Breaking Walls: The Podcast on the History of American Network Radio Broadcasting

At 5:30PM eastern time over Mutual Broadcasting on Independence Day, 1944, The Tom Mix Ralston Straight Shooters took to the air. Originally airing from NBC in Chicago in 1933, it featured the just-heard Hal Peary, and the ever-present Willard Waterman. Tom Mix was created as an advertising vehicle for the Ralston Purina Company. Its format was devised by Charles Claggett, a St. Louis adman and ba...

At 4:45PM on Independence Day 1944, The Raymond Scott Orchestra took to the air for fifteen minutes of music on CBS’ WABC in New York. Born Harry Warnow on September 10th, 1908 in Brooklyn to Ukrainian Jewish parents, his older brother Mark, also a musician, encouraged Harry’s career. He graduated from the Juilliard School of Music in 1931 where he studied piano, theory, and composition. He began...

On Tuesday July 4th, 1944 at 11:15AM, the homespun Vic and Sade took to the air over NBC’s WEAF in New York. First airing on June 29th, 1932, Vic and Sade was created by Paul Rhymer. Known as “radio’s home folks,” the show was broadcast from The Merchandise Mart in Chicago. Rhymer wrote the script each morning before heading to watch the rehearsal and broadcast. On good days, one rewrite sufficed....

Tuesday, July 4th, 1944. It’s been twenty-nine days since the Allies first stormed the beaches of Normandy. They’ve continued to slowly push inland, but the battle for control of the Caen has raged onward. CBS is there with up-to-the-minute news. On Saturday July 1st, A counterattack by German Panzer Corps failed to dislodge the British Second Army around Caen. When OB West Gerd von Rundstedt phon...

Here we are, back at Bill Pogue’s. It’s after 11PM. What do we know? Well, there are less people drinking here than last night, most would rather stay in and listen for updates. On the air over CBS right now is Joan Brooks. Me? I’m just trying to have that nightcap I started yesterday. There are still news bulletins coming out of Europe. It’s almost dawn there. The men will be continuing their mis...

At 10:50PM on D-Day, The Red Skelton Show took to the air with a final abbreviated episode before Skelton left for World War II. When his show debuted on October 7th, 1941 critics were skeptical. Skelton was a pantomimist. How could he succeed on radio? But he was soon getting laughs every eleven seconds and for three seasons more than twenty-five million people were tuning in as he pulled ratings...

At 10PM, across all networks, the President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt, took to the air with a special prayer for the invading troops. Thirty-Five million Americans tuned in. It was the most-listened to broadcast of any kind which aired in 1944. At 10:15 Bob Hope took to the air with a special D-Day Broadcast. For more information on this year of Bob’s life, tune into Breaking Wall...

D-Day, June 6th, 1944 was a Tuesday. Ordinarily on Tuesday evenings NBC had a comedy lineup that rivaled the greatest in history. A main part of it was the man you just heard, Jim Jordan, who starred on Fibber McGee and Molly. The normal Fibber McGee and Molly show was canceled on D-Day. Instead, they presented a special musical program at 9:30PM featuring Billy Mills and the King’s Men, leaving r...

Opposite of The Burns and Allen Show at 9PM, NBC ran a special “Cross Country D-Day tour”, hosted by the just-heard Ben Grauer. It was a program from every part of the nation to show what everyone was thinking and doing on this historic and momentous day. The theme was the same: Work, Pray, Fight. The stations included remotes from WTIC in Hartford, WSYR in Syracuse, WTAR in Norfolk, WSPD in Toled...

At 9PM on CBS, Burns and Allen took to the air with a special episode called “Kansas City’s Favorite Singer” with guest-star Dinah Shore. It featured Bea Benaderet and Mel Blanc. Like George Burns and Grace Allen, Blanc and Benaderet spent decades working together, especially on Blanc’s own show after the war and later on The Flintstones.

Norman Corwin was twenty-seven years old when he was hired by CBS in April of 1938. For three years he honed his craft on shows like Words Without Music, The Pursuit of Happiness, So This is Radio and Forecast. In 1941 he was tasked with taking over The Columbia Workshop for twenty-six weeks. These plays are today known as “Twenty-Six By Corwin.” They ranged from whimsy, to romance, to high drama,...

At the conclusion of Ronald Colman’s reading of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem, legendary commentator H. V. Kaltenborn took to the air with news and comments on the day’s invasion.

John Nesbitt was born in Victoria, British Columbia on August 23rd, 1910. The grandson of actor Edwin Booth, the family moved to Alameda, California. Nesbitt was active in stock theater in Vancouver and Spokane and began working for NBC in San Francisco in 1933. By 1935, he was an announcer at KFRC in San Francisco. Nesbitt produced a series called Headlines of the Past which spun off into his sig...

It’s nearly 6:45PM and I’m at an automat getting some dinner. People around here are feeling a little looser as, by all accounts, the Normandy landings had been a success. They’ve got NBC on the air. Just ending is a “Serenade to America'' with Winifred Hite, Nora Sterling, Milton Katims and his Orchestra. Legendary newscaster Lowell Thomas is about to go on over WEAF with a summary and commentary...

At 3PM The British King George VI issued a D-Day speech. The Transcription is below. Four years ago, our Nation and Empire stood alone against an overwhelming enemy, with our backs to the wall. Tested as never before in our history, in God's providence we survived that test; the spirit of the people, resolute, dedicated, burned like a bright flame, lit surely from those unseen fires which nothing...

Perry Mason debuted over CBS airwaves on October 18th, 1943. On D-Day it was airing at 2:45PM from New York. Mason was a crime-busting lawyer, famous in fiction for unmasking killers in court. Though it came in the guise of crime drama, the show was full-bore soap opera. At points, Jan Miner played Della Street, Mason’s secretary. Mandel Kramer played Police Lieutenant Tragg.

That was the voice of Joan Banks Lovejoy who played the scheming Arline Harrison Manning on Portia Faces Life. During World War II she was all over New York radio. On Portia Faces Life, Lucille Wall starred as Portia Blake, a young woman lawyer who battled corruption in the small town of Parkerstown. The show debuted with a crisis on October 7th, 1940 and throughout its entire nearly eleven-year r...

12:45PM brought a forty-minute CBS news update featuring Edward R. Murrow from London, Douglas Edwards recapping CBS coverage, and a Quincy Howe analysis. Following this broadcast John Daly immediately signed on.

At 12:15PM Big Sister took to the air over CBS starring the just-heard Alice Frost as Ruth Evans. Ruth centered her life around her sister Sue and their crippled brother Neddie. When Sue married reporter Jerry Miller, Ruth was able to give her full attention to the care of little Ned. Then, unexpectedly, Ruth fell in love with Neddie’s new doctor, John Wayne, played first by Martin Gabel and later...

It’s nearly twelve o’clock and time for me to get back to 485 Madison Avenue. At least I got about five hours sleep, that’s more than I can say for many of my colleagues. I just phoned in. The allies are pushing inland in France. A few thousand have been killed on the beaches of Normandy, but the German resistance has been much lighter than expected. The Luftwaffe are nowhere to be found. The Alli...

At 11:45AM on D-Day, Aunt Jenny’s Real Life Stories took to the air over CBS featuring Dan Seymour as both announcer and actor. Later this year Seymour would play Vichy French Captain Renard in To Have and Have Not. Unlike most daytime serials, Aunt Jenny confined its tales to five-chapter stories which were completed each week. The cast shifted with the only continuing characters being Aunt Jenny...

At 11:30AM CBS interrupted their scheduled mid-day programming for a newsbreak and a speech from Charles De Gaulle. Born in 1890, De Gaulle was a decorated soldier during the First World War. He repeatedly admonished his superiors for outdated nineteenth century fighting techniques which included bayonet charges against heavy artillery. De Gaulle’s company became known for sneaking into German ter...

The woman you just heard is famed New York character actress Jan Miner. In the mid-1940s Jan was on multiple soap operas, like Lora Lawton. Many top shows were produced by Frank and Anne Hummert. The Hummert radio ties grew from the prominent Chicago advertising agency, Blackett-Sample-and Hummert. Frank Hummert was a celebrated copywriter. His wife, Anne Schumacher Ashenhurst Hummert began as an...

At 10AM CBS resumed programming with their mid-morning soap operas. First up was Valiant Lady, starring Joan Blaine. Joan was a valiant lady because she sacrificed a promising Broadway career for her father’s sake, then married a “brilliant but unstable" surgeon. People like the just-heard Mandel Kramer loved working on soap operas from New York. At 10:15AM Light of the World signed on starring Br...

At 9AM eastern war time, CBS World News signed on with Douglas Edwards reporting. On D-Day Edwards was twenty-six years old. He’d been hired in 1942 by CBS as a reporter and understudy for John Daly. When Daly was sent overseas to cover the war in 1943 Edwards was promoted to lead The World Today, World News Today, and Report to the Nation. In 1945, Edwards was sent to London to cover the final we...