Broadcasting (Oct - Dec 1945)

Record Details:

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RADIO'S FIRST CONCERT HOUR Remember the Atwater Kent Sunday Series? -They Started Twenty Years Ago 1940 MARKET DATA 0.5MV/M Population 239,330 Families 61,103 Radio Homes 34,; Retail Sales $36,835,000 No. of Retail Stores 2,302 IT WAS JUST 20 years ago that the first stars of grand opera and the concert stage made their appearance on the radio in a continued series of Sunday night broadcasts. The series was the Atwater Kent Radio Hour, conceived and organized by A. Atwater Kent, of Philadelphia, whose 32-acre radio factory was then a show place in radio manufacturing. Among the concert stars were Madame Louise Homer, Anna Case, Madame Ernestine SchumannHeink, Jascha Heifetz, Giovanni Martinelli, Beniamino Gigli, Albert Spalding, Madame Frances Alda, Josef Hofmann, Tito Schipa, Richard Bonelli, Lucrezia Bori, Maria Kurenko, Dusolina Giannini, Edward Johnson (now manager of the Metropolitan Opera), Alexander Brailowsky, Sophie Breslau, Mario Chamlee, Rosa Ponselle, Walter Damrosch, John Charles Thomas, Lawrence Tibbett, Mary Lewis, Efrem Zimbalist, Emilio De Gorgoza, Nelson Eddy, Mischa Elman, Rudolf Friml, Kathryn Meisle, Grace Moore, Frieda Hempel, Paul Kochanski, Frank La Forge, Hulda Lashanska, Everett Marshall, Reinald Werrenrath, Margaret Matzenauer, James Melton, Nina Morgana, Claudia Muzio, Sigurd Nilssen, Sigrid Onegin, Nikolai Orloff, Eugene Ormandy, Joseph' Pasternak, Artur Bodansky, Elizabeth Rethberg, Sigmund Romberg, Moriz Rosenthal, Titta Huffo, Olga Samaroff, Toscha Seidel, Armand ' Tokatyan, and others. MacNamee Announced Announcer for the series was the late Graham MacNamee. When the Atwater Kent Sunday evening radio concerts were first heard over the air, NBC had not yet been organized, nor had any other broadcasting company. The first radio concerts of the series were broadcast from old Station WEAF, which occupied a few rooms in the American Telephone and Telegraph Co.'s building on lower Broadway, New York. Many of the Atwater Kent artists "came high." For instance, for singing three or four songs on one of the concerts, Beniamino Gigli, the Metropolitan tenor, demanded — and received $6,000. It was not out of the ordinary for Mr. Kent to pay artists from $1,000 to $3,000 for singing a few songs on the air. The Atwater Kent radio concerts continued from 1925 to 1931. After that, Mr. Kent sought new and undiscovered voices through his National Radio Auditions, in which he gave $25,000 each year in prizes to the ten finalists who sang on a nationwide broadcasting network out of New York. Some of the young singers he thus discovered "made" the Metropolitan Opera Company and others have made names for themselves on the radio and on the concert stage, for example: Donald Novis, the young man winner of the second audition, and Agnes Davis, the first young woman winner, who later sang with the Met. Other outstanding audition winners were Josephine Antoine, now in concert; Wilbur Evans, appearing in "Mexican Hay Ride," in New York; Ross Graham, popular in radio; Hazel Arth, artist; Genevieve Rowe, Carol Dies, Joyce Allmand, Thomas L. Thomas, and others who are singing for various sponsors. When Mr. Kent retired from business, several years ago, he sold his big radio factory and is now living in Los Angeles. He has not, however, lost his interest in music. EARLE GLUCK BACK AS WSOC PRESIDENT EARLE J. GLUCK, released from the Navy as commander, has returned to WSOC Charlotte, N. C, as president and general manager, a position he has held since 1933. He was called to active duty in April 1941 and served firsts as assistant District Communications Officer of the Sixth Naval District, at Charleston. In 1942 he became District Communications Officer on the Sixth Naval District Commandant's staff. A year later he was transferred to the staffs of the Commander of the Caribbean Sea Frontier and Commandant of the Tenth Naval District, with headquarters in San Juan, P..R. There he served in the same capacity, in charge of radio, visual and wire communications, Naval Postal Service, coding, and confidential service publications. Mr. Gluck WENS Coverage WINS NEW YORK recorded proceedings at opening of first Australian Consulate General in the world from Rockefeller Center, New York, Nov. 13, and broadcast recording that evening in half-hour program conducted by Henry Milo, WINS foreign news commentator. Speakers were Dr. Herbert V. Evatt, Australian Minister for External Affairs; Sir Frederick Eggleston, Australian Minister to the U. S., and Hon. Cedric Kellway, Australian Consul General in the U. S. Page 50 • November 19, 1945 BROADCASTING • Broadcast Advertising