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Artifacts, Ads, Pictures, Souvenirs, Kitsch
To contribute please email: Don Swaim
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Even MORE chintzy Newsradio88 memorabilia from
WCBS meterologist Todd Glickman's own collection HERE
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JOHN LANDERS VISITS
HUDSON STREET
Radio buff, hockey expert, and WCBS contributor John Landers calls on CBS Radio's new headquarters, housing all the CBS-owned stations in New York. Here's his photo-montage:
HERE
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 CBS News Roster 1957-- click to enlarge
 Quarterback Phil Simms
 Tennis great Arthur Ashe
 Actress Sally Struthers
 Lou Pinella, Yankees manager 1986-1988
Newsradio88 TV ad with Piniella HERE
 Ad, New York Magazine, August 1971 -- click to enlarge
PEN SET: SUPER WCBS HOLIDAY GIFT
 Our pal John Landers sent this along as part of his mammoth collection of radio memorabilia. It's a beautiful boxed Newsradio88 pen set that must have gone to sponsors -- as I don't think any of us lowly rank and file got one. Undated. -- DS
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Ad in Newsweek 2010
from 1980 season
1938 QSL CARD
click to enlarge
QSL cards were sent by stations to listeners who wrote to say they picked up the signal. This card, dating to 1938, suggests that WCBS (then WABC) broadcast on several ham frequencies. Why the recipient, Fletcher Hartman, listened on ham frequencies rather than the standard AM band is a puzzle. He lived just across the river in New Jersey.
WCBS NEWSWEEK ADS
click images to enlargeThe ad on the left appeared on Dec. 11, 1967, the ad on the right appeared on March 18, 1968. _____________________
JETS BUMPER STICKER
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AVON CALLING! click to enlarge
Promotional recording of Avon commercials from spring 1963 as heard on New York's major radio stations. That's WCBS's Jack Sterling pictured on the far left of the jacket.
 Billboard promotion via traffic reporter Tom Kaminsky, 1990
 | | EARLY RADIO RECORDING ON DISK (it was a start)
by Art ShifrinA veteran audio engineer describes how a 1934 CBS broadcast -- "45 Minutes in Hollywood" sponsored by Borden's Milk -- used uncoated aluminum disks (twelve sides at only 3 1/2-minutes each!) to record the show. Read HERE | | |
WCBS COVERAGE MAP - 1979
 courtesy Martin Hardee -- click to enlarge
NEWSRADIO 88 FIRE CHIEF HELMET
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WCBS BARTLET PLAQUE (front & back)
  click each image to enlargePre-Newsradio 88 promotional device. Replica tavern sign manufactured by Yorkcraft, Inc. in York, PA, which made shadow boxes, plaques, and frames in the 1960s. WCBS AM-FM blurb on back.
CBS (WABC) FORMAT AND COMMERCIAL
RATE CLOCK ca 1932 From the summer 1932 edition of Print Radio Time Network, which shows the twenty-four hour network and local radio schedule. WCBS was called WABC at the time. Interesting to see the names of the shows, most of them hokey, and how much they cost to advertisers. Note the huge blocks of sustaining (unsponsored) time. Bing Crosby's show was sustaining.
CLICK TO ENLARGE
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WARTIME ENEMY DOESN'T LIKE
WHAT IT HEARS ON (WCBS) RADIO
click to enlarge International Telephone and Telegraph Company (IT&T) was founded in 1920, and became a major provider of telephone switching equipment and telecommunications. The firm was linked to the Nazi Party in the 1930s, and may have run a Nazi spy network in South America -- which makes IT&T's anti-Japanese (and blatantly racist) ad in Life Magazine in May 1945 an irony. The ad cites IT&T's work for "Columbia's key station, WABC..." (later renamed WCBS). Ad courtesy of John Landers
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 courtesy Martin Hardee -- click to enlarge
PHILHARMONIC LIVE - 1944
Souvenir postcard promoting the 542nd broadcast of the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra, Madison Square Garden, Oct. 1, 1944. Heard on WABC (now WCBS) Radio, 880 on the dial. click images to enlarge
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WCBS JETS/A&P TRADING CARDS
front
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back
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WCBS NEWSMAN CAUGHT IN CHAOS
 Terrified National Guardsman wielding rifle confronted by anti-war demonstrators, Washington, DC, 1971. Newsradio 88's first Washington reporter Jim McCarthy, holding WCBS mic [far left]. For details go here. For Wes Vernon's history of WCBS's Washington Bureau go here. _____________________
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Some 20 years after he reigned as Newsradio 88's fiesty general manager (1976-1979), John A. Lack decided to throw an anniversary party for those who were on the staff during his tenure. That it coincided with the station's actual thirtieth anniversary was a coincidence. The reunion was staged on November 14, 1997, at a favorite WCBS watering hole, Kee Wah Yen on W. 56th Street. Two of Lack's staffers, Rica Rinzler and Teresa DiTore, put together the invitation list. For the more than 100 attendees it was a night to remember (or not remembered if that happened). Click on the actual five-page invitation above to read. As for Lack, he went on to found MTV and served at ESPN, Warner-Amex Satellite, and in 2010 joined FireMedia Partners, a multi-platform digital firm.
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WCBS Radio's 'This is New York' -- With Bill Leonard: 1951
Bill Leonard was hired by WCBS Radio in 1945 to host the popular daily show "This is New York," which remained on the air for seventeen years. After thirteen years as host, Bill moved to television, joining the "CBS Evening News" as a reporter.
Following a variety of increasingly important positions with CBS News, including initiating "60 Minutes" and "CBS Sunday Morning," Bill was named President of CBS News in 1979. It was he who tapped Dan Rather as the successor to anchorman Walter Cronkite -- which is described in Bill's book In the Storm of the Eye.
In a quirky coincidence, Bill Leonard was the stepfather of Chris Wallace, described as a journalist for the far-right Fox News Channel, the antithesis of CBS News. Bill Leonard died in 1994.
On the left, Bill is depicted on the cover of a 1951 WCBS pamphlet, which lists more than 100 New York City restaurants featured on "This is New York." It's provided here in its entirety. [WOW, what prices!] Thanks to WCBS fan and broadcast memorabilia collector John Landers of Brooklyn. (--DS)
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Published by Holt, Rinehart, Winston (a CBS company) in 1979 in both paperback and hardcover.From John Landers of Brooklyn, who sent the above image: "One of my favorite Newsradio 88 reporters was Art Athens. I forgot I even had his book on quitting smoking. Funny how when I listen to old Art Athens audio on your site I just can't picture that calm and professional sound coming from a person who admitted to smoking 3 packs of cigarettes a day. My late father smoked 2 packs a day and you never saw him without a cigarette in his hand. I can't imagine what a 3 pack a day smoker was like. I have scanned the cover of Art's helpful book which I bought for 50 cents at a high school library book sale in 1983. I bought it because I was a Newsradio 88 fan and not to help me quit smoking because thankfully I never took up that horrible habit."
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Newspaper ad, ca. 1977. Go HERE for more about Jean Shepherd on WCBS
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 STUDIO MAP Fascinating chart [click on head] showing locations of the many CBS studios sprawled across Manhattan before and after the [planned] construction of the CBS headquarters building (Black Rock) in 1966 and the expansion of the CBS Broadcast Center on the West Side. CBS aficionados will love this.
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WCBS ARTIFACT FROM 1967
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From Arthur (Artie) Voldstad: "I wonder how many of these [WCBS clock radios, above] are still around. I believe everyone on staff received one to commemorate the beginning of Newsradio88."
[Sadly, Artie died on May 25, 2012, the most quiet and elegant of the WCBS technical staff.]
click to enlarge
 Myra Waldo, who died at the age of 88 in 2004, worked on special projects for the Macmillan Publishing Company in the late 1960s. From 1968 to 1972, she was on the air as food and travel editor of WCBS radio, a job that led to her 1971 Restaurant Guide to New York City and Vicinity, which she continued to revise into the 1980s. Waldo's 88 recipe book pictured above was a WCBS promotion. courtesy of John Landers
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HOWARD BARLOW ON THE AIR!
1930s matchbook cover extols the conductor of CBS's first network radio broadcast on September 18, 1927, via WOR, Newark, New Jersey. The network boasted 16 stations heard as far west as Council Bluffs, Iowa.
Story at AmericanHeritage.com
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PARTY TIME! Todd Glickman sent this 1995 Newsradio88 party invitation.
CBS PROGRAMMING ON THE CHEAP
Before ABC existed as a radio (or TV) network, WCBS was WABC. No, not the later pop station with its top-40 DJs, now a burrow for far right-wing ranters. To learn about this anomaly go to The History of WCBS.
image courtesy Don Bayley |
On Sunday, Dec. 9, 1928, had you been listening to WCBS (then WABC at 860 on the dial), here's the program lineup as compiled by Eric N. Wilson. Note the amount of religious babble. Where was Howard Stern when he was needed?
WABC, New York, 860 (CBS)
10:50 AM: Church Services
3:00 PM: Symphonic Hour
4:00: Cathedral Hour (choral music w/ orchestra and soloists)
5:00: ABC of Religions
5:30: Tenth Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia (sermon by Rev. Donald Grey Barnhouse)
6:00: Watchtower Program
7:05: Tucker's Orchestra
8:00: Randall Hargreaves
8:30: La Palina Program
9:00: The Majestic Theater of the Air (variety with Mack and Moran, The Two Black Crows, and MCed by Wendell Hall "the Red-Headed Music Maker." The first big sponsorship breakthrough for the CBS network.)
10:00: Audions
10:30: Come To the Fair
11:00: Musical Program
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click ad images to enlarge
 CBS Radio Network Ad 2/10/64
Ad in The New York Times 12/19/67
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CBS Radio Stations Ad 8/3/77
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CBS Radio News Ad I believe this newspaper ad dates to October 1973 after the start of the Yom Kippur War. If anyone can better date this ad please let me know.
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CBS Radio Stations Ad 12/14/64
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 CBS Radio Ad 1967
Edwards, Townsend, Wallace,
Cronkite |
 CBS Radio Ad 2006
Osgood
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CBS ads courtesy Bob Gibson
 
images courtesy Don Bayley
William S. Paley, CBS founder-in-chief, 9/19/38
FORMAT CLOCKS
Dual clocks show the formatting differences between then rivals WCBS and WINS. Believed to have been printed in Broadcasting 1991. Click to enlarge.
ED JOYCE
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Ed Joyce was a producer-reporter at WCBS before becoming News Director, a duty shared with Marvin Friedman and Dick Reeves, when the station went all-news in 1967. Following CBS management tours in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, Joyce was the Number Two man to Van Gordon Sauter, CBS News President. After Sauter was deposed in 1983, Joyce held the post until his own ouster three years later. Joyce writes about his turbulent days with Sauter at CBS News in a memoir, Prime Times Bad Times (Doubleday 1988).
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 Ad in The New York Times, Nov. 14, 1963
image courtesy Bob Gibson
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SWAIM: CENTER OF THE ACTION
DON SWAIM, WCBS NEWS PRODUCER'S DESK, MID-90s -- click to enlarge
Note the police, traffic, weather, and countless other radio monitors, mostly ignored in order to keep one's sanity. Gooseneck mike was used to holler at the anchor in the studio. BASYS computer monitor to the right. State-of-the-art compared to the just prior typewriter and teletype days. Many awards posted on back wall. During this period, technological adeptness began to replace journalistic knowledge, although nothing was digital yet as evidenced by the stacks of tape cartridges, usually one audio cut per cart. Don Swaim at the desk.
CBS KITSCHCool, oddly-shaped WCBS promotional umbrella that still keeps the rain off after a dozen years. Hey, they gave it away! |
NEWSRADIO 88 TOTE BAGS, 1980s
courtesy Mel Granick
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BEAR IN THE AIR Vermont Teddy Bear (the company was a sponsor) decked out in a pilot's uniform to commemorate Neil Bush's 25th year of helicopter flying for WCBS, 1967-1992. |
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CBS HAT COLLECTION
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WAKING UP BRANDED WCBS promotional card, 1970s. The first general manager of Newsradio88, Joseph Dembo, insisted WCBS was a News and Information station (because of its in depth feature reporting), to differentiate it from wire-fed, arch-rival WINS. Incredibly, both WCBS and WINS are now owned by the same company, Infinity (renamed CBS Radio), a division of Viacom. |
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BIG BILLBOARD Promotional postcard for WCBS, date unknown. Similar advertising was used in subway billboards. | |
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CLOCKING AND COMMUTING
Souvenir clock, given to the station's staff and sponsors on Newsradio 88's 25th anniversary.
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Nearly everyone on the news team, not to mention a few in administration and sales, had NYP plates on their cars which meant free street parking. Long after this plate had expired it was used as a car-window ice scraper (and still is).
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OLD FAITHFUL -- WITH A MIKE Original Sony portable tape recorder, microphone, and logo used by Newsradio88 reporters 1970s, 80s. To file tape from the field, reporters unscrewed either the mouth or earpiece of the phone, attached alligator clips to the output connections in the phone, plugged the cable into the Sony's earphone jack, and sent their audio.
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SAFETY FIRST WCBS outdoor safety vest. Most likely passed out in conjunction with some on-air promotion. They were made of cheap plastic, but mine lasted for years, and if they helped to save some lives that's a good thing. |
SCARF, SWEATBANDS, COFFEE MUG
collection of giveaway stuff
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return to main WCBS Appreciation Site page
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