2021-12-05

The Mind's Eye: ABC declares its intent to bring original drama back to radio

The 1963-08-12 edition Broadcasting Magazine reported that ABC Radio announced its plans to introduce a new radio drama series, The Mind's Eye that Fall. It did not come to pass, but the behind-the-scenes efforts did result in the premiere of Theater Five in Summer 1964.


September 30, 1962 has been referred to as "the day network radio drama died," the last day of new broadcasts of CBS series Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar and Suspense. Of course, this did not mean that radio drama vanished as an art. We know that even CBS brought drama back in 1974 with CBS Radio Mystery Theater. (Hayes wasn't there to see it... or stop it... he retired in 1967). Mutual got into the act a year earlier with Hollywood Radio Theater and Zero Hour

September 1962 didn't mark the final end of radio drama, but it marked a turning point. It seemed very unlikely that any radio network would ever establish a regular schedule of dramas again. CBS had already cancelled its soap operas in November 1960, ending daily dramatic radio. Suspense was cancelled in that purge, but got a reprieve a few months later when it was decided that Gunsmoke would be on television exclusively, opening a slot for the show's return to the air. CBS was convinced that advertisers didn't want dramatic programs any more. The network felt that other radio formats such as news, sports, public affairs and other programming, served their affiliates better, and would turn the division's financial situation around. Some of the affiliates disagreed. CBS kept making YTJD and Suspense reruns available to the stations that wanted it but the number of stations running them kept shrinking. As best as can be determined from newspaper timetable listings of CBS stations, these post-cancellation reruns went through 1966.

Arthur Hull Hayes, president of CBS Radio, was convinced that the elimination of the dramatic programs was the right move as a small part of a change to the division's grander mission. The network was losing money and needed to change its focus to a new strategy of information and personalities. He said "... if people want drama, television can do it much better."

ABC, on the other hand, decided there was a business opportunity in dramatic programming. Word started to leak out in July 1963 that the network was planning an evening drama "Menu for Murder." The name would change as the strategy developed in the following weeks, and it was officially announced that ABC would counter CBS' actions and with big plans for a new series, The Mind's Eye. The report from Broadcasting explains that the new series would be an anthology of multiple genres (not just murder!) in a 50 minute format five days a week. It is interesting that Theater Five would use the multi-genre anthology strategy, but by the time T5 came to the air its format was 21 minutes long with 4 minutes available to stations for local advertising sales. Why ABC's original intent did not survive the numerous rounds of its internal planning and production that led to T5's debut is open to speculation. (Future posts will explore the range of those possibilities).

Two things that always survived the meanderings and reformulations of corporate tactical discussions were "creative ideas" and "top production values." How those aspects of the ABC strategy would be implemented would be revealed in the months ahead.

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TRIVIA: Arthur Hull Hayes was president of CBS Radio. His son, Arthur Hull Hayes, Jr., became a world-respected physician and pharmacologist. He headed the FDA as it navigated through the Tylenol poisoning crisis in 1982.

September 30, 1962: Others refer to this date as "the day the golden age of radio died." That historical reference is probably agreed to by most everyone, but it's not really accurate. The true golden age probably ended in the boom of television set sales in 1948 and 1949 and continued unabated for years. Ad dollars started to shift, and big radio stars like Jack Benny started to concentrate on their television endeavors. The early 1950s, however, had some marvelous programming, and may be considered radio's "silver age." Radio was still needed as entertainment: television broadcasts were not available nationwide, and sometimes where it was reception was not good and channels were limited except in the largest cities. Radio productions were enhanced by the shift to audio tape, reducing their costs, especially those expenses associated with live broadcasting. And, radio's professional actors and writers, who were definitely not household names, but blessed with remarkable skills in the craft of audio drama, pushed the glamor aspects of the medium aside and got to work. Series like Broadway is My Beat, Rocky Jordan, X Minus One, Frontier Gentleman, Night Beat, Escape, and of course many others, especially Gunsmoke, relied on casts of radio pros for their lead characters. They produced superb programs. Radio was no longer glamorous; radio drama could concentrate on entertainment and worry less about being part of the movie star publicity machine. The "silver age" started to ebb around 1957 or so as television broadened. The November 1960 purge by CBS Radio was inevitable, and everyone knew it was coming because the soap opera advertisers found great success in television and expressed their reluctance to continue with radio. When September 30, 1962 rolled around, everyone among the actors and writers thought CBS would relent and keep at least those two shows going a little longer since they did so before. That is, everyone, except the CBS executives, especially Mr. Hayes.

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