The Origin of Superstitions Radio Program

Background

Social, scientific, cultural and historical programming constituted a great deal of Radio's earliest programming. By the early 1930s North America's fascination with clear, intelligible Radio broadcasts created an exponentially growing market for entertaining features from both the early regional and national networks themselves, as well as from independent content entrepreneurs.

The Transcription Company of America, Ltd. (Transco) was one of the more prolific early developers of transcribed Radio programming for syndication. Some of the more commonly available programs from its extensive canon are as follows:

1930 The Story Behind the Song
1930 World Adventurer's Club
1931 Cocoanut Grove Ambassadors
1931 Slim Martin and His Transco All Americans
1932 Plantation Echoes
1932 The Origin of Superstitions
1933 Pinto Pete
1934 Nonsense and Melody
1935 That Was The Year
1935 Ports of Call
1937 Cinnamon Bear
1937 Komedy Kingdom
1938 Frontier Fighters
1949 The Adventures of Frank Race

Generally 15-minute features, many of its syndicated programs became perennial favorites in their own right. Transco's history features were almost always very entertaining, as well as historically accurate for the era. Transco didn't skimp on talent or budget for their features, employing some of Radio's most legendary West Coast voice talent for its transcribed, syndicated programming. Elvia Allman, Hanley Stafford, Frank Nelson, Elliott Lewis, Joseph Kearns, Verna Felton, Barbara Jean Wong, Gale Gordon, Eve Arden, Lou Merrill, Howard McNear, Ted Osborne and Lindsay MacHarrie were regularly featured in Transco's productions. Lindsay MacHarrie also producted, directed, or wrote for several of Transco's features.

Transco sold their productions directly to sponsors, sponsors' advertising agencies, or directly to independent networks or stations. Two of Transco's most successful agents were the Philip J. Meany Company and Bruce Eells Associates.

Bruce Eells acquires Transco content for redistribution

Bruce Eells' Broadcasters Program Syndicate reorganized in 1948 to offer syndicated programming on a par with both the four major networks and the other successful programming syndicators of the era, such as Frederic Ziv, M-G-M Radio Transcriptions, and Alan Ladd's own Mayfair Productions. More like the M-G-M Radio Transcriptions packages, Eells devised a cooperative concept for distributing his programming, encouraging subscribers to purchase not ala carte from its offerings but to purchase an entire package. The syndicate offered the following to describe its concept:

"Since its organization less than a year ago, the Broadcasters Program Syndicate has built a success story unparalleled in the history of radio.
Operating on a subscription basis exclusively, the Broadcasters Program Syndicate is essentially of, by, and for station subscriber-members.
A single weekly fee equal to the subscribing station's national one-time class A quarter-hour rate entitles the station to the Syndicate's entire output of network-calibre programs. All current programs--plus every additional series produced by the Syndicate in the future.
Currently, for a single weekly fee "PAT O'BRIEN FROM HOLLYWOOD," "FRONTIER TOWN," and "ADVENTURES OF FRANK RACE" all go to the following members of the Broadcasters Program Syndicate:"

[The copy then lists some 120 subscriber stations as of April 1949, among which all four major networks were represented]

The three-series package was shotgunned to all subscriber stations for intial broadcast beginning March 5, 1949 with several independent stations beginning their runs as early as March 3, 1949.

Series Derivatives:

Notes on Provenances:

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

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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.]