On a Treadmill to Oblivion The Peak and Sudden Decline of Network Radio

• Published in: A Word from Our Sponsor p. 253
• Main Author: Meyers, Cynthia B
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: United Kingdom Fordham University Press 2013
• Subjects: Advertising; Advertising campaigns; Advertising industry; Advertising rates; Applied sciences; Broadcast media; Broadcasting; Broadcasting industry; Broadcasting stations; Business; Business economics; Commercial production; Commercials; Communications; Communications industries; Engineering; Industrial sectors; Industry; Knowledge industries; Mass communication; Mass media; Media studies; Network affiliates; Popular culture; Production costs; Production factors; Radio; Radio commercials; Radio programs; Service industries; Social & cultural history; Social sciences; Telecommunications; Television; Television broadcasting; Television commercials; Television networks; Television programs
• ISBN: 0823253708; 9780823253708

The radio broadcasts of national network star-studded entertainment programs to nearly all American homes had its greatest reach during the 1940s. The war effort, rather than undermine radio, had helped make it even more central to American popular culture. Its strength and continued growth throughout the 1940s seemed unstoppable. Commercial radio had become practically synonymous with advertising itself. Cartoonist H. T. Webster makes the point in a 1945 cartoon showing a balding, bespectacled gentleman in a living room with a large radio set explaining to his nine- or ten-year-old daughter, “When I was a boynobodyowned a radio. There