Breaking Walls

For those who wanted Breaking Walls episode 123 in the traditional format. ___________ In Breaking Walls episode 123 we open 2022 with a six-part mini-series on radio business and programming in 1954. We’ll begin with January, in a radio half-season that was for many, the end of the line. —————————— Highlights: • Ringing in the New Year with Fibber McGee and Molly • Gunsmoke’s Stage Holdup • Peopl...

Next time on Breaking Walls, we move into February and discuss polio, falling ratings points, and radio profit margins. ___________ The reading material used in today’s episode was: • The General: David Sarnoff & The Rise of the Communications Industry - by Kenneth Bilby • On the Air — By John Dunning • Network Radio Ratings — by Jim Ramsburg As well as articles from: • Broadcasting Magazine • LIF...

Back in July of 1935, head of RCA David Sarnoff asked friend and inventor Edwin Howard Armstrong to remove his experimental FM equipment from RCA’s Empire State Building Laboratory. RCA wanted to test its TV system. ___________ Armstrong saw FM as a revolutionary new communications service that would make AM obsolete. Sarnoff thought it an important advancement and wanted it to be TVs audio supple...

Amanda Randolph was born on September 2nd, 1896 in Louisville, Kentucky. Her father was a methodist minister and her mother a teacher, but she would find her calling in music, vaudeville, and eventually radio. ___________ A star by 1948, she led her own musical TV program for the DuMont network. It made her the first African-American woman with her own daytime TV show. ___________ Her sister Lilia...