BW - EP130—004: Philip Marlowe Comes To Radio—Radio Ratings In The Spring Of 1947

Breaking Walls: The Podcast on the History of American Network Radio Broadcasting

By the middle of 1947, nearly eleven million babies had been born in the U.S. since the end of World War II. Young parents were staying home with their children. Homes with radios jumped six percent, car radios twenty-nine percent. Over the next year, radio would have its largest audience in history. The four major networks added one-hundred forty-seven affiliates. Network revenue topped two-hundred million dollars. NBC had the top seven shows. The Bob Hope Show closed the 1946-47 season as radio’s highest-rated program. The comedian pulled a rating of 27.6. Network fed programs generally had thirteen, twenty-six, thirty-nine, or fifty-two weeks contracts. Hope’s NBC contract ran for thirty-nine. Pepsodent would sponsor the new Philip Marlowe series in Hope’s time slot. Hope’s show cost twenty-one thousand dollars each week to produce. Marlowe would cost four-thousand. Heflin guest-starred on Hope’s June 3rd program to help promote the series. The Adventures of Philip Marlowe would begin the first week of June. For more information on the state of the world in 1947, tune into Breaking Walls episodes 97, 98, and 99.