Mutual survived demise under a number of owners over the decades. They had the lions share of small market affiliates and some great radio programs in the 30’s/40’s. Sad when they finally went.
Thank you for this. I had been looking for a while for the lead-in to the Mutual hourly news. It, as I remember it, was like the beginning of this, but a little crisper and sharper. I still play in in my head when dramatic events happen!
Gina, I was able, when I worked for Mutual, to go back into its archives. I wish I had copied more tapes. They do sound good, don't they? Thanks for your interest. Dennis
Thanks for the memories! I remembered when they tried to compete with the CBS mystery show back in the early seventies….it’s a shame that it didn’t make it. Well a least the radio news was. Presented in a mostly neutral manner unlike most of the modern network broadcast’s which are becoming propaganda.
Can anyone please find and post the Mutual sounder from (I think) the late 70's and 80's; with a drum roll, a three-note fanfare, then "teletype" music? ("Mutual news at this hour! Fred Lowry reporting from Washington...")
Mutual started in 1935 as a fourth network for stations that could not affiliate with NBC Red or Blue or Columbia; many were smaller, 250-watt at the time, local stations. Its biggest affiliates were WOR New York, WGN Chicago and KHJ Los Angeles, which also provided much of the network's entertainment programming. At one time, affiliate KWTO Springfield, Missouri (where I used to work) offered a country music show called "Korn's-A-Krackin", which ran on Mutual in the late 1940's and morphed into the "Ozark Jamboree" program on ABC-TV in the 1950's. Regular entertainment programming left MBS, and the other networks, through the 50's, 60's and 70's; the network was acquired by Westwood One in the 80's, was the home of Larry King for several years, and later for his replacement, Jim Bohannon. Westwood absorbed Mutual and the other networks it operated into one unit in the 1990s and 2000's, as the market for network programming continued to shrink.
And their slogan “This is Mutual, the world’s largest network” of course they were largest in that they had the largest number of affiliates but not largest in reach.
In the early 60s I recall a local sportscaster from Detroit would do a memorable sign on "This is Van Patrick speaking coast to coast on the Mutual Radio Network."
Van was the voice for Notre Dame football on Mutual for many years. Enjoyed growing up listening to many Irish games on WGPA in Bethlehem PA..a daytimer....and night games on WGPA-FM.
I worked at a radio station in Alabama in 1979 & 80 and I certainly recall the little BE-DOOP sounder going into a commercial break from the news and coming back out. Thanks for reminding me.🙂
While at WRR (65-70) Mutual was our network. Got to visit them in New York in 1966 in the WOR building and they copied their entire sounder package on tape for us.
It's interesting that Tony Marvin, after years of doing entertainment (as Arthur Godfrey's announcer/sidekick in the 1950's), reinvented himself as a radio network news anchor. (But for all I know, maybe Marvin did news early in his career before joining Godfrey)
I can't believe my good fortune! Have you got The Larry King Show/The Best of King theme music? "It's Saturday night/Sunday morning, and that means it's time for..."
Mutual went kaput in 1999; NBC radio news died last year. I wonder how long NBC's TV news will last on its free-air network? And one more thing; was Mutual radio news cheaper for affiliates than the other networks?
+K “kturner” Turner Back then, affiliates of commercial networks didn't pay for network service. Instead, they had to clear network commercial spots and probably received a little financial compensation. For decades, Mutual had far more affiliates than ABC, CBS, and NBC simply because many Mutual affiliates were AM stations of 1,000 watts power or less. By contrast, the other three networks each had mostly 5,000-watt stations and several 50,000-watt stations. Very few stations ABC/CBS/NBC stations had 1,000 watts or less,
In 1979, Mutual purchased, among others WHN (New York) and WCFL (Chicago), both 50,000-watters. WHN, however was directional, where 'CFL wasn't. WHN was 1050, WCFL was 1000. Both stations have since gone through several changes of call letters. Today, both are owned by ESPN and are all-sports.
Gary Kerns To be precise, WCFL was and is directional, though it had far superior coverage of it's Chicagoland market than WHN did of the NYC area. WCFL nulled to the West from a site well west of Chicago, and Chicago has superb soil conductivity. WHN had to protect clear-channel KYW on adjacent-channel in Philadelphia, and NYC (along with Atlanta, Tallahassee, and Traverse City) have the worst soil conductivity in the country).
I did not know that about WCFL, but I well knew it about WHN. Back in 1980, on a trip through New England, I pulled in WHN with no problem; in fact, I even posted on youtube, no less, that I was getting WHN in Boston as clearly as if I was in Brooklyn. Thank you very kindly for your response, and sorry I was late getting back to it. I didn't notice it till just now (1-27-2020).
KOOQ North Platte, NE had mutual when I worked there. I rather liked the sounders they had then (83/84). They were left over from the 70s. They even had a "Star Wars" sounding version on their sounders/jingles album. Never heard it on the network, nor did we use that one.
@@johnbroughton3401 Very interesting! I never knew that they would put a 5,000 watt station on a Class IV (D) channel with more than 1000 watts. If they are running 5,000 watts, every station on the channel in the North Central region will get more interference. Add: they are not on 1400. They are on 14*10*.
opa gleepin gloppin glopin it sounded like thenstart of that 1 def leppard song my parents used to play in the 80s, but what do I know I didnt live then
Does anybody recall the theme for "Music Beyond the Stars" on Mutual? It came on at Midnight EST. And whatever happened to Dorees Bell, my favorite MBS lady news announcer.
I grew up in 60s and enjoyed AM Radio 📻 news sweepers from WABC and KDKA to include WCBD. Media wise we had 3 perhaps 4 📺 channels and genuine entertainment. Nostalgic indeed.
