At 7PM eastern time on December 19th, 1948, Jack Benny signed on from NBC’s KFI in Los Angeles. By then his move to CBS was a done deal. The episode was his penultimate on NBC.

There were hard feelings from the National Broadcasting Company. David Sarnoff said “leadership built on a foundation of solid service can’t be snatched overnight by a few high-priced comedians. Leadership is no laughing matter.”

But if Sarnoff was mad, he’d only himself to blame. Benny would have happily stayed at NBC, but felt slighted by Sarnoff, who’d never met Benny in person, and elated with William Paley.

Between 1935 and 1948, Benny’s rating had never been lower than 20.4, and ten times he’d had a top-five rated show. His departure from NBC would leave an un-fillable void, despite Sarnoff’s sarcastic comments.

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All this week at https://www.patreon.com/TheWallBreakers I'll be publishing full episodes from Breaking Walls Episode 110: Christmas Week 1948—The CBS Talent Raids (https://soundcloud.com/thewallbreakers/bw-ep110-christmas-week-1948the-cbs-talent-raids?in=thewallbreakers/sets/breaking-walls-the-wall)

These full episodes will be available with show notes to all Patreon subscribers for $1 per month. I'll post one show in the normal Breaking Walls show feed, and 4-5 additional ones on Patreon. Happy Holidays!