1938 in radio
Encyclopedia
The year 1938 saw a number of significant events in radio broadcasting.
Events
- 13 March: CBSCBSCBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
carries the first-ever point-to-point news roundup, including Edward R. MurrowEdward R. MurrowEdward Roscoe Murrow, KBE was an American broadcast journalist. He first came to prominence with a series of radio news broadcasts during World War II, which were followed by millions of listeners in the United States and Canada.Fellow journalists Eric Sevareid, Ed Bliss, and Alexander Kendrick...
's first live report, as part of its coverage of the AnschlussAnschlussThe Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....
in AustriaAustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
. Over the next few months, the daily programme evolves into the CBS World News RoundupCBS World News RoundupThe CBS World News Roundup is a radio newscast that airs weekday mornings and evenings on the CBS Radio Network.It first went on-air on March 13, 1938 at 8 p.m...
, a fixture on the network to this very day. - 15 March: The BBCBBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
begins its PortuguesePortuguese languagePortuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
and SpanishSpanish languageSpanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
service for Latin AmericaLatin AmericaLatin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
. - 14 April: Fireside chatFireside chatsThe fireside chats were a series of thirty evening radio addresses given by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt between 1933 and 1944.-Origin of radio address:...
: On Economic Conditions - 24 June: Fireside chat: On Party Primaries
- 12 September: Commentator H. V. Kaltenborn begins his famous marathon of news bulletins on the CBS network covering the intensifying Czech Crisis over the SudetenlandSudetenlandSudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia being within Czechoslovakia.The...
. The first bulletin is a summation of Hitler's closing address to the Tenth (and, as it would prove, last) Party Congress of the Nazi party in NurembergNurembergNuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...
. Kaltenborn would eat and sleep in the studio, making periodic updates, until the signing of the Munich AgreementMunich AgreementThe Munich Pact was an agreement permitting the Nazi German annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. The Sudetenland were areas along Czech borders, mainly inhabited by ethnic Germans. The agreement was negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers of Europe without...
on September 29. - 30 October: Orson WellesOrson WellesGeorge Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
's radio adaptation of The War of the WorldsThe War of the Worlds (radio)The War of the Worlds was an episode of the American radio drama anthology series Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was performed as a Halloween episode of the series on October 30, 1938, and aired over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. Directed and narrated by actor and future filmmaker...
is broadcast on CBS. As the programme was self-sustainingSustaining programSustaining program is a term used in the United States broadcasting industry for a program which does not have commercial sponsorship or advertising...
and had no commercial interruptions, Welles centered the first two-thirds of the broadcast in the serious style of a series of news bulletins interrupting a live musical broadcast. This approach resulted in panic in various parts of the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. - 10 November: Kate SmithKate SmithKathryn Elizabeth "Kate" Smith was an American Popular singer, best known for her rendition of Irving Berlin's "God Bless America". Smith had a radio, television, and recording career spanning five decades, which reached its pinnacle in the 1940s.Smith was born in Greenville, Virginia...
sings "God Bless AmericaGod Bless America"God Bless America" is an American patriotic song written by Irving Berlin in 1918 and revised by him in 1938. The later version has notably been recorded by Kate Smith, becoming her signature song ....
" for the first time on her radio show, a day before Armistice DayArmistice DayArmistice Day is on 11 November and commemorates the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I and Germany at Compiègne, France, for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front of World War I, which took effect at eleven o'clock in the morning—the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day...
.
Debuts
- 3 January: The BBC Empire Service, begun in 1932, transmits its first programme in a foreign language: ArabicArabic languageArabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
. - 3 January: The soap opera Woman in White (1938–1948) debuts on NBC Red.
- 17 January: Stepmother (1938–1942) debuts on CBS.
Births
- 1 January: Clay ColeClay ColeClay Cole was an American host and disk jockey, best known for his eponymous television dance program, The Clay Cole Show, which aired in New York City on WNTA-TV and WPIX-TV from 1959 to 1968.-Origins:...
, radio disk jockey and television host, best known for his dance program, The Clay Cole Show - 21 January: Wolfman JackWolfman JackRobert Weston Smith, known commonly as Wolfman Jack was a gravelly voiced US disc jockey who became famous in the 1960s and 1970s.-Early career:...
(d. 19951995 in radioThe year 1995 saw a number of significant events in radio broadcasting.-Events:* January 1- KAEV in Lake Arrowhead, California changes to KCXX with an alternative rock format.* April - KJJO in Minneapolis, Minnesota flips to smooth jazz as KMJZ....
), famed disc jockeyDisc jockeyA disc jockey, also known as DJ, is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, "disc" referred to phonograph records, not the later Compact Discs. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the medium.There are several types of disc jockeys...
, television personality and filmFilmA film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
actor. - 8 September: Adrian Cronauer, lawyer and former radio disc jockey from the United States who inspired the film Good Morning Vietnam.
- 16 December: Frank DefordFrank DefordBenjamin "Frank" Deford, III is a senior contributing writer for Sports Illustrated, author, and commentator for National Public Radio and correspondent for Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel on HBO....
, senior contributing writer for Sports IllustratedSports IllustratedSports Illustrated is an American sports media company owned by media conglomerate Time Warner. Its self titled magazine has over 3.5 million subscribers and is read by 23 million adults each week, including over 18 million men. It was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the...
, authorAuthorAn author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
, and sports commentatorSports commentatorIn sports broadcasting, a commentator gives a running commentary of a game or event in real time, usually during a live broadcast. The comments are normally a voiceover, with the sounds of the action and spectators also heard in the background. In the case of television commentary, the commentator...
for NPRNPRNPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
's Morning EditionMorning EditionMorning Edition is an American radio news program produced and distributed by National Public Radio . It airs weekday mornings and runs for two hours, and many stations repeat one or both hours. The show feeds live from 05:00 to 09:00 ET, with feeds and updates as required until noon...
. - Ron Della ChiesaRon Della ChiesaRon Della Chiesa is a Boston area radio personality. Born in 1938 in Quincy, Massachusetts, he was taken by his father to jazz and Boston Symphony Orchestra concerts in the early 1950s, and developed an ear for both genres. His commentaries on WGBH-FM radio for the Boston Symphony are broadcast on...
, Boston-area radioRadioRadio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
personality.