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The Medium, the Men, and the Message

By Paul D. Colford | Staff Writer

To marvel at numbers that reveal radio to be a vigorous 75-year-old is to overlook the vast array of personalities and formats that have given life to the dial. Here is a purely subjective list of 15 of the medium's more influential figures and developments.

The Visionaries

Russian-born David Sarnoff (1891-1971) first made his name as a telegraph operator who happened to be on duty in New York on April 14, 1912, when a faint signal came in: "SS Titanic ran into iceberg. Sinking fast." Sarnoff informed the nation of developments through his reports to the New York American. In the years that followed, Sarnoff saw beyond Morse Code. He sold Radio Corporation of America on his vision of a "radio music box" that would bring entertainment and enlightenment into people's living rooms. In 1926 the National Broadcasting Co. was incorporated, and NBC's Red and Blue networks went on the air, offering programing that linked town and city simultaneously.

William S. Paley (1901-1990) recognized the potential of radio in 1927, when he placed commercials for his family's cigar company on Philadelphia's WCAU and saw sales double. Bankrolled by his father, he acquired a sleepy chain of 16 radio stations the following year, the start of his Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), which he long ruled as chairman. Paley helped devise the so-called compensation system that bought the allegiance of affiliates and, recognizing that top stars and good programing would attract listeners, conducted sensational talent raids to staff his network that foretold the star system of today.

Jack Benny (1894-1974). One of Paley's biggest stars and perhaps the most important and most enduring of the early radio entertainers. Benny was a comic genius who recognized the medium's ability to grip the imagination. On radio from 1932 to 1955 (Sunday nights at 7), Benny remained forever in character -- a tightwad who insisted he was 39 years old. Presenting stories, not gags, along with cast members Eddie (Rochester) Anderson, Dennis Day, Mary Livingstone and bandleader Phil Harris, the enormously popular Benny "made all the other comics throw away their joke files," according to Eddie Cantor. Another radio contemporary, humorist Fred Allen, said Benny was "the first to realize that the listener is not in a theater with a thousand other people but is in a small circle at the house."

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945). Running for president in 1932, FDR was the first candidate to master use of the medium. He measured his campaign words with a second audience in mind, one that was sitting at home, in a bar, or on the highway, listening to him on the radio. He delivered his first "Fireside Chat" on the radio a week after his inauguration in 1933, calmly and matter-of-factly explaining his plans for the banking system -- and reassuring Americans. According to radio historian J. Fred MacDonald, FDR "used radio to approach the nation as a single state." His ease and ability on the air helped radio to become a political medium.

Like FDR, the Rev. Charles E. Coughlin (1891-1979), a Roman Catholic clergyman from Royal Oak, Mich., enlarged his political profile via the airwaves. During the '20s and '30s, the so-called "radio priest" amassed millions of listeners and generous contributions as he railed against communists, socialists, wealthy capitalists and Jews. As intolerant as Father Coughlin's views were, he offered vivid evidence of how radio, like it or not, served free speech and how the medium could be exploited by a compelling personality.

Martin Block (1901 or 1903-1967). In 1935, Block, a staff announcer on New York's WNEW-AM, suggested the station play records between reports from the riveting trial in Flemington, N.J., of Bruno Richard Hauptman, accused of kidnaping and killing the infant son of aviator Charles Lindbergh. His idea was that using records would be cheaper than keeping musicians on standby. Later, impressed by the way a Los Angeles radio broadcaster, KFWB's Al Jarvis, introduced records in lieu of a dance band, Block began "The Make-Believe Ballroom" on WNEW and became the country's first major "disc jockey" as he spoke warmly -- and person-to-person -- about the records of Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller and other artists of the day.

Orson Welles (1915-1985). Not the most popular performer during radio's golden era of the '30s and '40s, but the multitalented Welles may be the most significant figure, because of one of his many radio broadcasts. In 1938, months after the 23-year-old was hailed in a Time cover story as the new hope of the American stage, Welles led his Mercury Theater on the Air in a radio dramatization of H.G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds." The story of a Martian invasion was cleverly retold in a series of news flashes sprinkled throughout an equally contrived music program.

Welles played astronomer Richard Pierson; the Martians were reported to have landed at Grovers Mill, N.J., spewing jets of flame at everyone in their path. The panic instilled in listeners who failed to grasp that it was a dramatization, or who happened on the program already in progress, escalated into mass hysteria as police stations were swamped with calls and otherwise rational people fled their homes. The morning after some wanted to punish the innocent Welles, but others praised him for providing a valuable lesson in radio's awesome power to persuade and inform.

The New York World-Telegram editorialized: "On the contrary, we think it is evidence of how dangerous political control of radio might become. If so many people could be misled unintentionally, when the purpose was merely to entertain, what could designing politicians not do through control of broadcasting stations?"

Edward R. Murrow (1908-1965). He joined CBS in 1935 as director of talks and education, lining up prominent speakers to do broadcasts. As war clouds thickened, he was sent abroad as the network's European director shortly before Hitler seized Austria in 1938, an event that initiated him as a radio newsman. From Vienna, he reported on CBS: "Young storm troopers are riding about the streets, riding about in trucks and vehicles of all sorts, singing and tossing oranges out to the crowd." The eloquent Murrow became the most famous eyewitness to history during World War II, bringing the conflict home to American listeners with his dark-voiced accounts of the Nazi blitzing of London and the Allies' liberation of the Buchenwald death camp. He also built for CBS a team of correspondents, including Charles Collingwood and Eric Sevareid, with whom he defined broadcast journalism (on radio and later TV) and helped transform the way in which Americans received news and information.

Arthur Godfrey (1903-1983). "The ole redhead," as he liked to call himself, played ukulele, departed from the script and displayed a folksy manner that broke through the stiff formality that characterized the medium. "Getcha some Lipton's, hot the pot with plain hot water for a few minutes, then put fresh hot water on the tea and let it just sit there." Whatever Godfrey had, it was infectious. Brought to CBS in New York from the network's Washington affiliate in 1941, Godfrey ended up doing three shows a day -- one in the morning and two at night -- and became enormously popular, earning around $400,000 a year, even before additional exposure on TV after 1948 made him a broadcasting superstar. "There is no doubt that Godfrey is a very funny man, but nobody, including Godfrey, really understands why people laugh at him," Life magazine observed. CBS estimated in the 1940s that 40 million people listened to him at least once a week.

Alan Freed (1921-1965). "Hey, here we go! Hey, play, hey, all right!" In the early 1950s, the high-octane disc jockey introduced black rhythm-and-blues tunes to white audiences on Cleveland's WJW. In the mid-1950s the self-proclaimed "King of Rock and Roll" became such a hit on the New York dial (WINS-AM) that perhaps only Elvis Presley enjoyed greater name recognition among music fans. The first rock-radio superstar, Freed bridged the color line; he turned white teens on to black artists (Fats Domino, the Harptones and others) and demonstrated the electric power of what he called "the big beat" by generating massive sales of the platters he played and drawing sellout audiences to see the artists in live stage shows at the Paramount theaters in Manhattan and Brooklyn. His acceptance of payola, taking money for some of the platters he aired, ultimately led to a prison term for tax evasion.

Freed's successors in the local radio spotlight, Top 40 division, included Murray the K (Murray Kaufman) and Cousin Brucie (Bruce Morrow). Dick Biondi, Robert W. Morgan and The Real Don Steele were among the rock jocks who held forth beyond New York. Separate radio programing has been aimed at New York's black audiences since the late 1940s, featuring such air personalities as Willie Bryant, Jack Walker, Frankie Crocker and Hal Jackson, who continues to play classic R&B on Sundays over WBLS-FM.

Paul Harvey (born in 1918). "This is Paul Harvey. Stand by for . . . news." The baritone voice . . . and his dramatic pauses. Harvey, an Oklahoma boy born Paul Harvey Aurandt, has been an ABC Radio fixture since 1951. Based in Chicago, he makes no waves and generates no controversy in the Howard Stern or Rush Limbaugh style. But the millions drawn to his morning and midday newscasts/commentaries, carried by more than 1,000 stations (including four between Manhattan and Montauk), make up the largest audience in network radio. His annual salary, $10 million, is tops as well. Harvey often shades his news copy with conservative asides and opinions -- a no-no for anyone else -- but his economical writing style, human-interest angles and pronounced affection for the average working stiff mark him as America's last town crier of the airwaves. An old-fashioned legend with no apparent successor (except, perhaps, Charles Osgood, a different act entirely on CBS Radio).

The Information Formats

All-News Radio. The pre-CNN format was begun in 1961 on XTRA, a station in Tijuana, Mexico, that aimed its English-language programing at Southern California. WNUS in Chicago followed in 1964, and New York's WINS, in 1965. "All news, all the time" ranks as one of the great luxuries on the crowded dial -- the ultimate and indispensable service format (news, sports, weather, stocks, traffic) for those who must confront or keep up with the world.

All-Sports Radio. It was a sports widow's worst nightmare or the greatest thrill for sports fans since the slo-mo replay: Emmis Broadcasting Corp.'s switch in 1987 of New York's WHN to WFAN, the first 24-hour jock station. The move spawned imitators around the country. Call-ins, periodic sports updates, Mets games and in-your-face hosts, such as Mike and the Mad Dog (Mike Francesa and Christopher Russo) -- and "Imus in the Morning," since 1988 -- have made WFAN's guy-luring, niche format one of the richest in radio.

National Public Radio. Established in 1970 as a private, nonprofit corporation, NPR was one of the best-kept secrets in broadcasting for years, until its nightly newsmagazine, "All Things Considered" (launched in 1971), built an audience for smart, thoughtful and occasionally irreverent broadcast journalism practiced quietly in the tall shadows of network television's anchor gods. Susan Stamberg and Bob Edwards were the anchors of "All Things"; Edwards later switched to "Morning Edition" (launched in 1979). Other distinctive NPR voices have included Noah Adams, Nina Totenberg, Cokie Roberts and Robert Siegel. NPR also supplies affiliate stations an array of cultural and public-affairs programs. All in all, an indispensable resource.

Casey Kasem (born in 1933). He was a veteran disc jockey even before he put his croak of a voice to work on "American Top 40." Launched in 1970, during a down period in the popularity of Top 40 radio, the broadcast sustained the tradition of counting down the week's biggest hits. The show also transformed Kasem into a coast-to-coast star, especially among younger listeners drawn to his song dedications and capsule biographies of the artists. As a business venture, "American Top 40" was enormously significant, because it helped fire up the business of radio syndication. Watermark and later ABC/Watermark reaped a fortune by giving the weekly program to stations free of charge, as long as the affiliates aired a prescribed number of commercials that were lined up by the supplier and came with the show. In a major defection six years ago, Kasem left "American Top 40" and took his services to syndicator Westwood One, for which he hosts a mix of music shows designed for different pop formats. His contract runs into the year 2000.

Mel Karmazin (born in 1943). The former general manager of New York's WNEW-AM and WNEW-FM was lured by Infinity Broadcasting Corp. in 1981 to run its small group of radio stations, including New York's WKTU-FM (now WXRK). He brought Howard Stern to WXRK in 1985, purchased station after major-market station (such as WFAN, home of Don Imus and the New York Mets), and has expanded Infinity so aggressively that its recently announced plan to acquire Alliance Broadcasting Inc.'s seven outlets for $275 million will raise the company's holdings to 23 FMs and 11 AMs. As president of the country's largest radio-broadcasting corporation (and as chief executive officer of the Westwood One Radio Networks, a leading syndicator), radio's most powerful executive -- Imus calls him "the Zen master" -- continues to demonstrate a boundless belief in the business and the future of the medium that should translate into even bigger moves in the years ahead.

Rush Limbaugh (born in 1951). A failure as a disc jockey and then a burnout after five years in the front office of the Kansas City Royals baseball team, Limbaugh took one last stab at radio on Kansas City's KMBZ-AM in 1983, this time as a newscaster and commentator. He was fired again, but his newfound flair for couching tough, liberal-bashing conservative views amid song parodies, bawdy humor and chest-thumping bravado stood out as one of the freshest and brashest acts in radio. Limbaugh scored huge ratings (finally) on the Sacramento, Calif., dial, prompting an entrepreneurial syndicator, Edward F. McLaughlin, to give him a national stage in 1988. Since then, the whopping success of Limbaugh's midday program has helped revive the fortunes of AM radio (where most of his 600-plus affiliate stations are found) and given a fresh lift to syndicated (network) programing. He also has identified an insatiable appetite for his conservative Limbaughspeak that has led to lots more political radio -- as Limbaugh himself is expected to become an influential player in the 1996 presidential campaign.

Howard Stern (born in 1954). He is hilarious and repulsive, a populist hero and a politically incorrect primitive, a dedicated family man and a dirty old man. The baddest boy in radio has widened the room for everyone working on the dial by daring to address any and all subjects, no matter how private, and piling up terrific ratings for his outrageousness (as well as $1.7 million in fines for indecency that his employer, Infinity Broadcasting Corp., recently agreed to pay the FCC). Nearly a decade after taking over the wakeup show on WXRK-FM ("K-Rock"), Stern continues to reign as No. 1 in New York area ratings (and holds unchallenged dominance on Long Island). In Los Angeles and other major markets, he has knocked off leading competitors, proving for the first time in a long time that a New York-based show can thrive in morning prime-time anywhere -- as long as it's funny. This multimillionaire son of Nassau County was ranked by Radio & Records, an industry publication, as the most influential air personality of the past two decades.