Word: wls
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...night, when as usual its 1,200 seats had been filled and emptied by two consecutive paying audiences, no fewer than 860,013 people had given 35 to 75? to get in and watch a freestyle, catch-as-catch-can radio show on a stage representing a hayloft. Station WLS's Barn Dance is a corny five-hour jamboree, radio's longest* and oldest in continuous operation, tops in Crossley ratings in its class. Last week this program, begun a week after Station WLS first took to the air and its mainstay ever since, celebrated its 16th birthday...
...WLS Barn Dance goes on the air at 7 p.m. (C.S.T.), is sponsored in pieces of 15 minutes and more by Alka-Seltzer, Keystone Steel & Wire Co. (fences), Murphy Products Co. (poultry and livestock feeds), Woodmen Accident Co. (insurance), Edward Funk & Sons (hybrid seed corn...
...Station WLS (standing for World's Largest Store) was launched in 1924 by Sears, Roebuck & Co. A bevy of guests sounded forth, among them Chicago's Mayor William E. Dever, Jane Addams, the Duncan Sisters. Actress Ethel Barrymore was led up to the mike and, affrighted, throbbed "Oh my God!," was then led away. Piped from Manhattan to Chicago were the congratulatory voices of Rudolph Valentino, Arthur Brisbane and Ring Lardner...
...WLS was sold to a giant (6 ft. 3 in., 235 Ib.) newspaperman, Burridge Davenal Butler, owner of The Prairie Farmer, oldest (99 years) of its kind in the U. S. Owner Butler made WLS a public servant in the Midwest. Most famed alumnus of WLS programs is Gene Autry, who once sang on the Barn Dance. So did Ruth Etting, at first for nothing and then for $5 a night. Tony Wons read poetry and streamlined Shakespeare for the station. Fibber McGee & Molly worked there before they adopted those names, as did Charles J. Correll and Freeman F. Gosden...
...Other anniversaries of the week: Chicago's WLS (16 years), producer of National Barn Dance; "Johnnie" Roventini, midget trade-mark (seven years) of Philip Morris cigarets...