Crossley Looks at 1940

The critical standards of radio are as simple as a stone ax. The program that attracts the biggest audience is the best program. The highest accolade that radio can offer is conferred on aerial shows by a statistical organization, Cooperative Analysis of Broadcasting (Crossley). Last week C. A. B.'s Manager Alcuin Williams Lehman, in the pages of the trade journal Broadcasting--Broadcast Advertising, conferred radio's patents of nobility for 1940.

New to radio's big ten were the deftly written serial The Aldrich Family (sixth), the schmalz of Band Leader Kay Kyser (ninth), the soap-opera One Man's Family (tenth). Beating the graven image Charlie McCarthy by a whisker, Jack Benny led the pack for 1940. Others in Crossley's peerage: Fibber McGee & Molly, the Lux Radio Theatre, Bob Hope, Kate Smith, Major Bowes.

Biggest rise, according to the Crossley findings, was that of The Aldrich Family, which was in 40th place a year ago. Biggest fall was that of Pot o' Gold, which plummeted from 10th to 57th place. Gratifying to radio's peers and commoners alike were Crossley's observations that programming had improved, that radio had more people by the ear than ever.

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As the Voice of Experience, Marion Sayle Taylor has advised all kinds of people how to get out of marital trouble. Last week he was taking legal advice himself: his second wife demanded in Los Angeles Superior Court that her Mexican divorce be set aside, claimed that before he married Wife No. 3, Taylor had promised her remarriage, 15% of his $150,000 annual income.

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