Dick Carr, a WNEW Program Director in the late 1960′s is writing about that experience on his blog, Big Bands, Ballads and Blues, publishing a new chapter each day. You can read the first few chapters, and those to follow at www.BigBandsBalladsandBlues.com
Posted in History, Perspective
Yes, it’s been 19 years (Dec. 11, 1992) since the legendary WNEW 11-3-0 in New York went dark. For those who were with the station then or alums, such as myself, it’s difficult to forget that day particularly since the New York City area was being raked by a Nor’easter and the color outside pretty much reflected the mood of most ’NEW listeners. Here was a station with outstanding jingles, funny and insightful air personalities, and a first-rate news team. It had existed for fifty-eight years, but the decision had been made to sell the operation. Less than a month later, Bloomberg Radio was on the air at a dial position that for so very long played what could best be described as the classic American songbook of music!
(Editor’s note) WNEW was purchased by Bloomberg L.P. for $13.5. After the final broadcast on December 11, 1992, WNEW simulcast with WQEW until January 4, 1993, when the new Bloomberg business news programing began with the call letters WBBR.
See related items under main menu heading: History, and Bob Gibson bio under News/G/
Posted in Uncategorized
See several photos below of the original WNEW studios at 565 Fith Avenue, at 46th St., Manhattan. The plant was designed by Fellheimer-Wagner, Architects. Photos from the Gottscno-Schleisner Collection, Library of Congress.
“During my stint as a producer, the large music studio was used by organist Kay Reed, by Allyn Edwards’ 9:30 a.m. weekday show and primarily by Bill Harrington who sang with the Roy Ross orchestra weekdays at noon. Another show I produced in this studio was ‘Piano Tops,’ featuring Erroll Garner.” Rudy Ruderman
The photo below, taken in 1978, shows the same studio after it became the WNEW newsroom in the 1950′s. A wall was added at right to create the news director’s office and (not shown) the newswire room. Pictured are Peggy Stockton, Bob Hagen and News Director, Jim Gordon.
Another view (below) of the large music studio before it was transformed into the newsroom.
Large studio control room as it looked in 1946. After conversion for use by the news department, the control room was used primarily for recording and editing.
The photo above shows the 46th St. entrance to the WNEW studios, which opened into the main reception area and stairway (photos below) leading to second floor offices and broadcast facilities.
Second floor reception area is shown above. The photo below is listed as the Station Manager’s office.
Posted in Listener Comments
The CBS-TV “Sunday Morning” feature (1989) about The Make Believe Ballroom has been withdrawn by the provider, Metromedia Radio on Live365 broadcast. www.live365.com/stations/wnewradio1130, which has no connection to this website.
Posted in Gallery
ca. 1940s, New York, New York, USA — (original caption) Alice Marble, top ranking woman tennis player, who has just signed a contract with WNEW, New York radio station, for a series of weekend football forecasts and comment on college games during the fall season. She will be heard each Friday and Saturday at 7:45 PM. Heretofore, her radio experience has been limited to singing and guest appearances. — Image by © Underwood & Underwood/CORBIS
Photo: Underwood & Underwood Corbis
From Answers.com
In 1940, tennis champion Alice Marble . . .was hired by New York radio station WNEW as a football reporter. She gave two 15-minute broadcasts each week. On her first broadcast, she listed teams she thought would win on the following day, and of 45 games, picked the winners of 31; three other games were ties. Her knowledge of the game, unusual for a woman at that time, rapidly won her a devoted audience.
In 1936, Marble won the national singles championship and the mixed doubles championship. In 1938 she won the Wimbledon women’s doubles, repeating that win in 1939, as well as capturing that year’s singles title. In fact, 1939 would prove a phenomenal year for Marble as she became the first woman ever to win the British and U.S. women’s singles, doubles, and mixed doubles championships all in the same year. She won the Wimbledon mixed doubles title from 1937 to 1939, and in 1939 and 1940 the Associated Press named her Female Athlete of the Year. In Courting Danger, written when she was 77, Marble looked back on her tennis career: “When you’ve lived as long as I have, the sheer joy of having played the game comes to matter more than the victories, the records, the memories.”
Throughout her life, Marble remained determined to achieve her goals, fighting social prejudices along the way. Later in her life she was active in encouraging tennis officials as well as the public to accept the presence of African American and homosexual players in the game. She also continued to encourage women to become physically fit and participate in sports. “When the day comes that a woman who is athletic will no longer be regarded as the unusual type, when it will seem as natural for women as it now seems for men to be keenly interested in athletics, we’ll start training girls to be active athletes,” she commented to Himber. “We’ll not discourage them, as we do today, from taking part in tomboy play when they’re six, and ten, and twelve.” Marble died in Palm Springs, California on December 13, 1990. (photos added by WNEW1130 editors)
Marble was admitted to the hospital last Saturday. The cause of death was not immediately available.
Marble, who grew up in San Francisco, won the U.S. national women’s singles championship in 1936, 1938, 1939 and 1940 and the Wimbledon singles championship in 1939, when she was voted as the outstanding woman athlete in the United States in an Associated Press poll.
Marble’s adoption of the serve-and-volley to her aggressive attacking game was considered by some to be an unseemly mistake. Tennis commentators of the time made sneering reference to her “playing like a man.”
The criticism never bothered Marble, though, and it was her example that spawned a new style of tennis for women, moving the sport away from the genteel and toward the athletic.
Posted in Staff
Dennis James (Aug 24, 1917 – June 3, 1997) began his career on radio with WNEW in 1936. James got into the new medium of television in 1938, with an experimental station owned by TV pioneer, Alfred B. Dumont. The station, licensed after WWII as WABD-TV, was the flagship station of the Dumont Television network. WABD later became WNEW-TV (Metromedia) and is now WNYW-TV (Fox.) James’ earliest fame came as a wrestling announcer, charity fund-raising host and later as host of network game shows. He is best known as host of NBC’s daytime game show, “Name That Tune” (1974) and the nighttime “The Price Is Right.” (1972-1977.) WNEW1130 editors’ note
By ROBERT McG. THOMAS Jr
Published: June 06, 1997
NY Times
Dennis James
Dennis James, the perpetual television personality whose career as a ubiquitous game show host, announcer, actor and commercial spokesman extended from the primeval days of television to the present, died on Tuesday at his home in Palm Springs, Calif. He was 79 and had worked almost continuously since 1938.
His son Brad said the cause was lung cancer, a disease diagnosed in January, 30 years after Mr. James, long the voice of Old Gold cigarettes, had stopped smoking.
The more than half-century of commercial television has produced many performers far more famous than Mr. James, but from his first appearances on Allen B. DuMont’s experimental station in Passaic, N.J., in 1938 to his latest commercial for Physicans Mutual Insurance Company of Omaha, which has been running this week, few, surely, have been busier longer — or made more generous use of their celebrity.
As the host of a variety of televised fund-raising appeals, Mr. James has been credited with raising more than $1 billion for charity, including more than $700 million from his annual United Cerebral Palsy telethons.
If much of his career was spent as a peripheral figure, the announcer on Ted Mack’s ”Original Amateur Hour,” for example, and host of more than a dozen game, quiz and variety shows, including syndicated versions of ”The Price Is Right,” and ”Name That Tune,” there was a time when Mr. James was television’s most famous star, the man who was wowing television America while Milton Berle was still in pinafores.
Indeed, in 1946, when Mr. Berle’s vaunted ”Texaco Star Theater,” was two years away, Mr. James was riveting television audiences by giving comic hold-by-hold accounts — and providing the bone-crushing sound effects — for professional wrestling, the television rage at a time when the typical viewer was not a couch potato but someone standing on a sidewalk watching a flickering two-inch DuMont screen in a store window. The programs made Mr. James a star, and if his parents still wished he had become a doctor, by the early 1950′s he had quite a television practice: doing 13 live shows a week — and earning more than $500,000 a year.
A native of Jersey City, Mr. James, whose original name was Demie James Sposa, graduated from St. Peter’s College and passed up medical school to become an actor. After graduating from the Theater School of the Performing Arts at Carnegie Hall, he sold dog supplies at Abercrombie & Fitch before getting a job at a small radio station in New Jersey.
photos added by WNEW1130 editors
Posted in Staff
Pictured in ad: Bill Hickok, Gene Klavan, William B. Williams, Dick Shepard, Julius LaRosa
Posted in Gallery
All these entertaining personalities . . .all the best popular music . . .all the up-to-the-minute news . . .in fact everything that makes WNEW New York’s favorite radio station–now on FM too–at 102.7 mc. Now it’s WNEW AM &: FM bringing you the wonderful sound of “Music Round The Clock” . . .the complete coverage of “News Around The Clocks” . . .weather . . .time . . .traffic reports–enjoyable listening, worthwhile listening, 24 hours every day. Hear the Best your radio has to offer — am & pm, AM & FM — THE WNEW SOUND.
| Klavan & Finch 6-10 am Mon thru Sat |
William B. WIlliams Make Believe Ballroom 10 am & 6pm Mon thru Sat |
Lonny Starr Starr, Sinatra & Strings 11:35 am Mon thru Fri – 10am Sun The Music Hall 2-4 pm daily |
| Bob Landers 12 – 2 pm daily |
Dick Partridge 4 – 6pm daily |
Jack Lazare 8 – 10PM nightly |
| Al “Jazzbo” Collins 10 – Midnight nightly |
Dick Shepard Milkman’s Matinee 12 Midnight – 6am nightly |
Bob Howard 8am & 6pm Sun |
Posted in Uncategorized
Gene Drops A Stitch
Bill Diehl (WNEW1967-1971/ABC1971- ) noticed a
clip from “The Match Game” (CBS) that featured a photo of Gene Rayburn from his Rayburn and Finch days on WNEW and which figured in an evidenciary finding by panelist Richard Dawson that the photo proved Gene had misstated the facts about his history as a knitter.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rpf8Iu1serQ
Gene Rayburn hosted a live afternoon New York version of “The Match Game” (NBC)from 1962 to 1969 and the CBS day-time revival from 1973 to 1978. He also hosted the CBS nighttime version from 1975-to 1978.
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Posted in Listener Comments