Radio

A new trio made its appearance to the radio audience of KMOX, The Voice of St. Louis, last Sunday at 10:15 a.m. The trio to which we refer is “The Debutantes” whose vocal harmonies attracted so much attention on Sunday’s broadcast that the telephones of KMOX were kept busy for hours answering calls from the inquiring audience who wanted to know just who these three girls really were.

Well, they are Linda Stuart, Jean Carleton and Betty Marshall, and their initial broadcast over KMOX was their first appearance before a microphone.

The reason they created such a sensation was because they had, at the start, the experience of “old timers.” They derived this experience from Ted Straeter, popular KMOX pianist and coach who has been instructing the trio for three months.

During this time Ted has taught them the art of radio broadcasting by teaching them expression, phrasing, microphone technique, in addition to blending their voices, developing their vocal personality and writing special trio arrangements.

Summing it up in a few words, Ted discovered and developed this unusual trio. He has a habit of developing radio talent, for Ted has coached some of radio’s outstanding trios and soloists. “The Coeds,” “The Three Blue Notes,” “Irene Beasley,” “Bernardine Hayes,” “Jimmy(sic) Cabooch” and many others have been tutored by this young man who is now only eighteen years of age.

While young in years, Ted has had a wealth of experience. He has been in radio since the early days of the one tube set when he was featured as the child wonder. Ted is still a wonder, for in addition to his radio work, he finds time to maintain his own studios where he teaches piano and voice. In spite of his youth, Ted Straeter is regarded as one of the most capable coaches and pianists in the middle west.

(Originally published in Radio and Entertainment 1/16/1932).

As many of the 5,000 mates of the Pirates’ Club that could possibly get there foregathered yesterday at the Missouri Theater for the first get-together meeting of the club. They met personally Uncle Bob, Pirate Chief, who is Bob Enoch of WIL.

The meeting was opened by the members of the crew rising and singing the Pirate Song which is a necessary ritual of the organization. Uncle Bob related some thrilling adventures of swashbuckling days while the youngsters gathered about him. The latest release of The Marx Brothers’ “Horsefeathers” was the feature entertainment with a subsequent comedy by the “Our Gang” youngsters.

Uncle Bob has been conducting a cleanliness health book contest and the prizes have just been awarded. Another contest is now underway whereby the youngsters submit scrapbooks of their own design dealing in health and cleanliness and underlined with their own comments.

(Originally published in Radio and Entertainment 8/27/1932).

Children are the most critical radio listeners and the most loyal. Radio production managers strive the hardest to please them with the programs for several hours each day designed especially to interest and amuse as well as to instruct children.

The have their own favorites in their own programs as well as in those arranged for older people and, according to a recent survey, retain as much information from the things they hear as older people. Older listeners have other interests but children give their undivided attention to the things they happen to like and can quote verbatim both the features and the introductory continuities.

Educating and interesting these potential listeners and citizens of the future is one of the greatest problems and pleasures of both chain and local producers.

Dramatized comic strips are among the favorites. The survey shows. “Skippy,” the youngster beloved by all has an enormous following. His serious antics are heard every week day over KSD at 5:15 p.m. “Little Orphan Annie” with her trials and philosophies rivals other child programs for popularity each day at 5:45 p.m. over KWK.

Through “The Singing Lady” at 5:15 p.m. every day except Saturday and the Uncle Billy feature at KMOX at 5 p.m., children get a liberal education in song and have their foundations laid for music appreciation in balladry.

Romantic adventure and geographical picturization are included in the “Round the World Club” and the “Lone Wolf Club” which appear every other day at 5:30 p.m. over KMOX to transfer children to romantic lands. They are cheered and set on their way with a thought that someone is interested in the day’s work at school by a “Don’t Be Late for School” chat over WIL.

Other worlds are brought closer, music appreciation is taught, club fellowship is learned and enjoyed while children feel that they are receiving especial and personal consideration in the scheme of radio relationship.

(Originally published in Radio and Entertainment 4/17/32).

J.L. Van Volkenburg has been appointed Director of Operations subsequent to the resignation of William H. West who has served in that capacity for the past year.Mr. Van Volkenburg came to KMOX last October as Director of Sales and will continue as Sales Manager as well as Chief Executive of the station.

A graduate of the University of Minnesota, Mr. Van Volkenburg has been on the stage and featured as an entertainer and musician over the air. He left stage work to go into advertising and was Director of Radio at Batten, Barton Durstine and Osborne Agency before coming here. He is but thirty-two years old and one of the youngest executives of a 50,000 watt station in the country.

Other appointments made at the station subsequent to Mr. West’s resignation include the advancement of Nicholas J. Zehr to the position of Radio Engineer in charge of the transmitter plant in St. Louis County and Graham L. Tevis to Audio Engineer in charge of studio reception, wire lines and remote control.

(Originally published in Radio and Entertainment 2/4/1933).

Broadcasts from the new General Electric kitchen recently installed at KMOX are heard every morning at 11 o’clock when Ann Walsh, Home Economics expert, gives recipes, menus and household hints.

The foods made from recipes that call for Omega Flour and David G. Evans products are actually cooked in the studio during the broadcasts and Miss Walsh describes the results as they take place. The Singing Chefs, the four Schumate Brothers and Sunny Joe and his banjo supply the musical interludes in the programs.
(Originally published in Radio and Entertainment 4/1/33).

KMOX Kitchen Interests Women Everywhere In USA, Including Mrs. Roosevelt
(By Meryl Freidel)
Old adages are sometimes trite and tiresome, but very often true. The one about “make a better mousetrap…” – you know it…is again proven true by the KMOX Magic Kitchen which, in the short space of five months has won national recognition for its new and unusual manner of teaching home economics to both and air  and a visible audience at one and the same time. It is the only actually-in-operation radio electric kitchen in the Midwest.

Only a few short weeks after its beginning, the Magic Kitchen began to receive letters from all parts of the country, from other radio stations and from home economics schools, asking full details about the KMOX enterprise so that they might start a similar one in their cities. About a month ago, Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt sent a personal letter to Ann Walsh, director of the kitchen, commending the work of the kitchen and enclosing one of her own favorite recipes to be made in the kitchen and passed on to its audience. Last week, the National 4-H Club for girls affiliated itself with kitchen through Miss Alice Classen, County Leader of the 4-H Club of St. Clair County. Miss Classen, declaring that the kitchen was an inspiration to the girls and a long sought opportunity to show interested homemakers just what the girls learn in the club is, each week, bringing a different group of six members of the club to the kitchen where they demonstrate in complete detail, methods of canning, various kinds of cooking, baking and so on.

The picture of the KMOX Magic Kitchen and its auditorium shown here gives only the very faintest idea of this unusual broadcast program and its setting. The kitchen itself, all glass-enclosed, is all electric, showing and using the latest in household appliances. The auditorium in front of it seats about three hundred persons and is filled to capacity every day during the program. Housewives come from far and near to inspect the kitchen’s many labor-saving devices and new accoutrements for better and easier housekeeping and cooking.

During the program, which is broadcast daily except Sunday from 11:15 a.m. to 11:45 a.m., Ann Walsh presents various new house keeping suggestions and a number of novel recipes, of which one is prepared in the kitchen each day as it is given. Several valuable prizes are distributed daily among the auditorium audience which, after the broadcast, personally inspects the Magic Kitchen…with many Ohs and Ahs of delight and amazement…and samples the particular recipe prepared that day.

Although originally started as a sustaining service to its listeners by the station, the Magic Kitchen received such instantaneous response from housewives all over the country that manufacturers of foods and household appliances asked to be represented during this unusual feature, with the result that six such national manufacturers now have their products demonstrated in the kitchen.

(Originally published in Radio and Entertainment 7/8/1933).

Ann Walsh Dresses The Part On Home Economics Programs

Do you think that a crisp, white apron and a jaunty cap put you more in the mood for trying out delicious recipes?
Ann Walsh, home economics expert at KMOX, wears them when she stands before the microphone to talk confidentially to you about home planning and cooking. She says that is one of her chief cooking secrets, for when she goes into the kitchen, she likes to dress the part. It puts her more in the spirit for experimenting with the ingredients that make up the dainties she suggests to you over the air.

Even when she was a little girl and invited her playmates in for tea parties, she liked to wear becoming aprons and be a very correct hostess. A great number of her recipes come from a huge loose-leaf scrap book about good things to eat that she has been keeping since those make-believe days.

Long before little and red-haired Miss Walsh became known to her listeners as a cooking authority, she was behind the scenes so to speak in the varied, versatile capacities that are to be found in a radio station. She came to KMOX five years ago when George Junkin was director and did fifteen-minute singing programs presenting ballads and popular songs in a style all her own.

She remembers only two things about the first six months of her association there. She was frightened to death of Mr. Junkin and she adored him, as did everyone else at the station.

Her next step was that of studio director, when getting people in and out of audition rooms at the right time and seeing that everything was in readiness for the broadcasts were part of her worries. Going on the air in speaking parts was a gradual process and she hated it at first. When home economics became a greater feature, the news leaked out that she knew about good things to eat, which were almost total mysteries to everyone else, and she was chosen to direct this department.

Her career was almost nipped in the bud, however, for one night when a local soloist was to sing, she forgot to have an accompanist there. Mr. Junkin had already started to announce the numbers, and Miss Walsh pushed the protesting singer into the room and ran in search of a pianist. She was much too frightened to admit her error but scurried madly about to find someone to play. Before she returned, the director had seen the plight and heard Mrs. H. Carey Korndoerfer playing a one-finger accompaniment and had diverted the program.

She tells that as the worst of her radio experiences.

Letters asking about every conceivable thing in home management come to her from listeners, and she says that is the most gratifying part of talking to the unseen friends. She likes to feel that she is helping women in their homes with these aids that come from her own experiments and from scientific investigation.

(Originally published in Radio and Entertainment 3/19/1932).

By M.J. Conohan
The “Voice of St. Louis” is the powerful 50,000 watt radio station KMOX. One of the strongest and most popular radio stations in the middle west, KMOX has a listening audience over a radius of 1,000 miles. A member station in the Columbia Broadcasting System, it brings national broadcasts to its listeners as well as rendering all the radio services of regional interest to the people in the St. Louis business and agricultural area.

KMOX is located in the Mart Building in downtown St. Louis, KMOX being the only business enterprise that remained in the building when the government took over the property several years ago for use as an Army Medical Depot. The offices and studios of the station are located on the second floor of the building and occupy approximately 22,000 square feet of floor space. The transmitter for KMOX is located several miles outside the city limits of St. Louis.

Only a small portion of the space occupied in the Mart Building by the radio station is devoted to the actual broadcasting of programs. Long hours of preparations are required to obtain the perfection and split [second] timing so necessary in radio work and consequently much space is used for offices devoted to the development and preparation of programs. The business offices of the station are also located in the Mart Building.

The floors of radio station KMOX are all covered with serviceable floor coverings: rubber tile, asphalt tile, rubber and linoleum. The KMOX Playhouse has carpeting in the area used for the seating of audiences and the center portion of the main corridor is carpeted. Mr. L.C. Burrows, Maintenance Engineer for KMOX, has a crew of five men under the supervision of Mr. J.L. Scherder who takes excellent care of the floor services.

There are six studios, designated as studios A, B, C, D, E and F. Each studio has a Master Control Room, with a glass partition facing the studio so the engineer present for each broadcast can see exactly how the program is proceeding in the studio. The engineer has full charge of the broadcast, advising the various performers by hand signals when to begin their parts and when to interrupt the program for commercials. Each control room has a recording device to make recordings of the broadcasts and this equipment is used in playing or recordings or transcriptions for broadcast. There is a special room called the Recording Room which is used in making transcriptions for future broadcast.

Double doors lead to the various studios to provide a sound “trap” when it is necessary for someone to enter the studio during a broadcast. Some of these doors are heavily soundproofed and weigh as much as seven hundred pounds. All the studios are open to view, three panes of glass with air spaces between the panes and set on felt pads making the studio soundproof. The interiors of the studios are all acoustically engineered to make for good tonal quality in the broadcasts. One studio required considerable engineering: the ceiling and walls are all paneled with acoustical board, the board being set on the surfaces in a zig-zag pattern rather than flat against the wall surface so that sound waves are broken up and do not “bounce back” into the microphone; in addition the floor is set on springs six to eight inches high as a further assurance of proper sound quality.

The KMOX News Room is serviced by four teletype machines with complete Associated Press news service. The studio used for news broadcasts at one time was a part of the news room but it has now been separated from the news room and soundproofed. One of the music studios contains a four bank organ, the pipes of which are set into the walls of the studio. There are also two grand pianos in this studio.

All the studios in KMOX with the exception of the Playhouse and the Magic Kitchen are covered with the same type of floor covering – rubber tile. The selection of this type of flooring was apparently made after considerable attention to serviceability and beauty. Alternate blocks of rubber tile in red and buff, black and yellow mottled or marbleized, light green and dark green, all with black borders, make the studios very attractive and the condition of the floors shows that they have proved to be very serviceable.

The news room and the news studio have the best floors in the studios. These rubber tile floors have been in service for twelve years and still show no wear. The floor of studio D is in two shades of green rubber tile and has always been difficult to clean properly. During the cleaning of this floor, it must be kept wet until all cleaning is completed to avoid streaking of the floor.

The stage of the KMOX Playhouse has three tiers, the floor of gray rubber and the risers of the tiers in blue. Every Saturday the Playhouse is host to eight hundred guests for two very popular programs.

It is interesting to know that the broadcasting of programs concerning the preparation of foods is done from real kitchens maintained by the larger studios. The KMOX Magic Kitchen is a complete kitchen that would delight any housewife. The deep red or maroon linoleum in the Magic Kitchen make[s] it very attractive.

Passageways, corridors and toilet rooms are floored with asphalt tile in brown, gray or black. Offices are covered with rubber tile except for a few of the executive offices which are carpeted.

Mr. Scherder finds that the floors do not require an undue amount of care, and maintenance at irregular intervals, as the floors require, has proved satisfactory. The floors are dry mopped daily to keep them clean. When additional maintenance is indicated, the floors are cleaned with a wet mop and neutral soap. All but the Magic Kitchen are then treated with Finish Material and buffed. Some of the floor areas can be kept in good condition for as long as two months at a time with daily dry mopping.

Due to the nature of the linoleum floor in the Magic Kitchen, a “spewing” of oil apparently coming from the porous surface of the linoleum, it does not readily take applications of wax. It has been found that the cleanest and neatest looking floor for this surface can be obtained by merely scrubbing it with neutral soap and water and leaving it untreated.

Even the experienced radio announcer is subject to “mike fright” when facing his unseen audience. Two black smudges on the floor of one studio just before the microphone proved to be due to the nervous scraping of the feet of an announcer. Due to the methods of maintenance used in KMOX these “burns” are easily removed and do not injure the floor.

The selection of proper maintenance materials and good maintenance methods  for the floors of KMOX studios has materially aided in making the appearance of the studios fit in with the top quality of its programs.

(Originally published in Floorcraft magazine 12/1943 ).