1945–1959 · CBS

Arthur Godfrey

The most powerful man in American broadcasting, on both dials at once.

No one embodied the handover more completely than Arthur Godfrey, who solved the problem of two media by refusing to choose — he simply let the cameras into the radio studio. For most of the fifties his morning programme was a genuine simulcast, and the informality that made him a radio star turned out to translate exactly. It also meant that when he fired Julius La Rosa on the air in 1953, he did it to both audiences simultaneously.

On radio

Arthur Godfrey Time on CBS radio from 1945

On television

Simulcast on CBS television from 1952

The overlap

The morning programme went out on radio and television at once

9 recordings · New York

Godfrey broadcast material held by the Internet Archive, including the retrospective year-by-year programmes. Public domain (US network broadcast, copyright not renewed); no Creative Commons or non-commercial terms apply.