What's on the air (Mar-June 1931)

May, iq^t WHAT'S ON THE AIR Page PRINCIPALS IN "LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE, NBC'S NEW DAILY SERIAL GUS VAN, THE KEDS MAN NBC, TUESDAY NIGHTS Skirled £ell And now Little Orphan Annie has joined the networks. Since Monday, April 6, the character made famous by Harold Gray on the Chicago Tribune, has been a six-nights-a-wcek feature through a group of NBC stations. Annie brought her entire gang with her from the funny paper to radio, including Mr. and Mrs. Silo and Joe Corntassel, to say nothing of her inseparable companion, "Sandy," the dog. Ten-year-old SHIRLEY BELL plays the role of Annie, while the role of Joe is enacted by ALLAN BARUCK, twelve years old, both Chicago stage and microphone veterans, in spite of their extreme youth. The Silo roles are played by Henrietta Tedro and Jerry O'Meara. gram from Station WRVA. Now, thanks to NBC, these untrained singers of original negro melodies may be heard by our readers generally. "The Dixie Singers" are presented over WJZ and associates every Thursday evening at 8 o'clock. While the Gold Medal Fast Freight continues its CBS run each Wednesday at 9 p. m., a new aerial train — the Gold Medal Express, now roars through a network of NBC stations every Monday at 8:30 P. m., E. D. T. It bears an unusually varied array of talent, including Victor Arden and Phil Ohman, famed piano team (see p. 15); a novelty orchestra, the Wheaties trio, an impersonator and a guest artist. The trio consists of Joe Shuster and Johnny Tucker, both well known as song writers, and Monroe Silver, an RCA-Victor recording artist. Ford Bond is the 'announcer on the express. % CBS has organized its Southern stations into a unit to be known as "The Dixie Network." The key station is WBT at Charlotte, N. C, and while the dozen or more affiliated stations will still be a part of the regular chain, carrying many of the New York programs, they will also have a series of programs of their own whenever the regular CBS facilities arc occupied with commercial programs calling for only the basic chain. This means that by our next issue we shall be called on to list in our schedules some special programs reaching exclusively the CBS stations in the South. /-■ The latter half of the Deems Taylor Musical Series, an educational course in Grand Opera, with brief explanations by Deems Taylor himself, and the illustrations from operas sung in English, will be presented in May. Both NBC systems are carrying this series in order to bring this opportunity to understand and appreciate opera to the largest possible audience. The subjects for May are as follow: May 3, "The Second Reformation;" May 10, "The Revolution;" May 17, "Verdi;" May 24, "Opera after Wagner;" May 31, "American Composers and American Opera." The May 31st program will begin 1:45 (E. D. T.) and last forty-five minutes. The others open at 2 p. M. and last onehalf hour. Among the chain programs which have left the air for the summer are Davey Hour, Luden's, Floyd Gibbons, Enna Jettick, Billikin Pickards, Uncle Abe and David, Smith Brothers, Edward Rambler, Two Troupers, Dixie Circus, Vapex Doctors, The Campus, Golden Hour, Be-Square Club, Sam Lloyd and Fro-Joy. Other withdrawals are imminent. However, a goodly number of new features are promised for the summer months. Firestone, Domino Sugar, Compana, Bayuk Cigars, Little Orphan Annie, Tidewater Inn, Fortune Builders, McAleer Polishers and Postal Telegraph are but some of those which have already been definitely contracted. Air Channels. On April 14 the Federal Commission gets down to brass tacks again on the question of deciding which stations shall be permitted to increase their power to 50,000 watts. "FORTUNE BUILDERS' The new station list issued by the Federal Radio Commission is now ready for the public. It may be obtained from the Government Printing Office at Washington on receipt of fifteen cents in coin, not stamps. The hard-worked Federal Commission received in one application recently request for authority to add 267 new broadcasting stations to the already overloaded air. The complete plan of the sponsors calls for exclusive use of twenty-five channels, which it would use through some eight hundred small stations to be built in cities of from 10,000 to 100,000 population to provide purely local service. With television bobbing out from around the corner, and but four channels available for the entire United States, public necessity bids fair to bring a drastic shake-up of broadcasting by another CBS, SUNDAY AND THURSDAY AT 10:30 p. m. It is quite probable that before these lines are read WTMJ at Milwaukee will be granted relief from interference which now limits its reception. Just what stations will be shifted is still a mystery. >' Early in May, WHP at Harrisburg, WHEC at Rochester, WCAH at Columbus, and WOKO at Albany, all four aligned with CBS, are scheduled to beg i n synchronized broadcasting simultaneously o n the 1430 kilocycle channel. This new program offers to Eastern and middle Western listeners one of the foremost newspaper interviewers of our time. Not only is DOUGLAS GILBERT distinguished by his remarkable word-pictures of practically every person of prominence in this country, but he possesses those rare qualities of voice and mind that arc counted rich attributes of the radio spokesman. In "Fortune Builders" Douglas Gilbert sketches microphone word-pictures of America's great business leaders.