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It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into CBS Radio. (Discuss) Proposed since January 2011.

The CBS Radio Network provides news, sports and other programming to more than 1,000 radio stations throughout the United States. The network is owned by CBS Corporation, and operated by CBS Radio (formerly the Infinity Broadcasting Corporation).

The CBS Radio Network is one of the programming services distributed by Dial Global, which acquired the former Westwood One (formerly managed by CBS) in October 2011. It produces and distributes national news, sports, talk, music and special event programs, in addition to local news, sports, weather, video news and other information to radio and television stations as well as traffic reporting services.

It is the last of the original "Big Four" radio networks in the United States; NBC Radio and the now-defunct Mutual were purchased in the 1980s by Westwood One (and partially absorbed into CBS's network operations), while ABC Radio was bought in 2006 by Citadel Broadcasting, changed its' name to Citadel Media in 2009, and is now known as Cumulus Media Networks (Although it still carries the hourly five-minute broadcasts of ABC News).

Background[link]

The network is the oldest unit of the CBS Corporation and traces its roots to CBS's predecessor, United Independent Broadcasters, founded in 1927 with 47 affiliates. The next year, Columbia Records invested in the radio network, which was named the Columbia Phonographic Broadcasting System. Eventually, Columbia pulled its backing from the struggling web. William S. Paley bought a half-interest in what became the Columbia Broadcasting System in 1928 and became its president. (In 1938, CBS bought back Columbia Records.) For more about the network's history, see CBS.

Programming[link]

Today, the CBS Radio Network is best known for its news and public affairs programming distributed to more than 500 affiliates, as well as owned-and-operated (O&O) flagship station WCBS in New York, and several other O&O's including KYW in Philadelphia, KNX in Los Angeles, KCBS in San Francisco, WBBM in Chicago, WWJ in Detroit, KMOX in St. Louis, KRLD in Dallas and WCCO in Minneapolis. WTOP-FM in Washington, DC, while owned and operated by Hubbard Broadcasting, is a key CBS Radio affiliate (The largest station not owned by the network), and much of its broadcast style copies that of the CBS-owned outlets. (Some time in 2013, CBS is expected to shift its affiliation to WNEW-FM, which CBS acquired in 2012. WNEW uses the CBS logo, but does not carry any CBS programming.)

Its offerings include the top-of-the-hour newscasts and the half-hour news updates. In addition to the over-the-air product, reports and actualities are made available to affiliates on its Newsfeeds, among the best-known products of the CBS Radio newsroom. Newsfeeds are subscribed heavily to by WCBS, KYW and other top outlets.

Among its on-air programs are the CBS News-on-the-Hour and the morning Osgood File features with Charles Osgood.

The network is home to the morning and evening editions of the CBS World News Roundup, broadcasting's oldest news series. Steve Kathan anchors the morning show, while Bill Whitney hosts the evening edition. The daily Roundup dates back to a special on March 13, 1938, covering Germany's annexation of Austria. Each Friday, the network also produces the CBS News Weekend Roundup, a look at the top stories of the week, hosted by Dan Raviv, with a commentary from Charles Grodin.

CBS Radio has an impressive list of reporters around the world including Peter Maer, Barry Bagnato, Mark Knoller, Bob Fuss, Cami McCormick and Lara Logan. Logan also reports for CBS Television, and many TV correspondents also appear on CBS Radio newscasts.

In 2009, CBS launched a long-form late night talk program hosted by Jon Grayson and the existing morning talk show hosted by Michael Smerconish on some of its owned-and-operated stations. CBS themselves handle the syndication of Grayson's show, while syndication for Smerconish's show to non-CBS stations has been outsourced to Dial Global (which at that time was not involved with the CBS Radio Network itself). Grayson's show, Overnight America, will also enter national syndication via Dial Global on January 30, 2012;^[1] meanwhile, Smerconish discontinued the morning show in 2011.

CBS Radio reporters also contribute to Dial Global's hour-long broadcast America In the Morning, hosted by Jim Bohannon; because America In the Morning is broadcast on many stations not affiliated with CBS (in addition to several which are), references to CBS News are usually edited from the CBS correspondents' reports and closing bylines.

Three of CBS's television programs are currently simulcast on the CBS Radio Network; those are Face the Nation, 60 Minutes, and the first segment of the CBS Evening News (some stations, such as WBZ in Boston, air the entire Evening News). In addition, the Late Show with David Letterman Top Ten List is also broadcast by the network in a short-form-feature format.

Other public-affairs features include CBS Healthwatch with Dr. Emily Senay, Raising Our Kids (formerly suffixed with in the 90s during that decade) with WCBS-AM morning anchor Pat Carroll, and What's in the News.

CBS Radio Sports programming is produced by Dial Global (and current branded under the name of former producer Westwood One, acquired by Dial Global in October 2011), and includes radio coverage of the National Football League (including Monday Night Football with Kevin Harlan and Boomer Esiason), NCAA football and basketball, the National Hockey League, the Triple Crown of Thoroughbred horse racing, and the Olympic Games.

[edit] Music and the Spoken Word

While the network's World News Roundup is the longest-running news show on radio or TV in the U.S., the title of longest-running network radio show of any kind goes to another CBS Radio program—Music and the Spoken Word, a half-hour of music and inspirational thought featuring the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. It began on July 15, 1929 and currently airs each Sunday morning at 11:30 Eastern Time. (The longest running radio show of any kind is the Grand Ole Opry, broadcast on WSM since November 28, 1925.)

See also[link]

• WCBS (AM) - The flagship station of the network, in New York City
• WCBS-FM - a classic hits station in New York City owned by CBS Radio
• KCBS (AM) - The west coast flagship station of the network, in San Francisco
• KCBS-FM - an adult hits station owned by CBS Radio based in Los Angeles

1. ^ "Dial Global offers syndication of KMOX’s "Overnight America With Jon Grayson"". Radio-Info.com. January 24, 2012. http://www.radio-info.com/news/dial-global-offers-syndication-of-kmoxs-overnight-america-with-jon-grayson. Retrieved January 24, 2012. 

There are two types of radio networks currently in use around the world: the one-to-many broadcast network commonly used for public information and mass media entertainment; and the two-way type used more commonly for public safety and public services such as police, fire, taxicabs, and delivery services. Many of the same components and much of the same basic technology applies to both.

The Two-way type of radio network shares many of the same technologies and components as the Broadcast type radio network but is generally set up with fixed broadcast points (transmitters) with co-located receivers and mobile receivers/transmitters or Tran-ceivers. In this way both the fixed and mobile radio units can communicate with each other over broad geographic regions ranging in size from small single cities to entire states/provinces or countries. There are many ways in which multiple fixed transmit/receive sites can be interconnected to achieve the range of coverage required by the jurisdiction or authority implementing the system: conventional wireless links in numerous frequency bands, fibre-optic links, or micro-wave links. In all of these cases the signals are typically backhauled to a central switch of some type where the radio message is processed and resent (repeated) to all transmitter sites where it is required to be heard.

In contemporary two-way radio systems a concept called trunking is commonly used to achieve better efficiency of radio spectrum use and provide very wide ranging coverage with no switching of channels required by the mobile radio user as it roams throughout the system coverage. Trunking of two-way radio is identical to the concept used for cellular phone systems where each fixed and mobile radio is specifically identified to the system Controller and its operation is switched by the controller. See also the entries Two-way radio and Trunked radio system to see more detail on how various types of radios and radio systems work.

Broadcasting networks[link]

The Broadcast type of radio network is a network system which distributes programming to multiple stations simultaneously, or slightly delayed, for the purpose of extending total coverage beyond the limits of a single broadcast signal. The resulting expanded audience for radio programming or information essentially applies the benefits of mass-production to the broadcasting enterprise. A radio network has two sales departments, one to package and sell programs to radio stations, and one to sell the audience of those programs to advertisers.

Most radio networks also produce much of their programming. Originally, radio networks owned some or all of the stations that broadcast the network's radio format programming. Presently however, there are many networks that do not own any stations and only produce and/or distribute programming. Similarly station ownership does not always indicate network affiliation. A company might own stations in several different markets and purchase programming from a variety of networks.

Radio networks rose rapidly with the growth of regular broadcasting of radio to home listeners in the 1920s. This growth took various paths in different places. In Britain the BBC was developed with public funding, in the form of a broadcast receiver license, and a broadcasting monopoly in its early decades. In contrast, in the United States various competing commercial broadcasting networks arose funded by advertising revenue. In that instance, the same corporation that owned or operated the network often manufactured and marketed the listener’s radio.

Major technical challenges to be overcome when distributing programs over long distances are maintaining signal quality and managing the number of switching/relay points in the signal chain. Early on, programs were sent to remote stations (either owned or affiliated) by various methods, including leased telephone lines, pre-recorded gramophone records and audio tape. The world's first all-radio, non-wireline network was claimed to be the Rural Radio Network, a group of six upstate New York FM stations that began operation in June 1948. Terrestrial microwave relay, a technology later introduced to link stations, has been largely supplanted by coaxial cable, fiber, and satellite, which usually offer superior cost-benefit ratios.

Many early radio networks evolved into Television networks.

Broadcasting networks in various nations[link]

This is the list of radio networks. For individual radio stations, see their respective lists.

[edit] Australia

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

[edit] Barbados

[edit] Brazil

• Radio Jovem Pan
• Radio CBN
• Radio Bandeirantes
• BandNews FM
• MiliciaSat (catholic network)
• Radio Globo
• Transamérica Pop, Hits

[edit] Brunei

• BFBS Radio 1 Brunei
• Brunei Radio

[edit] Canada

• Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
  • CBC Radio One
  • CBC Radio 2
  • CBC Radio 3
  • Première Chaîne
  • Espace musique
  • Bande à part
• MBC Radio
• Corus Radio Network
• NRJ
• RockDétente
• Rythme FM

Defunct[link]

• CKO
• Pelmorex Radio Network
• The Team

[edit] People's Republic of China

• China National Radio
• China Radio International
• Shanghai Media Group

[edit] India

• All India Radio (AIR)
• Vividh Bharati
• Radio City (91.1)
• Big FM (92.7)
• Radio One (94.3)
• Radio Mirchi (98.3)
• Red FM (93.5)
• Suryan FM (93.5)
• Hi FM (106.4)

[edit] Indonesia

• Radio Republik Indonesia (RRI)

[edit] Iran

• All Iranian radio (many ch.)

[edit] Ireland

• RTÉ Radio 1
• RTÉ 2fm
• RTÉ lyric fm
• RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta
• Today FM

[edit] Japan

• NHK Radio 1
• NHK Radio 2
• JRN
• NRN
• NHK FM
• JFN
• JFL
• MegaNet

[edit] Republic of Korea

• Korean Broadcasting System
• Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation
• Seoul Broadcasting System

[edit] Montenegro

[edit] New Zealand

Almost all radio stations in New Zealand are part of a radio network and most are network-owned.

• The Edge FM
• More FM
• ZM
• Flava
• Classic Hits
• Solid Gold
• Radio Hauraki
• Viva
• The Breeze
• The Rock
• Radio Live
• Radio Pacific
• Newstalk ZB
• Coast
• Radio Sport
• Tourist Information FM
• Radio New Zealand National
• Life FM
• New Zealand's Rhema
• Southern Star
• Radio New Zealand Concert

[edit] Philippines

• ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corporation
• Advanced Media Broadcasting System
• Aliw Broadcasting Corporation
• AMP Broadcasting Network
• Associated Broadcasting Company
• Audiovisual Communicators, Inc.
• Bombo Radyo Philippines
• Bicolandia Broadcasting Network
• Brainstone Broadcasting Inc.
• Catholic Media Network
• Christian Era Broadcasting Service
• Delta Broadcasting System, Inc.
• Eagle Broadcasting Corporation
• Empire Entertainment
• Far East Broadcasting Company
• FBS Radio Network Inc.
• GMA Network
• Intercontinental Broadcasting Corporation
• Manila Broadcasting Company
• Mareco Broadcasting Network, Inc.
• Nation Broadcasting Corporation
• National Broadcasting System
• Palawan Broadcasting Corporation
• PBN Broadcasting Network
• Philippine Broadcasting Service
• Progressive Broadcasting Corporation
• Quest Broadcasting Inc.
• Radio Mindanao Network
• Radio Philippines Network
• Rajah Broadcasting Network - RJ 100 and RJ Underground Radio 105.9
• Raven Broadcasting Corporation
• Real Radio Network Inc.
• RBN-BBC Broadcasting Corporation
• Regional Broadcasting Corporation
• Sonshine Media Network International
• Southern Broadcasting Network
• The Radio Partners, Inc.
• Vanguard Radio Network
• ZOE Broadcasting Network

[edit] Turkey

• All Turkish radio

[edit] United Kingdom

British Broadcasting Corporation

[edit] United States of America

[edit] International

• RadioBalkanNET
• United Nations Radio
• Radio Rainbow International the voice of peace

See also[link]

• Lists of radio stations in Africa
• Lists of radio stations in Asia
• Lists of radio stations in Europe
• Lists of radio stations in North America
• Lists of radio stations in South America
• Lists of radio stations in the South Pacific and Oceania
• Wireless network

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Lowell Thomas
Born	(1892-04-06)April 6, 1892 Woodington, Darke County, Ohio, U.S.
Died	August 29, 1981(1981-08-29) (aged 89) Pawling, New York, U.S.

Lowell Jackson Thomas (April 6, 1892 – August 29, 1981) was an American writer, broadcaster, and traveler, best known as the man who made Lawrence of Arabia famous. So varied were Thomas's activities that when it came time for the Library of Congress to catalog his memoirs they were forced to put them in "CT" ("biographies of subjects who do not fit into any other category") in their classification.^{[citation needed]}

Early life and career[link]

Thomas was born in Woodington, Darke County, Ohio, to Harry and Harriet (née Wagner) Thomas. His father was a doctor and his mother a school teacher. In 1900, the family moved to the mining town of Victor, Colorado. There he worked as a gold miner, a cook, and a reporter on the newspaper.

In 1910, Thomas graduated from Victor High School, where one of his teachers was Mabel Barbee Lee.^[1] The following year, he graduated from Valparaiso University with bachelor's degrees in education and science. The next year he received both a B.A. and an M.A. from the University of Denver and began work for the Chicago Journal, writing for it until 1914. Thomas also was on the faculty of Chicago-Kent College of Law at Illinois Institute of Technology, where he taught oratory from 1912 to 1914. He then went to New Jersey, where he studied for a master's at Princeton University (he received the degree in 1916) and again taught oratory at the university.

A relentless self-promoter, Thomas persuaded railroads to give him free passage in exchange for articles extolling rail travel. When he visited Alaska, he hit upon the novel idea of the travelogue, movies about faraway places. When the United States entered World War I, he was part of an official party sent by President Wilson, former president of Princeton, to "compile a history of the conflict." In reality the mission was not academic. The war was not popular in the United States, and Thomas was sent to find material that would encourage the American people to support it. Thomas did not want to merely write about the war, he wanted to film it. He estimated that $75,000 would be needed for filming, which the U.S. government thought too expensive, and so he turned to a group of 18 Chicago meat packers. (He had done them a favor by exposing someone who was blackmailing them, without the damaging material becoming public.)

Lawrence of Arabia[link]

Thomas and a cameraman, Harry Chase, first went to the Western Front, but the trenches had little to inspire the American public. They then went to Italy, where he heard of General Allenby's campaign against the Ottoman Empire in Palestine. With the permission of the British Foreign Office, as an accredited war correspondent, Thomas met T. E. Lawrence, a captain in the British Army in Jerusalem. Lawrence was spending £200,000 a month encouraging the inhabitants of Palestine to revolt against the Turks. Thomas and Chase spent several weeks with Lawrence in the desert, though Lawrence said "several days." Lawrence agreed to provide Thomas with material on the condition that Thomas also photograph and interview Arab leaders such as Emir Feisal.^{[citation needed]}

Thomas shot dramatic footage of Lawrence and, after the war, toured the world, narrating his film, With Allenby in Palestine and Lawrence in Arabia, making Lawrence—and himself—household names. The performances were highly dramatic. At the opening of Thomas's six-month London run, there were incense braziers, exotically dressed women danced before images of the Pyramids, and the band of the Welsh Guards played to provide the accompaniment. Lawrence saw the show several times, and though he later claimed to dislike it, it generated valuable publicity for his own book. However, to strengthen the emphasis on Lawrence in the show, Thomas needed more photographs of him than Chase had taken in 1918. Lawrence, though claiming to be shy of publicity, agreed to a series of posed portraits in Arab dress in London. Thomas later said of Lawrence, "He had a genius for backing into the limelight."

In fact, Thomas and Lawrence's initially friendly relations grew more prickly as Thomas's film grew in popularity and as Thomas ignored several alleged requests from Lawrence to end it. In fact, the film gave Lawrence a degree of publicity that he had never previously experienced. Newspapers were keen to print his attacks on government policy, and politicians began to pay attention to his views. At the end of 1920, he was invited to join the British Colonial Office, under Winston Churchill, as an adviser on Arab affairs. However, Lawrence said that he never forgave Thomas for exploiting his image, and called him a "vulgar man."

For his part, Thomas genuinely admired Lawrence and continued to defend him against attacks on his reputation. Lawrence's brother, Arnold, extended Thomas an olive branch and allowed him to contribute to T.E. Lawrence by his Friends (1937), a collection of essays and reminiscences published after Lawrence's death.^[2]

About four million people saw the Thomas film around the world, and it made Thomas $1.5 million. Thomas later wrote a book, With Lawrence in Arabia (1924), about his time in the desert and Lawrence's exploits during the war. It would be the first of fifty-six volumes.

Later career[link]

During the 1920s, Thomas was a magazine editor.

Thomas never lost his fascination with the movies. He narrated Twentieth Century Fox's Movietone newsreels until 1952. That year he went into business with Mike Todd and Merian C. Cooper to exploit Cinerama, a movie format that used three projectors and an enormous curved screen. Cinerama features were well-received but with the enormous costs and technical difficulties in film production and presentation, the company discontinued three-projector Cinerama in a favor of a single-camera 70mm system, which lacked the visual impact of true Cinerama. A quarter-century later, Thomas was still raving about Cinerama in his memoirs and wondering why someone wasn't trying to revive it.

In 1930, he became a broadcaster with the CBS radio network, delivering a nightly news and commentary program. After two years, he switched to the NBC radio network but returned to CBS in 1947. In contrast to today's practices, Thomas was not an employee of either NBC News or CBS News. Prior to 1947 he was employed by the broadcast's sponsor, Sunoco. When he returned to CBS to take advantage of lower capital-gains tax rates, he established an independent company to produce the broadcast which he sold to CBS. He hosted the first-ever television-news broadcast in 1930 and the first regularly scheduled television news broadcast, beginning on February 21, 1940, on NBC.^[3][4] But television news was a short-lived venture for him, and he favored radio. Indeed, it was over radio that he presented and commented upon the news for four decades until his retirement in 1976, the longest radio career of anyone in his day (a record later surpassed by Paul Harvey). "No other journalist or world figure, with the possible exception of Winston Churchill, has remained in the public spotlight for so long," wrote Norman R. Bowen in Lowell Thomas: The Stranger Everyone Knows (1968). His signature sign-on was "Good evening, everybody" and his sign-off "So long, until tomorrow," phrases he would use in titling his two volumes of memoirs.

Thomas is also known for his television series of the 1950s entitled High Adventure and television's Lowell Thomas Remembers in the 1970s.

"The world's foremost globetrotter" took his radio show on his travels, broadcasting from the four corners of the globe. Once on the Spanish Steps in Rome he was asked by a fellow American, "Lowell Thomas, don't you ever go home?" He was a fanatical skier, helping develop the Mont Tremblant Resort in Quebec and skiing near Tucson, Arizona.

Thomas's most amusing on-air gaffe occurred during one of his daily broadcasts in the early 1960s. He was reading a story "cold" (going on the air without pre-reading his copy, which Thomas usually did). This had the phrase "She suffered a near fatal heart attack" in it. The line came out of Thomas's mouth as "She suffered a near fart..err fatal heart attack". Realizing instantly what he had said, he tried to continue but eventually collapsed into gales of roaring laughter, which continued into - and beyond - his announcer's chuckling sign-off for the day.

Thomas' long time friend and ghostwriter, Prosper Buranelli, wrote the nightly newscasts. The day's script was sent by teletype to Thomas' home in Pawling, NY from which he usually did his broadcast. One evening, Buranelli had as the final item a story about an actress going into a Los Angeles hotel with a great dane. The dog's tail got caught in the revolving door and she sued the hotel for $10,000. Buranelli added a comment to the story to give Thomas a laugh before going on air, but Thomas read the story as written with Buranelli's comment, "Who ever thought a piece of tail was worth 10 grand."

Another example of one of Thomas' on-air mishaps had Thomas reading a story about President Eisenhower's visit to Hershey, Pennsylvania "where he was greeted by the folks who make chocolate bars, with and without nuts." ("Nuts" is a slang euphemism for "testicles.") As Thomas read the next story, he could hear the announcer back in the New York city studio on his headphones breaking up with laughter, which caused Thomas to break up, as well. Air checks of some of Thomas' gaffes (as well as recreations of his "bloopers") are available to collectors.

Thomas was a successful businessman. In 1954, he and his long-time business manager/partner Frank Smith bought a small Albany New York-based broadcasting company and turned it into Capital Cities Communications, which in 1986 took over the American Broadcasting Company, and developed the Quaker Hill community in Dutchess County, New York, near Pawling, where Thomas resided when not on the road. Among his neighbors there was Thomas E. Dewey, one of a huge circle of friends that included everyone from the Dalai Lama to Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1976, President Gerald Ford awarded Thomas the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 1989.

In May 1955, the board of directors of the Lancaster and Chester Railway of South Carolina appointed him Press Agent, in N.Y.C.^[5]

His wife of 58 years, Fran Ryan, who often traveled with him, died in February 1975. He was married a second time in 1977 to Marianna Munn. True to form, he embarked with her on a 50,000-mile honeymoon trip that took him to many of his favorite old destinations. Marianna died in Dayton, Ohio on January 28, 2010 after a long battle with renal failure.^[6]

Thomas died at his home in Pawling, New York in 1981. He is buried in Christ Church Cemetery.

His son, Lowell Thomas, Jr., was a film and television producer who collaborated with his father on several projects before becoming a State Senator, and later the Lieutenant Governor of Alaska, in the 1970s. Today, Lowell Thomas Jr. remains an active bush pilot and environmental activist in Alaska.

Lowell Thomas has the communications building at Marist College (in Poughkeepsie, New York) named in his honor after receiving an honorary degree from the college in 1981. The Lowell Thomas Archives are housed as part of the college library.

In popular culture[link]

Thomas was fictionalized in David Lean's 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia as American journalist Jackson Bentley, played by Arthur Kennedy. In the unofficial sequel to Lawrence, A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia (1990), he was more accurately portrayed by actor Adam Henderson, who gave a recreated version of Thomas's slide lectures on Lawrence.

The Lawrence-themed play Ross by Terence Rattigan featured another Thomas-like character named Franks, who hectors General Allenby and Lawrence for photographs and interviews after the fall of Jerusalem.

Thomas appeared in an episode of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. The episode takes place in Morocco in 1917. Fresh from his adventures with Lawrence in Arabia, Thomas (played by Evan Richards) meets up with young Indy (Sean Patrick Flanery) and the novelist Edith Wharton (Clare Higgins). He was also fictionalized in two Warner Brothers cartoons, She Was an Acrobat's Daughter (as Dole Promise) and The Film Fan (as Cold Promise).

In addition, he was impersonated on SCTV by Joe Flaherty as "Lowell Thompson" in a parody of his 1970s series Lowell Thomas Remembers.^[7]

Lowell Thomas awards[link]

Since 1980, the Explorers Club, which Thomas was a member of, annually presents the Lowell Thomas award to "honor men and women who have distinguished themselves in the field of exploration". The awards are presented at a yearly dinner to a select group of people having made particular contributions in the specific area chosen to be that year's focus. Past awardees include Edmund Hillary, Isaac Asimov, David Doubilet, Mary Cleave, Buzz Aldrin and Bertrand Piccard.^[8]

Since 1985, the Society of (North) American Travel Writers (SATW) has held an annual Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition for outstanding print, online and multimedia works and for travel photography and both audio and video broadcast. Past awardees included Elisabeth Eaves, Jeff Biggers and National Geographic Traveler('08^[9] and '09^[10]).^[11] In the 2008-9 awards, faculty members of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communication, coordinated by Monica Hill, judged the competition. There were 1,191 entries and awards in 25 categories.^[10] In the 2007-8 awards, faculty members of the Missouri School of Journalism judged the competition in 24 categories.^[9]

Books[link]

Among Thomas's books are:

References[link]

Lowell Thomas with FDR in 1936

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Lowell Thomas

External links[link]

• With Lawrence in Arabia at Internet Archive.
• Lowell Thomas at Find-A-Grave
• Lowell Thomas at the National Radio Hall of Fame
• “Creating History: Lowell Thomas and Lawrence of Arabia” online history exhibit at Clio Visualizing History.
• Site dedicated to one of Britain’s Greatest Heroes

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2012)

Major Bowes as his "Amateur Hour" became a national radio program, 1935.

Edward Bowes (14 June 1874, San Francisco – 13 June 1946, Rumson, New Jersey) was an American radio personality of the 1930s and 40s whose Major Bowes' Amateur Hour was the best-known amateur talent show in radio during its eighteen-year run (1934-1952) on NBC Radio and CBS Radio.

Early life and radio career[link]

Bowes made his first business success in real estate, until the cataclysmic San Francisco earthquake of 1906 wiped out his fortune. He then went to New York City, in search of other opportunities. He soon realized that the theatrical world was lucrative, and he worked busily in New York as a musical conductor, composer, and arranger. He also produced Broadway shows, such as Kindling in 1911-12 and The Bridal Path in 1913. He was married to Kindling star Margaret Illington, from 1910 until her death in 1934; her portrait by Adolfo Müller-Ury had been painted in 1906 for her first husband, the theatre manager, Daniel Frohman.

He became managing director of New York's imposing Capitol Theatre, which he ran with military efficiency and bearing. He insisted on being addressed as "Major Bowes". His nickname sprang from his earlier military rank, though historians are divided on whether he was an active-duty officer in World War I or held the rank as a member of the Officer Reserve Corps.

In 1934, Bowes brought his best-known creation to New York radio station WHN in 1934. He had actually hosted scattered amateur nights on smaller stations while manager of the Capitol. Within a year of its WHN premiere, The Original Amateur Hour —its original name, according to historian Gerald Nachman, was Major Bowes and His Capitol Family — began earning its creator and host as much as $1 million a year, according to Variety.

The rapid popularity of The Original Amateur Hour made him better known than most of the talent he featured. Some of his discoveries did become stars, including opera stars Lily Pons, Robert Merrill, and Beverly Sills; comedian Jack Carter; pop singer Teresa Brewer; and, Frank Sinatra, fronting a quartet known as the Hoboken Four when they appeared on the show in 1937.

The show consistently ranked among radio's top ten programs throughout its entire run. Bowes's familiar catchphrase, "...around and around she goes and where she stops nobody knows", spoken in the familiar avuncular tones for which he was so renowned, whenever it was time to spin its "wheel of fortune," the device by which some contestants were called to perform. In the early days of the show, whenever a performer was simply too terrible to continue, Bowes would stop the act by striking a gong (a device that would be revived in the 1970s by Chuck Barris's infamous The Gong Show). Bowes heard from thousands of listeners who objected to his terminating these acts prematurely, so he abandoned the gong in 1936.

Nachman recorded that Bowes, "a businesslike fellow with a mirthless chuckle who, unlike most emcees, had a gift for nongab," went out of his way to make contestants feel at ease, habitually taking them out to dinner before their appearances. Nachman also credits Bowes for featuring more black entertainers than many network shows of the time.

Death and legacy[link]

The grave of Major Edward Bowes in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery

Major Bowes died on the eve of his 72nd birthday at his home in the New York suburb of Rumson, New Jersey.^[1] The following week, his talent coordinator Ted Mack took over the hosting chores, first as the interim, and later as permanent host until Mack ended the series 24 years later, on September 27, 1970. As a measure of the affection attached to Bowes' name, the show continued to be called Major Bowes' Original Amateur Hour until the 1950-51 season, when it became simply Original Amateur Hour and in 1955 became Ted Mack and The Original Amateur Hour.

Major Bowes was referred to in Cab Calloway's "I Love to Singa" from the movie The Singing Kid (1936), and in the Dorothy Fields lyrics for "Never Gonna Dance" from the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers film Swing Time (1936).

Nineteen months after Bowes's death, on January 18, 1948, the program, with Ted Mack as host, debuted on the DuMont Television Network, ultimately running on all four major networks until 1970. The radio version, also with Mack, ran until 1952.

Quote[link]

• All men are at heart critics. And, since time immemorial, they have always felt they can run the other fellow's show better than he can. It gives them a feeling of satisfaction to believe that they may have started someone on the road to success.--Edward (Major) Bowes, describing the appeal of Major Bowes' Original Amateur Hour.

External references[link]

• Edward Bowes at the Internet Movie Database
• Gerald Nachman, Raised on Radio (New York: Pantheon Books, 1998)

External links[link]

• Major Edward Bowes Memorial at Find A Grave
• Old Time Radio Researchers Database of People and Programs

Sid Raymond (January 21, 1909 - December 1, 2006) was an American comedian and character actor.

Born Raymond Silverstein, he appeared in many movies and commercials and was active nearly until his death. He is probably best remembered as being the voice for Baby Huey. Raymond also did the voices for Katnip the cat as well as magpies Heckle and Jeckle. On radio, Raymond was "Finnegan" on Duffy's Tavern during its final seasons.

Raymond died in Aventura, Florida, aged 97, where he lived with his wife, from complications of a stroke the week before.^[1]

References[link]

1. ^ "Sid Raymond, 97, Actor With a Familiar Face, Dies". The New York Times. 2006-12-10. http://www.howardweinberg.net/SidRaymondNYTObit.htm. Retrieved 2010-08-11. 

External links[link]

• Sid Raymond page at imdb

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