Radio showmanship (Jan-Dec 1949)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

Chicago. By the time Morris Sachs' Amateur Hour marks its fifteenth birthday in August, 1949, it will have played to three-quarters of a million people. A great many people, then, hear Chicago's Amateur Hour, and those same people throng to the Morris Sachs' stores. Many times each year, the Chicago Opera House stage must be used to broadcast the Morris Sachs' Amateur Hour. This happens when so many ask for tickets that there are thousands on the list waiting to be accommodated. At other times the Opera House is used because Morris Sachs helps stage special event programs to provide food ior the needy, cigarettes for veterans and other philanthropic promotion plans. It is this philanthropic attitude which has also contributed to the Morris Sachs success story. On the fourteenth anniversary of the show, the sponsor was presented with a scroll by Roy McLaughlin, station manager of WENR, which gave him recognition for his outstanding contributions to radio — "his untiring efforts in behalf of of thousands of unknown amateur performers to whom he has given the opportunity for public recognition and success, and for his unselfish humanitarianism in donating free air time through the years to the cause of the needy and underprivileged." Among its alumni, the Morris B. Sachs Amateur Hour can boast of many of the stars today. The list includes such notables as June Haver, Pamela Britton, Frankie Laine, Maureen Cannon, Mel Torme, and Skip Farrell. Close to ten thousand other "hopefuls" have received their "big chance" on the program. Truly, Mr. Sachs' "babies" are the stores and the Amateur Hour. He concentrates most of his waking hours on these two enterprises. Broadcasts are scheduled for each Sunday at 12:30 to 1:30 P. M. Central Standard Time. Prior to each Sunday's airing, approximately twelve contestants are chosen at auditions conducted by the program's producer. On each show the three prize-winning contestants of the previous week are recalled to receive $75, $40, and $20 respectively from Sachs him ln recognition of his outstanding contributions to radio, Morris B. Sachs receives a scroll of commendation from Roy McLaughlin and John Norton, Jr. self. In addition each winner gets a wristwatch. ?" Because audienceTsympathy for the very young or very old is frequently unfair to more talented amateurs in other age groups, program contestants are presented on different programs in accordance with pre-established age brackets. These are: 4 to 10, 10 to 15 and so on. Listeners themselves determine the winners with tabulations of the response by letter and telephone the basis for decisions. All children under sixteen who compete receive a wristwatch whether they win or lose. Norman Heyne and Walter Despit produce the Morris B. Sachs Amateur Hour while Victor Lund writes the scripts. The Sunday broadcast time seems especially good since most of the family is at home during that period and invariably the radio is tuned in. The Sachs revolutionary selling policy gets its best and most thorough hearing each week. And it was that revolutionary credit policy conceived (Continued on Page 30) MARCH.1949