Alan Lotsberg

Don't miss Tom Oszman's interview of Bud Kraehling and Alan Lotsberg on Flashback Twin Cities at 1 pm Saturday, June 1, on KLBB AM 1220.

On June 8, Tom will interview Jason Davis and on June 15, Pat Miles will be Tom's guest.

Tom is also the creator of the Website TCMediaNow

Suppose you turned on your radio and found that all of your local stations had moved around the dial to new frequencies. 
 
Impossible, you say?  

Nope, it actually happened on March 29, 1941, when over 800 of the country's radio stations - almost 90% of them - switched frequencies in the middle of the night. 
 
Check out The March of Change at www.jimramsburg.com to learn how and why this once in a lifetime upheaval happened.  The post also includes a list of familiar 50,000 watt stations that were affected and some recorded announcements that were broadcast in advance of the event urging listeners to... well, we'll let you decide what those spots really wanted them to do. 
 

Jim Ramsburg

In case you haven't seen it yet, Jim Ramsburg did a wonderful interview with Jimmy Durante back in 1965 on KLAC/Los Angeles. You'll be touched by the genuine warmth of the man and his stories about Garry Moore, Carol Burnett and the adoption of his baby daughter at age 68.

To hear the interview and learn more about Jim's book, Network Radio Ratings, 1932 - 1953, go to http://www.jimramsburg.com/

Tom Oszman, creator of TCMediaNow has his own show on KLBB, 1220 AM. It's called "Flashback Twin Cities" and is on Saturday mornings from 8 am till 9 am. You can also hear podcasts of the show on Tom's site.

Here are the results of the Richard Balsbaugh collection of Catalin radios that recently sold at a Bonhams' auction. http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/20886/

Retired Hubbard Broadcasting engineer Ben Vogel recently donated a Sony VO-3800 and its companion AC-3000. At just under 30 pounds, it was the first portable video cassette recorder on the market, ushering in the era of “backpack journalism.”

Ben's donation inspired a brief history of television news gathering. I hope you'll enjoy it ... tvnews.html

Twenty-Five Years Ago - October 25, 1987 - The Minnesota Twins win the World Series

http://tcmedianow.com/video/kstps-post-game-coverage-of-the-minnesota-twins-1987-world-series-victory/

Bud Kraehling Interview!
http://tcmedianow.com/video/exclusive-interview-with-wccos-bud-kraehling-/

Vikings Update with Tony Parker from 1979
http://tcmedianow.com/video/vikings-football-report-with-tony-parker-from-1979-/

Vikings Update with Tony Parker from 1977
http://tcmedianow.com/video/the-vikings-report-with-tony-parker-from-1977/

25 years ago, WCCO 6pm Report with Dave Moore
http://tcmedianow.com/video/wcco-tv-6pm-report-september-9-1987-dave-moore-mike-fairbourne-ralph-jon-fritz-/

After 40 years of climbing towers and getting called into work during the middle of the night, seven days a week, our good friend, Dick Sigurdson, has retired as the senior engineer at Fox 9's transmission tower in Shoreview, Minnesota.

When Dick started there in 1971 there were only three TV stations (9, 2, & 17) transmitting from the tower that became Dick's second home. Over the years, there were as many as five TV stations and ten FMs, all under Dick's watch.

Now, Dick and his new bride, Bev, are planning a lifetime of road trips without ever getting another 2:00 am phone call telling him to come in and "get the station back on the air."  Congratulations Dick!

RadioTapes.com has posted the Roger Erickson: This is Your Life video.
Produced in 1998, at the time of Roger’s retirement from WCCO Radio, this 25 minute video presents the story of Roger’s life filled with comments from his family, friends and WCCO co-workers. This is a wonderful tribute to one of the most popular and talented radio personalities in the Twin Cities.

Appearing on the video: Roger’s family including his wife (Margaret), brother, daughter, son, and grandson … plus co-host Charlie Boone, Dr. John Najarian, Jim Gustafson (General Manager), Mark Durenberger (engineer), Sue Frase and Jan Allen (producers), Steve Murphy (news), Bill Farmer (co-host), Jerry Bell and Carl Pohlad (Minnesota Twins), Clayt Kaufman (General Manager), Ray Vecellio (Sales Manager), Don Stolz (Old Log Theater), Ray Christensen, Sharon Sayles Belton (Minneapolis Mayor), Norm Coleman (St. Paul Mayor), Sid Hartman, Dave Lee and others.

Tom Gavaras' RadioTapes.com just posted six hours of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963 as broadcast on WCCO Radio including the first breaking news report to the announcement that the President had died and extensive follow-up coverage including local, national and international reports from CBS Radio and WCCO-AM. The CBS coverage is anchored by Allan Jackson including reporters from all over the nation and world. WCCO-AM's coverage includes Dick Chapman including interviews with people outside the 'CCO building when the death of President Kennedy was announced along with reports on closings and special church services by Charlie Boone, Jergen Nash and Ray Christensen. Tom wants to thank former WCCO engineer Bill Lund for providing these recordings.

Original list prices for all 1935 and 1936 radios were published in the September 1935 issue of Radio Today. Now you can have them too.
Just go to RadioPrices35-36.html.

Don't forget to check the Museum Website Index for a complete listing of all the resources on this site.

Tom Oszman's TC Media Now Website is loaded with new entries that he wants to share with anyone who can't get enough classic Twin Cities news coverage.

30 years ago: WCCO-TV News full report with Dave Moore and Doug Moore
http://tcmedianow.com/video/wcco-tv-10pm-report-from-july-21-1982-dave-moore-doug-moore-mike-fairbourne-tom-hanneman/

KQRS-FM Commercial from 1978
http://tcmedianow.com/video/kqrs-92-fm-commercial-from-1978-the-superstar-cruiser/

WCCO-TV Commercial with Dave Moore, Doug Moore, and Walter Cronkite 1978
http://tcmedianow.com/video/moore-moore-and-cronkite-commercial-1/

KSTP-TV 10PM Update full report including the very short baseball strike,
August 1985
http://tcmedianow.com/video/kstp-tv-eyewitness-news-update-from-august-8-1985-full-report-including-mlb-strike-stan-turner-cyndy-brucato-dennis-feltgen-bob-bruce/

Johnny Canton is spotlighted on RadioTapes.com featuring 20 recordings spanning nearly 50 years of his broadcast career including interviews on Dick Clark's American Bandstand and airchecks on various stations inside and outside Minnesota including WDGY-AM, WCCO-FM, and WLTE-FM. There is even a photo when he appeared in the movie, Airport.

De La Hunt Broadcasting and KPRM celebrated fifty years on the air Saturday, August 4th, 2012.

Congratulations to Ed, Carol, and the entire De La Hunt family for their contributions to the broadcast industry!

Home on the Range with Andrew Baron

On May 5, 2012, Andrew Baron of Popyrus Studio stopped into the Pavek Museum of Broadcasting and played our RCA Theremin.  We realized we were witnessing something special and captured the final verse of "Home on the Range" with a cell phone.

Andrew is an international award-winning pop-up book designer, as well as a restorer and historian of various early technologies.  With his research colleague Mike Buffington, Andrew co-hosts RCATheremin.com, the first and only definitive website devoted to Leon Theremin's unique and historic instruments.  RCATheremin.com is also home to the Official RCA Theremin Registry, formed in 1996 by Theremin World's Jason Barile to document the surviving instruments.

Andrew's web site for his other endeavors, including his restoration of the famous Maillardet Automaton at The Franklin Institute Science Museum, can be found at Popyrus.com.  Andrew can be reached at andy@popyrus.com

A decade of True Don Bleu airchecks

has been up on Tom Gavaras' Radiotapes.com for almost a month now. Don't be like me and take forever to enjoy them ... tune in now!

The Cedric Adams Video

Inducted into the Minnesota Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 2002, Cedric Adams was an icon of radio, television, and print. Now, at last, we have a video that gives some sense of just how important he was to this community.

Network Radio Ratings,
by Minnesota Hall of Fame member, Jim Ramsburg

There was a time when most Americans knew Marie Wilson and Alan Reed of My Friend Irma, Freeman Gosden & Charles Correll, (Amos & Andy), and Fred Allen with his political pal from Allen's Alley, Kenny Delmar as Senator Beauregard Claghorn.  If they weren't known on sight, they were certainly known by their voices to millions of radio listeners.

It was a fascinating period in our culture when just four radio networks - connected by telephone lines to their hundreds of affiliated stations from coast to coast - dominated American media to a greater degree than any other concerted force ever had - or ever will again.

Jim's book, Network Radio Ratings, 1932-1953, is an almanac of that period and offers a new perspective to fans of Radio's "Golden Age" and students of broadcasting history.  Bookseller www.amazon.com provides a  "Look Inside" preview on its page devoted to the book.   

The Trashmen in London
After all these years the Trashmen finally made it to the U.K. on April 7, 2012. Here's our favorite London correspondent, Tom Rivers, with the interview.

Steve Cannon 

The Cannon Tapes
As many of you may know, Steve Cannon and Tommy Mischke became good friends during Steve’s final years.  But we were all surprised when Tommy dropped off a cache of more than 100 reel-to-reel tapes of the Great One a while back.

Tom Gavaras has been transcribing and posting them to his site, RadioTapes.com, where you can now hear highlights of Steve’s career from WLOL-AM in the late 1950s, KSTP-AM throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, and WCCO-AM in the mid 1980s.   We will post links as more tapes are released.

Thanks to T.D. Mischke and Tom Gavaras for all their work preserving and sharing some of the great moments in broadcast history.

Twin Cities Television Chronology
Eight Decades of Twin Cities Television History  

The Twin Cities Television Chronology has been a work-in-progress for several years now. It is finally good enough to share with you. Thanks to Tom Oszman and his TCMediaNow site, we will be adding updates and material on a weekly basis ... stay tuned!

Pirate Radio!

Tom Rivers, radio correspondent for ABC News London Bureau, visited us a while back and brought along a couple compatriots from his pirate radio days in the 1960s. Here's the true story of one of the most exciting chapters in radio history.

Philco 95

The Philco 95 was the first radio on the market with diode AVC.
Here's our review of one that was recently donated and rebuilt.