La Colpa De Ella Radio

In 1497 Giovanni Cabotto sailed to North America. He was sponsored by the English who refer to him in their text books as John Cabot. He was probably the first Italian in America. Subsequently around 5.5 million Italians immigrated to the U.S. from 1820 to 2004. By 1880 Italian-language newspapers began circulating in New England cities with large Italian-American populations, like New York. 40 years later the process repeated itself with radio.

The period following that has been called the golden age of Italian-language radio. From 1920 to 1950, it was possible at almost any hour to find some kind of Italian radio broadcast. New York City for example,  had four stations (WHOM-AM, WOV-AM, WEVD-AM, and WBNX-AM) which carried significant Italian programing. Other smaller markets with population densities also had their own local outlets.In Philadelphia Italian radio programs aired on Philadelphia’s 10-watt WABY-AM, which is not to ignore the programs on  WPEN-AM in Philadelphia and WAAB-AM in Boston

In New York, Italian-language radio began in 1916. That year WGL-AM was bought by John Iraci, a Sicilian-born importer. Iraci changed the call sign to WOV-AM.  The last movement in that era was probably the flip at WHOM. In 1946 two Italian newspapermen purchased WHOM and converted the programming to Italian. In between those two bookends it's important to note that there was political suspicion of Italian-language programming because of Mussolini's fascism, and role in WWII. In 1935, at the height of WWII, Italy nationalized Radio Bari and Radio Roma, putting them under the direct control the Ministry of Press and Propaganda. They began airing anti-British messages. Signs were put up in US Cities "Don't Speak the Enemy's Language."  It didn't just mean German and Japanese, it also meant Italian. Under the Sedition act, U.S. agents rounded up Italian nationals suspected of disloyalty.

Only when the pope threw his weight behind the allies did that American prejudice finally fade. (Not that there weren't pro-fascist broadcasts in English, ex. Father Coughlin) but race played a notable role in that era.) Over the subsequent decades,studies by Churchhill (1940) and Roche(1982) found a huge change in the listening habits of ethnic and particularly Italian-American citizens. They sampled groups in New Jersey, New York and Providence and found that successive generations were markedly less likely to listen to ethnic programming. They essentially proved that their cultural Americanization was a rapid process.

In the early 1950s Italian radio was in decline. Even WOV began to change. Programs like La Rosa, La Famiglia Rinaldi, Buon Pranzo, La Colpa E' Della Radio, and Donna Billonia faded away. The few FM stations carrying Italian-language programming gave hours to the Italian programs while AM stations began to take aim at Hispanic markets.  In New York WHBI-FM and in Philly’s WDAS-FM took on Italian-language programs. But As FM rose in prominence over AM, those hours dried up as well. Ethnic programming migrated back to AM, but the decline was terminal.

The Amalgamated Broadcasting System

Today, nobody remembers who Ed Wynne was, which is sort of a shame. He was born Isaiah Edwin Leopold, and his father made women's hats for a living in Philadelphia. Ed ran away from home to become a comedian while still a teenager. He crafted his middle name into a stage name, Ed Wynne. He performed on Broadway and in vaudeville, and made the jump into radio in the late 1920s.

While was a comedian in the 1930s he hosted a popular radio show called The Fire Chief. It was sponsored by Texaco. He reprized that popular Fire Chief radio character in two films "Follow the Leader" which came out in 1930 and "The Chief", three years later. It was then, at the peak of his fame that he struck it out boldly and risked it all to found a new radio network. Wynne lost big.

Wynne debuted the Amalgamated Broadcasting System on September 25, 1933. He used his personal savings to launch ABS, seriously trying to compete with CBS and NBC. They had one affiliate in New York WBNX, a share time with WAWZ. They had talks with other stations but it was just talk. Ed was tough, he'd been on his own for 30 years worked his way up from selling hats to Hollywood movies. But his partner Ota Gygi was not. Gygi was a Hungarian-born violinist, who worked in vaudeville. He was not very famous, and there is little written of him. Variety magazine reviewed a show he performed in 1922 and basically said it wasn't worth the $2.

Shortly after ABS started, Wynne left town to appear a Hollywood film. Gygi was left in charge. That's when things ran amok. Gygi spent his time offending the press, and advertisers. The fledgling network was crippled by the time Wynne got back. Without advertisers they lacked the capital to put together a schedule of quality programming. Amalgamated went out of business on October 28, 1933... after only 5 weeks. They lost $300,000, that's over 5 million in 2012 dollars. Wynne didn't take it well. In short order he was divorced, and had a nervous breakdown.

Gygi spent the next few years begging to work in the orchestra at NBC but he did eventually find work for Samuel Insull at the Affiliate Broadcasting Company, but that house of cards failed in 1936. He's lost to time after that. But Wynne's career recovered, The Fire Chief show lasted a few more years and he segued into television hosting variety shows. He hosted The Ed Wynne show on NBC TV in 1948, and memorably voiced the Mad Hatter character for Disney in the 1951 film Alice in Wonderland. He continued to do appearances on TV in the 1960s even appearing on the Twilight Zone. He died in 1966.

KKK Radio

I've found a couple cases in the past where the KKK actually owned a broadcasting facility. It's rare today that they have any voice on the commercial FM or even AM band. That's not to say there's no voice for bigotry or racism in broadcasting, there's always FOX. Regardless, it makes these historical instances even more arcane.In the image above you see a Klansman sitting atop a defeated Catholic. It comes from the text "Klansmen: Guardians of Liberty" printed by the Pillar of Fire Church in 1926. Church founder, Bishop Alma Birdwell White went on to print dozens of books supporting the KKK and white supremacy. These works include "the Good Citizen," "The Ku Klux Klan Prophesy", "Guardians of Liberty," "Heroes of the Fiery Cross"etc. You may be thinking man.. that's a long time ago. But just wait. She reprinted them in 1943, shortly before her death in 1946. The 1992 Book "Women of the Klan" details Alma's role as a spokesperson for the Klan. (She even penned Klan poetry)

Bishop white had left the Methodist Church in 1917 because it was "hopelessly apostate." Really it just refused to recognize female preachers as equals. She'd been holding revivals and wanted some recognition. So she started a Pentecostal sect, the Pillar of Fire Church. They built a compound in Franklin country New Jersey that got so nutty that her husband divorced her and repudiated the sect. Strangely at this time in her life her politics took two major changes. She became an advocate for the ERA and also big time supporter of the KKK. She wanted women to be treated equally unless they were Jewish, black or (gasp) Catholic.

In 1925 when WBNY-AM signed on at 1430 MHz. The first owner was Shirley Katz, who sold to engineer Sydney Norton Baruch that same year. In 1926 the station moved to 930 AM then inexplicably moved to 1370 to share time with both WKBO, WKBQ and WFRL. It seems odd but really they'd only been running a little PM programming anyway. They moved again in 1928 to 1350 becoming a share time with WCDA, WKBQ and WMSG. Sick of the endless merry-go-round Baruch sold to The Pillar of Fire Church and one Bishop White.

In 1928 Pillar of Fire branched out and bought a stick in Westminster Colorado. 1490 KPOF-AM was initially licensed as KGEY-AM at a mere 15 watts. Pillar of Fire refers to this as their oldest station forgetting that Katz started WBNY years earlier. Their ownership initiated was only months apart. They also own 93.3 WAKW in Cincinnati which they actually founded themselves rather than purchased. In 1961 the FCC grated them the calls WAKW standing for Arthur Kent White, the initials of the Bishops son.
WMSG was shortly thereafter absorbed into WBNY making WAWZ a much more valuable property. It was a share-time with new York station WBNX-AM. WAWZ-AM still only broadcast about 4 hours a day. In 1954 in a very-forward-thinking move they bought 99.1 FM from the New Brunswick Home News. In 1984, after the last descendant of Ms. White left the helm, P.O.F. sold off the AM stick allowing WKDM-AM to go to 24 hour service. Just to reiterate their bigoted roots, they ran a special day of programming before handing off. It was a full-day of recordings of Bishop Alma Birdwell White preaching her nutty head off.

Despite being dead for decades WAWZ didn't repudiate the KKK until 1997. They described their dalliance with the KKK as "brief" an adjective that vastly understates the connection.