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PROGRAM HISTORY— Continued
obvious-— that program ideas eventually peter out. Mystery was a new trend, competitively exercised, to capitalize on incipiently waning interest in the old style of programs.
The two most notable practitioners of mystery were Harold F. Ritchie & Co. (Eno Crime Club) and G. Washington Coffee (Sherlock Holmes). Both programs almost at once inserted themselves into the C A. B. leaders, thus setting off a number of other, similar series. Campana soon had "Fu Manchu" ; Bourjois had "Paris Mysteries" ; Blue Coal brought forth 'The Shadow" ; and Standard Oil of New Jersey had a "Charlie Chan" series. So many adherents of the trend burned it out with considerable rapidity, although to this day mystery is an ever popular subject for electrical transcriptions. Leaders at this time were :
April, 1931, to April, 1932, Yearly Average Rankings
1. Amos V Andy. 7 . Seth Parker.
2. Eddie Cantor (Chase & Sanborn). 8. Crumit-Sanderson (Blackstone j. Rudy Vallee. Cigar).
4. B. A. Rolfe. 9. Sinclair Minstrels.
5. Eno Crime Club (Tues. 10. True Story.
program). 11. Lowell Thomas (Literary Digest).
6. Sherlock Holmes. 12. A & P Gypsies.
Daytime leaders were the Early Birds ; Cheerio ; Little Orphan Annie ; Tony's Scrapbook (Tony Wons) ; Quaker Man; Skippy; and the National Farm and Home Hour.
Other daytime notables included Pat Barnes for Swift ; the Damrosch Symphonic Hour; Moonshine and Honeysuckle; New York Philharmonic Symphony; the Singing Lady (Ireene Wicker, for Kellogg) ; and the Yeast Foamers.
At the same time, in the evening division, Arthur Pryor, Sr. was leading a band for Cremo, while Pacific Coast Borax had Death Valley Days in its initial run.
1932-1933 Programs
That the era of minstrelsy and music hall was dying in 1931 had been evident from several significant angles. Mystery drama had come in for a brief, stopgap interlude, competitively made feasible by the waning interest in other, older programs. Just as significant was Chase & Sanborn's new contract with Eddie Cantor. It heralded the "personality" performer who was to be the symbol of the ensuing two (1932-33) years.
The sequence in which these changes from an old regime into a new one took place hinges partially on a freak occurrence in programming.
Specifically, Amos V Andy — a single program, and probably the only one ever to have such weight in radio — brought the trend on, if not directly, then assuredly with underscored indirection.
For when Amos 'n' Andy eventually crossed the apex of their popularity and began to backslide, the aggregate of the evening listening audience slid with them. In 1930, 74% of the set owners used their sets on the average weekday. Now the figure fell to 64% ; then to 58% ; and finally, in August, 1933, it hit an all time low with 54.5%. In short, all this meant that within two years about one-quarter of the evening audience was no longer as enthusiastic about radio as previously.
This decline in aggregate listening was so pronounced that the program builders needed no statistics to count the casualties. But an analysis' of the situation was something else. It was at first suggested that hard times accounted for
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