This 1946 article in Broadcasting magazine is referring to the “Moore’s Ford Lynchings,” when two young Black couples – George Dorsey, Mae Murray Dorsey, Roger Malcolm and Dorothy Malcom – were murdered by a mob of White men between Atlanta and...

This 1946 article in Broadcasting magazine is referring to the “Moore’s Ford Lynchings,” when two young Black couples – George Dorsey, Mae Murray Dorsey, Roger Malcolm and Dorothy Malcom – were murdered by a mob of White men between Atlanta and Athens, Georgia.  

The murders attracted national attention, as indicated in the article.  President Truman created The President’s Committee on Civil Rights and introduced anti-lynching legislation in Congress (which failed).  

Despite being the first civil rights case the FBI investigated, no one could produce sufficient evidence to prosecute a suspect.  A wave of publicity surrounding the cold case emerged in the 1990s, but the new investigation did not lead to prosecution.  The state of Georgia and federal agents closed the cases in 2017.

A highway marker was placed at the site of the attack in 1999. 

WOL has been an influential voice in Washington, D.C.’s Black community for decades.  Here are previous posts about the station’s history.

Source: Wikipedia

Some disruptive innovation from 1953, when the publisher of Collier’s magazine partly blamed the emergence of TV for the magazine’s dropping circulation. Collier’s was founded in 1888. The weekly news magazine featured investigative journalism,...

Some disruptive innovation from 1953, when the publisher of Collier’s magazine partly blamed the emergence of TV for the magazine’s dropping circulation.

Collier’s was founded in 1888.  The weekly news magazine featured investigative journalism, cartoons, serial novels and one-page short stories from authors including F. Scott Fitzgerald and J.D. Salinger.  

Its rivalry with The Saturday Evening Post led Collier’s to create a radio show — “The Collier Hour” — which aired on the NBC Blue Network from 1927 to 1932.  The program was the radio’s first major dramatic anthology series.

As mentioned in this Broadcasting magazine digest, Collier’s switched to a biweekly magazine in August 1953.  It went out of business with the January 4, 1957, edition.

Source: Wikipedia

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WSMB signed on from New Orleans in 1925 as the city’s first commercial radio station, a joint venture of Saenger Theater and the Maison Blanche department store. It became an affiliate of the popualr NBC Red Network in the 1930s.

As radio’s “golden age” faded in the 1960s, WSMB moved to a full-service format with news, personality-driven talk and middle-of-the-road music. The music format evolved to an adult contemporary sound in the 1970s.

As FM became more popular in the late 1970s and early 1980s, music listeners abandoned AM music outlets. WSMB reduced its focus on music, becoming fully news/talk by 1985.  Here’s what it sounded like in the early 1990s:

In 1996, Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner of New Orleans powerhouse WWL, turned WSMB into a sister station, airing second-tier talk programs not aired on WWL along with WWL’s newscasts. Entercom purchased the stations in 1999, flipping WSMB to an all-sports format. It also experimented with a format of call-in advice shows, like Dr. Laura and Dr. Joy Browne. In 2005, WSMB aired a progressive talk format.

In 2006, WSMB became WWWL, airing repeats of WWL shows at different times. It became an ESPN affiliate in 2008. In 2013, WWWL was rebranded as “3WL,” which aired sports and lifestyle programming.

That programming moved to WWL-FM-HD2 in 2017 and WWWL flipped to an Urban AC station, using an FM translator. It flipped to urban oldies in 2018 as “Hot 92.9,” highlighting the station’s 5,000-watt FM translator.

Source: Wikipedia

Anonymous asked:
I am a longtime science journalist and historian working on a PhD doctoral dissertation on the history of radio and TV space coverage from 1922 to 2019. From Broadcasting on 16 July 1945 page 66 ("ECLIPSE CLOSEUP") I learned that Memphis radio station WMPS on Monday 9 July 1945 broadcast live solar eclipse coverage from a passenger airplane and it was also heard on an unspecified network. Can you confirm which network that would be and more details please? Thank you. 301-377-1328

Hope this is not too late!  It looks like WMPS was a Blue Network affiliate back in 1945 – so that’s likely the one.

 
Anonymous asked:

What are the weirdest call-in shows from the radio days that you know about ?

Here’s a name to research: “Long John Nebel.”  He was the pioneer of the all-night radio talk show featuring stories of the paranormal, UFOs, etc., beginning back in the mid-1950s!  He was on New York City stations for decades >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_John_Nebel

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