Honeymoon Ended

When radio first went Hollywood, microphone men were glad to put any Hollywoodian on the air any time. Cinema was glad to get the publicity. But soon radio found big money in Hollywood broadcasts, and the radio-cinema honeymoon was over. Last week cinemagnates were shown emphatically that radio is through with giving them anything for the asking. Stations KFI and KECA (NBC's Los Angeles affiliates) refused to donate time for broadcasting the world premiere of Marie Antoinette from Hollywood's Carthay Circle, demanded that M-G-M pay regular commercial rates for the air time. NBC took the program as a network sustaining show, but KFI and KECA won their point. They were the only stations paid to carry it. Said KFI-KECA General Manager Harrison Holliway: "A can of celluloid is the same as a can of beans."

Natty, sandy-mustached Manager Holliway is a jealous guardian of the radio time he controls. He tossed a bombshell into the 1936 election campaign with the announcement that KFI and KECA would not carry President Roosevelt's fireside chats during the campaign unless the stations were paid for the time. Well might Manager Holliway vary from the norm. His boss is the stormy petrel of California broadcasting: Earle Charles Anthony, automobile dealer with a State-wide chain of Packard agencies, who took up radio in the early days, believing it might provide communication between his agencies. Instead of organizing a network like fellow Automobile-Dealer Don Lee (Cadillac, LaSalle, Oldsmobile), husky, bushy-browed Broadcaster Anthony took the station ownership road to radio importance. In 1922 he founded 50-watt KFI, built it to 50,000 watts. He brought fame to his newer station, KECA, bought in 1929, with his program of symphonic recordings. A spare-time musician himself, he collaborated with Hula-Expert Johnny Noble on a popular tune, Coral Isle.

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