This is a snippet from Breaking Walls Episode 101: Frontier Gentleman and The Saga of Belle Siddons (1958)

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When Frontier Gentleman debuted on Sunday, February 2nd, 1958 over CBS airwaves, TV’s most-watched show was Gunsmoke, with a rating of 39.6.

Network radio programming had shifted focus from a decade prior.

Back in 1948, with the radio industry enjoying its highest-rated season, NBC, CBS, and ABC used excess revenue from their slate of dramatic shows to launch full force into television programming.

Ten years later at the close of the 1950s, major network radio drama was on life support.

Programming had begun to shift. That month, U.S. Radio Magazine reported that 55% of all peak listening came from automobiles. With more than 36.5 million U.S. cars equipped, the automobile radio had suddenly become standard. Formulas for measuring these ratings were underway, but ineffective.

In the winter of 1958, CBS’s Sunday programming from New York called for news reports at the tops of most hours.

Concerts and other music programs filled the dial between 11:30 and 2:30. When Frontier Gentleman signed on for the first time at 2:35PM, it was the network’s first scripted dramatic offering of the day.

However, CBS Chairman William Paley believed in radio drama and with Americans on the move, many of the medium’s best, like William N. Robson, were involved in the fictional shows still on the air.