Radio and Television Ads in The New Yorker

CBS had a two column spread organized like “Talk of the Town” but all of the items were about CBS radio shows. One item noted that this was Kate Smith ’s 15th year on CBS, with more than 3,000 broadcasts. The list of songs she launched on air included her signature songs “When the Moon Comes Over the Mountain” and “God Bless America,” as well as “Stardust” “These Foolish Things,” “The Last Time I Saw Paris” and “Don't Fence Me In,” among others.

Dumont announced the opening of the John Wanamaker TV studios, at the downtown Wanamaker’s department store. The central studio was as large as a city lot and fifty feet high. The main balcony held 700 people and there were 11 TV cameras. It would serve as the production center and originating studio for new Dumont network. The New York Dumont station, WABD, broadcast from 8 to 9:30 Monday to Friday. Spectator tickets were required for broadcasts but the studios were open to visitors without tickets from 10 am to 5:30 PM, every day but Sundays. The entrance was under the famed Wanamaker’s bridge, just east of Broadway. Dumont manufactured television sets and equipment and began broadcasting experimentally in 1938. Commercial broadcasts began in 1944, originally on channel 4 but since the end of 1945 on channel 5. In 1946 it began network broadcasts, which ended ten years later. In 1946 NBC was also broadcasting a limited schedule of television shows. The goal for both companies at this point in time was the sale of TV sets, which were still a novelty item.