BW - EP128—001: June 1954—The State Of Radio And The Union

Breaking Walls: The Podcast on the History of American Network Radio Broadcasting

By June 1954 network radio drama was facing huge sponsor disinterest. Shows canceled in the first half of the year included The Quiz Kids, Dr. Christian, Front Page Farrell, Bulldog Drummond, Rocky Fortune, Ozzie and Harriet, and The Six Shooter. ABC, CBS, Mutual, and NBC reduced ad sale charges for the sixth consecutive year. It was an attempt to offset TVs broadening market share. It didn’t work. For the first time in sixteen years revenue fell. The only category to see an increase in sales was local advertising, and even that rose less than one percent. In 1948, radio’s top show was heard by roughly twenty-eight million people. In 1950, by twenty million. In 1952, by fourteen million. And in 1954, by roughly nine million. West-coast radio actors, like Herb Vigran and Herb Ellis were moving into TV, but television was already going through budgetary changes. By the summer of 1954, more than sixty percent of U.S. homes had a TV set. I Love Lucy pulled a rating of nearly sixty. Radio’s top show, People Are Funny had a rating of 8.4. Along with oncoming transistor sets, nearly thirty million cars now had radios, but there was still no system to measure this audience. The next year it was estimated that out-of-home listening added an additional forty percent to at-home audiences. People Are Funny’s actual rating was closer to twelve. But these incidentals didn’t matter to the industry’s character actors. Network production habits were changing. More and more documentaries and news were airing from New York, more and more drama was airing from Los Angeles. Things would be tougher by the end of the decade, but we’re not there yet. Tonight, we’ll head to June of 1954 as network radio reaches a point of no return. ____________ As June got underway, the Army-McCarthy hearings dragged on. This early focus was on the continued testimony from McCarthy attorney Roy Cohn, cross-examined by Ray Jenkins. After lunch Vermont Republican Senator Ralph Flanders compared McCarthy, his own party mate, to Adolph Hitler. He accused him of “axe-happy attempts to divide the country and split the Republican party.” He also compared McCarthy to Dennis The Menace. Flanders speculated that if McCarthy were a double-agent for the Communists, he would have been doing a perfect job. Later on McCarthy accused Flanders of being a senile, racist, religious bigot.