Asbury College Radio

 

Asbury College Devotional League 1936

Asbury College was established on September 2, 1890, by Minister John Wesley Hughes in Wilmore, KY. First some disambiguation: This has no connection to Asbury Park, NJ or Asbury College of Maryland, and our Asbury has been Asbury University since 2010. Likewise Indiana Asbury College is now known as Depaw University and is of no relation. Hughes did found another college, it was not named Asbury. 

I did unexpectedly discover that Asbury College had produced even earlier programs on WHAS. I found a 1925 issue of Radio Digest describing an appearance from the Asbury College Glee Club [SOURCE] Having only first been licensed in July 1922, this is one of the earliest possible appearances we could hope to find documented. 

 

But alas, our Asbury College had no radio station of it's own. So their radio program came about from a meeting coordinated by Rev. Newton King where he proposed it to three people: Dr. Lewis Akers, the Asbury College President, Dr,. H.C. Morrison, the Asbury Seminary President and critically Dr. Credo Fitch Harris, the manager of WHAS. [SOURCE] Harris agreed but left it to the Asbury team to figure out how to lease a phone line from Wilmore to Louisville. If they could do that, he'd allow them use of the WHAS facilities for free.  Starting in 1933, multiple Asbury College yearbooks modestly commemorate their radio endeavors. [SOURCE] and [SOURCE]

1933 Asbury College yearbook

The program might have something to do with Rev. Newton testifying to the FCC on behalf of WHAS. In 1932 WHAS installed a new Western Electric transmitter and a increased power from 10,000 to 25,000 watts. But then only a year later they were able to double their power again to 50k watts! William Cummings does not imply the quid pro quo as I do, but I'll quote from his paper Groping In the Dark:

 "In late November 1933, testimony before the Federal Radio Commission from Harris, commercial manager, Lee Coulson, educational figures such as Elmer Sulzer from the University of Kentucky and Rev. Newton King from Asbury Theological Seminary secured WHAS the authority to increase its transmitting power to 50,000 watts where it remained a clear-channel station broadcasting on 820 kilocycles through the next decade."

The premier was actually on November 1st 1932. The program ran from 1932 to 1947. It aired 7 days a week from 6:00 - 6:15 PM, then on Sundays from 7:30 - 8:00 AM. The men's and women's glee clubs from Asbury College were featured on Wednesdays and Fridays. The Sunday program was International Sunday School hosted by members of the Kentucky Sunday School Association. 

This hymnal was published Radio Devotional League of Asbury College in Wilmore KY in 1934. There is little context, but the WHAS calls and the image of Asbury College connecting it to the program. 

Given the same opportunity for free airtime in exchange for educational programming, Pikeville College made its first broadcast in 1932 but was unable to sustain the program for technical reasons. University of Louisville actually started their programs on WHAS in 1931 almost a year ahead of Asbury College. The Eastern Kentucky State Teachers College made their debut in October of 1934. In June 1937, WHAS presented a program produced by the University of Kentucky from the rooftop garden of the Brown Hotel in Louisville. Their programs continued through at least 1939. Programming in this era was driven by a type of idealism which is almost extinct today. Long live the CPB.

The Asbury College program started to falter in 1940.  WHAS asked Asbury College to take over full control of the program and it was renamed "The Morning Watch." In the summer of 1942 it was suspended due to WWII and remained off air until March of 1943. By then WHAS had new management who were not satisfied with the arrangement.  Recent ratings data had documented severe losses of listeners during the Asbury and other educational programs:

"It was the "Capsules of Knowledge" program that prompted a letter to Sulzer from WHAS Program Manager, Robert L. Kennett. Citing a survey, Kennett claimed, "From eight to nine o'clock on Thursday, against all stations in this area, we command 80% of the audience. At nine o'clock, we immediately drop to 8%." Sulzer did not need any further explanation. Although Kennett granted that "the opposition at that hour is perhaps at its best with Bing Crosby," "Capsules of Knowledge" was the cause of the drop in ratings and therefore canceled by the station in February of 1940. "

That year WHAS cancelled the Asbury College weekday program for a news program, leaving only the Sunday show which continued until 1947. The University of Kentucky managed to hold on to their agricultural college programs through 1946. It was popular, and in 1940 WHAS hired an Agricultural Coordinator John F. Merrifield who managed not to ruin it. His replacement in 1944 Frank H. Cooley performed similarly.  While it was their network CBS that initially drove their initial decline into commercialization, economic realities and it's eventual sale in the 1970s did the rest.