Re: First radio network broadcast

["Kevin Vahey" <kvahey@tmail.com>]

I remember Sherm in the press room talking about it one night and Bill 
Veeck the WS owner says he remembered listening to Sherm.

As Sherm told it it was done late nights from a Boston hotel and *Think* 
he said it was on WEEI

Sherm also used to enjoy telling the story on how he was offered a song 
to produce and turned it down saying it was silly   the song?  Rudolph 
the Red Nosed Reindeer


On Sat, 13 Sep 2003 2:44AM -0500, Donna Halper wrote:
> At 02:20 AM 9/13/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>> Another claim I am trying to pin down. The late beloved Sherm Feller 
>> claimed that he orginated the FIRST network talk show in the early 
>> 1940's and it was from Boston. In theory that seems unlikely, but 
>> having had the great pleasure of knowing Sherman the last few years of 
>> his life, I can not discount it either. He certainly was one of the 
>> great characters in Boston radio history.
>
>
> Alas, the woods are full of people who claim they came up with the 
> first talk show-- I don't think Sherm was our guy, however.  There were 
> so-called "vox pop" (man or woman on the street) shows in the late 30s 
> on the Yankee Network-- Jerry O'Leary did one.  The technology made it 
> difficult to do what you and I would consider a call-in talk-show, but 
> some stations improvised.  The best-known national program in which 
> current events or hot issues were discussed by a panel of experts and 
> questions were asked by the studio audience was probably "America's 
> Town Meeting of the Air", which began in 1935.  Sherm was not yet on 
> the air, I don't believe-- I have an announcement from Broadcasting 
> about when he first came to Boston-- I believe he had been out at WLLH 
> in Lowell and somewhere in New Hampshire first, in the late 30s/early 
> 40s, but I could be wrong.