The Bakers' Theater of Stars Radio Program

Background

Bakers of America was conducting a full-court press of public relations and promotion throughout 1952 and 1953, culminating in their annual Convention in June 1953. A consortium of the American Bakers' Association, The Bakers of America and Quality Bakers of America--the organization best known for the Sunbeam Bread brand--combined to sponsor this wonderful, star-studded thirteen-program dramatic anthology.

Bakers of America had already sponsored Hollywood Star Playhouse for its final season over NBC. That final run of Hollywood Star Playhouse introduced Miss Helen Reed, the Bakers of America Home Economist, who promoted baking with clever, easy to prepare baking recipes at the end of each episode. The Home Economist promotions were clever, light and tasteful--literally and figuratively.

During the same period when Bakers of America was sponsoring the last season of Hollywood Star Playhouse, it created something of a stir throughout the advertising industry by telling The Billboard magazine that it intended to devote most of its advertising budget to Radio from that point forward:

Bakers of America announces its adoption of Radio as its advertising medium of choice.

1950s Radio, like any other business, was all about supply and demand. When demand increases for a commodity--Radio programming as an advertising medium--and the supply of that commodity remains unchanged, prices go up. When demand for a commodity goes down, but the supply remains the same, prices go down. Bakers of America was tacitly throwing its considerable weight to Radio with the Billboard announcement. More demand for an unchanging commodity would lead to higher advertising costs. Reduced demand for a relatively unchanging supply of Radio advertising would lead to lower advertising costs.

Bakers of America's announcement of increasing its demand might have sparked a trend towards more demand from other advertisers--at a time when NBC was already attempting to squeeze more out of its affiliates by citing lower demand over Radio. The announcement surprised the Radio industry--NBC in particular--since NBC had for the previous two years been attempting to get its affiliates to accept a rate cut, due to market penetration by Television. Bakers of America, so enthused at the reception, penetration and success of its own campaign over NBC with Hollywood Star Playhouse, was signaling its willingness to throw the bulk of its advertising weight to Radio at a time when NBC in particular was attempting to move more advertisers to Television. Feeling more 'damned by faint praise' than simply praised by Bakers of America for its successful campaign over NBC, NBC felt stung. And perhaps rightly so. For in fact there was still a completely viable outlet for specific product messaging over Radio--even with the advent of popular Television.

NBC felt it was a 'mixed message.' The Bakers of America felt it was singing NBC's--and Radio's--praises. Such was the environment in Radio during the waning years of The Golden Age of Radio.

CBS and the Bakers of America debut their Theatre of Stars

Neither CBS nor the Bakers of America spared any expense to bring one of CBS' finest drama anthologies to the air. There's no question that CBS would have loved continuing the series beyond thirteen episodes, but once the June 1953 Convention had come and passed, the promotion had accomplished its purpose for Bakers of America. This had to have been an expensive production to mount. One glance at the roster of leading stars shows Hollywood actors well worth the $3,000 to $5,000 appearance fee they'd have commanded by 1953. Add to that, CBS Pacific Net's finest supporting actors, one of their brightest up and coming directors, Norm Macdonnell, music direction by Wilbur Hatch, announcer and spokesman, Wendell Niles, and you have a $7,000 to $9,000 a episode production.

This was also the period during which NBC and CBS were nakedly poaching each other's talent, so working capital was at a premium for the remainder of the decade--for both networks. The costs, the departure of their sponsor of long-standing to NBC [to air Hollywood Star Playhouse], the waning of the impact of Radio, Bakers of America's Convention, and the rise of Television's impact conspired to condemn this fine production to its thirteen excellent programs.

If the circulating exemplars of this fine series are any indication, this was one of the most well-produced--albeit briefer--series' to air during the waning years of The Golden Age of Radio. Leading off with Joan Fontaine in The Guardsman, the series thereafter stars Joseph Cotten, Robert Taylor, Dana Andrews, Vincent Price, MacDonald Carey, Anne Baxter, Ronald Reagan, Claire Trevor, Ann Blythe and Van Heflin, amongst others, providing thirteen compelling radioplays starring Hollywood's brightest Film Stars. The selection of the radioplays themselves provided a pleasant mix of romantic, suspenseful, and light drama, as well as light comedy.

Impeccably transcribed, at least five of the circulating recordings retain the high production values laid down in the original recordings. Norm Macdonnell's direction is crisp, Wilbur Hatch's musical score and transitions perfectly support the script, and the dramatic performances are predictably excellent given the lead actors and their supporting casts.

Series Derivatives:

Notes on Provenances:

OTRisms:

There were at least seven known programs from The Golden Age of Radio that contained the fragments, 'Theater of Stars' or 'Theatre of Stars.' That combination of words does not unite all known 'theater of stars' programs between 1930 and 1984 into one long series of 'Theater of Stars' programs.

Bakers' Theater of Stars was conceived, promoted, produced and advertised as Bakers' Theater of Stars, specifically--a thirteen program production to promote a specific Bakers of America campaign. The Bakers of America had sponsored a previous production, The Hollywood Star Playhouse, in 1952 that aired from 1951 to 1953 in a completely different format. Part of the deal NBC, CBS and Bakers of America struck when Hollywood Star Playhouse moved to NBC was that CBS would provide Bakers Theatre of Stars as a 13-week promotional vehicle leading up to the Bakers of America convention in June 1953--nothing more, nothing less. As with everything 'otr'-related, the otr community simply shoots from the hip whenever citing 'connections' between anecdotally similar vintage Radio programs.

You're welcome to compare our fully provenanced research with the '1,500 expert researchers' at the OTRR and what they call their Hollywood Theater log. They also have an equally incorrect log of what they call Baker's Theater of Stars, which they also got wrong.
We've therefore provided a screen shot of their current logs for comparison, HERE and HERE to protect our own ongoing due diligence.

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