The Mutual Broadcasting System (MBS) was an American radio network, in operation from 1934 to 1999. In the golden age of U.S. radio drama, MBS was best known as the original network home of The Lone Ranger and The Adventures of Superman and as the long-time radio residence of The Shadow. For many years, it was a national broadcaster for Major League Baseball, including the All-Star Game and World Series, and for Notre Dame football. From the mid-1930s and for decades after, Mutual ran a highly respected news service accompanied by a variety of popular commentary shows. Toward the end of its run as a major programmer, it introduced the country to Larry King.
Of the four national networks of American radio's classic era, Mutual had for decades the largest number of affiliates but the least certain financial position. For the first eighteen years of its existence, MBS was owned and operated as a cooperative, setting the network apart from its competitors: Mutual's members shared their own original programming, transmission and promotion expenses, and advertising revenues. From December 30, 1936, when it debuted in the West, the Mutual Broadcasting System had affiliates from coast to coast. Its business structure would change after General Tire assumed majority ownership in 1952 through a series of regional and individual station acquisitions.
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.
Dan Gregory was an American pianist and bandleader, mainly working in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania from the 1920s through the 1940s. However, the band also appeared in New York City during the early 1920s.
According to Ken Frew, the son of Kenneth "Kenny" Frew (1902-1986), a later member of Gregory’s orchestra, the band’s New York residence was the Crystal Palace at 66th and Broadway. During its New York years Gregory’s band made a handful of records, first for lesser labels such as Oriole, Puritan, Grey Gull and Cameo but also two sides for the major label Victor (Me And The Boy Friend and Then You'll Know That You’re In Love issued on Victor 19519 and 19554 respectively). One of the members of Gregory’s orchestra during its New York tenure was multi-instrumentalist Andy Sannella, though it is not known whether he appeared on any of the bands recordings.
Gregory finally (according to Frew) decided to get "rid of his high-priced men" and move back to Harrisburg and organize a new band which went on working through the following two decades. The band however also travelled to venues outside its home town and among other places it played at the Bertrand Island amusement park, where it appeared (as "Dan Gregory’s Famous Dance Orchestra") with comedian Clem ”Fat” Gority in 1934.
Bob Elliott (born 1923) and Ray Goulding (1922–1990) were an American comedy team whose career spanned five decades. Their format was typically to satirize the medium in which they were performing, such as conducting radio or television interviews, with off-the-wall dialogue presented in a generally deadpan style as though it were a serious broadcast.
Elliott and Goulding began as radio announcers (Elliott a disc jockey, and Goulding a news reader) in Boston with their own separate programmes on station WHDH-AM, and each would visit with the other while on the air. Their informal banter was so appealing that WHDH would call on them, as a team, to fill in when Red Sox baseball broadcasts were rained out. Elliott and Goulding (not yet known as Bob and Ray) would improvise comedy routines all afternoon, and joke around with studio musicians.
Elliott and Goulding's brand of humor caught on, and WHDH gave them their own weekday show in 1946. Matinee with Bob and Ray was originally a 15-minute show, soon expanding to half an hour. (When explaining why Bob was billed first, Goulding claimed that it was because "Matinee with Bob and Ray" sounded better than "Matinob with Ray and Bob".) Their trademark sign-off was "This is Ray Goulding reminding you to write if you get work"; "Bob Elliott reminding you to hang by your thumbs".
The Shadow is a collection of serialized dramas, originally in pulp magazines, then on 1930s radio and then in a wide variety of media, that follow the exploits of the title character, a crimefighting vigilante in the pulps, which carried over to the airwaves as a "wealthy, young man about town" with psychic powers. One of the most famous pulp heroes of the 20th century, The Shadow has been featured in comic books, comic strips, television, video games, and at least five motion pictures. The radio drama is well-remembered for those episodes voiced by Orson Welles.
Introduced as a mysterious radio narrator by David Chrisman, William Sweets and Harry Engman Charlot for Street and Smith Publications, The Shadow was fully developed and transformed into a pop culture icon by pulp writer Walter B. Gibson.
The Shadow debuted on July 31, 1930, as the mysterious narrator of the Street and Smith radio program Detective Story Hour. After gaining popularity among the show's listeners, the narrator became the star of The Shadow Magazine on April 1, 1931, a pulp series created and primarily written by the prolific Gibson.