[78-L] Panic..or myth? (Hey, it was 73 years ago tonight, too) [FWD]

[Michael Biel]

From: "Ken \"Silver Showcase\"" <kenreg at tds.net>

Rodger Holtin wrote:
>> Some were truly panicked. My dad's family was happily enjoying Nelson Eddy
>> when the old man in their upstairs apartment came downstairs in tears
>> blubbering about the end of thw world.

> Re: later comments that Nelson Eddy didn't appear on the C&S program 
> until later in the hour 
> -- if the old man man upstairs really was this 
> upset he may very well have missed the station break that would have let 
> him know it was just a radio drama. Perhaps he was phoning 
> friends/relatives about it before he came downstairs in tears.

Good point!! This is possible.  Eddy sang again at 8:31 just after their
half-hour station break.  This would still be before the CBS station
break which was at about 40 minutes into the program.  At 30 minutes the
battles were quite spreading, and if he had tuned out during the
beginning of the boring dramatic scene with Madeline Carrol at about 16
minutes in, then this timing would have been appropriate.  A tune-out
during Eddy's second appearance would be after the action.  A tune out
during his first appearance would have been before Bergen and McCarthy's
routine.  So the tune-out came during Lamour's song, the ad after it, or
the boring scene with Madeline Carrol.  Nelson Eddy doesn't deserve the
blame!!!  But yes, he could have been singing the second time when the
old man came downstairs.  

> As so the claim that no FCC rules were changed because of WOTW, when I 
> was worked at a local radio station, (1978-2004), we had to do a station 
> break at the top and bottom of the hour, and I was told that the bottom 
> hour requirement came about because of the WOTW 1938 broadcast. But I 
> never verified that claim. Anyone know for certain?  -- Ken R.

That ID rule had been in place long before 1938. Note that the Chase and
Sanborn program also had a half-hour station break.  Originally back in
the early 20s the rule was ID every 15 minutes, and broadcasters near
the coasts had to listen for distress signals every hour two minutes
before the hour because the first broadcasters were near the distress
channel. By the mid-1930s it was allowed that half hour or hour programs
could bypass the :15 and :45 breaks. It always was the case that these
timings were waived if it would interrupt extended programs such as
classical music or drama.  The breaks could then be taken at appropriate
pauses in the action.  For example, the half-hour station break for War
of the Worlds was actually at about :40 (not :37 as I had said in an
earlier post) which was after all of the action.  If there was no place
for a middle station break it could have been omitted.  

The rules that were in place for station IDs in the 1960s when I entered
radio and probably still in effect in 1978 were that UNLESS it would
interrupt continuous programming the IDs were to be on the hour and half
hour __OR__ on the hour and :15 and :45.  All of these had to be
plus-or-minus two minutes unless programming was continuous at that
point.  So even then there was no rule for an ID at the half hour if you
did it at :15 and :45.  The current rules only require it on the hour
with no reference to how close to the hour it has to be.  They can be
done very sloppy now.  

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com