The National Farm and Home Hour

The National Farm and Home Hour was a variety show which began broadcasting on NBC Blue Network in 1929. The show was broadcast at noon live from 670 WMAQ-AM. It had a studio audience and a band opening daily with Sousa march "Stars and Stripes Forever."  John Dunning's On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio has it airing locally on KDKA-AM in Pittsburgh in 1928. That may seem incongruous but at the time NBC had an agricultural programming director at WMAQ, Frank Mullen the founder of KDKA. somehow Louise Margaret Benjamin skips that link in her book The NBC Advisory Council and Radio Programming. She only connects it back to an experimental radio pilot called the Dinner Bell Hour on NBC. It's also worth noting that the Bibliography on Educational Broadcasting  by Isabella Mitchell Cooper also credits Frank Mullen on KDKA via a citation to a 1935 article printed by NBC, "Radio For the Farm Folks, How the Farm Hour Started.That's a solid source.

The program would continue to run for three decades.  It was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and American Farm Bureau, 4-H Club, Farmers Union, Montgomery Ward, The Future Farmers of America (FFA) and the National Grange.  It's not surprising to see them on a list together, but the program was intended for rural listeners in farming communities. For context try to remember that Rural Free Delivery was only adopted in 1902, and rural electrification only began in 1932. It was a civic-minded era, and the Secretary of Agriculture liked to broadcast the occasional speech from time to time as well.

The program was a true variety show. It had an orchestra, musical guests, comedy skits and a re-occurring park ranger  character played by Don Ameche. But it's core was weather and agricultural news which is how  the secretary of the Dept of Agriculture coudl act as it's producer. In June of 1945 NBC Blue became ABC and the National Farm and Home Hour  moved to NBC as a 30 minute program. It was still being carried on over 100 stations. It remained there until 1958 with Allis-Chalmers as it's primary sponsor. It died with a whimper spending it's last 3 years as a segment on NBC's weekend anthology Monitor.  The program was cancelled in 1958.

It's most famous host was Everett Mitchell. He was on the program from 1932 onward. His trademark line was "It's a beautiful day in Chicago!" Mitchell was a former insurance claim adjustor who broke into radio singing part-time at radio station WENR-AM. A belligerent manager made him choose between radio and insurance. He picked the latter.  Nemorino writes that over the course of his career he also spent time on WQJ, WEBH, and WHT.

It's hard to find citations but WQJ was a short-lived dayshare with WMAQ owned by the Calumet Baking Powder Company and a local Chicago venue, the Rainbo Gardens Ballroom. WMAQ bought them out in 1927. WEBH was another Chicago station, this one owned by the Edgewater Beach Hotel. WEBH is even more fleeting, a dayshare with WDAP.  They signed on in 1923 and were deleted in 1928. (That license became WGN.) WHT was owned by the Radiophone Broadcasting Corporation, in Deerfield, IL a suburb of Chicago. They operated just in 1927 and 1926 as far as I can tell.  But it shows that he had at most a few years experience before landing that job as host of the Farm Hour. years after the program ended, in 1967 Mitchell received the Great Service to America Award and retired that year. He died in 1990. Frank Mullen died in 1977 and farm radio continues to wither to this day.

NARFD or Not

The National Association of Radio Farm Directors (NARFD) was founded in 1943. These were very different years in terms of radio programming. In those days Billboard actually had a category for "Farm Programs" in their Best Local Program Competition. Today the format is leaner and more insular than ever. And from the start, their annual meetings documented the diminishing presence of farm programming. NARFD in some ways had the very basic purpose of changing that. They wanted to sell Farm Programs outside of their local markets. At a meeting in 1948 it was admitted that less than one third had managed to do so. NARFD had only 140 members in that year.

NARFD executives tended to serve repeatedly and often went into government especially the USDA whom they had close ties to. It's first President Chuck Worcester of WMT-AM was unseated in 1946 and Layne Beaty of WBAP-AM took over as Chuck moved down a notch to become VP. Beaty later served as an information advisor in Europe with the U.S. aid programs; and from 1954 to 1980. In 1949 Roy Battle of WLW became president and Phil Alampi of WJZ became VP. Alampi had his term at the helm a few years later. His wife Ruth read a poem at their 1947 banquet "The Lament of the Forgotten Women—RFD's wife."

That same year the USDA cut back on the funds it had been using to support agricultural radio programing and NARFD was caught off guard. They were powerless to change the decision so they issued a terse statement that blamed no one directly but instead mourned their collective shrinking importance.

"We regret the circumstances which have compelled curtailment of funds and personnel to an extent which severely limits the ability of the USDA radio services to adequately serve agriculture and which also limits assistance to radio farm directors in providing adequate farm service to listeners." 

While big market AMs bought FM sticks and expanded into TV NARFD stations barely limped along. Station managers dissatisfied with unprofitable farm departments cut them back or cut them off.  They needed a game-changer. In 1955 NARFD became the National Association of Television and Radio Farm Directors (NATRFD.) IN the move they increased their ranks to almost 500 members. membership to 500. The name changed in 1964 to the National Association of Farm Broadcasters (NAFB). In 2005, the name was adjusted to National Association of Farm Broadcasting (NAFB)needling over grammar.

Chuck continued on at WMT into the 1950s. Fifty years later, President Chuck Worcester is not forgotten. They award Chuck Worcester Scholarships to this day. I haven't heard it yet, but his voice is recorded on the WMT Voice of Iowa LP released in 1962.

Rural Radio Network

The Rural Radio Network (RRN) was a network of six commercial FM stations serving upstate New York. They were based out of Ithaca, NY. This set of simple farm stations was the first all-radio, no-wireline network in the world. They went online in 1948 with the idea of serving the agricultural communities of that region. The stations were all unmanned being remotely controlled from WVFC on Connecticut Hill near Ithaca. Classical programming was provided by WQXR in New York City relayed to the network by WFLY in Troy, NY.

Photo stolen from Fybush.com Go buy his calendar.

The concept for the network originated with the Cooperative Grange League Federation Exchange (GLF) an agricultural co-op founded in 1920 in Ithaca. They used a set of 10 stations connected by phone lines to carry a short 5 minute program.

In 1946, GLF having seen the advantages of the network and formed the Rural Radio Foundation. The board was embraced by several agricultural interest groups including the New York State Grange, Dairymen's League, and New York Artificial Breeder's Co-op.
The RRF consisted of the following 10 stations:

WVFC-AM-- Ithaca, NY

WFNF-AM-- Wethersfield, NY

WVBT-AM-- Bristol Center, NY

WVCN-AM-- DeRuyter, NY

WVCV-AM-- Cherry Valley, NY

WVBN-AM-- Turin, NY

WSLB-- Ogdensburg, NY

WGHF-AM-- Hartford, CT

WACE-- Springfield, MA

The stations struggled in their attempts at profitability. Their most famous owner was televangelist Pat Robertson. He got ahold of the network through a corporate donation in 1969. By the 1980s Robertson was trying to off load the money pit. He sold them to individual owners dissolving the network entirely. More here.

Farm Stations?

America was once blanketed in what we now quaintly call "Farm Stations" Pictures explain as much as words can in this case. They are very rural, always located in small towns. The bulk of the ramaining two dozen farm stations are in America's bread basket: Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri... I can only think of one that has even tertiary coverage of a major markets. That ont happens to be KMZU which skirts Kansas City to the East. http://www.kmzu.com/ They play country or country oldies music, maybe some big band if they play music at all. They all run livestock prices, and both the Chicago and Kansas City board of trade reports. I'd bet money that better than 50% run the Paul Harvey show. Many run local programs for trading or selling goods over the air, like a live auction or a broadcast classifieds column. The programming is almost always home-grown, and usually live. It's the way radio used to be. Everything about these stations reminds me of the 1950s.

And as hokey and corny as this format sounds it's pretty entertaining. The DJs are local, and colorful. The jokes old, overused yet sincere. It's never harshly political, or shocking. They know the names of all their callers and often recognize their voices. They broadcast local highschool football games. If you call the request line, odds are in favor of you hearing your phone ring in the radio and the DJ answering mid-sentance.

Last year the last Farm Station on the East Coast went gospel. Try to appreciate what's left friends. Below is a fairly complete list of these last suvivors.

FM's
KAAN-AM 870 /95.5
KBKH 92.9
KMZU 100.7
WRCO 100.9

AM's
KAOL-AM 1430
KASM-AM 1150
KBEW-AM 1560
KBHB-AM 810
KDHL-AM 920
KFRM-AM 550
KFTM-AM 1400
KNEB-AM 960
KQLX-AM 890
KRVN-AM 880
KSIR-AM 1010
KTIC-AM 840
KVSH-AM 940
KXXX-AM 790
KZZN-AM 1490
WCAZ-AM 990
WCPH-AM 1220
WELD-AM 690
WWIC-AM 1050
WZTQ-AM 1560

And don't ignore the Farm hams of America.
http://www.rf.org/