The Adventures of Barrie Craig Confidential Investigator Radio Program

Background.

During what became the waning days of the Golden Age of Radio all four major networks were scrambling to make sense of their respective remaining Radio shares of advertising and audience while simultaneously rolling out new Television features over their respective networks. Or in the case of the Mutual Broadcasting System, their corresponding affiliations with other regional Television networks such as Don Lee on the west coast and DuMont on the east coast. The race was on to determine how much of the remaining Radio audiences and sponsors would remain loyal to the Radio side of their business.

Television had been regularly broadcasting a growing schedule of made for television films, serials, and local and regional origination television programming since the early to mid-1930s. But wider broadcasts over Television didn't really appear until after World War II. When the war ended and G.I.s returned home another race was on to introduce popular, widely available Television to America--both the receivers themselves and the programming to view on them.

The post-war landscape of Radio had devolved to a necessarily ruthless undertaking as more and more Television offerings from the respective networks came on line. It was the mid to late 1940s during which CBS and NBC in particular had undertaken a great deal of poaching of each others' major sponsors, programs and stars--many of them with the express purpose of getting them on both Radio and early Television.

ABC, scrambling to keep up while building and expanding their own basic network infrastructure and Radio and Television facilities across the country was becoming famous during the late 1940s for turning their Radio schedules on a dime. At the same time they were engaging in aggressive counter-programming--both regionally and nationally--to keep abreast of CBS, Mutual and NBC's audience shares--and the sponsors and ad agencies that closely watched those indicators.

More than simply survival of the fittest, all of the Radio networks of the era shared a common, vested interest in persuading sponsors to recognize the continuing growth and potential of Radio while at the same time encouraging sponsors to expand their messaging campaigns into the networks' early Television offerings.

The networks commissioned several far-reaching studies to both evaluate and demonstrate the continuing potential of Radio advertising. These studies were necessarily very even-handed as corporate studies go. All of the networks recognized early on that only the most honest and balanced assessments of the future potential of advertising over both Radio and Television would provide the tools they needed to further hone and target successful advertising campaigns straddling both media--and at the same time complimenting their clients' Print campaigns.

The similar explosion in Print advertising of the era only served to demonstrate even further the continuing potential of Radio advertising--as a necessary adjunct to both Print and Television campaigns. Radio networks had already undertaken several years of post-World War II belt tightening in order to bring down the costs of Radio programming. This was as much to capitalize on existing Radio resources as to demonstrate more efficient ways for ad agencies and their clients to get the most bang for their campaign bucks over all three media--Print, Radio and Television.

With the possible exception of some of the longer running soap operas, most major traditional Radio advertisers during the 1950s were cooperatively sharing the Radio web through several innovative timeslot-slicing and block-sharing arrangements with their hosting networks and programming vehicles.

The increasingly granular nature of scientifically targeted media advertising often made for some interesting combinations of bedfellows sponsoring popular programs of the era. Throughout the early 1950s it wasn't uncommon to find, for example, a major auto manufacturer sharing a vehicle roll-out spot with shoe polish, antacid, finance companies, and cigarette concerns--all during one hour-long Radio program, or even a half-hour program. And that was only at the national market level. At the local and regional levels, major ad agencies were often block-sharing or time-slicing with local mom and pop opticians, lumber vendors, hardware suppliers and camera shops to name but a few.

As the networks' infrastructure expanded to accomodate Television alongside AM and early FM Radio, the networks' ability to direct programming to even more granular combinations of towns, cities and regions across North America created even more attractive and innovative possibilities for Radio advertisers.

All of this may have seemed complicated to the average listening and viewing audiences of the era, but the only palpable effect on the audiences of the era was a growing and noticeable departure from wall to wall messaging by one sponsor and one sponsor alone for many of their favorite Radio programs. The audiences began hearing a multitude of sponsor messages in the course of a given night's Radio programming. They were also becoming exposed to multidimensional advertising campaigns previously unseen or unheard of during the World War II years. For the ad agencies and their clients it was a buyers' market. For the audiences of the era--though most of them were never really aware of it--it was becoming the only means by which they could have their new Television diversions while still enjoying their Radio programming of choice.

And indeed it was the only way that the Radio networks could continue to supply compelling Radio programming to the vast majority of America that still couldn't justify embracing Television for their homes. As such these were the twilight years of the Golden Age of Radio, but a twilight that necessarily endured for almost the entire decade of the 1950s.

NBC launches a detective mystery anthology specifically designed to accomodate several sponsors at the same time.

The Adventures of Barrie Crane, Confidential Investigator was by no means the first detective, crime or mystery program to introduce multiple sponsors during the same run. And as a practical matter few of the audiences that heard Barrie Crane, then Barrie Craig, Confidential Investigator were ever aware of the very targeted distribution of the series across the NBC network.

As with a ballpark hotdog, you don't really need to know how they are made to enjoy them--quite the antithesis in fact. Indeed the only way the average listener might have realized the extraordinarily complex scheduling that Barrie Craig undertook during its four-year run was if they were a regular commuter to another state, major city, or region of the country.

Any given week between 1952 and 1954 in particular, Barrie Craig Confidential Investigator could be heard on any of four possible days each week, depending on one's region. During the same period one might have heard three major corporate sponsors' messages during any four weeks of episodes in for example San Francisco, while perhaps hearing only one sponsor's message per program in Indianapolis. A major metropolitan area listener might well have heard a combination of sponsors' messages from say, two major national sponsors and two local concerns during a half hour episode. But it was all pretty much transparent to the average listener.

Initially launched as The Adventures of Barrie Crane, Confidential Investigator, the series soon settled into a coordinated campaign promoting The Adventures of Barrie Craig, Confidential Investigator as part of NBC's year long, 1951 celebration of it's first twenty-five years on the air. NBC's Silver Jubilee celebration encompassed a series of both Radio and Television offerings highlighting the growth of NBC's technology, talent, infrastructure and commercial [read advertising] success over the preceding 25 years. The Billboard for example devoted almost an entire issue of the magazine to NBC's Silver Jubilee celebration, tracing its early Radio and Television triumphs to its emerging dominance in the area of Television technology.

Barrie Craig, Confidential Investigator was one of several new programs launched specifically to celebrate NBC's Silver Jubilee. The most notable among the others was NBC's ambitious The Big Show, a 90-minute extravaganza mounted primarily to demonstrate the effectiveness of sponsor block-sharing and time-slicing. NBC referrred to this arrangement as it's 'Tandem Plan.'

NBC Vice President of Programming Charles 'Bud' Barry and NBC General Manager Jack Herbert engineered NBC's 'Tandem Plan' sponsorship scheme. In a nutshell, subscribing sponsors were sold portions of a block of primetime, weekly network programming. As an example:

Series Derivatives:

Notes on Provenances:

The most helpful provenances were newspaper listings.

OTRisms:

Fraud Alerts . . .

As has become a pandemic in the hobby throughout the 21st century, several circulating exemplars of The Adventures of Barrie Craig, Confidential Investigator are complete frauds:

• An Episode 109, dated 53-11-03, is in circulation fraudently labeled 'Buried Assets.' It's actually a truncated version of Strange Vision padded out to precisely 31:00 and previously distributed by the OTRR as part of one of their 'Certifed Complete and Accurate' sets of Barrie Craig. The original source recording appears to have come from a 1980s Golden Age Radio retrospective program.
• An Episode 136, dated 54-05-11, is in circulation fraudently labeled 'Search For Mrs Peterson.' It's actually a truncated recording of The Corpse Who Was Wrong, padded out to precisely 31:00 and previously distributed by the OTRR as part of one of their 'Certifed Complete and Accurate' sets of Barrie Craig.
• Episode 148, For Love of Murder, dated 54-08-03, in current circulation by the OTRR in their 'Certifed Complete and Accurate' sets of Barrie Craig is completely corrupted from about 12:14 forward. It's missing over 3 minutes of dialogue and parts of the denouement are inserted at about 14:00. You can hear a complete and correct exemplar of Episode 148, For Love of Murder in our log below.
• An Episode 159, dated 54-11-07, is in circulation labeled 'Case of the Barbershop.' It's actually a truncated recording of Life Line from 54-11-07, padded out to precisely 31:00 and previously distributed by the OTRR as part of one of their 'Certifed Complete and Accurate' sets of Barrie Craig.

The more things change the more they stay the same. To the OTRR's credit, under pressure from archive.org comments, they subsequently removed the three fraudulent exemplars from their 'Certified Complete and Accurate' collection, having since updated it twice. Unfortunately many of the thousands of fraudulent copies they originally distributed are still apparently in wide circulation. Further complicating matters are numerous 'a.k.a.s' in wide circulation and as many inaccurate circulating titles. The corrupted For Love of Murder remains in OTRR's "Certified Complete and Accurate" Barrie Craig set "Ver. 3.0" as of June 2011 for thousands of unwitting downloaders to disseminate even further.

We continue to remain at a loss to understand the OTRR's interpretation of the phrase, "Certified Complete and Accurate." Perhaps if OTRR management spent less time railing against donation-supported sites like The Digital Deli Online, polarizing the entire Vintage Radio Collecting hobby with their exaggerating invective, and stereoizing their recordings, they'd have a bit more time to actually listen to the recordings they distribute to thousands of unwitting downloaders as "Certified Complete and Accurate." We're not an 'FTP Pay Site'contrary to the OTRR's continued slander of us and others. We're a visitor-supported site precisely like the OTRR Group--and we've been visitor-supported site for three years longer than the OTRR.

We spend the overwhelming amount of our time researching, vetting, and listening to the Golden Age Radio recordings we document here. The listening element is unquestionably the most time intensive. But it's the element that continues to allow us to present the most informative, accurate logs and documentation of this national treasure as we can. The 1,500 researchers of the OTRR have managed to assemble just over 100 "Certified" sets of Radio programs during their eight years of effort. One might reasonably expect that they'd have figured out how to do it correctly by now. Barrie Craig, Confidential Investigator is the 370th canon of Golden Age Radio programs that we've independently and fully documented, logged and published here since 2009. We seem to learn even more about the process with each new article and log. We certainly enjoy the process even more with each new effort. We hope the difference shows.

There are, as might be expected given the state of the hobby, numerous other truncated, clipped and intentionally misrepresented exemplars in circulation--mostly to disguise or prevent any possibility of accurately sequencing the canon. Some appear to be either AFRTS-denatured recordings with the AFRTS ID's removed or portions of 1980s retrospective broadcasts of the canon. From the Hollywood-originated series of 54-10-03 forward, Barrie Craig adopted a 25-minute format, so any recordings beyond October 3, 1954 would necessarily be correct at around 25-minutes in length. According to most contemporary Radio listings of the era, the first five minutes of those broadcasts were primarily devoted to news.

We continue to be somewhat perplexed at the prevailing characterization throughout the 'OTR Community' of Barrie Craig, Confidential Investigator as a predominately sustaining production. The OTRR for example cites Barrie Craig as "mostly sustained" by NBC. Nothing could be further from the truth. Barrie Craig was produced and marketed specifically to expand and capitalize on NBC's Tandem Program and their NBC Minute Man Plan, whereby sponsors--both nationally and locally--could purchase all manner of premium programming packages from eight to ten hours of programming weekly down to as little as a fifteen minute block, bi-weekly--and virtually any combination in between.

Other Circulating Anomalies:

• A circulating exemplar referred to as "Remo Torch, Zombie", and dated 50-10-19, is actually Ghost of A Chance, Episode No. 12, from 51-12-19.
• A circulating exemplar referred to as "The Case of Gossip Columnist", and dated 51-10-10, is actually The Judge and The Champ, Episode No. 3, from 51-10-17.
• A circulating exemplar referred to as "The Case of The Protection Racket", and dated 51-10-24, is actually Celluloid in the Fishtank, Episode No. 4, from 51-10-24.
• A circulating exemplar referred to as "The Bail Jumper", and dated 51-10-31, is actually Corpse On Delivery, Episode No. 5, from 51-10-31.
• A circulating exemplar referred to as "Muriel's Murder Case", and dated 52-01-16, is actually Fatal Appointment, Episode No. 16, from 52-01-16.
• A circulating exemplar referred to as "Boxer Doyle's Belt", and dated 52-01-23, is actually The Deadly Fight, Episode No. 17, from 52-01-23.
• A circulating exemplar referred to as "The Puppet", and dated 52-01-30, is actually A Very Odd Job, Episode No. 18, from 52-01-30.
• A circulating exemplar referred to as "The Claw Killer of Seneca", and dated 52-02-06, is actually Diary of Death, Episode No. 19, from 52-02-06.
• A circulating exemplar referred to as "The Cupie Doll" [or The Kewpie Doll], and dated 52-02-13, is actually A Time to Kill, Episode No. 20, from 52-02-13.
• A circulating exemplar referred to as The Philanthropist's Bride is an edited rendition of "The Case of the Borrowed Knife", Episode No. 6, from November 7, 1951. The altered recording appears to have been from a retrospective broadcast during the 1980s out of KLJV, Austin, Texas--a program referred to as the Golden Age Radio Theater. The program is authoritatively introduced as The Philanthropist's Bride from May 7, 1951, an equally erroneous date. We date the circulating erroneous exemplar by its Goodyear Arriva tires message. Goodyear Arriva tires weren't introduced until 1980. The news announcement mentions John Hinckley in reference to his attempt to assassinate President Reagan on March 30, 1981.
• A circulating exemplar referred to as "John Hurley (The Missing Necklace)", and dated 53-10-03, is actually Nobody Lives There Any More, Episode No. 19, from 52-02-09.
• A circulating exemplar referred to as "The Redhead", and dated 53-02-15, is actually The Girl On the Doorstep, Episode No. 72, from 53-02-15.
• A circulating exemplar referred to as "The Impostor", and dated 53-03-08, is actually Behold A Corpse, Episode No. 74, from 53-03-01.
• A circulating exemplar referred to as "The Case of Lost Lila Thorne", and dated 53-06-14, is actually The Lost Lady, Episode No. 89, from 53-06-14.
• A circulating exemplar referred to as "The Case of Lost Lila Thorne", and dated 53-09-22, is actually Kitchens Come with Knives, Episode No. 103, from 53-09-22.
• A circulating exemplar referred to as "Alias Clark Smith", and dated 53-10-03, is actually The Lonely Corner, Episode No. 109, from 53-11-03.
• A circulating exemplar referred to as "The Five Fire Mystery", and dated 53-11-03, is actually Strange Vision, Episode No. 120, from 54-01-19.
• A circulating exemplar referred to as "Weekend At Stowe", and dated 54-02-02, is actually Zero Hour, Episode No. 122, from 54-02-02.
• A circulating exemplar referred to as "The Case of The Barbershop", and dated 54-11-07, is actually Lifeline, Episode No. 6, from 54-11-07.

A quoted Google search of any of the above titles will demonstrate the wide-ranging extent of the persistence of these nonsense titles and exemplars. Note that all of the above anomalies and inaccurate or anecdotal titles were in wide 'authoritative' circulation as recently as 2012. Yet another testament to the persistence of oligarchical, 'authoritative' logs and loggers. And indeed, in a 'nod' to the 'authorities' who first propounded these inaccuracies in the first place, these titles continue to circulate as 'valid' a.k.a.s for the actual recordings. Will this nonsense ever end? We doubt it.

As to Night Alarm, Murder By Threes, Millionaire's Widow, Dead Loss and The Big Grab, we can only offer the following:

• NBC began its Fall Season by moving the returning Red Skelton Program to Tuesday evenings in the timeslot previously held by Barrie Craig. Red Skelton took that timeslot on September 16, 1952.
• The Syracuse Herald-Journal announced the schedule change for the returning Groucho Marx Program, with a spot ad on September 17, 1952's Radio Timetable page. That page also announced the "New Time" for Barrie Craig in the spot ad in the sidebar, left. The Groucho Marx program, You Bet Your Life, for September 17, 1952 currently in circulation [Secret Word - 'Chair'] is truncated before either the NBC chimes or closing announcements. It's possible that another rendition of that recording might announce Barrie Craig to follow, or possibly announce the preemption for Senator Taft's speech. Then again, it might not. The Big Story for September 17, 1952 may also have provided a clue as to whether Barrie Craig would immediately follow it that evening. That episode of The Big Story doesn't appear to be in circulation.
• As it turned out, Ohio Senator Robert A. Taft took the September 19, 1952 10:00 p.m. timeslot previously scheduled for the Fall Season of Barrie Craig for his first major political speech during his Presidential campaign.
• Neither The Perfect Suspect nor Death Trap are currently in circulation. We might reasonably assume that, given the series' customary format, The Perfect Suspect would have either/both announced Death Trap as the next broadcast and the new day and time, Wednesday, September 17, 1952 at 10:00 p.m--or not.
• Death Trap, if that had been the next announced installment, appears to have been preempted by Senator Taft's speech on September 17. It appears to have never aired again.
• Given the preponderance of newspaper listings citing Night Alarm as scheduled for airing on September 24, 1952 we have no current reason to doubt that it did indeed air on that night as scheduled.
• Neither do we doubt that Murder By Threes aired, as advertised, on October 1, 1952. Numerous newspaper listings announce both the correct title and synopsis for the circulating Murder By Threes.
• An episode widely announced as Millionaire's Widow was scheduled to air on October 8, 1952. And again, we have no basis upon which to dispute that Millionaire's Widow did in fact air on October 8, 1952.
• We have, as well, numerous newspaper citations of Dead Loss scheduled to air on October 15, 1952. Dead Loss announced The Big Grab as the next week's episode, but conspicuously makes no mention of an intended schedule change to Sunday evenings on October 19, 1952. Given the manner in which NBC was broadcasting Barrie Craig in the East, Midwest and West that omission isn't that surprising.
• We therefore believe that The Big Grab would have been the first Sunday broadcast beginning October 19, 1952 until more historical information surfaces.

If you're wondering why our log (below) is at such variance with, for example, the OTRR, OTTER, or other internet logs of Barrie Craig, there are several valid reasons:

• We tend to take a broader view of the recording (e.g., transcription) history, the 'as broadcast' history, trade paper news items on advertiser and network movements, and contemporaneous spot advertisements in the print media of the era.
• We make every attempt to account for season breaks, interruptions, preemptions, and last minute 'as broadcast' changes. We don't just ignore, omit, or gloss over those dates.
• We actually listen to--and cross reference any 'as broadcast' clues in a given recording--to determine the historical backdrop to an episode or series.
• We follow a very specific protocol in creating our newspaper-based logs
• We don't function as an oligarchy that simply states "it's our way or the highway."
• We're beholden to no one but our visitors--and the memories of the incredible talents that produced and performed in this national treasure.
• Our results aren't etched in stone. They're admittedly dynamic--and we're proud to say they are--hence 'definitive' as of any given update.
• 'Bragging rights' mean absolutely nothing to us. Nor does such a concept impress us. We both graduated from Jr. High school over 40 years ago.
• We never 'fit the facts' to suit an oligarchical perspective. We let actual recorded history shape our results. Our constant mantra is that "History is immutable. It wants to be revealed and it will be revealed."

Spot advertisements in particular are almost always scrupulously accurate--which may be why the OTRR continues to ridicule us over our reliance on spot ads. From a purely business standpoint, spot ads cost the ad agencies and networks far more for each insertion than the thumbnail synopses, teasers, and title announcements in the newspapers of the era. Given the added cost of each such graphic insertion it intuitively follows that the submitting agencies or networks would take even greater care to ensure that a given spot ad matched the correct day's programming schedule. The fact that we seem to be the lone Golden Age Radio research endeavor that shows the demonstrated value of these spot ads continues to perplex us. In continuing denial as they are, the OTR Community at large continues to view contemporaneous spot ads as impediments to historical accuracy and research. We leave you to judge the value of our arguments for the value of contemporaneous spot ads.

We don't pronounce our Golden Age Radio research as 'certified' anything. By the very definition, research is imperfect. We simply tell the truth. As is our continuing practice, we provide our fully provenanced research results--to the extent possible--right here on the page, for any of our peers to review--or refute--as the case may be. If you take issue with any of our findings, you're welcome to cite any better verifiable source(s) and we'll immediately review them and update our findings accordingly. As more verifiable provenances surface, we'll continue to update the following series log, as appropriate.

All rights reserved by their respective sources. Article and log copyright 2011 The Digital Deli Online--all rights reserved. Any failure to attribute the results of this copywritten work will be rigorously pursued.

[Date, title, and episode column annotations in red refer to either details we have yet to fully provenance or other unverifiable information as of this writing. Red highlights in the text of the 'Notes' columns refer to information upon which we relied in citing dates, date or time changes, or titles. Episode titles in red are either 'as currently circulating,' anecdotal, ambiguous, or titles we can't verify at present.]