HISTORICAL MOMENTS IN RADIO for release to DX Audio Service May 1997 by John Bowker SOME BROADCAST CHRONOLOGY And now, Historical Moments in Radio .. a collection of stories about the development of broadcasting on the a.m. radio dial .. and today I have found a neat collection of historical events and the dates they occurred. Some of them, I believe, will surprise you as they did me. For instance, when I mention the "Red" Network, don’t you think of N.B.C. and then doesn’t the "Blue" Network come to mind immediately? Well, you’re right up to a point. Indeed, when NBC was formed in 1926, it bought the AT&T network lines and they bought the New York City station from AT&T called WEAF. Now, AT&T had set up a network of stations in June of 1923 when they first demonstrated the use of long distance telephone wires to interconnect their flagship station WEAF with WGY in Schenectady, KDKA in Pittsburgh and KYW .. in Chicago. That test was very successful; quality was good and AT&T was able to promote its idea of selling time on the network in the same way they sold long distance telephone service. But it didn’t take long to learn that sponsors of programs would pay goodly sums to advertise their products based more on audience count than on miles of telephone lines used, and on October 14, 1924, AT&T inaugurated regular program service from WEAF on the Red Network with service to WJAR in Providence, WEEI in Boston, WGR, Buffalo, WCAP in Washington and WCAE in Pittsburgh! So, as I said, NBC was formed in September, 1926 with two chains of stations in mind, one headed by WEAF that they had just purchased from AT&T, that was the Red Network. The other chain was headed by WJZ .. it was the Blue Network and its inaugural broadcast was on January 1st, 1927. The next year, September 18,1927, CBS was formed and got started with 16 stations right off the bat. And then on September 30, 1934, the Mutual Broadcasting System was formed. Mutual became the largest of the four major networks later on .. but its first 4 stations were WOR, WGN, WLW and WXYZ. Later on, WXYZ became a stalwart of the Blue Network and, of course, WLW hopped between Mutual and NBC .. but WOR and WGN really never left Mutual until becoming independent once again well after World War 2. But there were stations before there were networks .. and here’s another interesting tid-bit .. Do you recall that WEAF broadcast the first commercial? That was in August 1923 when a real estate organization bought time to tell about their new housing project in New York. Well, something got lost in the mix, because on January 1st, 1922 .. a year and a half earlier than the WEAF commercial .. the Jersey Journal newspaper bought an hour of time on Newark’s WAAT to wish everyone a Happy New Year .. oh, and to remind people how to keep up with the news of the world and around town in their newspaper. They paid $50 for that hour of time. In fact, starting in May 1922, WAAT had regular sponsored programs on the air at least twice a week .. a music and news program sponsored by the periodical, Jersey Review. Now some of you may recall that the AT&T station in New York City was WBAY .. and that’s true. But the WBAY transmitter site was too far out of town to suit the New York audience and so AT&T built an entirely new station that would be called WEAF and put the WEAF antenna tower on top of the Western Electric building right there in downtown Manhattan .. and on August 16, 1922 .. amid great ceremony .. WBAY faded away and the new more powerful WEAF signed on with ultra high-quality audio, and a regular program schedule. I see that WGY signed on the air on February 20, 1922 .. and that their first announcer was Kolin Hager for that broadcast. WGY was always a leader in broadcasting .. after all, they had the General Electric company behind them all the way. In fact, WGY was permitted to operate with the remarkable power of 50,000 Watts starting May 26, 1926 .. and, of course, that's the maximum power allowed right up to this very day. Now, we all know of the WLW experiment with 500,000 Watts starting in 1934, and that they were the only U.S. medium wave broadcaster ever permitted that much antenna power. But did you know that four years earlier, in 1930, WGY was authorized to use 200,000 Watts? That special privilege was due in large measure to the precise frequency control pioneered by WGY by using a resonant quartz crystal in place of the usual tuned circuit to set their dial position. Ah! We can document that KHJ in Los Angeles tried an interesting experiment starting on April 13, 1922: They scheduled some variety programs of music, comedy and news that evening. Good grief! Will innovation never cease? And here's a capper for you: In March, 1929 .. for two consecutive nights, KLCN in Blytheville, Arkansas came on the air from midnight to 3 a.m. with a dx test using 7-½ Watts .. and received reports from listeners over 1,000 miles away. Would that be possible today? Well, with the increasing number of cases where one station buys two or three others just to put them off the air .. yes, it may well be possible in the not too distant future. ...and the rest is history. This is John Bowker.