Philco Radio Time

Philco Radio Time premiered on Wednesday October 16, 1946 on the newly formed American Broadcasting Company. Bob Hope was the program's first guest.[6]

The program had an audience rating of 16.1 during the season which made it one of the network's top shows but left it outside the top twenty. Fibber McGee and Molly again topped the Hooper ratings with 30.2 but they had to share the position with The Pepsodent Show starring Bob Hope.

The series faced immediate problems during its first season having to do with its recording process. The first season of Philco Radio Time was recorded onto 16-inch diameter lacquer-coated aluminum disks. This made editing the show difficult, but not impossible. The actual broadcast was an edited version of the live performance shipped to radio stations on two discs with detailed instructions on when and how to play them. However, as the season progressed the editing of the recorded show on the disks caused loss of quality, and unfortunately many people complained that the sound quality was inferior to a live broadcast.

Sound engineer Mary Howard suggested that part of the problem was the local radio stations:

Most stations play a hundred records a day, and they play every last one wrong. Take the new Crosby show. Everybody complains that Bing has lost his voice, that the recording is tinny and distorted. That's nonsense. Bing sings about as well as he ever did, and the recording is all right. It's the stations that play it wrong. The grooves in a record are cut at varying angles and depths with styli of varying sizes. Records have to be played back with corresponding needles set for corresponding angles and sizes to fit the grooves. Until radio stations learn that, these big, nighttime transcribed shows are going to flop.[7]
–TIME, Dec. 30, 1946

Crosby continued to pioneer in radio broadcasting during Philco's second season. However, the show had to address the poor audio quality of the recordings. During the summer before the show began, Jack Mullin was demonstrating his rebuilt Magnetophon recorders. The Crosby staff heard the quality of his recorders and the ease in which the tape could be edited. They asked him to give a demonstration to Bing Crosby in early August 1947, and Bing asked Jack Mullin to record the first show of the season on 10 August along with the usual transcription recording. The Magnetophon tape recording was far superior to the transcription disk and was used for the show broadcast on 1 October. However, the program was transferred to unedited transcription disks for the broadcast because of the concern of the tape breaking.[8]

Beginning with the program's second-season premiere on October 1, 1947, Philco Radio Time pre-recorded all of their programs on to tape.[9] Not only was the audio quality much improved, but tape was more easily edited than disks.[10] Beginning with Season Three Ampex tape recorders based on the Magnetophon design were used with new tape provided by Minnesota Mining (3M).[8] The audience share for the season was 16.8 which enabled the programme to scrape into twentieth place in the Hooper ratings. The Fred Allen Show was in top place with 28.7 and the Kraft Music Hall (with Al Jolson as host) reached eleventh position with 21.4.

The third and last season of the program premiered on September 29, 1948. Several "firsts" were made during this season of the program. The first 33rpm long-playing record changer was introduced to the public through this program. Also the first ad for Philco television sets were also broadcast through this program.[11] Finally, the Ampex tape recorders facilitated the first use of canned laughter in radio broadcasting, according to audio engineer John T. Mullin.[5] On show number 93, broadcast February 16, 1949, comedian Bob Burns was getting excessive laughter from some improvised lines. The lines were cut for broadcast, but producer/writer Bill Morrow had Mullin save the laughs and insert them in a later program.[5]

Philco Radio Time attained an audience share of 15.7 for the season. It reached nineteenth position in the Hooper ratings. The top evening program was the Lux Radio Theater with 28.6. The last episode of the program aired on June 1, 1949 and in September Crosby started on The Bing Crosby – Chesterfield Show.