that horrible BEEP

[A. Joseph Ross]

On 21 Jan 2008 at 10:04, Dan.Strassberg wrote:

> He said that Goldman had decided that the Capital District audience
> was not ready to accept an announcer with a Jewish name, so he had
> Friedman disappear for a while and then reappear with a more
> generic (that is, WASP) name. Apparently, Goldman figured that the
> advertisers WERE ready to do buiness with a station owned by a Jew.
> How else could he have justified having his own name appear so
> prominently on the station's stationery? 

That sounds consistent with other stories about Jews in the 
entertainment business.  Louis B. Mayer didn't change his name, but 
he made sure that his Jewish stars did, and there was little or no 
Jewish content in the movies and radio programs.  Jack Benny (Ben 
Kubelski) and George Burns (Nathan Birnbaum) were depicted 
celebrating Christmas and eating ham sandwiches (and, truth to tell, 
they probably did anyway).  In front of the camera or microphone, 
Jews had to be invisible, but behind it, it didn't matter as much.

I think Donna has mentioned Arnie Ginsburg as the first Jewish radio 
personality to use a Jewish name on the air.  And he got away with it 
largely because he originally produced his own show and bought the 
time on WBOS (now WUNR), so that when he moved to WMEX, he was 
already a personality with a following.  If not for that, WMEX would 
probably have made him just another Fenway or Dan Donovan.
 
> Anyhow, when WXKW 850 left the air in the fall of 1953, WROW took over
> the ABC Radio affiliation from WXKW.  At that time, WROW dropped
> Mutual, which I believe migrated to WOKO or maybe WPTR.

Had to be WPTR.  Mutual was on WPTR when I got there and moved to 
WOKO in the great shift, later.

> You have placed WTRY's dropping of CBS Radio in 1955, which seems
> quite right to me. WROW picked up CBS and dropped ABC at that time. I
> believe that was when ownership of WROW was transferred to Capital
> Cities. 

I was unaware of any change in WROW's ownership by the time we left 
in May 1957, but I do remember seeing an article in the Times-Union, 
while Channel 19 was silent, to the effect that when it came back on, 
it would be as part of the "Hudson Valley Broadcasting" group.  I'm 
willing to believe that the change to Capital Cities took place 
before we left the area in May 1957, but that I was unaware of it.  
But because of that article and some later phone calls to WROW, I 
don't think it was as early as the TV switch to WCDA-WCDB or the 
return of channel 19 as WCDC.

I wonder whether there's any way to check these things. I do know 
that somewhere I have a special Sunday edition of the Albany Times-
Union celebrating their 100th (I think) anniversary, which has an 
article in it on Albany broadcasting.  I'm not sure where it is, but 
I'll try to find it, and if I do, I think it contains some helpful 
information.  

-- 
A. Joseph Ross, J.D.                           617.367.0468
 92 State Street, Suite 700                   Fax 617.507.7856
Boston, MA 02109-2004           	         http://www.attorneyross.com