quiz master, bantering with contestants. He left at the end of the season while Moore moved into an hour long weekday variety show on CBS and eventually became one of the network’s most enduring prime time television personalities..
Hollywood Crawling. NBC wasn’t going to take the loss of Jack Benny lying down - it was determined to get even. To do the job the network called in Louis Cowan, whose Stop The Music! was credited with driving NBC’s Fred Allen off the air earlier in the year. The king of giveaways was commissioned to design a new show with glamour, excitement, polish and prizes that would make Benny sorry he ever jumped to CBS.
Hollywood Calling had the glamour of Hollywood guest stars hosted by veteran actor George Murphy, the excitement of a game for listeners at home, the polish of a 35 piece orchestra and chorus, and a jackpot of prizes worth over $30,000. What it didn’t have were listeners.
NBC and Gruen Watches debuted the big hour-long production on Sundays at 6:30 p.m. in mid-July - designed to build an audience during Benny’s summer vacation. But neither NBC nor Cowan had anticipated the overkill that some 30 combined daytime and prime time network quiz and giveaway shows had created. Hollywood Calling was an expensive flop. When it was cancelled, the lavish giveaway show crawled in with a December rating of 4.2. Jack Benny, who gave his listeners nothing but laughs, scored a 25.4 during the same month.
A Sudden Death Loss. Carnation’s Contented Hour hadn’t scored a double digit rating since 1935. Yet it had been a constant source of NBC revenue for 18 years. With singing host Buddy Clark, musical guest stars and Percy Faith’s large studio orchestra, it was a well produced and profitable half hour. CBS pursued the program as an extra gotcha to the NBC balance sheet and convinced the evaporated milk company to switch networks for the 1949-50 season.
The Carnation Contented Hour was scheduled to debut on CBS at 10:00 on Sunday, October 2nd. But on the evening of Saturday, October 1st, Buddy Clark, 37, was killed in a private plane crash when returning to Los Angeles from the Stanford-Michigan football game at Palo Alto. The first CBS broadcast of the show was cancelled.
Singers Tony Martin and Jo Stafford took over Contented Hour the following week. During the following months, Doris Day, Dick Haymes and Jack Smith were among a parade of singers who appeared on the show. Stafford became its permanent hostess in March, co-starring with Haymes for the rest of the season. Contented Hour finished the season with a 6.8 rating, nearly 40% less than the audience of Eddie Cantor’s Take It Or Leave It on NBC. But with Jo Stafford as its star, the show began to build a pop music fan following that resulted in a Top 50 finish two years later.
Godfrey Cranks Up His Volume. Arthur Godfrey was reported to be the highest paid CBS talent at $420,000 a year. The network depended on Godfrey to carry over seven hours of its radio programming every week - 75 minutes every weekday mid-morning for its highly profitable Arthur Godfrey Time, plus Monday’s half hour radio/television simulcast of Talent Scouts and the new Godfrey Digest, 30 minutes of taped highlights from the week’s morning shows broadcast on Saturday night. In addition, CBS-TV added the hour-long Arthur Godfrey & His Friends variety show to its Wednesday prime time schedule. At a little over a thousand dollars an hour, CBS got a bargain in Godfrey because Procter & Gamble reportedly paid Lowell Thomas over $400,000 a year for his five 15 minute newscasts a week. (See Arthur Godfrey.)
Monday’s Musical Money Machine. Except for its newcomer from ABC, The Railroad Hour, NBC was shut out of Monday’s Top Ten - and cried all the way to the bank. The network had its long running string of three high class, low-rated concerts which all were prestigious showcases for their loyal sponsors and reliable sources of income for the network. (See The Railroad Hour.)
The Telephone Hour was in its tenth of 18 seasons on NBC’s Monday schedule. The Voice of Firestone had been a Monday fixture for 18 of an eventual 22 seasons and was simulcast on NBC-TV beginning in 1949. Cities Service Band of America was the latest variation of the petroleum company’s weekly concerts that NBC had broadcast since 1927. All three were beaten in the ratings by a ratio of three or four to one against the powerful CBS Monday block. But NBC realized that if the night had to be written off, it was best to do it with black ink instead of red.
There's Hope For Television. Bob Hope’s Tuesday night radio ratings for the season had dropped his annual ranking to tenth place - the lowest point in a dozen years. Yet, television’s biggest event of the season was NBC-TV’s 90 minute Easter Sunday special, Bob Hope’s Star Spangled Revue. The unparalleled popularity of Hope’s occasional TV specials and his continually strong movie box office appeal indicated that the comedian’s weakened radio ratings could be blamed on the general decline of Network Radio.
After a dozen years of his selling Pepsodent Tooth Paste and Swan Soap, Lever Brothers cancelled Hope’s series at the end of the season. But Hope wasn’t about to give up the radio show that pumped nearly $35,000 a week into his production company. Radio continued to be a profit center for Hope for another seven years - by which time he had become television’s top attraction.
An Eye On Miss Ryan. Irene Noblette Ryan is the least remembered of Bob Hope’s female stooges. Ironically, she became the most famous and wealthiest of the string that included Virginia (Honey Chile) Wilder in the 1930's and Barbara Jo Allen as Vera Vague during the war years. Irene Ryan replaced Allen’s man-hungry Vague character in 1948. Her mousy Miss Ryan character told Hope week after week that she was, “Feeling about as well as could be expected,” before launching into a string of hypochondriac jokes.
Irene Noblette and husband Tim Ryan went into radio in 1933 after a vaudeville and minor movie career doing a Burns & Allen type of “Dumb Dora” act. They kept busy in radio for ten years, four of them as stars of their own shows, including 1937's Royal Crown Revue. After their divorce in 1943, Irene kept the Ryan name and worked in some 20 low budget movie comedies and shorts plus occasional radio roles. While with Hope’s troupe she continued her screen work and drifted into occasional television roles in the 1950's.
In 1962, at age 60 and ready to retire as a relative unknown, Irene Ryan was cast as “Granny” Daisy Mae Moses in a new television sitcom, The Beverly Hillbillies. The show was an immediate hit that endured for nine seasons on CBS-TV. In 1972, when she was 70, she co-starred on Broadway in the musical hit Peppin. She collapsed on stage a year later and died of a stroke, leaving a million dollars to the Irene Ryan Foundation which provides scholarships to collegiate acting students. Irene Ryan is a forgotten voice of Network Radio who remains fondly remembered in the annals of television and theater.
Naughty Girl’s Nice Numbers. Fanny Brice returned from her year’s sabbatical to join the NBC Tuesday lineup for Tums sponsorship. The 58 year old star’s comeback- limited to 26 weeks to conserve her strength - was a roaring success. The Baby Snooks sitcom finished in the season’s Top 20, Brice’s highest ranking in five years. With renewed strength and confidence she planned an extended nine month season the following year. But fate would have another idea. (See Baby Snooks.)
Fad Fades Fast. Another sign that the giveaway fad was fading was the 35% drop in audience suffered by the Mark Goodson/Bill Todman production, Hit The Jackpot, hosted by 29 year old Bill Cullen on CBS Tuesday nights. The program wasn’t helped by news reports about one of the show’s big winners of a jackpot with an announced value of $28,000. Selling his prizes for cash to pay taxes on the loot, the “lucky” winner could on get 25 cents on the dollar - before taxes. The bad ratings and bad press prompted Chrysler to cancel Hit The Jackpot in December.
Crosby’s Tape Measured First. CBS pulled even with NBC in Wednesday’s Top Ten for the first time in nine years by adding two hits lifted from ABC and a third from NBC. Bing Crosby’s tape recorded show for Chesterfield cigarettes topped his ABC ratings by 25% and vaulted him back into the season’s Top Ten. He also gave CBS its first Number One show on Wednesday since Eddie Cantor in 1937-38. It was the breakthrough that the networks had insisted for years would never happen - Crosby’s recorded program had achieved the popularity that only live performances were supposed to reach.
Groucho Marx’s You Bet Your Life - also recorded and highly edited - gained almost 25% more audience in its switch from ABC to CBS. Groucho was right on Crosby’s heels in second place with the highest rating the comedian ever scored as a solo act. Marx pulled what was considered an upset when his comedy quiz attracted nearly 50% more audience in its time period than NBC’s big money quiz, Break The Bank. (See The One, The Only…Groucho!)
The third show stolen by CBS for its Wednesday lineup was in its final Network Radio season by design. Burns & Allen, newly arrived from four seasons on NBC, had worked steadily in prime time series since 1932. They said goodbye to their listeners in May, 1950, and returned five months later to CBS-TV where George and Gracie’s sitcom would be a popular fixture for another eight years.
First Nighter’s First Cousin. First Nighter left the air with live productions in October. But listeners didn’t have to go far for their weekly “theater experience”. Curtain Time was a carbon copy of First Nighter’s format and setting. It had been open for business on NBC since 1946 after a short run on ABC. The half hour anthology of light dramas with permanent co-stars Harry Elders and Nanette Sargent was introduced every week by host Patrick Allen guiding listeners to their “seats” accompanied by the realistic sounds of a theater preparing for the evening’s performance. Curtain Time delivered two Top 50 seasons for Mars Candy on Wednesday night before leaving the air in March, 1950.
Champagne On A Beer Budget. For many years Pabst Blue Ribbon was the only beer with any advertising presence on Network Radio. In 1949, Pabst’s Milwaukee neighbor, Miller Brewing, took its first steps as a network advertiser for its featured product, Miller Hi-Life, “The Champagne of Bottled Beer.” The brewer sponsored the “Champagne Music” of Lawrence Welk’s popular Chicago based dance band for a two year run on ABC at 10:00 p.m Wednesdays. Welk’s champagne went flat its first season with a 1.6 rating and didn’t do much better in its second year at 2.3. Welk left Chicago for the West Coast in 1951 and re-emerged on ABC-TV in 1955, where his weekly dance parties became a highly-rated 16 year fixture, followed by an eleven years as successful syndicated series.
The Family Hour. When Kraft Music Hall with summertime host Nelson Eddy quietly left the air in September after its 16 year run, General Foods became the only major food sponsor on NBC’s Thursday night schedule. It countered the top rated CBS wave of crime programs at 8:00 p.m. with two family sitcoms. One had been king of radio’s popular teen comedies of the early 1940's. The other was a series that would become the stereotype for 1950's family values.
The Aldrich Family had been a prime time staple for General Foods since 1939. The company also sponsored a separately cast video version of The Aldrich Family on NBC TV’s Sunday night schedule. But the radio show’s ratings had tumbled since 1946 when it was Friday’s Number One program on CBS. Nevertheless, it was still a strong entry with a loyal following. (See The Aldrich Family.)
Meanwhile, longtime Hollywood star Robert Young, 41, made his radio series debut with Father Knows Best. At first, the show was a cookie-cutter sitcom that portrayed father as a bumbling fathead. But as the series evolved into a more realistic reflection of Young’s movie persona and postwar family life, it developed an audience who related to it and became a Top 20 program within two years. Both The Aldrich Family and Father Knows Best lost their time periods to CBS crime melodramas but remained within Thursday’s Top Ten. However, both finished outside the season’s Top 50 for the first and only times of their Network Radio runs.
The Aldrich Family was seen for four so-so seasons on television while Young moved Father Knows Best to television with a new supporting cast in 1954 and became the icon of wise and patient fatherhood for six successful seasons.
Discs Don’t Fly. CBS won the night with scripted drama, leading the competition from 8:00 until 10:00 by a sizable margin. But 10:30 was a different matter. When Campana cancelled First Nighter in October, CBS allowed the program and its double digit ratings to disappear. For two months the network filled the timeslot with Pursuit, a much traveled sustaining series. However, the 11.9 rating delivered by Hallmark Playhouse as a lead-in to the 10:30 timeslot became attractive to Best Foods, the manufacturer of Skippy Peanut Butter. Best Foods had sponsored producer C.P. MacGregor’s transcribed series, Skippy Hollywood Theater and syndicated it to local stations since 1941 - when recorded programming was rejected by NBC and CBS. But times had changed by 1949 and the networks were hungry.
CBS gladly sold its 10:30 half hour to Best Foods for Skippy’s polished transcribed series featuring top film stars. But Skippy Hollywood Theater lost 40% of First Nighter’s audience and became the only CBS series of the night to lose its time period. The time period was won by a new and different crime series on NBC, Dragnet.
Friday Begins On Thursday. World War II veteran Jack Webb was 29 with only four years of San Francisco radio experience when he recreated his popular ABC/West Coast regional network character, Pat Novak For Hire, on the full ABC network in February, 1949. The private detective series ran on a sustaining and co-op basis for six months while Webb moonlighted, preparing a series of his own creation called Dragnet. His new police drama was picked up by NBC in June, 1949, and roamed the network schedule over the summer, gathering listeners and critical acclaim. It attracted the sponsorship of Liggett & Myers’ Fatima Cigarettes in October and was slotted on Thursday at 10:30 p.m.
Dragnet was an original. Produced in cooperation with the Los Angeles Police Department, its terse realism and underplayed dialog stood out in a field of melodramatic crime fighters who populated the dial on Thursday, led by the night’s Number One show, Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons. Webb and his co-star Barton Yarborough were supported by Hollywood’s top radio actors. All were on their way to establishing Dragnet as one of Network Radio’s last great series of the Golden Age. (See Jack Webb’s Dragnet.)
Duffy’s Taberna. Ed Gardner moved Duffy’s Tavern to Puerto Rico - literally. The sitcom’s creator/producer/star with three Top 15 seasons on NBC’s Wednesday night schedule to his credit, Gardner took advantage of Puerto Rico’s generous tax breaks to establish residency and a production company on the island. He packed up his cast and crew and moved to San Juan in 1949. They recorded Duffy’s Tavern every week for shipment back to New York and broadcast in a new NBC Thursday timeslot. at 9:30, pitted against Casey, Crime Photographer, in the heart of CBS’s two hour block of hit mysteries.
But Gardner faced a bigger problem he hadn’t considered in his move to the Caribbean. Duffy’s Tavern storylines were based on each week’s big name guest star. Persuading busy film and radio stars to interrupt their schedules for the long trip to Puerto Rico - over a thousand miles from Miami - was almost impossible. As a result, Wednesday’s Number One show of 1948-49 lost over half its audience and became a Thursday also-ran in 1949-50, dropping in the season’s rankings from eleventh to 69th place. Duffy’s Tavern left the air a year later. (See Duffy Ain’t Here.)
ABC Wins & Everybody Loses. ABC had reason to celebrate on Fridays. For the very first time since its 1927 inception as NBC‘s Blue Network, it placed five programs in a night’s Top Ten. And for the first time since its Blue Network days in 1933-34, ABC won a night outright. (4)
But Network Radio’s total ratings for the night were more a cause for concern than celebration. For the first time in ratings history, the average rating for a night’s Top Ten dropped below double digits to 9.8. Unfortunately for the networks, the single digit average wasn’t an aberration, it was the beginning of a trend.
CBS Leaves Joan Alone. Except for Procter & Gamble’s two successful strip shows, Beulah and Jack Smith’s quarter hour songfests, CBS had just one program in Friday’s Top Ten. Joan Davis reemerged with a new sitcom, Leave It To Joan, for a six week summer run as vacation fill-in for half of Lux Radio Theater. For the fall season her show was given a questionable placement by American Tobacco’s Lucky Strike and Pall Mall cigarettes.
Leave It To Joan was scheduled opposite two other sitcoms at 9:00 - NBC’s Life of Riley and The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet, newly arrived on ABC from a year on NBC. Although Riley was moved up to 10:00 at mid-season, it was an uphill battle for the comedienne. Leave It To Joan left the air in March. Davis filled in for My Friend Irma during the following summer and then retired from series radio. She had better luck with television and a three year run of I Married Joan, NBC TV’s knock-off of I Love Lucy beginning in 1952.
Movie Magic: A Disappearing Act. With Red Skelton’s defection to CBS and Eddie Cantor’s departure to host Sunday’s Take It Or Leave It, NBC lost two of Friday’s Top Ten shows from the previous season. The network temporarily plugged Skelton’s 9:00 timeslot with The Life of Riley and moved Jimmy Durante’s Camel cigarettes show up to 9:30, while it honed a major new Friday effort, Screen Directors’ Playhouse - a program that could have been a uniquely big hit ten years earlier. But when Playhouse debuted in January, the concept of major Hollywood stars appearing in 30 minute adaptations of familiar movies was simply too little, too late. Although the program was critically praised for its scripts, acting and production values, Screen Directors’ Playhouse never made it into a season’s Top 50.
Gang Busts Up Parade. When Frank Sinatra left Your Hit Parade the show lost 25% of its audience. It was exactly the opening that Gangbusters needed to win Saturday’s 9:00 p.m. time period. The ratings boost back into double digits propelled Phillips H. Lord’s weekly shootout back into the season’s Top 50 for the first time in two years. As Hit Parade continued to lose audience, Gangbusters increased its ratings advantage even further. Lucky Strike eventually moved its long running Saturday countdown of the week‘s hits to NBC’s Thursday schedule and out of competition with the crime series in 1951. By the 1952-53 season, Gangbusters again became Saturday’s Number One program - a position it hadn’t held for 13 seasons.
Edwards Puts His Show On The Map. Ralph Edwards opened the Truth Or Conse-quences season with another big money, secret identity contest. “The Laughing Boy” was correctly identified in late October as Milton Berle by a Milwaukee housewife who won $2,500. Nevertheless, the show’s ratings were off over 30%. To celebrate his program’s tenth anniversary - and spike its sagging ratings - Edwards immortalized Truth Or Consequences with a unique offer. He promised to originate a broadcast of his show from any village, town or city that would permanently rename itself Truth Or Consequences. (5)
To everyone’s surprise - except perhaps the crafty Edwards - the voters of Hot Springs, New Mexico, voted to do exactly that by a margin of 1300 to 300. Protests were filed by irate Hot Springs residents and another election was conducted. The name change was upheld by another four to one vote. True to his word, Edwards brought Truth Or Consequences to the renamed Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico, in April - and kept returning for an annual civic celebration for the next 50 years. (See Truth Or Consequences.)
Listeners Hear More Seymour. Dan Seymour’s voice was familiar to millions. (6) The season’s host of We The People had been a first-call network announcer since 1938 when he read the disclaimers that nobody seemed to hear on Orson Welles’ War of The Worlds broadcast. He’d worked a number of programs since, becoming best known as Danny, the weekday announcer and daily visitor to the kitchen of Aunt Jenny, where the kindly matron spun her Real Life Stories while invariably baking or frying with Lever Brothers’ Spry Shortening. The show was steady work for Seymour for 19 years.
Not so steady was Sing It Again, a Saturday night CBS knock-off of Stop The Music! hosted by Seymour that dangled a jackpot prize worth at least $1,000 to its listeners each week, topping off at a $28,000 peak. Sing It Again was scheduled opposite NBC’s “hick hour” of Judy Canova’s sitcom and The Grand Ole Opry. The CBS show produced a respectable 8.2 rating in its first rated season but fell to a 5.4 over the following year and was cancelled. But Dan Seymour - did all right for himself. He began moonlighting from radio in 1949 when he joined the radio/television department of Young & Rubicam Advertising. That began a quarter century career that eventually led him to becoming Chairman of The Board of J. Walter Thompson Advertising in 1972.
Arthur After Hours. CBS forgot about any restrictions against recorded programming when it scheduled The Arthur Godfrey Digest, taped highlights of the star’s weekday morning show edited into a half hour package. The network was obviously unconcerned about any overexposure of Godfrey - and with good reason. Opposite Saturday’s Number One program, A Day In The Life of Dennis Day, Godfrey’s taped compilation trailed in the ratings by 38% but still finished in the night’s Top Ten - and more importantly to CBS, made money. (See Arthur Godfrey.)
Sinatra’s Ratings Go Up In Smoke. Liggett & Myers moved Perry Como’s Chesterfield Supper Club to NBC-TV, opening the door for American Tobacco to obtain the 7:00 quarter hour on NBC Radio. American pulled Frank Sinatra off Lucky Strike’s Your Hit Parade and installed him as singing host of Light Up Time.
Sinatra’s movie career at MGM had peaked with the 1949 release of hit musicals Take Me Out To The Ballgame and On The Town, both co-starring Gene Kelly. But his outspoken political activities and stormy personal life were fodder for tabloid headlines that soured his once adoring bobby-sox fans. Compounding the problem, Met Opera soprano Dorothy Kirsten was made Sinatra’s Light Up Time co-star. (7) The pairing didn’t work. Light Up Time lost 30% of Como’s Supper Club ratings and nearly 60% of the audience Sinatra enjoyed on Your Hit Parade. The show was cancelled at the end of the season.
Meanwhile, top selling record artists were doing nicely on their CBS strips. Procter & Gamble’s Jack Smith added Dinah Shore and Margaret Whiting to his cast while Campbell Soups loaded its Club 15 at 7:30 with hit makers Dick Haymes, The Andrew Sisters, Evelyn Knight and the Modernaires. (See Multiple Runs All Time Top Ten.)
(1) NBC also landed Fanny Brice’s Baby Snooks sitcom, last heard on CBS before her 18 month sabbatical for health reasons. Brice also lost ratings from her 1947-48 season, but because of the general downtrend, she moved up from 28th to 16th in the 1949-50 rankings.
(2) Returning from the ratings basement to the 1949-50 Top 50 were Dr. Christian, Gangbusters, Horace Heidt’s Youth Opportunity Program, The Jimmy Durante Show, The Lone Ranger, Our Miss Brooks and Take It Or Leave It.
(3) First Nighter's lead actress, Barbara Luddy, retired from series radio after 16 years with the show and became a featured voice for Walt Disney’s animated features. Her co-star, Olan Soule, went into movie and television work.
(4) ABC’s Top Ten shows on Friday were The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet, The Fat Man, The Lone Ranger, The Sheriff and This Is Your FBI.
(5) Towns with changed names because of radio programs goes back to 1936 when Waters, Arkansas, renamed itself Pine Ridge after the fictional locale of Lum & Abner.
(6) Radio’s Dan Seymour is not to be confused with the movie character actor of the same name.
(7) This quirky casting move by Lucky Strike is similar to its replacing Sinatra with opera star Lawrence Tibbett as singing host of Your Hit Parade in 1945.
Top 50 Network Programs - 1949-50
C.E. Hooper Semi-Monthly Reports, Sept 1949 - Feb 1950
& A.C. Nielsen Radio Index Serv, Mar 1950 - June 1950
Total Programs Rated, 6-11 PM: 182 Programs Rated 13 Weeks & Ranked: 136.
39,300,000 Radio Homes 94.8% Coverage of US. One Rating Point = 393,000 Homes
1 1 Lux Radio Theater 22.3 Lever Bros/Lux Soap Mon 9:00 60 CBS
2 3 Jack Benny Program 20.7 American Tobacco/Lucky Strike Sun 7:00 30 CBS
3 5 Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts 18.4 Lever Bros/Lipton Tea Mon 8:30 30 CBS
4 2 Fibber McGee & Molly 17.7 Johnson Wax Tue 9:30 30 NBC
5 8 My Friend Irma 17.4 Lever Bros/Pepsodent Toothpaste Mon 10:00 30 CBS
6 4 Walter Winchell’s Journal 16.3 Jergens/Richard Hudnut Cosmetics Sun 9:00 15 ABC
7 5 Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy 16.0 Coca Cola Sun 8:00 30 CBS
8 40 Bing Crosby Show 15.8 Liggett & Myers/Chesterfield Cigarettes Wed 9:30 30 CBS
9 10 Amos & Andy 15.7 Rexall Drug Stores Sun 7:30 30 CBS
10 7 Bob Hope Show 15.0 Lever Bros/Swan Soap Tue 9:00 30 NBC
11 46 Groucho Marx You Bet Your Life 14.9 Chrysler/DeSoto & Plymouth Wed 9:00 30 CBS (1)
12 15 Mr Keen 13.9 American Home Products/Kolynos Toothpaste Thu 7:30 30 CBS
13 9 People Are Funny 13.7 Brown & Williamson/Raleigh Cigarettes Tue 10:30 30 NBC
14 25 Red Skelton Show 13.5 Procter & Gamble/Tide Laundry Detergent Sun 8:30 30 CBS
15 44 Mr Chameleon 13.4 Sterling Drug/Bayer Aspirin Wed 8:00 30 CBS
16t N Fanny Brice Baby Snooks Show 13.3 Lewis & Howe/Tums Tue 8:30 30 NBC
16t 18 Mystery Theater 13.3 Sterling Drug/Bayer Aspirin Tue 8:00 30 CBS
16t 13 Suspense 13.3 Autolite Spark Plugs Thu 9:00 30 CBS
19t 26 Bob Hawk Show 13.0 RJ Reynolds/Camel Cigarettes Mon 10:30 30 CBS
19t 20 Inner Sanctum 13.0 Emerson Drug/Bromo Seltzer Mon 8:00 30 CBS
21 16 Casey, Crime Photographer 12.9 Philip Morris Cigarettes Thu 9:30 30 CBS
22 21 Big Town 12.7 Lever Bros/Lifeboy Soap Tue 10:00 30 NBC
23 22 A Day In The Life of Dennis Day 12.6 Colgate/Lustre Creme Shampoo Sat 9:30 30 NBC
24t 33 Great Gildersleeve 12.5 Kraft Foods/Parkay Margarine Wed 8:30 30 NBC
24t 12 Mister District Attorney 12.5 Bristol Myers/Vitalis Hair Tonic Wed 9:30 30 NBC
26t 22 The FBI In Peace & War 12.3 Procter & Gamble/Lava Hand Soap Thu 8:00 30 CBS
26t 30 Mr & Mrs North 12.3 Colgate Palmolive/Halo Shampoo Tue 8:30 30 CBS
28t 34 The Big Story 12.2 American Tobacco/Pall Mall Cigarettes Wed 10:00 30 NBC
28t 61 Horace Heidt Youth Oppty Show 12.2 Philip Morris Cigarettes Sun 9:30 30 CBS
30t 37 Burns & Allen Show 12.0 Pycopay Tooth Powder Wed 10:00 30 CBS
30t 27 Judy Canova Show 12.0 Colgate Dental Cream Sat 10:00 30 NBC
32t 30 The Fat Man 11.9 Pepto Bismol Fri 8:00 30 ABC
32t 48 Hallmark Playhouse 11.9 Hallmark Cards Thu 10:00 30 CBS
32t N Life With Luigi 11.9 Wrigley Chewing Gum Tue 9:00 30 CBS
35 22 This Is Your FBI 11.8 Equitable Life Assurance Fri 8:30 30 ABC
36 75 Gangbusters 11.5 General Foods/Grape Nuts Cereal Sat 9:00 30 CBS
37 30 Truth Or Consequences 11.4 Procter & Gamble/Duz Laundry Soap Sat 8:30 30 NBC
38t 52 Dr. Christian 11.3 Vaseline Wed 8:30 30 CBS
38t 49 Curtain Time 11.3 Mars Candy Wed 10:30 30 NBC
40 56 Our Miss Brooks 11.0 Colgate Palmolive/Lustre Creme Shampoo Sun 6:30 30 CBS
41 51 Take It Or Leave It 10.9 Eversharp Pens & Pencils Sun 10:00 30 NBC
42 29 Your Hit Parade 10.4 American Tobacco/Lucky Strike Sat 9:00 30 NBC
43 38 Break The Bank 10.3 Bristol Myers/Vitalis Hair Tonic Wed 9:00 30 NBC
44 27 The Life of Riley 10.2 Pabst Beer Fri 10:00 30 NBC
45 34 Louella Parsons 10.1 Jergens/Jergens Lotion & Woodbury Soap Sun 9:15 15 ABC
46 52 The Lone Ranger 10.0 General Mills/Cheerios Cereal M-W-F 7:30 30 ABC
47 67 Jimmy Durante Show 9.9 RJ Reynolds/Camel Cigarettes Fri 9:30 30 NBC
48t 69 Beulah 9.8 Prcter & Gamble/Dreft Laundry Soap M-F 7:00 15 CBS
48t 46 Theater Guild On The Air 9.8 US Steel Sun 8:30 60 NBC
50t 40 Adventures of Sam Spade 9.6 Wildroot Cream Oil Sun 8:00 30 NBC
50t 17 Phil Harris &Alice Faye Show 9.6 Rexall Drug Stores Sun 7:30 30 NBC
(1) You Bet Your Life/Groucho Marx Oct - Dec Elgin-American Wed 9:00 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 1949-50 Season
18th In A Series
What Goes Up... Network Radio revenues dropped for the first time since 1933.
Competition for the broadcast advertising dollar had become keener with over 2,600 AM and FM stations vying for audience and revenues. The United States spent the first ten months of 1949 in a recession which contributed to the radio industry’s lowest revenue growth rate in eleven years. But at least it grew, which was more than the networks could say.
Television was becoming a serious threat to prime time Network Radio. Over a hundred TV stations were on the air, all siphoning off radio’s nighttime audience. Television’s growing impact helped drive radio’s Top 50 program average rating down 30% in two seasons to its lowest level since 1936-37. When the season ended and audience statistics were tallied, only two Network Radio shows remained with ratings in the 20's - CBS’s Jack Benny on Sunday and Lux Radio Theater on Monday. Just two years earlier, 15 programs had averaged a season’s rating of 20.0 or better.
Meanwhile, the television networks reported a combined income of $29.4 Million. But advertisers were learning that television production costs were much greater than radio. The extra money had to come from somewhere - and radio budgets were the likely source.
Hail To The Thief! Bill Paley’s broad smile was no longer confined to broadcasting trade journals and Manhattan society pages. The CBS Chairman’s grin had spread to the front pages of newspapers and weekly news magazines where he was hailed as “Radio’s Robin Hood” - stealing headline talent from the powerful NBC for his “underdog” network. CBS dominated Sunday’s Top Ten for the first time in a dozen years and did it with programs developed on NBC.
Amos & Andy were the first to succumb to Paley’s capital gains lure in 1947. Then Jack Benny jumped midway in the 1948-49 season. By the 1949-50 season, Edgar Bergen, Red Skelton and Horace Heidt’s Youth Opportunity Program talent show were all Sunday newcomers on CBS from NBC. Only Eve Arden’s sitcom, Our Miss Brooks, was a CBS original in the network‘s Sunday lineup. All six were among Sunday’s Top Ten and the season’s Top 40 programs.
Status Quote. NBC reacted defiantly to the loss of its major comedy stars - Jack Benny, Edgar Bergen, Red Skelton, Burns & Allen and Amos & Andy - to CBS.
Time magazine reported that NBC Executive Vice President Charles Denny flatly told his network’s affiliates in 1949 that NBC would remain the Number One network. “It has the money and the resources to back up its plans,” he said, “And above all it has the resolve to use its money, its experience and its every effort for that purpose.”
His boss, NBC President Nils Trammell told the same group, “Radio can’t be satisfied indefinitely with the same material, the same performers and the same programs.” Vice President of Programs Sid Eiges added, “We have new programs in the works - new shows of all kinds, including comedy.”
That said, it was announced that NBC had signed new multi-year contracts with Bob Hope, Fibber McGee & Molly, Duffy’s Tavern and Phil Harris & Alice Faye - none of whom were hardly new to radio. All four programs suffered significant audience losses in the 1949-50 season and CBS dominated the season’s Top 50 for the first time in nine years producing every month‘s Number One program. Despite the bravado of its executives, NBC never regained its stature as America’s most popular radio network.
Old Friends In New Neighborhoods. Radio listeners had cause for confusion - 15 prime time programs switched networks for the new season. CBS took Bing Crosby and Groucho Marx from ABC to add to its newly acquired Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy, Red Skelton, Burns & Allen, Horace Heidt’s Youth Opportunity Program and The Carnation Contented Hour from NBC. Only Crosby, Marx and Heidt gained audience in their first CBS season.
ABC picked up The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet, A Date With Judy, Blondie and Dr. IQ, all from NBC. All lost ratings in the switch.
The best NBC could do in the shuffle was add Break The Bank, Theater Guild On The Air and The Railroad Hour from ABC, plus The Adventures of Sam Spade and We The People from CBS. All lost audience in their jump to NBC. (1) (See Network Jumpers.)
To Air On The Side of Caution. The Top 50 programs of the season were evidence of network and sponsor reluctance to invest in new radio efforts. Only two “new” programs made the list - Fanny Brice’s Baby Snooks, returning to NBC after a season off the air and Life With Luigi, a sitcom that CBS had broadcast for over a year in search of a sponsor before landing Wrigley Gum which resulted in the show’s first appearance in the ratings. The other seven newcomers to the season’s Top 50 were all veteran programs and personalities with a range of five to 16 years’ experience on the air. All had slipped out of the Top 50 for one or more seasons. (2)
MGM Lion Down On Radio. Against the tide of the networks’ diminished original programming, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer jumped into radio with four new transcribed series intended for syndication. The movie studio led with The MGM Musical Comedy Theater, an hour long anthology similar to Lux Radio Theater featuring adaptations of it past hits and starring its contract players.
MGM followed with three half-hour shows based on its low-budget but highly popular and profitable movie series, Dr. Kildare, The Hardy Family and Maisie.. To insure success of the programs, each series was headlined by their movies’ continuing stars - Lew Ayres and Lionel Barrymore of Kildare, Mickey Rooney and Lewis Stone as Andy Hardy and his father, and Ann Sothern reprised her title role in The Adventures of Maisie.
After initial broadcast on the studio’s WMGM/New York, (formerly and subsequently known as WHN), the programs were offered as syndicated features. But sales to individual stations were dismal in the recessionary year when broadcast advertising revenues were flat. MGM finally farmed out the programs to Mutual where, despite their high production values, they found little audience acceptance. The movie studio abandoned its radio projects in 1952 and reluctantly turned its attention to the production of filmed television programming. (See Radio Goes To The Movies.)
"F" For Effort. The FCC pushed ahead with its proposed limits on giveaway and quiz shows with a year of hearings that most broadcasters and observers considered a kangaroo court. The commission subsequently ruled that effective on October 1, 1949, any broadcast game that offered: 1/ A Prize, and, 2/ Any degree of Chance involved in winning the prize, and, 3/ Any Consideration required from a contestant to become eligible to win the prize, constituted a Lottery and was therefore illegal. Few argued with that classic definition of a lottery - as far as it went.
It was the commission’s new definition of Consideration that was questionable. The term originally meant money changing hands. The FCC ruled that any Effort on the part of a contestant - even the requirement of listening to a specific program - would henceforth be ruled Consideration.
ABC took the lead for the networks and filed suit against the ruling, specifically citing the commission’s far-fetched definition of consideration. A temporary injunction was obtained to stall the edict while the broadcasters prepared to battle with the FCC in court. With the FCC enjoined from stopping them, 16 prime time giveaway and quiz shows were rated and ranked during the 1949-50 season. Six reached the season’s Top 50.
The networks’ fight with the commission dragged on for four years, finally working its way up to the U.S. Supreme Court where the FCC lost an embarrassing unanimous verdict. It was a hollow victory for Network Radio. By that time most of the giveaways had lost their popularity and had left the air.
"Stop Staring At Your Radio!” That command was the advertising slogan used by Earl “Mad Man” Muntz on billboards to sell his low-cost, big picture, (16 to 21 inch), television sets. It was also the message that newly installed NBC-TV chief Pat Weaver sent to NBC’s radio listeners. Both men were marketing geniuses and both had the same motive - to sell television sets.
Muntz - a longtime Los Angeles car dealer whose antics and name were made famous by Hollywood-based radio comedians - sold his stripped-down television sets designed for metropolitan areas where video signals were strong and required fewer tubes in receivers. He wanted a piece of the action dominated by RCA, Admiral, Philco and Motorola who were selling over 2,000 new television sets a day and opened his own stores in major cities.
Weaver - a former American Tobacco and Young & Rubicam advertising executive - was charged by RCA to make television set ownership as desirable as possible and as fast as possible. He moved quickly and NBC became the first network to fully exploit radio’s potential as an attractive programming source for television and a lure for new viewers. NBC-TV adapted or simulcast over a dozen familiar Network Radio titles for television in the 1949-50 season - including the first video version of The Life of Riley, starring a relatively obscure comic actor in the title role, Jackie Gleason.
Besides the Riley sitcom, Weaver’s 1949-50 NBC-TV schedule opened with video versions of The Aldrich Family, The Big Story, Chesterfield Supper Club, Leave It To The Girls, Lights Out, Meet The Press, The Life of Riley, The Original Amateur Hour, The Quiz Kids and We The People. In addition, NBC simulcast three of its Network Radio series - The Voice of Firestone, Cities Service Band of America and Break The Bank, plus a video version of ABC’s Friday night boxing bouts, The Gillette Cavalcade of Sports. The 17 programs amounted to 38% of NBC-TV’s 25 ½ hours of prime time service in 1949-50.
Weaver’s use of familiar radio properties to fill his television schedule would spread to ABC and CBS the following season. CBS scheduled only five radio-to-television conversions in 1949-50. It continued to simulcast Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts, and debuted television versions of The Goldbergs and Suspense. It also packaged radio veterans Ed Wynn and Fred Waring in new television formats. ABC telecast video versions of Stop The Music! and Blind Date while the small DuMont network picked up Famous Jury Trials and The Fishing & Hunting Club of The Air.
Programs made popular on radio were responsible for 15 hours of the television networks’ 65½ hours of weekly prime time programming in the 1949-50 season. Meanwhile, boxing, wrestling and Roller Derby accounted for 14 hours.
Ford Motors Into 1950. Ford Motors began January with one of the most unique time buys in Network Radio history. To promote its 1950 models to the country emerging from a recession, Ford bought the sponsorship of 23 sustaining programs on CBS and Mutual for two weeks. Among the familiar titles were Can You Top This, Blondie, Lum & Abner, Escape, The Saint, Hawaii Calls, Philip Marlow and Peter Salem. The automaker repeated the stunt later in the month with five otherwise sustaining television programs.
The month-long blitz, carrying a combined cost of $500,000, was an early example of an advertiser buying prime time Network Radio and TV like local media - to specifically coordinate with marketing campaigns of limited duration. It was a sign of things to come as advertisers began to abandon sponsoring entire programs and the networks reacted by offering time in increments of 30 and 60 second spots.
An Apple for Eve The Teacher. Eve Arden was 40 in 1948 and had plugged along in radio just as she had in the movies - mostly in supporting roles to the stars. She won an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress for her role in 1945‘s Mildred Pierce.
The beautiful redhead had three seasons as co-star of NBC’s Sealtest Village Store when she was offered the lead in the CBS sitcom, Our Miss Brooks, the lovesick high school English teacher with a warm heart, sharp wit and snappy comebacks.
Our Miss Brooks debuted by transcription on the CBS Monday schedule in July, 1948, as a summer replacement for half of Lux Radio Theater’s time period. Two months later the show took its first full season spot on the network at 9:30 on Sundays. But 1948-49 was an uphill season for the sitcom as it suffered from the weak lead-in provided by actress Helen Hayes’ dramatic anthology series, The Electric Theater. With the revamped CBS Sunday schedule of 1949-50, Our Miss Brooks was moved back to 6:30 where it became the lead-in to Jack Benny. The sitcom broke into Sunday’s Top Ten and the season’s Top 50, beginning its four year climb to the annual Top Ten among all prime time programs. (See Our Miss Arden.)
What’s Missing? Five programs from the Sunday Top Ten of the previous season were gone from the 1949-50 list. Without Jack Benny’s lead-in, Phil Harris & Alice Faye lost nearly 40% of their NBC audience. Edgar Bergen and Red Skelton did what the FCC couldn’t do - they shut down ABC’s Stop The Music! The giveaway show lost 40% of its ratings against the CBS tandem of comedians, dropping from 18th to 57th place in the season’s rankings.
NBC acquired The Adventures of Sam Spade from CBS and scheduled it opposite Bergen. The private eye series lost 25% of its audience and sank into single digit ratings. NBC lost Fred Allen to retirement and Manhattan Merry Go Round was cancelled after its 16 years of sponsorship by Sterling Drug’s Dr. Lyons Tooth Powder.
Less Moore Is More Less. Another missing Sunday star was Garry Moore. Eversharp replaced the young comic as host of NBC’s Take It Or Leave It by Eddie Cantor. Cantor found himself out of place as an ad-libbing quiz master, bantering with contestants. He left at the end of the season while Moore moved into an hour long weekday variety show on CBS and eventually became one of the network’s most enduring prime time television personalities..
Hollywood Crawling. NBC wasn’t going to take the loss of Jack Benny lying down - it was determined to get even. To do the job the network called in Louis Cowan, whose Stop The Music! was credited with driving NBC’s Fred Allen off the air earlier in the year. The king of giveaways was commissioned to design a new show with glamour, excitement, polish and prizes that would make Benny sorry he ever jumped to CBS.
Hollywood Calling had the glamour of Hollywood guest stars hosted by veteran actor George Murphy, the excitement of a game for listeners at home, the polish of a 35 piece orchestra and chorus, and a jackpot of prizes worth over $30,000. What it didn’t have were listeners.
NBC and Gruen Watches debuted the big hour-long production on Sundays at 6:30 p.m. in mid-July - designed to build an audience during Benny’s summer vacation. But neither NBC nor Cowan had anticipated the overkill that some 30 combined daytime and prime time network quiz and giveaway shows had created. Hollywood Calling was an expensive flop. When it was cancelled, the lavish giveaway show crawled in with a December rating of 4.2. Jack Benny, who gave his listeners nothing but laughs, scored a 25.4 during the same month.
A Sudden Death Loss. Carnation’s Contented Hour hadn’t scored a double digit rating since 1935. Yet it had been a constant source of NBC revenue for 18 years. With singing host Buddy Clark, musical guest stars and Percy Faith’s large studio orchestra, it was a well produced and profitable half hour. CBS pursued the program as an extra gotcha to the NBC balance sheet and convinced the evaporated milk company to switch networks for the 1949-50 season.
The Carnation Contented Hour was scheduled to debut on CBS at 10:00 on Sunday, October 2nd. But on the evening of Saturday, October 1st, Buddy Clark, 37, was killed in a private plane crash when returning to Los Angeles from the Stanford-Michigan football game at Palo Alto. The first CBS broadcast of the show was cancelled.
Singers Tony Martin and Jo Stafford took over Contented Hour the following week. During the following months, Doris Day, Dick Haymes and Jack Smith were among a parade of singers who appeared on the show. Stafford became its permanent hostess in March, co-starring with Haymes for the rest of the season. Contented Hour finished the season with a 6.8 rating, nearly 40% less than the audience of Eddie Cantor’s Take It Or Leave It on NBC. But with Jo Stafford as its star, the show began to build a pop music fan following that resulted in a Top 50 finish two years later.
Godfrey Cranks Up His Volume. Arthur Godfrey was reported to be the highest paid CBS talent at $420,000 a year. The network depended on Godfrey to carry over seven hours of its radio programming every week - 75 minutes every weekday mid-morning for its highly profitable Arthur Godfrey Time, plus Monday’s half hour radio/television simulcast of Talent Scouts and the new Godfrey Digest, 30 minutes of taped highlights from the week’s morning shows broadcast on Saturday night. In addition, CBS-TV added the hour-long Arthur Godfrey & His Friends variety show to its Wednesday prime time schedule. At a little over a thousand dollars an hour, CBS got a bargain in Godfrey because Procter & Gamble reportedly paid Lowell Thomas over $400,000 a year for his five 15 minute newscasts a week. (See Arthur Godfrey.)
Monday’s Musical Money Machine. Except for its newcomer from ABC, The Railroad Hour, NBC was shut out of Monday’s Top Ten - and cried all the way to the bank. The network had its long running string of three high class, low-rated concerts which all were prestigious showcases for their loyal sponsors and reliable sources of income for the network. (See The Railroad Hour.)
The Telephone Hour was in its tenth of 18 seasons on NBC’s Monday schedule. The Voice of Firestone had been a Monday fixture for 18 of an eventual 22 seasons and was simulcast on NBC-TV beginning in 1949. Cities Service Band of America was the latest variation of the petroleum company’s weekly concerts that NBC had broadcast since 1927. All three were beaten in the ratings by a ratio of three or four to one against the powerful CBS Monday block. But NBC realized that if the night had to be written off, it was best to do it with black ink instead of red.
There's Hope For Television. Bob Hope’s Tuesday night radio ratings for the season had dropped his annual ranking to tenth place - the lowest point in a dozen years. Yet, television’s biggest event of the season was NBC-TV’s 90 minute Easter Sunday special, Bob Hope’s Star Spangled Revue. The unparalleled popularity of Hope’s occasional TV specials and his continually strong movie box office appeal indicated that the comedian’s weakened radio ratings could be blamed on the general decline of Network Radio.
After a dozen years of his selling Pepsodent Tooth Paste and Swan Soap, Lever Brothers cancelled Hope’s series at the end of the season. But Hope wasn’t about to give up the radio show that pumped nearly $35,000 a week into his production company. Radio continued to be a profit center for Hope for another seven years - by which time he had become television’s top attraction.
An Eye On Miss Ryan. Irene Noblette Ryan is the least remembered of Bob Hope’s female stooges. Ironically, she became the most famous and wealthiest of the string that included Virginia (Honey Chile) Wilder in the 1930's and Barbara Jo Allen as Vera Vague during the war years. Irene Ryan replaced Allen’s man-hungry Vague character in 1948. Her mousy Miss Ryan character told Hope week after week that she was, “Feeling about as well as could be expected,” before launching into a string of hypochondriac jokes.
Irene Noblette and husband Tim Ryan went into radio in 1933 after a vaudeville and minor movie career doing a Burns & Allen type of “Dumb Dora” act. They kept busy in radio for ten years, four of them as stars of their own shows, including 1937's Royal Crown Revue. After their divorce in 1943, Irene kept the Ryan name and worked in some 20 low budget movie comedies and shorts plus occasional radio roles. While with Hope’s troupe she continued her screen work and drifted into occasional television roles in the 1950's.
In 1962, at age 60 and ready to retire as a relative unknown, Irene Ryan was cast as “Granny” Daisy Mae Moses in a new television sitcom, The Beverly Hillbillies. The show was an immediate hit that endured for nine seasons on CBS-TV. In 1972, when she was 70, she co-starred on Broadway in the musical hit Peppin. She collapsed on stage a year later and died of a stroke, leaving a million dollars to the Irene Ryan Foundation which provides scholarships to collegiate acting students. Irene Ryan is a forgotten voice of Network Radio who remains fondly remembered in the annals of television and theater.
Naughty Girl’s Nice Numbers. Fanny Brice returned from her year’s sabbatical to join the NBC Tuesday lineup for Tums sponsorship. The 58 year old star’s comeback- limited to 26 weeks to conserve her strength - was a roaring success. The Baby Snooks sitcom finished in the season’s Top 20, Brice’s highest ranking in five years. With renewed strength and confidence she planned an extended nine month season the following year. But fate would have another idea. (See Baby Snooks.)
Fad Fades Fast. Another sign that the giveaway fad was fading was the 35% drop in audience suffered by the Mark Goodson/Bill Todman production, Hit The Jackpot, hosted by 29 year old Bill Cullen on CBS Tuesday nights. The program wasn’t helped by news reports about one of the show’s big winners of a jackpot with an announced value of $28,000. Selling his prizes for cash to pay taxes on the loot, the “lucky” winner could on get 25 cents on the dollar - before taxes. The bad ratings and bad press prompted Chrysler to cancel Hit The Jackpot in December.
Crosby’s Tape Measured First. CBS pulled even with NBC in Wednesday’s Top Ten for the first time in nine years by adding two hits lifted from ABC and a third from NBC. Bing Crosby’s tape recorded show for Chesterfield cigarettes topped his ABC ratings by 25% and vaulted him back into the season’s Top Ten. He also gave CBS its first Number One show on Wednesday since Eddie Cantor in 1937-38. It was the breakthrough that the networks had insisted for years would never happen - Crosby’s recorded program had achieved the popularity that only live performances were supposed to reach.
Groucho Marx’s You Bet Your Life - also recorded and highly edited - gained almost 25% more audience in its switch from ABC to CBS. Groucho was right on Crosby’s heels in second place with the highest rating the comedian ever scored as a solo act. Marx pulled what was considered an upset when his comedy quiz attracted nearly 50% more audience in its time period than NBC’s big money quiz, Break The Bank. (See The One, The Only…Groucho!)
The third show stolen by CBS for its Wednesday lineup was in its final Network Radio season by design. Burns & Allen, newly arrived from four seasons on NBC, had worked steadily in prime time series since 1932. They said goodbye to their listeners in May, 1950, and returned five months later to CBS-TV where George and Gracie’s sitcom would be a popular fixture for another eight years.
First Nighter’s First Cousin. First Nighter left the air with live productions in October. But listeners didn’t have to go far for their weekly “theater experience”. Curtain Time was a carbon copy of First Nighter’s format and setting. It had been open for business on NBC since 1946 after a short run on ABC. The half hour anthology of light dramas with permanent co-stars Harry Elders and Nanette Sargent was introduced every week by host Patrick Allen guiding listeners to their “seats” accompanied by the realistic sounds of a theater preparing for the evening’s performance. Curtain Time delivered two Top 50 seasons for Mars Candy on Wednesday night before leaving the air in March, 1950.
Champagne On A Beer Budget. For many years Pabst Blue Ribbon was the only beer with any advertising presence on Network Radio. In 1949, Pabst’s Milwaukee neighbor, Miller Brewing, took its first steps as a network advertiser for its featured product, Miller Hi-Life, “The Champagne of Bottled Beer.” The brewer sponsored the “Champagne Music” of Lawrence Welk’s popular Chicago based dance band for a two year run on ABC at 10:00 p.m Wednesdays. Welk’s champagne went flat its first season with a 1.6 rating and didn’t do much better in its second year at 2.3. Welk left Chicago for the West Coast in 1951 and re-emerged on ABC-TV in 1955, where his weekly dance parties became a highly-rated 16 year fixture, followed by an eleven years as successful syndicated series.
The Family Hour. When Kraft Music Hall with summertime host Nelson Eddy quietly left the air in September after its 16 year run, General Foods became the only major food sponsor on NBC’s Thursday night schedule. It countered the top rated CBS wave of crime programs at 8:00 p.m. with two family sitcoms. One had been king of radio’s popular teen comedies of the early 1940's. The other was a series that would become the stereotype for 1950's family values.
The Aldrich Family had been a prime time staple for General Foods since 1939. The company also sponsored a separately cast video version of The Aldrich Family on NBC TV’s Sunday night schedule. But the radio show’s ratings had tumbled since 1946 when it was Friday’s Number One program on CBS. Nevertheless, it was still a strong entry with a loyal following. (See The Aldrich Family.)
Meanwhile, longtime Hollywood star Robert Young, 41, made his radio series debut with Father Knows Best. At first, the show was a cookie-cutter sitcom that portrayed father as a bumbling fathead. But as the series evolved into a more realistic reflection of Young’s movie persona and postwar family life, it developed an audience who related to it and became a Top 20 program within two years. Both The Aldrich Family and Father Knows Best lost their time periods to CBS crime melodramas but remained within Thursday’s Top Ten. However, both finished outside the season’s Top 50 for the first and only times of their Network Radio runs.
The Aldrich Family was seen for four so-so seasons on television while Young moved Father Knows Best to television with a new supporting cast in 1954 and became the icon of wise and patient fatherhood for six successful seasons.
Discs Don’t Fly. CBS won the night with scripted drama, leading the competition from 8:00 until 10:00 by a sizable margin. But 10:30 was a different matter. When Campana cancelled First Nighter in October, CBS allowed the program and its double digit ratings to disappear. For two months the network filled the timeslot with Pursuit, a much traveled sustaining series. However, the 11.9 rating delivered by Hallmark Playhouse as a lead-in to the 10:30 timeslot became attractive to Best Foods, the manufacturer of Skippy Peanut Butter. Best Foods had sponsored producer C.P. MacGregor’s transcribed series, Skippy Hollywood Theater and syndicated it to local stations since 1941 - when recorded programming was rejected by NBC and CBS. But times had changed by 1949 and the networks were hungry.
CBS gladly sold its 10:30 half hour to Best Foods for Skippy’s polished transcribed series featuring top film stars. But Skippy Hollywood Theater lost 40% of First Nighter’s audience and became the only CBS series of the night to lose its time period. The time period was won by a new and different crime series on NBC, Dragnet.
Friday Begins On Thursday. World War II veteran Jack Webb was 29 with only four years of San Francisco radio experience when he recreated his popular ABC/West Coast regional network character, Pat Novak For Hire, on the full ABC network in February, 1949. The private detective series ran on a sustaining and co-op basis for six months while Webb moonlighted, preparing a series of his own creation called Dragnet. His new police drama was picked up by NBC in June, 1949, and roamed the network schedule over the summer, gathering listeners and critical acclaim. It attracted the sponsorship of Liggett & Myers’ Fatima Cigarettes in October and was slotted on Thursday at 10:30 p.m.
Dragnet was an original. Produced in cooperation with the Los Angeles Police Department, its terse realism and underplayed dialog stood out in a field of melodramatic crime fighters who populated the dial on Thursday, led by the night’s Number One show, Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons. Webb and his co-star Barton Yarborough were supported by Hollywood’s top radio actors. All were on their way to establishing Dragnet as one of Network Radio’s last great series of the Golden Age. (See Jack Webb’s Dragnet.)
Duffy’s Taberna. Ed Gardner moved Duffy’s Tavern to Puerto Rico - literally. The sitcom’s creator/producer/star with three Top 15 seasons on NBC’s Wednesday night schedule to his credit, Gardner took advantage of Puerto Rico’s generous tax breaks to establish residency and a production company on the island. He packed up his cast and crew and moved to San Juan in 1949. They recorded Duffy’s Tavern every week for shipment back to New York and broadcast in a new NBC Thursday timeslot. at 9:30, pitted against Casey, Crime Photographer, in the heart of CBS’s two hour block of hit mysteries.
But Gardner faced a bigger problem he hadn’t considered in his move to the Caribbean. Duffy’s Tavern storylines were based on each week’s big name guest star. Persuading busy film and radio stars to interrupt their schedules for the long trip to Puerto Rico - over a thousand miles from Miami - was almost impossible. As a result, Wednesday’s Number One show of 1948-49 lost over half its audience and became a Thursday also-ran in 1949-50, dropping in the season’s rankings from eleventh to 69th place. Duffy’s Tavern left the air a year later. (See Duffy Ain’t Here.)
ABC Wins & Everybody Loses. ABC had reason to celebrate on Fridays. For the very first time since its 1927 inception as NBC‘s Blue Network, it placed five programs in a night’s Top Ten. And for the first time since its Blue Network days in 1933-34, ABC won a night outright. (4)
But Network Radio’s total ratings for the night were more a cause for concern than celebration. For the first time in ratings history, the average rating for a night’s Top Ten dropped below double digits to 9.8. Unfortunately for the networks, the single digit average wasn’t an aberration, it was the beginning of a trend.
CBS Leaves Joan Alone. Except for Procter & Gamble’s two successful strip shows, Beulah and Jack Smith’s quarter hour songfests, CBS had just one program in Friday’s Top Ten. Joan Davis reemerged with a new sitcom, Leave It To Joan, for a six week summer run as vacation fill-in for half of Lux Radio Theater. For the fall season her show was given a questionable placement by American Tobacco’s Lucky Strike and Pall Mall cigarettes.
Leave It To Joan was scheduled opposite two other sitcoms at 9:00 - NBC’s Life of Riley and The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet, newly arrived on ABC from a year on NBC. Although Riley was moved up to 10:00 at mid-season, it was an uphill battle for the comedienne. Leave It To Joan left the air in March. Davis filled in for My Friend Irma during the following summer and then retired from series radio. She had better luck with television and a three year run of I Married Joan, NBC TV’s knock-off of I Love Lucy beginning in 1952.
Movie Magic: A Disappearing Act. With Red Skelton’s defection to CBS and Eddie Cantor’s departure to host Sunday’s Take It Or Leave It, NBC lost two of Friday’s Top Ten shows from the previous season. The network temporarily plugged Skelton’s 9:00 timeslot with The Life of Riley and moved Jimmy Durante’s Camel cigarettes show up to 9:30, while it honed a major new Friday effort, Screen Directors’ Playhouse - a program that could have been a uniquely big hit ten years earlier. But when Playhouse debuted in January, the concept of major Hollywood stars appearing in 30 minute adaptations of familiar movies was simply too little, too late. Although the program was critically praised for its scripts, acting and production values, Screen Directors’ Playhouse never made it into a season’s Top 50.
Gang Busts Up Parade. When Frank Sinatra left Your Hit Parade the show lost 25% of its audience. It was exactly the opening that Gangbusters needed to win Saturday’s 9:00 p.m. time period. The ratings boost back into double digits propelled Phillips H. Lord’s weekly shootout back into the season’s Top 50 for the first time in two years. As Hit Parade continued to lose audience, Gangbusters increased its ratings advantage even further. Lucky Strike eventually moved its long running Saturday countdown of the week‘s hits to NBC’s Thursday schedule and out of competition with the crime series in 1951. By the 1952-53 season, Gangbusters again became Saturday’s Number One program - a position it hadn’t held for 13 seasons.
Edwards Puts His Show On The Map. Ralph Edwards opened the Truth Or Conse-quences season with another big money, secret identity contest. “The Laughing Boy” was correctly identified in late October as Milton Berle by a Milwaukee housewife who won $2,500. Nevertheless, the show’s ratings were off over 30%. To celebrate his program’s tenth anniversary - and spike its sagging ratings - Edwards immortalized Truth Or Consequences with a unique offer. He promised to originate a broadcast of his show from any village, town or city that would permanently rename itself Truth Or Consequences. (5)
To everyone’s surprise - except perhaps the crafty Edwards - the voters of Hot Springs, New Mexico, voted to do exactly that by a margin of 1300 to 300. Protests were filed by irate Hot Springs residents and another election was conducted. The name change was upheld by another four to one vote. True to his word, Edwards brought Truth Or Consequences to the renamed Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico, in April - and kept returning for an annual civic celebration for the next 50 years. (See Truth Or Consequences.)
Listeners Hear More Seymour. Dan Seymour’s voice was familiar to millions. (6) The season’s host of We The People had been a first-call network announcer since 1938 when he read the disclaimers that nobody seemed to hear on Orson Welles’ War of The Worlds broadcast. He’d worked a number of programs since, becoming best known as Danny, the weekday announcer and daily visitor to the kitchen of Aunt Jenny, where the kindly matron spun her Real Life Stories while invariably baking or frying with Lever Brothers’ Spry Shortening. The show was steady work for Seymour for 19 years.
Not so steady was Sing It Again, a Saturday night CBS knock-off of Stop The Music! hosted by Seymour that dangled a jackpot prize worth at least $1,000 to its listeners each week, topping off at a $28,000 peak. Sing It Again was scheduled opposite NBC’s “hick hour” of Judy Canova’s sitcom and The Grand Ole Opry. The CBS show produced a respectable 8.2 rating in its first rated season but fell to a 5.4 over the following year and was cancelled. But Dan Seymour - did all right for himself. He began moonlighting from radio in 1949 when he joined the radio/television department of Young & Rubicam Advertising. That began a quarter century career that eventually led him to becoming Chairman of The Board of J. Walter Thompson Advertising in 1972.
Arthur After Hours. CBS forgot about any restrictions against recorded programming when it scheduled The Arthur Godfrey Digest, taped highlights of the star’s weekday morning show edited into a half hour package. The network was obviously unconcerned about any overexposure of Godfrey - and with good reason. Opposite Saturday’s Number One program, A Day In The Life of Dennis Day, Godfrey’s taped compilation trailed in the ratings by 38% but still finished in the night’s Top Ten - and more importantly to CBS, made money. (See Arthur Godfrey.)
Sinatra’s Ratings Go Up In Smoke. Liggett & Myers moved Perry Como’s Chesterfield Supper Club to NBC-TV, opening the door for American Tobacco to obtain the 7:00 quarter hour on NBC Radio. American pulled Frank Sinatra off Lucky Strike’s Your Hit Parade and installed him as singing host of Light Up Time.
Sinatra’s movie career at MGM had peaked with the 1949 release of hit musicals Take Me Out To The Ballgame and On The Town, both co-starring Gene Kelly. But his outspoken political activities and stormy personal life were fodder for tabloid headlines that soured his once adoring bobby-sox fans. Compounding the problem, Met Opera soprano Dorothy Kirsten was made Sinatra’s Light Up Time co-star. (7) The pairing didn’t work. Light Up Time lost 30% of Como’s Supper Club ratings and nearly 60% of the audience Sinatra enjoyed on Your Hit Parade. The show was cancelled at the end of the season.
Meanwhile, top selling record artists were doing nicely on their CBS strips. Procter & Gamble’s Jack Smith added Dinah Shore and Margaret Whiting to his cast while Campbell Soups loaded its Club 15 at 7:30 with hit makers Dick Haymes, The Andrew Sisters, Evelyn Knight and the Modernaires. (See Multiple Runs All Time Top Ten.)
(1) NBC also landed Fanny Brice’s Baby Snooks sitcom, last heard on CBS before her 18 month sabbatical for health reasons. Brice also lost ratings from her 1947-48 season, but because of the general downtrend, she moved up from 28th to 16th in the 1949-50 rankings.
(2) Returning from the ratings basement to the 1949-50 Top 50 were Dr. Christian, Gangbusters, Horace Heidt’s Youth Opportunity Program, The Jimmy Durante Show, The Lone Ranger, Our Miss Brooks and Take It Or Leave It.
(3) First Nighter's lead actress, Barbara Luddy, retired from series radio after 16 years with the show and became a featured voice for Walt Disney’s animated features. Her co-star, Olan Soule, went into movie and television work.
(4) ABC’s Top Ten shows on Friday were The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet, The Fat Man, The Lone Ranger, The Sheriff and This Is Your FBI.
(5) Towns with changed names because of radio programs goes back to 1936 when Waters, Arkansas, renamed itself Pine Ridge after the fictional locale of Lum & Abner.
(6) Radio’s Dan Seymour is not to be confused with the movie character actor of the same name.
(7) This quirky casting move by Lucky Strike is similar to its replacing Sinatra with opera star Lawrence Tibbett as singing host of Your Hit Parade in 1945.
Top 50 Network Programs - 1949-50
C.E. Hooper Semi-Monthly Reports, Sept 1949 - Feb 1950
& A.C. Nielsen Radio Index Serv, Mar 1950 - June 1950
Total Programs Rated, 6-11 PM: 182 Programs Rated 13 Weeks & Ranked: 136.
39,300,000 Radio Homes 94.8% Coverage of US. One Rating Point = 393,000 Homes
1 1 Lux Radio Theater 22.3 Lever Bros/Lux Soap Mon 9:00 60 CBS
2 3 Jack Benny Program 20.7 American Tobacco/Lucky Strike Sun 7:00 30 CBS
3 5 Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts 18.4 Lever Bros/Lipton Tea Mon 8:30 30 CBS
4 2 Fibber McGee & Molly 17.7 Johnson Wax Tue 9:30 30 NBC
5 8 My Friend Irma 17.4 Lever Bros/Pepsodent Toothpaste Mon 10:00 30 CBS
6 4 Walter Winchell’s Journal 16.3 Jergens/Richard Hudnut Cosmetics Sun 9:00 15 ABC
7 5 Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy 16.0 Coca Cola Sun 8:00 30 CBS
8 40 Bing Crosby Show 15.8 Liggett & Myers/Chesterfield Cigarettes Wed 9:30 30 CBS
9 10 Amos & Andy 15.7 Rexall Drug Stores Sun 7:30 30 CBS
10 7 Bob Hope Show 15.0 Lever Bros/Swan Soap Tue 9:00 30 NBC
11 46 Groucho Marx You Bet Your Life 14.9 Chrysler/DeSoto & Plymouth Wed 9:00 30 CBS (1)
12 15 Mr Keen 13.9 American Home Products/Kolynos Toothpaste Thu 7:30 30 CBS
13 9 People Are Funny 13.7 Brown & Williamson/Raleigh Cigarettes Tue 10:30 30 NBC
14 25 Red Skelton Show 13.5 Procter & Gamble/Tide Laundry Detergent Sun 8:30 30 CBS
15 44 Mr Chameleon 13.4 Sterling Drug/Bayer Aspirin Wed 8:00 30 CBS
16t N Fanny Brice Baby Snooks Show 13.3 Lewis & Howe/Tums Tue 8:30 30 NBC
16t 18 Mystery Theater 13.3 Sterling Drug/Bayer Aspirin Tue 8:00 30 CBS
16t 13 Suspense 13.3 Autolite Spark Plugs Thu 9:00 30 CBS
19t 26 Bob Hawk Show 13.0 RJ Reynolds/Camel Cigarettes Mon 10:30 30 CBS
19t 20 Inner Sanctum 13.0 Emerson Drug/Bromo Seltzer Mon 8:00 30 CBS
21 16 Casey, Crime Photographer 12.9 Philip Morris Cigarettes Thu 9:30 30 CBS
22 21 Big Town 12.7 Lever Bros/Lifeboy Soap Tue 10:00 30 NBC
23 22 A Day In The Life of Dennis Day 12.6 Colgate/Lustre Creme Shampoo Sat 9:30 30 NBC
24t 33 Great Gildersleeve 12.5 Kraft Foods/Parkay Margarine Wed 8:30 30 NBC
24t 12 Mister District Attorney 12.5 Bristol Myers/Vitalis Hair Tonic Wed 9:30 30 NBC
26t 22 The FBI In Peace & War 12.3 Procter & Gamble/Lava Hand Soap Thu 8:00 30 CBS
26t 30 Mr & Mrs North 12.3 Colgate Palmolive/Halo Shampoo Tue 8:30 30 CBS
28t 34 The Big Story 12.2 American Tobacco/Pall Mall Cigarettes Wed 10:00 30 NBC
28t 61 Horace Heidt Youth Oppty Show 12.2 Philip Morris Cigarettes Sun 9:30 30 CBS
30t 37 Burns & Allen Show 12.0 Pycopay Tooth Powder Wed 10:00 30 CBS
30t 27 Judy Canova Show 12.0 Colgate Dental Cream Sat 10:00 30 NBC
32t 30 The Fat Man 11.9 Pepto Bismol Fri 8:00 30 ABC
32t 48 Hallmark Playhouse 11.9 Hallmark Cards Thu 10:00 30 CBS
32t N Life With Luigi 11.9 Wrigley Chewing Gum Tue 9:00 30 CBS
35 22 This Is Your FBI 11.8 Equitable Life Assurance Fri 8:30 30 ABC
36 75 Gangbusters 11.5 General Foods/Grape Nuts Cereal Sat 9:00 30 CBS
37 30 Truth Or Consequences 11.4 Procter & Gamble/Duz Laundry Soap Sat 8:30 30 NBC
38t 52 Dr. Christian 11.3 Vaseline Wed 8:30 30 CBS
38t 49 Curtain Time 11.3 Mars Candy Wed 10:30 30 NBC
40 56 Our Miss Brooks 11.0 Colgate Palmolive/Lustre Creme Shampoo Sun 6:30 30 CBS
41 51 Take It Or Leave It 10.9 Eversharp Pens & Pencils Sun 10:00 30 NBC
42 29 Your Hit Parade 10.4 American Tobacco/Lucky Strike Sat 9:00 30 NBC
43 38 Break The Bank 10.3 Bristol Myers/Vitalis Hair Tonic Wed 9:00 30 NBC
44 27 The Life of Riley 10.2 Pabst Beer Fri 10:00 30 NBC
45 34 Louella Parsons 10.1 Jergens/Jergens Lotion & Woodbury Soap Sun 9:15 15 ABC
46 52 The Lone Ranger 10.0 General Mills/Cheerios Cereal M-W-F 7:30 30 ABC
47 67 Jimmy Durante Show 9.9 RJ Reynolds/Camel Cigarettes Fri 9:30 30 NBC
48t 69 Beulah 9.8 Prcter & Gamble/Dreft Laundry Soap M-F 7:00 15 CBS
48t 46 Theater Guild On The Air 9.8 US Steel Sun 8:30 60 NBC
50t 40 Adventures of Sam Spade 9.6 Wildroot Cream Oil Sun 8:00 30 NBC
50t 17 Phil Harris &Alice Faye Show 9.6 Rexall Drug Stores Sun 7:30 30 NBC
(1) You Bet Your Life/Groucho Marx Oct - Dec Elgin-American Wed 9:00 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
