Joseph Baudino
1968

Here's the text of a talk by Joseph E. Baudino given at the Broadcast Pioneers meeting on September 24, 1975. He was Commercial Manager of KYW-FM in 1946. Though the years, he held many posts with Westinghouse Broadcasting. The meeting was held in the KYW Transmitter Building in Whitemarsh, Pennsylvania. Here's what he said.......

At 4:30 on the afternoon of November 11, 1921, a new broadcasting station, the first station in the Chicago area, KYW, went on the air with a program broadcast from the stage of the Chicago Civic Auditorium.

The first historic words to be heard over the new station, spoken by Mary Garden, opera star and General Director of the Chicago Opera Company, were, as she walked across the darkened stage and not knowing that the mikes were open, "My God, it's dark in here!"

Miss Garden continued with a short address announcing the intention of the Opera Company to bring to the radio listeners the season operas as rendered at the Auditorium. Her announcement was followed by music by the entire orchestra conducted by Maestro Polacco. This was followed by an aria from "Madame Butterfly" sung by Edith Mason, accompanied by the orchestra. This, with appropriate closing announcements, concluded the program.

The opera season opened on Monday November 14, 1921 with the opera "Samson and Delilah" with Muratore in the role of Samson and Marguerite D'Alvera in the role of Delilah. Polacco conducted. KYW broadcast the entire program.

Why all this great interest by KYW in broadcasting operas? By the fall of 1921, the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company had inaugurated broadcasting services through KDKA, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; WBZ, Springfield, Massachusetts and WJZ, Newark, New Jersey. This new form of mass communication, combined with a great public service possibility, had received widespread newspaper publicity and accounts of these broadcasting stations were being read with interest throughout the United States.

At this period the great mid-western Insull Empire had reached its peak. Samuel Insull, the automatic head of the Insull interests, made his headquarters in Chicago, Illinois, and from his suite of offices in the Commonwealth Edison Company Building, ruled the various public service enterprises which comprised his empire.

Mr. Insull had taken a great interest in the affairs of the Chicago Civic Opera and had been financially underwriting it for several years. When the Westinghouse broadcasting activities were brought to the attention of Mr. Insull, he conceived the idea of establishing a radio station in Chicago to operate as an adjunct of the Chicago Opera Company so the performances of the opera might be broadcast and be brought into the homes of the people of Chicago and the surrounding area. Mr. Insull, through intermediaries, contacted Mr. H. P. Davis, Westinghouse Vice President in charge of radio engineering and broadcasting and an arrangement was made whereby Westinghouse would set up a broadcasting station in Chicago. It was agreed that the station would remain the property and be under the control of Westinghouse, however, it would be erected on the roof of the Commonwealth Edison Company Building and be operated jointly by Westinghouse and the Edison companies.

The original transmitter for the new station, KYW, was located on the elevator penthouse on the top of the Edison Building and the studio was located six floors below, on the 16th floor. The transmitter consisted of two 250 watt tubes used in a self-excited Hartley circuit, the output of which was Heising modulated by three 250 watt tubes. The plate supply was obtained from a 2000 volt direct current generator. The original antenna was a four wire flat top supported by two 50 foot steel poles mounted on top of the building. The operating frequency was 560 kc.

On January 18, 1922, KYW broadcast the first midnight revue from the studio on the sixteenth floor of the Edison Building. These revues brought to the KYW audiences such entertainers as the Duncan Sisters, Dream Daddy Harry Davis, Uncle Bob, Wendal Hall, Herbie Mintz, Little Jack Little, Paul Ash and many others who later climbed to fame as a result of their start over KYW. The feature of the opening night of the midnight revue was a scene from the "French Doll" with Irene Bordoni and several of her company.

Later in 1922 the news arrangement with the Chicago Evening American was expanded to a 24 hour service under the title "World Crier." News bulletins were read over the air on the hour and half-hour 24 hours a day. Bulletins were delivered by messenger every few hours and usually there were sufficient bulletins to provide the announcer with enough material for 5 or 6 "World Crier" schedules.

The "World Crier" service started on December 27, 1922 and continued until 1927 when it was found necessary to discontinue it due to complications of program scheduling.

At night, the "World Crier" bulletins were usually read by the operators on duty at the transmitter as the announcers were not always available. This resulted in a couple of embarrassing incidents and the paper from there on sent over material for the "World Crier" which could be put on the air as soon as possible.

In June 1924, the KYW frequency was changed to 1020 kc and the results were disastrous. In many places in Chicago, the KYW signal could not be received, fortunately the station was permitted to change back to a lower frequency, 570 kc.

In 1925 KYW moved to the roof of the Congress Hotel and a high powered (20 Kw) transmitter was installed. This was the first water cooled transmitter in the mid-west area.

In 1923, Westinghouse had installed a transmitter with call letters KFKX in Hasting, Nebraska to relay KDKA programs and also to originate some programs for the local area. In 1927, KFKX operations in Hastings were discontinued and the license moved to Chicago where KYW and KFKX shared time. (The move of KFKX to Chicago was made in anticipation of the upcoming 1928 frequency reallocation). Finally the Commission is effect said "quit kidding yourselves, which license do you want?" So the KFKX license was deleted.

In the November 11, 1928 frequency reallocation, KYW was again assigned to 1020 kc with the same disastrous effect on the station's coverage in Chicago. To improve coverage in the Chicago area, a 500 watt synchronized booster station KYWA was installed on the roof of the Edgewater Beach Hotel. This improved the coverage in the North Side area but did not help the main problem so plans were made to move KYW to a new site out in the country, near Wheaton, Illinois, and at the same time the studios were moved to the Strauss Building and arrangements made for the Chicago Herald and Examiner to take over the program and sales operations of the station.

The 1020 kc frequency assigned to KYW in the 1928 frequency reallocation had been, in the Davis amendment (the Davis amendment divided the country into five zones with all available broadcast frequencies divided equally among the five zones) assigned to the third zone, as well as new