NBC Radio
"Monitor"

Ad for first broadcast. Found in New York Times, Sunday, June 12, 1955. Picture opens in new window.

This page updated September 1, 2002

However, upon examination, there's a definite beat and melody to the beacon. It starts with four beeps that rise in pitch and establish a "beat." The four beats repeat continuously while a faster paced and higher pitched set of beats starts playing. It builds up and then the "base" beat stops and an even faster set of beeps sounds. The faster set of tones stops and the "base" beat starts up again and the whole thing repeats.

Its difficult to describe, but it wasn't popular to most people then and it's probably less popular now!
It was only used as a transition device from local commercials to network and vice versa. It usually only played a few seconds. Even the five-minute fill at half-past the hour (for local news) played the beacon for a few seconds for the local stations to cut-away. The network then played two pieces of music. The first was usually a vocal, and it was followed by a back-timed instrumental that would end somewhere around :34:58 past the hour. The beacon would come up again and play for a few seconds while local stations rejoined the net.

In the late sixties the program had a terrific set of jingles, and one of the themes was performed by drummer Buddy Rich and his band. The tune appeared on Rich's album "Big Swing Face." A sixty-second version was played about twenty-minutes after the hour and was usually fill material for local stations to play a commercial.

The program was originally all news and features and later on had music added to it.

When NBC's John Chancellor became head of the Voice of America he adapted the "Monitor" magazine format to some of VOA's programming.

The following is a response to my questions from someone who worked at NBC.

(from 1992)
So you remember the Monitor Beacon? I was lucky enough to get to play it. For seven years, beginning in 1965, I was a broadcast engineer for NBC. I worked Monitor for about the first five of those years. Specifically on weekends, my (nearly) regular segments were Saturday afternoon with Ed McMahon and Sunday evening with Frank Blair. Other hosts included actor David Wayne, game show host Gene Reynolds as well as others that I'm not thinking of now.

The program emanated from Studio 5B in the RCA Building in Rockefeller Plaza. Each segment had a host, producer, writer, production assistant, associate director, board engineer and a second engineer running turntables. Don't forget the staff announcer. The entire show was scripted. Besides the host there were live inserts for sports. (Mel Allen did a lot of those.) Some of the interviews were live but most were prerecorded during the week.

More answers to some of my questions...

When in 1965 did you start? Were you there for "Monitor's" 10th Birthday? It was at that time that NBC commissioned Cahn and Van Huesen to write a birthday song for the weekend program.

I started in August of 1965 but wasn't up to speed until a few months later. I don't recall either working or any talk about Monitor's 10th Birthday. (Sounds like I missed out again.) The studio for the local station, WNBC, 5A, was located next to Monitor's studio which was 5B. 5A had a small piano in it that was used by WNBC's morning man, Big Wilson. Since WNBC carried Monitor, 5A would have been free for such use. Your main question, "Was it taped?," is entirely possible but not likely IF they said they were there. The exact phraseology that was used would be important.

Why was there a "five-second pause for switching"

NBC's physical network was leased from AT&T. It was not the more familiar round-robin. It was called an "RAC"--reversible audio channel. It was less expensive since a round-robin, for NBC, was previously a nearly nationwide loop. The RAC was a single straight wire connecting the NBC owned and operated stations (the "O&Os"), NY-WASH-CLEVE-CHI-SAN FRAN. (I missed one.) All affiliated stations were branched off the RAC, all along the way. Each O&O had a momentary switch to actuate reversals. On the cue, here's blau-blau from San Francisco, the inputs and outputs of telco repeaters all around the nation, at 25-mile intervals, would reverse themselves. It required 5-7 seconds of pause and bigtime stress while we waited to see if it would work or get hung up (again).

Did you get a copy of the "Blooper Reel"?

Of course! But it wasn't all that organized and there wasn't just one reel. The blooper tapes were kept in a double door metal cabinet in Radio City's Rm 770, the audio tape editing suite. A lot of it was simple filthy language stuff but other pieces were hilarious but some of the Vietnam stuff, you can imagine, still brings tears....

In another tape Virginia Graham did a regular segment in a program that she shared with Mike Wallace. In this segment she read testimonials from people who had been through serious stuff. I think that she may have just beat cancer herself at that time. During these segments Wallace would do just about anything he could to break her up while she was reading. It went on long enough that she decided to get back.

She, with everyone's help, pre-recorded that day's letter and unbeknownst to him that day's letter was a tape drop in while she pretended to do the segment live. After she started reading he began his stuff. She kept reading while growing more annoyed, frowning and gesturing for him to back off. Of course, he didn't so she stopped reading cursed him out. Big time. Called him an sob, told him what she thought of him.

Wallace died on the spot. Thought his career was over and came to the microphone and tried to apologize for the both of them. After letting him suffer a moment she breaks up and laughs to such an extent that I was told that there may have been a spot left on her chair. This was recorded and it is a classic.

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(from rec.radio.broadcasting)

In response to the questions asked (1999-2000)...

#1 and 2: NBC Radio debuted Monitor on Sunday afternoon, June 12, 1955, from 4pm to midnight EDT. From 4 to 5pm, NBC TV simulcast the radio show. Otherwise, the show was always on radio. It started as a 40-hour weekend broadcast from 8am Saturday to midnight Sunday. Gradually NBC whittled it down, reaching 16-hours in 1961 and maintaining that format until 1974, when the show was cut to 12 live hours a weekend and 9 repeat hours. The show ended its great run on Sunday, January 26, 1975. The last live hours were hosted by John Bartholomew Tucker.

3. When sports like the Rose Bowl or World Series were broadcast on weekends on NBC Radio, the network, having (as all nets did at that time) only one land line to its affils, simply ran the games -- and started Monitor afterward.

4. Dozens of people hosted Monitor over the years. Included (but not by any means a complete list) were Frank Blair, Frank Gallop, Don Russell, Hugh Downs, Ben Grauer, Dave Garroway, Gene Rayburn, Bert Parks, Wayne Howell, Hal March, Mel Allen, Bob Haymes, Bill Hayes, Ed Bryce, Ted Steele, Jim Backus, David Wayne, Ed McMahon, Barry Nelson, Henry Morgan, Brad Crandall, Joe Garagiola, Durward Kirby, Garry Moore, Murray the K, Ted Brown, Jim Lowe, Bill Cullen, Cindy Adams, Art Fleming, Art Ford, Don Imus, Wolfman Jack, Robert W. Morgan, Dan Daniel, Big Wilson, Tony Taylor, Bruce Bradley and J.B. Tucker.

This was a great, great radio show -- and it's missed to this day!

(editor's note): "Amen!" <