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Book: On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio
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John Dunning _ On the Air: The Encyclopedia
Hollywood Hotel was the first major network show to broadcast from the West Coast. The film capital was rich in nationally known talent untapped by radio. It had remained untapped because of a telephone company policy that cost the networks up to $1,000 to reverse radio circuits: everything then was geared to broadcast from east to west, and it was sometimes said that a producer could bring a film star east for a five-day train trip for less money than it cost him to air a radio show from California. In 1934 the radio centers were Chicago and New York. This all changed with Hollywood Hotel. Hostess Louella Parsons immediately offset the technical tariff by persuading the elite of the film world to appear on the show without pay. Parsons was then the most feared and powerful newspaper columnist in Hollywood: her column, which appeared across the nation in Hearst newspapers, was widely seen as a maker or breaker of films and careers. She lined up stars who otherwise might be paid $1,000 for a single radio appearance, and scheduled as many as half a dozen each
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