A broadcast service that will keep the public informed of all the latest local news has been resumed by WIL after three years intermission.
Two prominent newspapermen are identified with the new “air newspaper.” They are Bill Bradley, former managing editor with the Times, stationed at police headquarters, and Clem Hurd, son of Carlos Hurd, who is county reporter.
With complete coverage of important local news, WIL is now able to broadcast important events direct from the scene over the mobile transmitter. Even prior to the use of the mobile transmitter on the broadcasts three years ago, prominent scoops were brought to the public hours ahead of the newspapers.
(Originally published in Radio & Entertainment 11/18/1933.)
The new $250,000 studios of Radio Station KMOX, the Voice of St. Louis, which are now being constructed in the New Mart Building, are rapidly nearing completion. When finished these studios will be the most modern in the country and will be equipped with every new device that will afford better mechanical operation as well as the latest in studio construction and acoustical treatment. The construction of these new studios was made necessary thru (sic) the increased number of programs originated by KMOX, it is reported, and to afford studio facilities comparable to the new 50,000 watt transmitter completed last year at a cost of approximately $450,000.
The increased facilities will enable KMOX to originate many chain features of national importance for the Columbia Chain of which it is a member because of its central location and tremendous power. The equipment and studios have been so arranged and so constructed that it will be possible for KMOX to broadcast a local program, send another program to Eastern cities and at the same time send still another to the Pacific coast. The layout has been designed and constructed so that with the advent of television it will not be necessary to alter the studios or the mechanical control arrangements.
KMOX Mart Building Master Control
Five Separate Studios
The facilities which occupy two floors of the Mart Building will be the finest of any radio station in the country. There are five large studios, four of which extend two floors in height. Studio “A” which is the largest is 42 feet long and 22 feet wide and directly faces an auditorium which seats over 600 people.
The studio has been designed and constructed so that it will be used for the television productions of the future. Studio “C” is also enormous in size, being 41 feet long by 25 feet wide. This studio is of sufficient size to permit broadcast of the largest of symphony orchestras. The other three studios are approximately 28 x 25 feet, all facing a long corridor that extends from the entrance the complete length of the five studios. The studio fronts are large plate glass windows, permitting the guests of the station to watch the radio performers in action. The corridor will be elaborately furnished for the comfort of visitors.
A unique construction feature of the studios is its special acoustical treatment. The walls are nine inches thick with over four inches of a new scientific sound proofing material in the center. Over all this is a layer of special material which completely prevents tone distortion and unwanted sound reflection. The floors are also treated in a like manner. Underneath the top flooring is a thick layer of special padding which deadens sounds and prevents vibrations of the building from being transferred into the studios. The ceilings are similarly treated, with the exception that there is a space of nine inches between the ceiling of the building and ceilings of the studios which is filled with a special limestone preparation for acoustical perfection.
KMOX Mart Building Reception
Finest Electrical Equipment
The third floor arrangement is similar to the second. There will be a large reception room which extends the full length of the five studios. From this reception corridor one may look down into the studios and watch the artists broadcasting. This corridor will also be furnished with lounges, chairs and other home-like furniture for the use of guests. On the third floor will be a large audition room where programs which are being rehearsed may be heard. This room will also be used so that clients of the station may hear programs which they are considering using for advertising purposes. This audition room will be used, too, for business conferences and meetings of the executives of the “Voice of St. Louis.”
The electrical equipment will be the finest of any studio in the country. Each of the studios has its own individual control room which is octagonal in shape, covered with glass and raised two feet above the studio floor level to afford a better view to the radio engineer who is operating the mechanical end of the broadcast. Each of the control rooms is equipped so that in an emergency it can be used as the master control.
The business offices of KMOX will be located on the third floor. They are large and spacious and equipped with a speaking system that will enable the hearing of any program which is being broadcast or rehearsed in any of the studios.
(Originally published in Radio and Entertainment 10/3/1931.)
“Good morning, Children. It is exactly eight o’clock Central Standard Time, your station is WIL and this is your ‘Don’t Be Late For School Program.’”
Daily the children all over St. Louis and surrounding territory tune in for this greeting. The station has numerous letters from young people who say they have not missed a single “Don’t Be Late For School Program” since it went on the air three years ago.
This program is sponsored by the Papendick Bakery Company who have through this medium made popular their Soderholm Swedish Rye Bread and Old Home Doughnuts.
The period opens with the National Emblem March which is so lively that it makes sleepy eyes open in spite of themselves. Then comes the program which is varied. There is lively music, which children enjoy, then cute songs and funny tunes, but every few minutes in an encouraging voice the announcer warns that minutes are passing and they must hurry. Some mornings there is a real geography lesson, not just an ordinary lesson of facts and figures; but off the children fly to the strange country, where even street noises are heard and a friendly voice describes the interesting sights on every side and almost without realizing it, they have acquired interesting and historic facts and all too soon the lesson is over.
8:15 and through the air comes the voice of the “Man from the Land of Make Believe,” to greet the little folk of the “Land of Everyday” and to each and all who have a birthday that day he sends birthday greetings and rings the silvery birthday bells. At the request of the man from the “Land of Make Believe,” the announcer then reads the names of the lucky little folks who are celebrating a birthday. Over 18,000 have been wished “Happy Birthday” in one year.
When the clock points to the hour of 8:30 once more we hear the National Emblem March and children are warned not to be late for school. Then the Safety Slogan – “Go to the curb – stop – look up the street – look down the street before you cross.”
WIL and Papendick Bakery Company is delighted to receive the many letters from children telling of their efforts and success in following the advice to be on time. Forming the habit of being prompt, while a child, will be of tremendous value when the young folks of today become the men and women of tomorrow. “
(Originally published in Radio and Entertainment 11/14/31.)
He was a newspaper man in St. Louis. She was a much younger woman who had never heard of him until she started working with him later at a Chicago ad agency. They became the husband/wife team who literally set the broadcast standard for a programming genre.
The two were depicted as “run-of-the-mill types” in the book “Frank and Anne Hummert’s Radio Factory” by former professor and radio researcher Jim Cox.
Anne and Frank Hummert
Frank Hummert decided to leave his job as a “journalist” with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1911 to form his own ad agency in St. Louis. After a couple more professional moves, he took a lucrative writing position in the Chicago agency Blackett, Sample & Hummert. Anne Ashenhurst was soon hired as his assistant. Six years later they were married, and the two started Hummert Productions, which was responsible for the creation of over 30 well-known radio soap operas, as well as countless other children’s musical, comedy and mystery shows.
Surprisingly, their first truly successful soaper effort was introduced to the radio audience as a nighttime drama. “Just Plain Bill” went on the air in 1932. Network executives had wrongly believed that women were so busy during the day that they couldn’t afford the luxury of paying attention to a radio show. Moving the program to afternoons proved that theory wrong. At the height of the Hummerts’ career, they had 36 different shows on the air, which accounted for one-eighth of all national radio advertising time.
The process, once put into place, was simple. The couple outlined each plot, then turned the outlines over to their stable of writers, who incorporated knowledge of each character, along with sponsor demands for inclusion, into the plots and finished the scripts. Frank and Anne watched over their empires like the proverbial hawks, sending memoranda when performances failed to meet their standards. Writing later in “Variety” magazine, Robert Landry nailed down one of the secrets of the couple’s success: “It appears that the Hummerts were extremely astute operators in terms of giving sponsors a simple, inexpensive, unobjectionable type of program.”
Anne Hummert told a Chicago Tribune reporter that it was her husband’s vision that was responsible for their success. “The technique of these serials, she ascribes to her husband. For it was he, she says, who perfected it, taught it to her and worked with her.”
For the most part, Cox writes, the Hummert operation was one in which pennies were pinched. The writing was done assembly line style, and the wages paid were below those of other program producers. The same held true for talent fees. On the other hand, it was solid, relatively secure work. And Cox notes that, during the blacklisting associated with Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Red Scare hearings, the Hummert’s company paid no attention to whose names appeared on the lists of purported communist sympathizers, putting the Hummerts in a distinct minority in the entertainment world.
The couple were, he says, dedicated, to and consumed by their work, “These people lived as recluses, in quiet solitude with few if any real friends. They weren’t invited to parties, they seldom appeared in public for such things as Broadway shows, and they evidenced a lifestyle that was built around 14-hour workdays seven days a week.” No one, not even the Hummerts, pretended to produce a highly intellectual product. It may have been mundane, but it was successful.
When network radio withered away in the shadow of television, no effort was made to move to the new medium. Their biographer, Jim Cox, notes that the Hummerts lived out their lives enjoying the wealth they had accumulated. They traveled the world until Frank’s death in March of 1996, a passing that was kept from the press for several weeks at the widow’s request. Cox says, “I think she probably didn’t want anybody to know she was going to have to face the world alone after he died. For maybe 35 years what they shared together had been her whole life. They focused upon building personal wealth at the expense of everything else.”
Their entire collection of scripts and personal papers is held at the University of Wyoming.
(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 2/2007)
Ten years ago when the Benson Brothers, Lester (better known as L.A.) and Clarence (known as C.W.) broadcast their first program in St. Louis, radio was indeed in its infancy. The maximum power of radio stations was about five hundred watts. The best time for broadcasting was decided to be between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 12:00 midnight, but many of the stations broadcasted about three hours a day, generally one hour during the day and two hours in the evening; and the chief sport was to have distance programs asking for telegrams and letters. Then there was the thrill of hearing one’s name mentioned over the air. Today the program is the most important feature but in those days distance was all important.
Most of the receiving sets at that time were homemade, even the radio transmitters were homemade. Today’s radio receiving sets are works of art and the transmitter in the station is an interesting sight.
WIL microphone
In my interview with Mr. Chal Stoup, the Chief Engineer of WIL, and Mr. Kenneth Crank and Bill Keller his very able assistants, they recalled the microphones and loud speakers of ten years ago. At that time morning glory loud speakers were just coming out. These speakers resembled the old phonograph horns and were hoarse and noisy. The first microphone used at WIL, the oldest radio station in St. Louis, [editor’s note: Not true.] was a carbon mike with a megaphone attachment. Today there are several microphones of the latest style in each studio. Ten years ago it was customary to have a mike in the center of the room and the performer would walk up to the mike and entertain. Today’s broadcasting equipment is the latest word in convenience for the artists. Modern mikes may be placed almost anywhere in the studio and will pick up the performance with equally good results. The announcer can talk from a separate room where he has the control of the mike under his fingers. There has (sic) been great changes in radio in the last ten years. One might almost say it has been revolutionized. The Benson Brothers have ever been in the forefront to give their listeners programs of interest and entertainment. L.A. Benson realized the need of sport lovers for a play-by-play description of baseball and wrestling – while C.W. Benson recognized the need of religious and charitable organizations to broadcast their message, so these brothers’ combined efforts have been rewarded by seeing their station grow in popularity and live to celebrate its tenth anniversary.
Ten years ago the first St. Louis radio station [see ed. note above] went on the air with regular programs. This event is being celebrated exactly ten years to the day, when Radio Station WIL’s Tenth Anniversary will be celebrated at the Fox Theater the week of February 19. It is likely there would not have been a Radio Station WIL nor an anniversary celebration had it not been for a young man who years ago began to experiment with that strange phenomenon “Wireless Telegraphy.” He is L.A. Benson, President of the Missouri Broadcasting Corporation, which operates WIL. He built and operated the radiophone broadcasting apparatus that put the first St. Louis program on the air ten years ago.
Benson, now thirty years old, is a radio pioneer despite his youth, for it must be remembered that radio itself is young in years though a giant in size. Benson’s experiments with radio began when he was fourteen years old. Before he was fifteen he had built and was operating an amateur spark station, and organized the first St. Louis Amateur Radio Club which is still in existence.
In 1916 he entered Washington University Night School to study electrical engineering, with a view to making electrical engineering his life work. He remained only six months but accumulated sufficient knowledge in that time to gain for himself the reputation of being one of the best informed persons on the subject in St. Louis.
Benson, when only seventeen, was made a Marconi Wireless Operator aboard the S.S. Arizona, a passenger steamer on Lake Michigan. It was a few months later that America entered the World War and Benson resigned and enlisted in the army. He was sent to Camp Pike, Arkansas, where he became an instructor in Radio and was later commissioned a First Lieutenant. At the close of the war, he returned to St. Louis and opened the Benwood Radio Company, a radio parts and service store, at Thirteenth and Olive Streets. It was here that Benson built his first radio transmitter and put it into service, transmitting experimental programs, and in 1920 broadcast the first voice in St. Louis during the Harding election. The Harding election returns were broadcast by Benson on a home made transmitter from the basement in his home.
When the government started issuing call letters the call “WEB” was given to Benson’s radio transmitter, which was then located at the Benwood Radio Company, 1110 Olive Street, the site now occupied by a large furniture company. It was in this building that the first radio broadcast was sent out on the air. The call letters “WIL” were assigned to the station later.
During the same year the St. Louis Post-Dispatch applied to Benson to have him build them a transmitter to be located on top of the Post Dispatch Building at Twelfth and Olive Street(s). Benson built this transmitter for KSD and operated it during the month of March 1922. In 1924 Benson built the radio transmitter call letters “KFVE” located in the Egyptian Building in University City. He later sold this station to Thomas Patrick Convey, which is now KWK. In 1926 Benson built radio station “KFJG” located at the 138th Infantry and operated that station for sometime broadcasting the first “blow-by-blow” prize fight in the city of St. Louis.
Back in 1921 Benson introduced the first police broadcasting from an automobile in motion. This type of broadcasting was later adopted all over the country and is now being used in the larger cities and in St. Louis. He was also the first to introduce “play-by-play” baseball games which he broadcast from a roof opposite Sportsman’s Park during the season 1926.
He has been the guiding hand of WIL throughout the past ten years and now boasts of having one of the most popular stations in the city of St. Louis. WIL has recently been voted the third most popular radio station in the State of Missouri among twenty one other stations. Station WIL spends more than forty thousand dollars per year hiring local talent and local musicians.
On behalf of the entire staff personnel (sic) of WIL, Mr. Benson wants to thank the thousands and thousands of friends and listeners of Station WIL for their loyal and staunch support during the past ten years of progressive broadcasting by this station.
(Originally published in Radio and Entertainment 2/20/1932.)
(Editor’s note: As noted in the article several of the published claims are dubious, including Benson’s first play-by-play. No other source corroborates these accounts.)
Katherine McIntyre’s desire for the original and something different, together with her unusual qualities as a violinist and business woman, have been responsible for her steady rise to the eminent position she now holds in the field of radio broadcasting – Program Director of Radio Station KMOX, the Voice of St. Louis.
Miss McIntyre has had wide and varied experiences in the musical world. She has been concert violinist, accompanist, teacher, staff violinist, studio director, program director and has appeared on the concert stage and in vaudeville in almost all of the large cities in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Italy, France and Austria, and thru her untiring efforts, musical ability and a desire to achieve something, she has earned the difficult and exceedingly responsible position as Program Director of one of the largest and most powerful radio stations in America – KMOX.
Katherine McIntyre
Not only is Miss McIntyre gifted with musical talents bordering on the genius but she also has the unusual qualifications of an executive and business woman. It is seldom indeed that these two qualities are found in one individual but leave it to Miss McIntyre to be different. Yes, it’s her innate desire for the original that has been the contributing factor in her rise from “just another fiddler” to the executive in charge of all programs originating from the KMOX studios.
Another characteristic which has been a great aid to the success of this unusual personage is her mild easy personality which instantly wins respect from even the most casual acquaintance. One just needs but to step into her office, engage her in conversation for a few moments to feel the effects of her winning personality, which fairly breathes of sincerity, truthfulness and understanding. There is no need for sternness in the exercising of her many duties for Miss McIntyre is so sincere and understanding that the element of force is unnecessary.
Miss McIntyre began the study of music at the age of five years at the old Horner Institute of Music in Kansas City, Missouri, where she attracted so much attention that at the age of 16 she was taken on a concert tour which lasted for about five years, in which time she visited every state in the union and played in most of the large cities of the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
Concert work became tiring for Miss McIntyre, it had lost its originality and appeal. So after her last concert tour she entered the field of vaudeville making the country on the old Kieth Circuit as a headliner. Soon too this new field lost its glamour and glitter for it bordered on the monotonous. Where then was something original? What new field could she enter? Radio then was in its infancy and did not hold the possibilities for immediate advancement. Europe was the place to go. There would be something different in the way of music. She would go abroad to study and to exercise her musical talents. So this restless lady sailed to Europe and studied in Paris, Florenz and Vienna under such noted masters as Mario d’Ancona and Kreily. Miss McIntyre stayed in Europe for over two years studying and making personal appearances in the larger cities of the old continent. Soon too this became dull and too, radio began to develop and to offer possibilities. So one day in Vienna she heard that KMOX was to be organized, right then and there came to the decision to enter the field of radio broadcasting. Quickly she sailed for home and came to St. Louis to become a staff violinist of KMOX.
Her career as a staff artist was short-lived for the managers of KMOX saw in this lady possibilities that were more valuable to them than her musical talents. Yes, violinists could be had at almost any time, perhaps not as skilled and talented as Katherine, but they could answer the purpose anyway. So Katherine was made Studio Director, a position of responsibility which required real executive ability. It was she who would see to it that all programs were broadcast at [their] scheduled time and it was she who would see to it that all artists were at the studio in time for their programs. These duties took almost all of her time but she saw improvements that could be made in various programs. She visualized new programs that could be created, so in her spare time which by the way was very spare, she tried her hand in originating new and novel programs to break the monotony in the day’s radio schedule. She was so successful in this line that she later was given this creative task along with her other duties.
Miss McIntyre did not mind this extra work, she loved it even if she had to work all hours of the night, then be back to the studios early the next morning, because it gave her the opportunity to do something different, to create new programs and new ideas.
Soon came the “break” that gave Katherine her big opportunity. George Junkin, who was then program director of KMOX resigned and went to his home back East. Katherine was the logical person to succeed him and she was instantly appointed as Program Director, a position she has since held.
Under her direction many new and highly entertaining programs have been created, both local and national. It is she who is responsible for the musical portion of the “Voice of St. Louis Program” which is broadcast for a full hour every Sunday morning at 10:30 over the coast-to-coast network of the Columbia Broadcasting System.
(Originally published in Radio and Entertainment, 10/24/31)
