The Murder At Midnight Radio Program

Background

The newly coined American Broadcasting Company (ABC), formerly The Blue Network, was formed in the wake of the mandated break up of the NBC Red and Blue networks. NBC-Blue was purchased for $8,000,000 by conservative businessman Edward J. Noble, creator of Life-Savers candies. Noble, a self-made millionaire and owner of the Rexall Drug Store chain had made his fortune in Life-Savers candy. Feeling that "Blue" was not the best name for a broadcast network it was suggested that a name beginning with "A" be chosen so the 'new' network would show up at the beginning of alphabetical listings. The American Broadcasting Company was ultimately created in January 1946 after three years of transition as simply, The Blue Network.

In an effort to catch up with CBS, MBS and NBC, ABC relied on a great number of transcribed, syndicated programming packages to fill out its broadcast line up between 1946 and 1950, especially. ABC's 'Key Stations',  KGO in San Francisco, KECA in Los Angeles, WENR in Chicago, WXYZ in Detroit and WJZ in New York created most of the day to day programming for the rapidly expanding ABC Network. And indeed, ABC's key stations provided the greater percentage of ABC's programming. But ABC network management was forced to continually fine tune its offerings in an effort to achieve parity with its competitors. ABC was known for the speed at which it could target a competitor's timeslots with 'counter-programming' designed to coax listeners to ABC's offerings.

Transcribed, canned programming designed expressly for syndication was tailor-made for ABC's needs. In 1946, Louis G. Cowan, Inc., a transcribed programming house based in Chicago, began creating a series of fifty-two, crime fiction dramas slotted for late night listening. The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) had begun mandating a curfew of 9:30 p.m. and later for the more violent programming packages of the era. Many of the previously popular prime-time features in the post-curfew era found themselves either toning down their scripts or resigning themselves to a post-curfew timeslot. Dubbed Murder At Midnight, the intent, from the outset, was to create a compelling crime fiction drama anthology targeted specifically for late night listening.

ABC premieres Murder At Midnight as a late night thriller

Murder At Midnight, while ostensibly a crime fiction drama was as much thriller as crime drama. The series debuted over the newly coined American Broacasting Company on September 16, 1946 and within two years was airing over Mutual and several other independent affiliates throughout the U.S..

As much a crossover supernatural thriller as crime drama, the foreboding introduction by host, Raymond Morgan, was very reminiscent of the competing Strange Dr. Weird (1944), Quiet! Please (1947), Cabin B-13 (1948), and The Whisperer (1951). Other long-running, highly popular, predominately supernatural vehicles had also been running for years, such as Inner Sanctum and Lights Out!. The comparisons are appropriate given the intentionally eerie, foreboding and suspenseful scripts for most of Murder At Midnight.

According to Billboard magazine, talent and production costs for Murder At Midnight averaged about $5000 per program, one of the higher costs of canned, syndicated programming of the era. But the investment shows. And indeed, well into its almost six years of syndication, the series continued to pull respectable audience shares. The talent included well known names such as Lawson Zerbe, Karl Swenson, Berry Kroeger, Lon Clark, Frank Readick, Elspeth Eric, Mandel Kramer, Michael Fitzmaurice, Alfred Shirley, and Raymond Edward Johnson--and his wife, among many other well-respected east coast actors of the era.

Anton Leader, later famous for his Television work, directed the series. The writing staff was also top-notch, with names such as Max Erlich, Joe Ruscoll and Robert Newman, among others. The thriller formula of the era called for equally thrilling organ music underscoring, capably handled by Charles Paul and Bert Buhrman on the organ. The sound engineering also greatly contributed to the supernatural thriller 'feel' of the series.

The circulating recordings, while as yet incomplete, are well-transferred and of the highest fidelity direct from electrical transcription. As thriller fare, the series is as compelling and chilling as when it first aired during post-World War II America.

Series Derivatives:

Notes on Provenances:

The most helpful provenances were the log of the radioGOLDINdex and newspaper listings.

This was a transcribed, syndicated package of fifty-two weeks of half hour programs. Each program stood on its own. There is no continuity whatsover in the run. The circulating exemplars are straight from transcription. The program was almost immediately picked up by several networks and were broadcast in any order the broadcaster wished to air them. While most broadcast outlets air such programming in transcription order, there's no guarantee--or requirement--that they do so. Most outlets we attempted to log aired the first thirteen programs in transcription order. After that, each broadcast outlet appeared to choose their own order for programs fourteen to fifty-two.

In addition, there's some question as to whether at least four of the programs ever aired:

Death Across the Board
Murder Out Of Mind
A Week Ago Wednesday [#48]
The Man Who Died Again [#42]

Libary of Congress list of 1946 Copyrights for Louis G. Cowan's Murder At Midnight

Though we can't say with any certainty whether--or not--either of the above programs aired, they're all certainly programs from the 52-week canon. We found our most complete results from the initial WJZ run out of New York. It also appeared to be the earliest run over a major network.

OTRisms:

A circulating episode, The Black Curtain, was simply a copy of Death's Worshipper relabeled as The Black Curtain. We also found any number of logs and collections citing multiple airings over several years of runs, as well as episodes cited as repeats. But indeed, each and every one of those circulating copies were simply direct from transcription recordings, devoid of airchecks, commercial announcements or bumpers.

Folks, this was a transcribed, syndicated program. Anyone trying to 'sell' a complete set of recordings beyond the initial fifty-two broadcasts--in any transcription order--is a charlatan. There is no reason whatsoever to maintain multiple copies--irrespective of their origination or source--if they're simply duplicate copies of the circulating transcriptions. There were 52 and ONLY 52 programs of in this package. None were added beyond that intially recorded set, irrespective of the fact that Louis G. Cowan continued to market the package well into the mid-1950s.

[Update: December 2, 2010] Contributor Ben Kibler has uncovered a series of West Coast broadcasts of Murder At Midnight over then NBC affiliate KFI beginning May 10, 1946, replacing an NBC run of Haunting Hour over KFI. KFI owner Earle C. Anthony owned both an NBC-Blue affiliate [KECA - the "E.C.A." for Earle C. Anthony] and an NBC-Red affiliate [KFI - the "F.I." for 'farm information'] prior to the FCC-mandated breakup of NBC's multiple networks. While Murder At Midnight was most often broadcast over early ABC affiliates--as well as over Mutual--this was, after all, an independently transcribed, syndicated program. Ben tracked the KFI run of twenty-four of the series' fifty-two episodes from May 10, 1946 through October 18, 1946, after which it was replaced by Mystery Theater beginning on October 25, 1946.

Of note with this discovery are the radioGOLDINdex citations of both World Broadcasting and Louis G. Cowan transcription sets of Murder At Midnight, both/either dated after June 1946. It would seem apparent that either/both the World Transcription and/or Louis G. Cowan sets were sold--and aired--prior to June 1946. It should also be noted that none of the newspaper listings Ben cited contain titles or teasers, hence we'll continue to maintain the log below until we can establish an earlier provenance containing script titles or synopses.

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[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.]