SAY GOOD NIGHT TO NBC RADIO, GRACIE : A Golden Era Spanning 60 Years Has Come to a ‘Routine’ Close

Amazing. They sell the radio network that used to be the home of Fred Allen, “Amos ‘n’ Andy,” “Your Hit Parade” and Arturo Toscanini’s orchestra. An era of 60 years ends.

Yet in most accounts, the purchase of the NBC Radio Network by Westwood One is treated as a routine shuffle, sort of like:

“Gulf & Western today bought the city of Paris. Meanwhile, in other business news....”

Only Willard Scott, the “Today” weatherman, noted that NBC’s sale meant something, at least to him. On his show, he said hail and farewell to the old network on which he’d “cut his teeth as a staff announcer.”

Well, it’s true that the glory days of big-time network radio are so distant in the past that Dr. Gary Owens, a noted practitioner of airwave persiflage, is right when he calls it “the golden age of silent radio.”

But it’s kind of sad. You can’t help thinking that were he alive today, Fred Allen would shake his head at what time, TV and corporate chants of “demographics,” “focus groups” and “target audience” have wrought.

They have wrought, at his old home, just news and documentaries--no symphonies, no mysteries, no dramas, no soap operas, no humor. By neddies, there’s not even “Ray Knight and his Cuckoo Hour” any more.

I wish an early Allen show, “The Sal Hepatica Revue,” had been on NBC, not CBS. Then it would be germane to report that when the Revue premiered, the announcer cried, “Sal Hepatica is on the air!” and the orchestra played “In Your Easter Bonnet.” Oh, well.

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Time and all the excesses cited above also have wrought two specialized lesser NBC networks being sold as part of the Westwood Deal. One is Talknet, a nighttime exercise in advice and public speaking as a sleeping aid.

The other is The Source, which I gather was devised by middle-age executives. It aims at the young-adult market with news, features and even financial news that would be of interest to young adults.

I’ve never heard The Source, but suspect it goes like this:

“In our Wall Street Today segment, we’ll examine how Twisted Sister, a Delaware corporation, has become a major force in both punk rock and high-yield convertible debentures. But first, this message....”

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Sure, NBC still retains eight radio stations. But three are up for sale, including WMAQ in Chicago. That’s where “Amos ‘n’ Andy” began.

According to NBC, its $50-million sale of the NBC Radio Network and the two others should be completed in about a month.

Well, that’s the way it goes. Profits will be maximized, efficiencies realized and a one-time gain duly noted in the annual stockholders’ report of GE, which now owns NBC. That’s progress.

But it sure would be a nice nod to yesteryear for that report to reprint a letter Fred Allen once sent to an NBC executive who took him to task for allowing an eagle into Studio 8-H during one of his shows.

The eagle, known as Mr. Ramshaw, had suddenly taken flight from the arm of his handler, soared around the cavernous studio, and, talons clawing, alternately alarmed or thrilled the audience below.

Mr. Ramshaw also dropped what Allen called a “ghost’s beret” on the carpet.

“I know,” wrote Allen, “you await with trepidation the announcement that I am going to interview Sabu with his elephant some week.”

That was the NBC Radio Network. Color it gone.