NBC Acquires WMAQ


CURATOR'S NOTE: NBC's acquisition of WMAQ from the Chicago Daily News, effective November 1st, 1931, gave the network primary Chicago outlets for both its Red and Blue network programing. Since WENR---purchased by NBC earlier in 1931--- shared time with WLS, a number of NBC programs (some of which were produced in the Merchandise Mart studios) aired in Chicago on KYW, WIBO, WGN and WCFL.
The article below appeared in the September, 1931 edition of RCA News.
Small NBC logo

Daily News, Midwest Broadcast Pioneer, Forms A Partnership With NBC

The Daily News, a pioneer in broadcasting in the Middle West, has formed a partnership with the National Broadcasting Company in the ownership of the Daily News station, WMAQ. The management of the station will be under the supervision of the National Broadcasting Company, which has pledged its effort to build WMAQ to even greater heights than the station has attained in its nine and a half years of existence.

Under an agreement reached with Merlin Hall Aylesworth, president of the National Broadcasting Company, a portion of the stock in WMAQ, Inc., a subsidiary of the Chicago Daily News, Inc., becomes the property of the National Broadcasting Company.

The new arrangement contemplates a continuation of the policies that have made WMAQ not only a favorite among Chicago listeners but one of the leading broadcasting stations in the United States. There will be no curtailment of the features developed by WMAQ.

The educational programs, which are regarded as a model for the dissemination of education over the air, will continue to be broadcast in cooperation with the Board of Education and the University of Chicago.

The religious services from the Chicago Sunday Evening Club and the Chapel of the University of Chicago will continue as regular features for listeners within the vast range of WMAQ.

"Amos n' Andy" will be broadcast each evening from WMAQ and fed to the network of the National Broadcasting Company as in the past. The Three Doctors, WMAQ's experts in harmony and hokum, will wise crack as in the days of yore. These features, together with other programs, old and new, will be brought to listeners by WMAQ in the future as they have in the past. The principal change will be the elimination of programs heretofore supplied by the Columbia Broadcasting System and the addition of outstanding programs from the National Broadcasting Company network. The Columbia programs will continue, however, until November 1 when the change will become effective.

WMAQ will continue to occupy the offices and studios on the top floor of the Daily News Building, 400 West Madison Street, which has been the home of WMAQ since the completion of the Daily News Building two years ago.

The new affiliation of the Daily News with the National Broadcasting Company presages several other major shifts among Chicago stations.

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