GOLD TIME RADIO: The 1933-1934 season

The Golden Years of Radio 1933-1934
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(There are many more fascinating facts and stories beyond these headlines)

The Seasons

GOld Time Radio chronicles each of the 21 broadcast seasons, (September through June), from Network Radio’s Golden Age, 1932 to 1953. The lengthy and informative profiles of each season are concluded with an exclusive review of their Top 50 Prime Time Programs, as determined by Crossly, Hooper or Nielsen rating services.).
Each synopsis links to the full and detailed article.

1933-1934 Season
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	THE 1933-34 SEASON Click to Read Full Article
	Cantor's 57.2 - Really? The 1933-34 Season - 2nd in a Series What Depression? The Depression was taking its toll in 1933 and advertising was in a slump. Total Ad Spending in all media had plunged 57% since 1029

The networks‘ 1933 income decline - a hefty 19.4% - was just a bump in the road that would lead to annual billings of over $100 Million by the end of the decade. Colgate-Palmolive-Peet, Kraft and Ford were among the networks’ first time advertisers who sponsored shows high in the season’s Top 50.
Standard Brands ruled radio popularity with two of the season’s Top Three shows and three in the first eleven. Eddie Cantor’s top rated Chase & Sanborn. Hour raised eyebrows with a 53.7 average Crossley rating for the season, peaking at 57.2 in December, 1933 ... Standard’s other established hit, Rudy Vallee’s Thursday night Fleischmann Yeast Hour, registered an impressive 39.8 rating for the season - good for third place and the launching pad for Fleischmann’s newcomer to Sunday’s Top Ten, Joe Penner’s Baker’s Broadcast.
Thursday was Network Radio’s most popular night in the 1933-34 season. But more skepticism was aimed at Crossley’s ratings when General Foods’ Maxwell House Showboat jumped a whopping 46% to second place in the 1933-34 rankings.
The proprietors of the Fresh Air Taxi Company, Incorpulated, scored the highest season’s average rating of their careers - 29.8. Amos & Andy’s sixth place finish in the annual Top 50 was the highest position Freeman Gosden & Charles Correll would reach for the next 14 years.
Radio’s growing importance as a news source was personified by Blue’s Lowell Thomas, whose early weeknight Crossley average had increased 35% to 19th place in the annual Top 50. The surge placed his Sun Oil newscast in the Top Ten every night of its broadcast during the 1933-34 season. It was the beginning of Thomas’ unmatched record of 13 straight years in the nightly Top Ten, all five .nights a week.
NBC increased its lead among the networks with 26 of 1933-34’s Top 51 programs, (three tied for 49th place). Blue moved up to second place with 14 programs and CBS trailed with eleven.