Breaking Walls

In February of 1954, Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy was touring the circuit, giving speeches entitled “Twenty Years of Treason.” He claimed that President Eisenhower didn’t want a whitewash government and the Democratic label was “stitched with the idiocy of Truman, rotted by the deceit of Acheson and corrupted by a Red slime of a White.”

Indiana Senator William Jenner claimed democrats deliberately tried to lose the Korean War. The President’s assistant Sherman Adams charged the dems with being political sadists. Democrats cried foul. The Republican Eisenhower asked for conflict resolution. On February 10th, as he authorized three-hundred-eighty-five million dollars over the four-hundred million already budgeted for military aid, the President warned against his country's intervention in Vietnam.

When asked if he would change tactics, Senator McCarthy said “The price is too high.” He’d smeared homosexuals as subversives, liberals as anti-American, and moderates as weak-minded saps.

McCarthy’s downfall had ultimately already begun. In 1953, his committee started investigating the U.S. Army for supposed Communist infiltration. On February 18th, two generals refused to obey their summons to appear before McCarthy’s committee. They stayed away on order of Robert T. Stevens, Secretary of the Army. Undaunted, McCarthy accused the Army of rampant communism, but this time, when asked to back up his claims, he had very little to reveal.

This stunt bolstered President Eisenhower and both Republicans and Democrats who were growing weary of McCarthy’s tirade.

The public too was getting sick of him.

This turning point was strengthened when the Army revealed that McCarthy had asked favored treatment for a former aide who’d been drafted. In December, the Senate would finally censure McCarthy, an option exercised only three other times in the Senate’s history. He never recovered and died in 1957 at the age of forty-eight from an alcohol-related illness.

This will be covered in much more detail during the next episodes of Breaking Walls.

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In February of 1954, Jack Benny was in the midst of his sixth year on CBS, and his twenty-second in radio.

Although his TV program was in the midst of its fourth season, his radio show was still airing in the familiar Sunday 7PM eastern time slot. It had a radio rating of 8.2, second-highest on the air.

To many, he was simply the most famous comedian alive. February 14th, 1954 was Jack Benny’s real-life sixtieth birthday. Of course, here was a man who’d been claiming to be thirty-nine for years. That night, the entire Benny cast celebrated Jack's birthday on air. This is that episode.

During the 1953-54 season, NBC Chicago’s WMAQ and the Speech Department at Northwestern University, jointly broadcast a series of radio essays entitled Americana. Each episode explored a facet of American life or history and the characters who made it come alive.

Hosted by Professor Martin Maloney, It followed the previous season’s The Meaning of America. The February 13th, 1954 episode was called “A Study in Villainy.”

The first voice you'll hear is that of Lee de Forest. The second is of Bill Froug. Producer/Director Bill Froug spent the early 1950s in charge of The Hallmark Hall of Fame. The show began in the 1940s as Radio Reader’s Digest before rebranding as The Hallmark Playhouse until 1953.

With radio audiences leaving in droves for TV, the sponsor abruptly changed format. They brought in Lionel Barrymore to host true stories of Americana. The February 7th, 1954 episode was a profile on de Forest, one of radio broadcasting’s pioneers.

Unfortunately, by March of 1955 fewer and fewer network shows were sponsored. Hallmark cancelled the show.

When ABC radio took out a Broadcasting Magazine ad in 1954 touting their year-over-year sales growth, they juxtaposed theirs against the decline of the other three networks’ in the same period. It painted a bleak picture for the industry.

In November of 1952, total network monthly advertising billing was fourteen million, four-hundred seventy-seven thousand dollars. The next year, advertising numbers were down to thirteen million, six-hundred sixty four thousand dollars.

The loss of revenue was reflected in the loss of ratings. As drastic as the ratings decline was at the decade's beginning, it was the mid-1950s that saw radio ratings die on the vine. During the 1952-53 season five shows still had ratings higher than ten, with Amos ‘N’ Andy leading at 14.2. A year later, People Are Funny led all shows with a rating of 8.7. In 1955, Jack Benny would lead with a 5.7.

But for those people working in radio who also found their way to TV, this period was a golden age for the character actor. They were now recognized for their performances on both mediums, and with their increased profile, came an increase in opportunities.

It was apparent to everyone that TV had moved in and taken over. What the radio industry would do about it was still uncertain. As February of 1954 got underway, both new shows and old shared the spotlight.

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When Dragnet debuted in the ratings in the fall of 1949 under the sponsorship of Liggett and Myers, it did so with an 8.5. That number was sixty-fourth overall. Two years later in the midst of TV’s surge, Dragnet’s radio rating had climbed to 8.7, now fourteenth overall.

The TV version debuted in 1951. In 1954 its TV rating was second, only behind I Love Lucy. Part of the reason the radio version was able to stave off a rating’s decline longer than most other shows was creator Jack Webb’s ingenuity.

In February of 1954, Dragnet’s radio version was airing Tuesday evenings at 9PM eastern time on NBC. The February 2nd episode was entitled “The Big Filth.” Dragnet would continue to air new broadcasts on radio until the fall of 1955, and in repeats until February of 1957. While many shows lost sponsorship, Chesterfield continued to sponsor Dragnet until the very end, with good reason; In 1955 Dragnet was the second-highest rated radio show on the air.

Have you been enjoying Breaking Walls? If so, give the show a quick rating on whatever platform you listen, especially iTunes.

On Friday, January 27th, the revived CBS Radio Workshop took to the air for the first time with an adaptation of Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.”

The sound of artificial human life took three men and an engineer more than five hours to create. They used a ticking metronome, the beat of a tom-tom, bubbling water, an air hose, the mooing of a cow, a couple of “boings,” and three different wine glasses clinking against each other. The sounds were blended and recorded, then played backward on the air with a slight echo effect.

Bernard Herrmann composed and conducted a slender musical score. “Brave New World” would air in two parts over the first weeks of production.

The February 13th issue of Broadcasting Magazine gave the returning CBS Radio Workshop a glowing review, calling out producer William Froug for his ingenious guided laboratory tour at the beginning of “Brave New World.” Production was slated to cost roughly Seventeen-hundred dollars per episode, or just over sixteen-thousand today.

This is part one of "Brave New World." For more info on the CBS Radio Workshop, tune into Breaking Walls episode 115: The CBS Radio Workshop (1956 - 1957).

Have you heard Madison On The Air?

Starring Chrisi Talyn Saje, in this scripted comedy podcast Modern Day Madison gets zapped into old-time radio dramas. Season 1 had fifteen episodes. Thus far, she’s joined Joe Friday, Superman, Sherlock Holmes, Candy Matson, and many others.

New episodes premiere on the first of every month. February’s episode is the special, extended one-year anniversary show. Madison will be joining Johnny Dollar.

To find out more, go to MadisonOnTheAir.com. You can also listen for free just about anywhere you’d get a podcast.

Airing in his familiar Sundays at 7PM eastern time slot, in 1954 Benny had a radio rating of 8.2, second-highest on the air. For twenty years, Benny’s rating had never fallen out of the top ten, and twelve times he’d had a top-three show.

On January 24th, 1954 Jack went to the race track.