Mutual Broadcasting System

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Mutual Broadcasting System (MBS) was an American radio network, in operation from 1934 to 1999. Of the four national networks of American radio's classic era, for decades it had the largest number of afffiliates but the least certain financial position. It was best known as the original network home of The Lone Ranger; as the long-time radio residence of The Shadow, as well as baseball's All-Star Game and World Series and Notre Dame football; and for its news and commentary shows. Toward the end of its run as a major programmer, it introduced the country to Larry King.

Mutual was launched as a cooperative, with its members sharing expenses (e.g., phone line rental fees for audio transmission, promotional costs), their own original programming, and advertising revenues. Attempts at establishing such cooperative radio networks had been made since the 1920s. In 1929, a group of four radio stations in the major markets of New York City, Chicago, Cincinnati, and Detroit organized into a loose confederation known as the Quality Network. Five years later, a similar or identical group of stations founded Mutual.^[1]

By late 1936, the Mutual Broadcasting System had affiliates from coast to coast. Its business structure would change after General Tire, through a series of regional and individual station acquisitions, assumed majority ownership in 1952. Once General Tire sold the network in 1957, its ownership was largely disconnected from the stations it served, leading to a more conventional, top-down model of program production and distribution. Mutual changed hands frequently in succeeding years—even leaving aside larger-scale acquisitions and mergers, its final direct corporate parent, Westwood One, which purchased it in 1985, was the seventh in a string of new owners that followed General Tire.

[edit] History

[edit] 1930s: Starting out

It is often claimed that MBS was launched primarily as a vehicle for The Lone Ranger, but Lum and Abner was no less popular at the time. Abner is seen in this advertisement reaching for a can of Horlick's. The malted milk maker sponsored the show during its entire run on Mutual. It left MBS for NBC Blue after August 1935.

Mutual's original participating stations were WOR–Newark, New Jersey, just outside of New York (owned by the Bamberger Broadcasting Service, a division of R.H. Macy and Company), WGN–Chicago (owned by WGN Inc., a subsidiary of the Chicago Tribune), WXYZ–Detroit (owned by Kunsky-Trendle Broadcasting), and WLW–Cincinnati (owned by the Crosley Radio Company). The network was organized on September 29, 1934, with the members contracting for telephone-line transmission facilities and agreeing to collectively enter into contracts with advertisers for their networked shows. WOR and WGN, based in the two largest markets and providing the bulk of the programming, were the acknowledged leaders of the group. On October 29, 1934, the Mutual Broadcasting System was incorporated, with Bamberger and WGN Inc. each holding 50 percent of the stock—five each of the ten total shares.^[2]

Unlike the existing national networks of the time—NBC's Red and Blue networks (the latter of which would be sold and transform into ABC in 1943–44) and the Columbia Broadcasting System—the Mutual Broadcasting System was run as a true cooperative venture, with programming produced by and shared between the group's members. The majority of the early programming, from WOR and WGN, consisted of musical features and inexpensive dramatic serials. WGN contributed the popular comedy series Lum and Abner. Detroit's WXYZ provided The Lone Ranger; the Western serial had been launched in 1933 and was already in demand. What WLW brought was sheer power; billing itself as "The Nation's Station," in May 1934 it had begun night broadcasting at a massive 500,000 watts, ten times the clear-channel standard.^[3] On May 24, 1935, the network aired its inaugural live event—the first-ever night baseball game, between the Cincinnati Reds and the Philadelphia Phillies.^[4] In the fall, the network began a decades-long run as broadcaster of baseball's World Series, with airtime responsibilities shared between WGN's Bob Elson and Quin Ryan and WLW's Red Barber (NBC and CBS also carried the series that year; the Fall Classic would air on all three networks through 1938).^[5] Mutual also broadcast its first Notre Dame football game that autumn, beginning another relationship that would last for decades.^[6]

As an income-generating business, the Mutual network was a modest endeavor at the beginning: in the first eleven months of 1935, the cooperative garnered $1.1 million in advertising, compared to NBC's $28.3 million and CBS's $15.8 million.^[7] In September, WXYZ dropped out to join NBC Blue, though contractual obligations kept The Lone Ranger on Mutual, airing three times a week, through April 1942.^[8] The hole in the Detroit market was filled by CKLW in Windsor, Ontario, just across the river. In the fall of 1936, another founding member, WLW, also departed. That same year, however, Mutual signed up John Shepard's Colonial Network with its Boston flagship, WAAB, and thirteen affiliated stations around New England.^[9] Cleveland's WGAR also became an affiliate, as did five Midwestern stations: KSLG–St. Louis; KSO–Des Moines, Iowa; WMT–Cedar Rapids, Iowa; KOIL–Omaha, Neb.; and KFOR–Lincoln, Neb.^[10] The big prize came in December, when the Don Lee Broadcasting System, the leading regional web on the West Coast, left CBS to become a central participant in Mutual. Don Lee brought its four owned-and-operated stations—KHJ–Los Angeles, KFRC–San Francisco, KGB–San Diego, and KDB–Santa Barbara—along with six California affiliates and, via shortwave hookup, two more in Hawaii.^[11] Mutual now had a nationwide presence. During 1936, as well, an offer by Warner Bros. to purchase the network was apparently made and rejected.^[12] In January 1937, ownership of WAAB was consolidated with that of Shepard's other Boston station, WNAC, flagship of a different, but overlapping circuit of New England radio stations, the Yankee Network.^[13] The Texas Network soon added twenty-three more stations to the MBS affiliate roster.^[14] WGAR dropped out, but the United Broadcasting Company, part of the Cleveland Plain Dealer business, joined with its lead station, WHK.^[15] Within a few years, this new Ohio participant would become a vested member of MBS. By the end of 1938, Mutual had 75 exclusive affiliates; though the two leading networks discouraged dual hookups, Mutual shared another 25 affiliates with NBC and 5 with CBS.^[16] The total of 105 affiliates put Mutual not far behind the leaders. Because of the corporate strength behind NBC and CBS, however, and the fact that the lion's share of the most powerful stations in the country had already signed with them before Mutual's emergence (the exceptional, and soon departed, WLW aside), the cooperative network would be at a permanent disadvantage.

At first, Orson Welles played the part of the Shadow anonymously. But, as one chronicler puts it, "nothing to do with Welles could remain a secret for very long."^[17] A predecessor in the role delivered the show's intro, with its famous catchphrase, "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows...." Welles was brilliant in almost every regard, but he couldn't pull off the sinister chuckle.

On the programming front, July 1937 saw the premiere of a seven-part adaptation of Les Misérables, produced, written, and directed by Orson Welles and featuring many of his Mercury Theatre performers—Mercury's first appearance on the air. September 26, 1937, proved a particularly momentous date: that evening, The Shadow came to Mutual. The show would become a mainstay of the network for more than a decade and a half and one of the most popular programs in radio history. For the first year of its Mutual run, Welles provided the voice of the Shadow and his newly created alter ego, Lamont Cranston. In April 1938, the network picked up The Green Hornet from former member WXYZ. Mutual would provide the twice-a-week series its first national exposure until November 1939, when it switched to NBC Blue. (The series would return very briefly to Mutual in the fall of 1940).^[18] MBS also provided the national launching pad for Kay Kyser and His Kollege of Musical Knowledge; Kyser's enormous success at Mutual soon allowed his show to move to NBC and its much larger audience.^[19] In autumn 1939, Mutual won exclusive broadcast rights to the World Series. As described in a 1943 Supreme Court ruling upholding the regulatory power of the Federal Communications Commission, Mutual "offered this program of outstanding national interest to stations throughout the country, including NBC and CBS affiliates in communities having no other stations. CBS and NBC immediately invoked the 'exclusive affiliation' clauses of their agreements with these stations, and as a result thousands of persons in many sections of the country were unable to hear the broadcasts of the games." This was the first example given in the ruling of "abuses" perpretrated by the two leading networks.^[20]

Mutual also began building a reputation as a strong news service, rivaling in quality if not budget the industry leaders. The broadcasts of WOR reporter Gabriel Heatter from the Lindbergh kidnapping "trial of the century" in 1935, heard over Mutual, were highly regarded; Heatter soon had his own regularly scheduled newscast, aired nationally five nights a week.^[21] In 1936, also via WOR, Mutual began broadcasting the reports of news commentator Raymond Gram Swing, who became one of the country's leading voices on foreign affairs.^[22] In November 1937, conservative commentator Fulton Lewis Jr., heard five nights weekly from Mutual affiliate WOL, became the first national news personality to broadcast out of Washington, D.C.; he would remain with the network until his death almost three decades later.^[23] In 1938, Mutual began rebroadcasting news reports from the BBC and English-language newscasts from the European mainland; the network also began employing its own reporters in Europe as the continent headed toward crisis. Among these was Sigrid Schultz, the first accomplished female foreign correspondent to appear on American news radio.^[24]

[edit] 1940s: Major-minor

Early in 1940, the corporate organization of Mutual became even more inclusive, as described by scholar Cornelia B. Rose:

Until January, 1940, six groups bore the expense of the network operation in varying degree: stations WGN and WOR owned all the stock of the corporation and guaranteed to make up any deficit; the Colonial Network in New England, the Don Lee System on the Pacific Coast, and the group of stations owned by the Cleveland Plain Dealer, participated in responsibility for running expenses. A new contract effective February 1, 1940, provides for contributing membership by all the above group[s] plus station CKLW in Detroit-Windsor. These groups now agree to underwrite expenses and become stockholders in the network.... An operating board for the network is comprised of representatives from each of these groups, together with additional representation appointed by other affiliated stations.^[25]

Mutual featured a variety of political voices, but none for so long as that of conservative commentator Fulton Lewis Jr. As described by historians Dan Nimmo and Chevelle Newsome, many later pundits "copied his style—mocking, ridiculing, full of denials, full of sweeping generalizations, and full of inside-dopsterism."^[26] WKIC was Mutual's affiliate in Hazard, Kentucky.

The new cooperative structure was also joined by the owners of WKRC in Cincinnati, which had replaced Mutual cofounder WLW in that market. The MBS corporation now had 100 shares, apportioned as follows:^[27]

• Bamberger Broadcasting (WOR)—25
• WGN—25
• Don Lee Broadcasting—25
• Colonial Network—6
• United Broadcasting (WHK)—6
• Western Ontario Broadcasting (CKLW)—6
• Cincinnati Times-Star (WKRC)—6
• Fred Weber (MBS general manager)—1

In 1941, WOR's official city of license was changed to New York. Within two years, the Colonial Network's affiliate roster and shares in Mutual had been fully absorbed into the Yankee Network by John Shepard; WNAC was the sole flagship, WAAB having been moved to western Massachusetts to avoid duopoly restrictions. With WBZ taking over its slot as the NBC Red affiliate in Boston, WNAC switched to Mutual. In January 1943, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved the sale of the Yankee Network—with WNAC, its three other owned-and-operated stations, its contracts with 17 additional affiliates, and its Mutual shares—to the Ohio-based General Tire and Rubber Company.^[28] By December 1948, Mutual Broadcasting had over 500 affiliated stations in the United States.^[29] Though Mutual had more affiliates than any other radio network, most were in small markets or secondary stations in big ones—"less desirable in frequency, power, and coverage," as the Supreme Court had put it.^[30] Mutual thus continued to rank far behind NBC and CBS in advertising revenue.^[31]

Logo for KFRC, the Mutual station in San Francisco, owned by the Don Lee Broadcasting System.

Late in the decade, there was a brief exploration into the idea of launching a Mutual television network, serious enough to prompt talks with MGM as a potential source of programming talent.^[32] The plans never got off the ground and Mutual thus became the only one of the "Big Four" U.S. radio networks not to start (and eventually be dominated by) a television network. While there was no Mutual TV network, this did not mean the group did not have an influence over commercial television's early development. The cooperative held the rights to a number of valuable radio properties that made the transition to the new medium, including two of the era's most popular variations on what would later become known as the tabloid talk show and "reality" programming: the crabby gabfest Leave It to the Girls and, in particular, Queen for a Day, which both started on Mutual radio in 1945. Referred to by some as a "misery show," Queen for a Day "awarded prizes to women who could come up with the most heart-stabbing stories told by the sick and the downtrodden.... On one show, a mother of nine requested a washing machine to replace one that broke when it fell on her husband and disabled him—and who, by the way, also needed heart surgery."^[33] In May 1947, a simulcast version began airing on the Don Lee system's experimental TV station in Los Angeles, W6XAO (later KTSL). It was a smash hit, and by the turn of the decade TV stations all along the coast were broadcasting it to high ratings.^[34] In the 1950s, Mutual would stare down NBC for four years as the mighty network sought to take control of the show.

A recording session for The Mysterious Traveler, with the entire cast clustered around one microphone. Host Maurice Tarplin is directly behind the mic, third from the right. To the left, in the rear, a disc jockey and three phonographs (at least) provide music and sound effects.

Offscreen, Mutual remained an enterprising broadcaster, with its war coverage holding its own alongside that of CBS and NBC. In 1940, a program featuring Cedric Foster joined Mutual's respected schedule of news and opinion shows. Foster's claim to fame was as the first daytime commentator to be heard nationally on a daily basis.^[35] For a year and a half in the late 1940s, William Shirer came over from CBS to do commentary after his famous falling out with Edward Murrow.^[36] In the field of entertainment, along with the incomparable success of The Shadow, Mutual provided an early national outlet for the influential, iconoclastic satirist Henry Morgan, whose show Here's Morgan began in 1940. That May, WGN's The Theater of the Air, featuring hour-long opera and musical theater productions before a live audience, was broadcast for the first time. By 1943, the weekly show was being recorded in front of houses 4,000 strong, gathered to see performances featuring a full orchestra and chorus. The Theater of the Air would run on Mutual through March 1955.^[37] In April 1943, Mutual launched what would turn into one of its longest-running shows: debuting as The Return of Nick Carter and later retitled Nick Carter, Master Detective, it would be a network staple through September 1955. From May 1943 through May 1946, Mutual aired The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. An earlier incarnation of the show had run briefly on the network in 1936; a less starry version would return to MBS from September 1947 through June 1949.^[38] The Mysterious Traveler, a proto–Twilight Zone anthology series, ran every week on Mutual from December 1943 until September 1952. In 1946, the detective series Let George Do It, starring Bob Bailey, launched as a Mutual/Don Lee presentation; it would run into the mid-1950s. For two years, beginning in 1946 as well, Steve Allen got his first network exposure on the Mutual/Don Lee morning show Smile Time, out of Los Angeles's KHJ. In February 1947, the religiously oriented Family Theater premiered; with frequent appearances by major Hollywood stars, the series aired on Mutual for ten and a half years. The network gave an outlet to radio dramatist Wyllis Cooper and his highly regarded suspense anthology Quiet, Please, which ran on Mutual from June 1947 to September 1948. It also aired actor Alan Ladd's similarly lauded drama about a crime-solving mystery novelist, Box 13, which ran for precisely a year. Its 52 episodes, which aired every Sunday beginning August 22, 1948, were produced by Ladd's own company, Mayfair Productions.

[edit] 1950s: New ownership

On the radio in the morning, on TV in the afternoon—audiences couldn't get enough of Queen for a Day. At the end of each episode, host Jack Bailey would proclaim, "We wish we could make every lady in America a queen for every single day!"^[39]

Toward the end of 1950, the executors of the estate of Thomas S. Lee (the son of Don Lee, who had died in 1936) decided to liquidate the estate's interests in the broadcasting field. The Don Lee Broadcasting System, with its major station groups KHJ in Los Angeles and KFRC in San Francisco and its shares in the Mutual Broadcasting System, was sold to General Tire (which already had a stake in Mutual via its Yankee Network holdings).^[40] Around the same time, MBS acquired the television broadcast rights to the World Series and All-Star Game for the next six years. Mutual may have been reindulging in TV network dreams or simply taking advantage of a long-standing business relationship; in either case, the broadcast rights were sold to NBC in time for the following season's games at an enormous profit.^[41]

Early in 1952, General Tire purchased the Bamberger Broadcasting Service from R.H. Macy and Company. With the deal, General Tire acquired the WOR radio and TV stations and the rights to the name General Teleradio, under which the company merged its broadcasting interests as a new division (Bamberger had previously sold its TV station in the nation's capital, WOIC, to CBS and the Washington Post).^[42] Most importantly, as far as the future of the Mutual Broadcasting System was concerned, WOR's founding shares in the network, when added to the Yankee and Don Lee holdings, gave General Tire majority control of MBS.^[43] That year as well, NBC began its attempts to win the television rights to Queen for a Day from Mutual. As a measure of the afternoon show's success, its audience at its new Los Angeles home, General Teleradio/Don Lee's KHJ-TV, was triple that of the city's six other stations combined.^[44] Mutual might not have had a TV network, but it controlled one of the most profitable properties in the early history of commercial television.^[45]

Mutual was at this point by far the largest radio network in the United States—it had 560 affiliates, almost three times as many as its most powerful competitors, CBS (194) and NBC (191), with ABC falling in between.^[46] In 1955, General Tire expanded its media holdings by acquiring RKO Radio Pictures from Howard Hughes, only to close it a year and a half later (General Teleradio, renamed RKO Teleradio after the acquisition, would soon be known as RKO General). General Tire also decided to spin off its holdings in Mutual and sell it as a programming service even as it retained the stations that had given it control. Indeed, in 1956, General purchased a governing interest in yet another Mutual shareholder, Western Ontario Broadcasting, and its station in Windsor, CKLW. In July 1957, General Tire sold the Mutual Broadcasting business to a group led by Dr. Armand Hammer.^[47]

Perry Como for Chesterfield, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays...

...Eddie Fisher for Coca-Cola, Tuesdays and Thursdays. That's how Mutual made music in 1954.

The network soon changed hands again: in September 1958, it was acquired by the Scranton Corporation.^[48] Scranton was under the control of the F.L. Jacobs Company, whose chairman, Alexander Guterma, envisioned a media empire uniting Mutual with another recent purchase, the Hal Roach movie studio. After being questioned by federal investigators in February 1959 about financial improprieties, Guterma stepped down. Mutual, by this point, was floundering. For some years it had been run by owners who were either uninterested (General Tire, Armand Hammer) or now, as a growing amount of evidence would show, criminal. Mutual was also confronted with the situation the entire industry was facing: major advertisers were abandoning radio for television. Commercial rates had been cut; limited sponsorship packages had been introduced, in which an advertiser could back a show for an abbreviated period rather than an entire season—but there was no reversing the trend. The networks were left with the bills for an increasing number of nonsponsored programs, known as "sustaining" shows in the industry.^[49] The loss of mainstay advertisers was accompanied by what historian Ronald Garay describes as the "mass desertion of network radio talent, management and technicians for television.... [T]hese people were taking with them the programming that had popularized the radio networks."^[50]

Under its new chairman, Hal Roach Jr., F.L. Jacobs put Mutual into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In September 1959, Guterma, Roach, and Garland Culpepper, a Scranton Corp. vice president, were indicted for failing to register as "foreign agents"; they were charged with secretly accepting money from Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo that previous January in return for favorable coverage of the country and its government on Mutual news programs.^[51] It was never proven that Guterma, who was identified as the primary player on Mutual's side and pleaded no contest to the charge, actually fulfilled his part of the deal and arranged for slanted coverage. Nonetheless, the incident led to a reported 130 stations cutting their affiliation with Mutual.^[52] Whether precipitated by the scandal or not, among the stations cutting its ties with Mutual in 1959 was one of the network's two original flagships, WOR.^[53] Businessman Albert G. McCarthy, meanwhile, had taken over the network, arranging to settle its debts while seeking an owner interested in running it on an ongoing basis.^[54]

Before the Guterma fiasco, the network had maintained its reputation for running a strong news organization. As the conflict on the Korean peninsula began to heat up in mid-1950, Mutual started airing two special reports nightly on the situation, featuring the commentary of Major George Fielding Eliot, military analyst for CBS during World War II. By August, Mutual was represented by six correspondents in Korea, more than ABC or NBC.^[55] In June 1958, just a few months before the Scranton takeover, the network had launched a nightly 25-minute newscast, The World Today, hosted by Westbrook Van Voorhis, famous as the voice of The March of Time. By the end of the 1950s, Mutual had largely forsworn original dramatic programming. Early in the decade, however, it picked up the adventure series Challenge of the Yukon, which had originated at MBS cofounder WXYZ in 1938 after the station's departure from the network; the show—which was subsequently renamed Sergeant Preston of the Yukon—ran on Mutual from January 1950 until its finale in June 1955. In 1950 as well, Mutual introduced radio listeners to adult science fiction with 2000 Plus, which first aired on March 15, almost a month before the premiere of NBC's similarly themed Dimension X. In 1955, the famous comedy team Bob and Ray came over from NBC for a five-day-a-week afternoon show.^[56] Sports began to occupy an increasing portion of Mutual's schedule: the network began regularly airing a baseball Game of the Day, every day except Sunday. This expansion into daily sports programming would run well into the 1960s.^[57] In 1956, the network won exclusive radio rights to Notre Dame football, which would remain a cornerstone for the rest of Mutual's existence.

[edit] 1960s–1970s: Narrowed focus, niche markets

Advertisement for the Mutual Black Network, featuring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and poet Nikki Giovanni.

In the spring of 1960, the 3M Company stepped in, purchasing Mutual and restoring much-needed stability to the operation.^[58] Despite the recent scandal, MBS still had 443 affiliates, easily the most of any network. By this time, as historian Jim Cox describes, both Mutual and ABC "had largely wiped their slates clean of most of their network programming—save news and sporting events and a few long-running features."^[59] This would characterize Mutual's essential approach for the next three and a half decades, through a further series of ownership changes.

In July 1966, 3M sold the network to a privately held company headed by John P. Fraim.^[60] The following month, after the death of Mutual stalwart Fulton Lewis Jr., his son Fulton Lewis III took over his Monday-to-Friday, 7 p.m. slot.^[61] When ABC Radio "split" into four demographically targeted networks on January 1, 1968, Mutual unsuccessfully sued to block the move. Four years later, under new president C. Edward Little, Mutual began its own niche programming services, taking advantage, like ABC, of the prevailing FCC requirement that all radio stations, of whatever primary format, regularly air news and public affairs (a responsibility that would be eliminated in the early 1980s). On May 1, 1972, the network launched the Mutual Black Network (MBN) and Mutual Cadena Hispánica (aka the Mutual Spanish Network); each provided 100 five-minute-long news and sports capsules a week, along with other programming.^[62] While the Spanish-language service would be short-lived, MBN survived to be spun off a few years later. Acquired by the Sheridan Broadcasting Corporation, it led to the creation of the successful American Urban Radio Networks.^[63] Additional targeted services, such as the Mutual Southwest Network and Mutual Lifestyle Radio, followed from MBS.

In 1973, Mutual launched one of the last significant original dramatic series in the history of U.S. radio. Rod Serling's five-day-a-week anthology show Zero Hour ran for two seasons.^[64] It touched off a small wave of new radio dramas, including CBS Radio Mystery Theater.

On September 30, 1977, Amway bought the network.^[65] Soon after the purchase, Mutual began developing what would become become the first nationwide commercial broadcast satellite network, leading to the end of decades of reliance on telephone lines for the broadcast industry's transmission capacity.^[66] In 1979, Amway purchased WCFL from the Chicago Federation of Labor to serve as Mutual's flagship. For the first time, the network that had been founded by radio stations directly controlled a station of its own, and in one of the country's largest markets. In 1979, as well, Mutual reached its greatest number of affiliates—950. This was fewer than ABC, whose multipronged approach had proven very successful, but far in front of NBC and CBS.^[67] It appeared that Amway was ready to pose a major challenge to the industry leaders.

One of the few long-form programs Mutual initiated during this era became one of the most successful in its history: the first nationwide, all-night call-in show, which launched on November 3, 1975, with Herb Jepko as host. Jepko, who had run a telephone talk show out of KSL in Salt Lake City for years, so determinedly avoided controversy that some callers simply talked about the weather where they lived. Jepko was briefly succeeded by Long John Nebel, before Mutual tapped a local talk show host at WIOD in Miami. Larry King made his network premiere on January 30, 1978; by the turn of the decade, he was being carried by 150 stations and credited with attracting many new affiliates to Mutual.^[68] King continued his MBS call-in show for years even as he also began appearing on television in the mid-1980s. From 1970 through 1977, Mutual was the national radio broadcaster for Monday Night Football.

[edit] 1980s–1990s: The end of Mutual

In 1980, Amway purchased WHN in New York, giving Mutual a second major-market owned-and-operated station. At the beginning of the year, MBS had started airing Mutual Radio Theater, a renamed version of Sears Radio Theater, which it had just picked up. A number of well-regarded dramas were produced as party of the anthology series.^[69] In 1981, Mutual launched Dick Clark's National Music Survey, a three-hour-long weekly program combining music and interviews. Despite these developments and the fact that its satellite network was now fully on line, Amway was making little if any profit out of MBS.^[70] The network's corporate parent began backing out of the radio business. In November 1983, Amway sold off Mutual's WCFL flagship to Statewide Broadcasting.^[71] A year later, a deal was struck for the sale of WHN to Doubleday Broadcasting.^[72] In 1985, a suitor came calling for the network itself.

Ad for Dick Clark's National Music Survey, among the last entertainment shows to originate on Mutual.

Westwood One, a major radio production company and syndicator—a budding network, in short—was looking to expand its operations. Westwood and Mutual were clearly a good match: The demographics of Mutual affiliates tended to be adult; most of the stations that bought Westwood's programming, much of it in the pop music field, had substantially younger audiences. Mutual had the news operations that Westwood lacked. And there was Mutual's size; though down from its peak, it still commanded 810 affiliates, a strong second among the Big Four.^[73] In September 1985, Amway sold the network to Westwood One for $39 million.^[74] "It's a perfect fit," declared Westwood head Norman J. Pattiz. Referring to the united company's ability to give advertisers access to a broad demographic sweep, he called it "a classic case of two plus two equaling five."^[75] In 1987, the number got even bigger: Westwood One snapped up Mutual's long-time competitor, the NBC Radio Network, for $50 million. With Mutual now part of a much larger programming service, a slow phase out of its identity was perhaps inevitable. In 1993, when Larry King switched his radio show to the daytime a year before giving it up, the late-night call-in slot went to WCFL alumnus Jim Bohannon; within a few years, it was a Westwood One–branded show.^[76] Westwood One was itself taken over by Infinity Broadcasting in 1994.^[77] In a deal announced in June 1996 and completed that December, CBS's new parent company, Westinghouse, acquired Infinity for just shy of $5 billion.^[78] The direct descendants of the three original U.S. networks had merged.

At this point, Mutual was little more than a brand name for certain news and sports programming provided by the new conglomerate's Westwood One division. Mutual and NBC Radio newscasters sat back to back in the Westwood One studio, the former main MBS facility in Crystal City, Virginia.^[79] On April 12, 1999, Westwood One announced it was dropping the Mutual news brand in favor of CNN Radio—yet another acquisition—and the Mutual name disappeared permanently from the air.^[80] The Crystal City facility was closed in March 2001, and Westwood's primary operations were transferred to the CBS Broadcast Center in New York City.^[81] As of late 2006, Jim Bohannon was still on the air hosting a call-in show tracing directly back to Herb Jepko's 1975 launch on MBS, long after Mutual itself was gone.

[edit] See also

Shows

Persons

[edit] Notes

1. ^ All available sources concur that MBS cofounders WOR–Newark, N.J./New York, WXYZ–Detroit, and WLW–Cincinnati were also founding members of the Quality Network. Sources differ on whether WGN–Chicago, MBS's fourth original member, or another Chicago station, WLS, represented the city in the Quality Network. In addition, there is no consensus on the fundamental matter of the degree of connection involved: some sources claim the Quality Network had ceased to exist by the end of 1929; others that it carried on and simply changed its name and formalized its structure in 1934. As scholar James Schwoch puts it, "The origins of the Mutual Broadcasting System are somewhat murky and open to dispute." Indeed, a claim Schwoch makes just two sentences later—that "the permanent establishment of the Mutual network is bound up in the popularity of a single radio program, 'The Lone Ranger'"—is disputed by several scholars. See James Schwoch, "A Failed Vision: The Mutual Television Network," Velvet Light Trap no. 33 (spring 1994).
2. ^ Robinson, Thomas Porter, Radio Networks and the Federal Government (New York: Arno Press, 1979 [1943]), 28; Some History of the Mutual Broadcasting System extensive discussion of the network's history and organization by historian Elizabeth McLeod. Retrieved 11/21/06.
3. ^ Whitaker, Jerry C., "WLW: The Nation's Station," section in Audio/Video Protocol Handbook: Broadcast Standards and Reference Data (New York et al.: McGraw-Hill, 2002), 537–538 (available online).
4. ^ Gorman, Jerry, and Kirk Calhoun, with Skip Rozin, The Name of the Game: The Business of Sports (New York et al.: John Wiley & Sons, 1994), 105.
5. ^ Alexander, Charles C., Breaking the Slump: Baseball in the Depression Era (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 110; Gorman et al., 89.
6. ^ See, e.g., Patterson, Ted, The Golden Voices of Football (n.l.: Sports Publishing, 2004), 90.
7. ^ "M. B. S.," Time, January 4, 1937 (available online). Note that this article, all of whose data appears reliable, never mentions WXYZ in its history of Mutual.
8. ^ Kirkley Jr., Donald H., A Descriptive Study of the Network Television Western During the Seasons 1955–56—1962–63 (New York: Arno Press, 1979 [1967]), 39; Adcraft advertorial in Advertising Age, December 5, 2005; Lone Ranger Episode Log part of Jerry Haendiges' Vintage Radio Logs website. Retrieved 11/21/06.
9. ^ The Colonial Network part of BostonRadio.org. Retrieved 11/28/06.
10. ^ Cleveland Broadcast Radio Archives Project: WGAR-AM historical database maintained by Mike Olszewski and Pete Motz. Retrieved 11/29/06; "Radio's Version of 'Who's on First?'" Broadcasting, November 2, 1970 (available online). Note that this source incorrectly states, for its September 1, 1936, entry (magazine cover date, not event date), "WLW(AM) Cincinnati turns in its MBS stock but remains as outlet." WLW, in fact, never had any MBS stock and it left Mutual to become an NBC affiliate (see, e.g., Schramm, Wilbur, Mass Communications: A Book of Readings [Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1960], 51). Given the egregiousness of this error, too much weight must not rest on this source for any reported data; there is anecdotal support and, to date, no contravening evidence for its list of five Midwestern MBS affiliates.
11. ^ "M. B. S."; The History of KFRC Radio—The Mutual–Don Lee Network part of the Bay Area Radio Museum website. Retrieved 11/28/06.
12. ^ Clarke, Donald, The Rise and Fall of Popular Music (New York: St. Martin's, 1996), ch. 11 (available online).
13. ^ The Boston Radio Timeline part of BostonRadio.org. Retrieved 11/21/06.
14. ^ Cox, Jim, Say Goodnight, Gracie: The Last Years of Network Radio (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2002), 178.
15. ^ Cleveland Broadcast Radio Archives Project: WHK-AM. Retrieved 11/29/06.
16. ^ National Broadcasting Co., Inc., et al. v. United States et al. U.S. Supreme Court ruling, May 10, 1943. Retrieved 11/22/06.
17. ^ Callow, Simon, Orson Welles: The Road to Xanadu (New York: Viking, 1995), 321.
18. ^ Green Hornet Episode Log part of Jerry Haendiges' Vintage Radio Logs website. Retrieved 11/21/06.
19. ^ McDougal, Dennis, The Last Mogul: Lew Wasserman, MCA, and the Hidden History of Hollywood New York: Da Capo, 2001 [1998]), 68.
20. ^ National Broadcasting Co., Inc., et al. v. United States et al. Retrieved 11/22/06.
21. ^ Bliss, Edward, Now the News: The Story of Broadcast Journalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), 34, 36.
22. ^ Bliss, 60–61.
23. ^ Nimmo, Dan D., and Chevelle Newsome, Political Commentators in the United States in the 20th Century: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1997), 173.
24. ^ Bliss, 97–98.
25. ^ Rose Jr., Cornelia B., National Policy for Radio Broadcasting (New York: Arno Press/New York Times, 1971), 68.
26. ^ Nimmo and Newsome, 178.
27. ^ Robinson, 29.
28. ^ Jaker, Bill, Frank Sulek, and Peter Kanze, The Airwaves of New York: Illustrated Histories of 156 AM Stations in the Metropolitan Area (Jeffferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1998), 93; "Rubber Yankee," Time, January 18, 1943 (available online; The Boston Radio Timeline. Retrieved 11/21/06.
29. ^ AM Network-Affiliated Radio Stations, 1949 detailed affiliate listing maintained by Jeff Miller; information based on the 1949 Broadcasting-Telecasting Yearbook and provided by the DuMont project. Retrieved 11/21/06.
30. ^ National Broadcasting Co., Inc., et al. v. United States et al. Retrieved 11/22/06.
31. ^ For the advertising time sales of NBC, CBS, and MBS in 1940, see Robinson, 26, 27, 29. NBC, for example, took in more than eleven times as much in ad revenue as MBS that year. For the first eight months of 1941, see "Happy Birthday MBS," Time, September 15, 1941 (available online). NBC's take was now less than eight times as much as MBS's. All available reports suggest that the gap had not closed much further by the end of the decade.
32. ^ Segrave, Kerry, Movies at Home: How Hollywood Came to Television (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1999), 22. For more on the evaporation of Mutual's TV plans, see Schwoch, "A Failed Vision," op. cit.
33. ^ Nachmann, Gerald, Raised on Radio (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 2000), 350.
34. ^ Cassidy, Marsha Francis, What Women Watched: Daytime Television in the 1950s (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005), 40–43, 187–188. Cassidy also refers to Mutual's wish-fulfillment show Heart's Desire as one of those that "made the shift to local or regional television" (41), but it has not been possible to confirm this. For a detailed account of this model of radio art, see Kovacs v. Mutual Broadcasting System (1950) 99 CA2d 56 California 2d District Court ruling, August 18, 1950. Retrieved 11/22/06.
35. ^ Bliss, 65.
36. ^ Bliss, 202–203.
37. ^ WGN Radio Timeline: 1940s–1950s part of the WGN Gold historical website; Chicago Theater of the Air Episode Log part of Jerry Haendiges' Vintage Radio Logs website. Retrieved 11/21/06.
38. ^ Sherlock Holmes Episode Log part of Jerry Haendiges' Vintage Radio Logs website. Retrieved 11/21/06.
39. ^ Cassidy, 20.
40. ^ "Don Lee Sale Approval Asked," Los Angeles Times, November 21, 1950; "Sale of Don Lee System Approved: Cash Payment of $12,320,000 Involved in FCC Decision," Los Angeles Times, December 28, 1950. A scholarly journal article claims that the Don Lee purchase brought with it a "19 percent interest in the Mutual Broadcasting System," which would be down from the 25 percent of the 1940 restructuring. However, the reliability of this source is questionable, as it incorrectly claims in the same paragraph that the "East Coast-based Yankee Network...was also acquired at this time" by General Tire (Crane, Marie Brenne, "Radio Station KGB and the Development of Commercial Radio In San Diego," Journal of San Diego History, vol. 26, no. 1 [winter 1980] (available online)). As detailed above, General Tire in fact acquired Yankee in 1943.
41. ^ Marshall, William J., Baseball's Pivotal Era, 1945-1951 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1998), 384; Day, Frederick J., Clubhouse Lawyer: Law in the World of Sports (Lincoln, Neb.: iUniverse, 2004), 230–231. Note that Marshall and Day describe the details of the original deal very differently, agreeing only that it was for six years at $1 million a year. Marshall says that a contract was signed on December 26, 1950, between baseball's major leagues, in the person of Commissioner Happy Chandler, on one side and MBS and the Gillette Safety Razor Company on the other for the television rights. Day says baseball's contract was solely with Gillette, that it was for both radio and television rights, and that Gillette "[l]ess than a year after acquiring the broadcast rights...transferred" them to Mutual. They also characterize the original contract rather differently. Marshall calls it "one of the outstanding achievements of the Chandler commissionership." Day credits Chandler with "deftly avoid[ing] a financial crisis," but agrees with the prevailing opinion of the players that Chandler "vastly underestimated the value" of the rights. The fact, which Day provides, that Mutual sold the package to NBC for $4 million a year lends support to his position.
42. ^ "Radio-TV Merger Approved By F.C.C.; Deal Covers Macy's Transfer of WOR Interests to General Tire's Don Lee System", New York Times, January 18, 1952; "Earnings Fall 5% for Macy System; Television's High Cost for Subsidiary, General Teleradio, Cuts Consolidated Net," New York Times, October 11, 1950; Howard, Herbert H., Multiple Ownership in Television Broadcasting: Historical Development and Selected Case Studies (New York: Arno Press, 1979), 150–152.
43. ^ "General Tire Gets Control of M. B. S.; Shareholders at Meeting Vote 2-for-1 Stock Split—Company Buys More TV Stations," New York Times, April 2, 1952.
44. ^ Cassidy, 41.
45. ^ Mutual does have a TV network in the realm of imagination. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, by novelist Michael Chabon, refers to The Escapist, a show starring Peter Graves that ran from 1951 to 1955 on the Mutual Television Network (596).
46. ^ Cox, 178. See Cox, 127–128, for the 1950 figures for all networks. Note that in August 1951, the low-powered, baseball-oriented Liberty Broadcasting System (LBS) had 431 affiliates (Garay, Ronald, Gordon McLendon: The Maverick of Radio [New York, Westport, Conn., and London: Greenwood Press, 1992], 32).
47. ^ "Sale of Mutual Expected Today; Radio Network Is Going to Group From West Coast," New York Times, July 17, 1957.
48. ^ "Mutual Network Brings 2 Million; Radio System Is Purchased by Scranton Corporation in Move for Expansion," New York Times, September 12, 1958.
49. ^ See Bareiss, Warren, "Sustaining Programs," in Historical Dictionary of American Radio, ed. Donald G. Godfrey and Frederic A. Leigh (Westport, Conn., and London: Greenwood Press, 1998), 379–382; in particular, 381, for the development of limited sponsorship.
50. ^ Garay, 64.
51. ^ Ward, Richard Lewis, A History Of The Hal Roach Studios (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University, 2005), 152–155; "The Price of Publicity," Time, September 14, 1959 (available online).
52. ^ Cox, 127.
53. ^ Jaker et al., 155.
54. ^ "Mutual Network 3 Million in Debt; Files Petition in U.S. Court Seeking Settlement While Continuing in Control," New York Times, July 2, 1959; "News of TV and Radio," New York Times, July 5, 1959.
55. ^ Bliss, 258, 259.
56. ^ Griffith, Benjamin, "Bob and Ray" entry in the St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture (2002).
57. ^ Garay says MBS launched its Game of the Day in 1949 (50). Gorman et al. say it was 1950 (91, 105). Garay indicates that the concept was picked up from the Liberty Broadcasting System, founded in 1947. Yet the National Baseball Hall of Fame lists among famed broadcaster France Laux's credits "Mutual Game of the Day (1939-41, '44)." Retrieved 11/23/06.
58. ^ "Mutual Network to Be Sold Again; Minnesota Mining Expected to Close Deal This Week," New York Times, April 18, 1960.
59. ^ Cox, 128.
60. ^ "Mutual Network Changes Owners; 3M Company Sells System to Newly Formed Group," New York Times, July 10, 1966.
61. ^ Bliss, 62–63.
62. ^ The 1973 World Book Year Book: The Annual Supplement to the World Book Encyclopedia (Chicago: Field Enterprises, 1973), 479.
63. ^ American Urban Radio Networks/Company Profile—Leadership. Retrieved 11/24/06.
64. ^ See, e.g., Zero Hour 1973–1974; Submitted for Your Perusal: The Zero Hour; Zero Hour Logs.
65. ^ New York State Tax Commission ruling August 27, 1981. Retrieved 11/22/06.
66. ^ "Mutual Radio Applies to F.C.C. to Be First All-Satellite Network," New York Times, November 22, 1977; U.S. Congress, House Committee on Appropriations, Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations for 1986, 198.
67. ^ Cox, 178.
68. ^ "Radio's Latest Boom: Late-Night Talk Shows, New York Times, May 2, 1982 (available online); "TV Mailbag—About Radio Talk Shows," New York Times, June 20, 1982 (available online).
69. ^ Mutual Radio Theater Log part of Old Time Radio Program Logs.
70. ^ "Network Radio Is Tuning into Satellites," New York Times, August 2, 1981; "Radio Networks: New 'Golden Age,'" New York Times, May 1, 1982; "Bringing 'Turnkey' Radio into Everybody's Backyard," New York Times, June 13, 1982.
71. ^ "Radio Station WCFL Sold to Religious Group," Chicago Tribune, November 4, 1983.
72. ^ "Doubleday to Buy Mutual's WHN," New York Times, October 2, 1984.
73. ^ Westwood One, Inc.—Company History part of the Funding Universe website. Retrieved 11/24/06.
74. ^ "Westwood to Buy Mutual Network," New York Times, September 17, 1984; "Business People; Head of Westwood One Elated by Mutual Deal," New York Times, September 18, 1984; Cox, 178.
75. ^ Quoted in Westwood One, Inc.—Company History. Retrieved 11/24/06.
76. ^ Lucier, James P., "Jim Bohannon On Air—Radio Talk Show Host," Insight on the News, February 9, 1998 (available online).
77. ^ "Company News; Westwood One Completes Purchase of Unistar Radio," New York Times, February 5, 1994 (available online).
78. ^ "To Infinity and Beyond: Is a Radio Deal Too Big?; Westinghouse Would Own 32% of Top Markets," New York Times, June 21, 1996; "Two Radio Giants to Merge, Forming Biggest Network," New York Times, June 21, 1996; "F.C.C. Approves Merger of Westinghouse and Infinity," New York Times, December 27, 1996 (available online); "Company Briefs," New York Times, January 1, 1997 (available online).
79. ^ Lucier, "Jim Bohannon On Air—Radio Talk Show Host."
80. ^ Cox, 178–179. The current online edition of the Britannica Concise Encyclopedia mistakenly states that "[i]n radio, where the networks are no longer dominant, there is also [i.e., in addition to ABC, CBS, NBC] the Mutual Broadcasting System." Aside from the fact that NBC Radio, CBS, and MBS merged in the 1990s, there has not been Mutual for years. See broadcasting entry. Retrieved 11/29/06.
81. ^ WAVA 10 Year "Death Anniversary" e-Reunion testimonial of Westwood One employee Fee Lee. Retrieved 11/24/06.