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98 Years Ago Today "The Grand Old Opry" Began at WSM

DavidEduardo

DavidEduardo

Moderator/Administrator
Staff member
"The Grand Ole Opry, one of the longest-lived and most popular showcases for western music, begins broadcasting live from Nashville, Tennessee on November 28, 1925. The showcase was originally named the Barn Dance, after a Chicago radio program called the National Barn Dance that had begun broadcasting the previous year."

More at The Grand Ole Opry begins broadcasting | November 28, 1925 | HISTORY

Among other facts, "The WSM producers recognized that Americans were growing nostalgic for the rural past, so all live performers at the Grand Ole Opry were required to dress in period costumes and adopt old-time names."
 
Kelly A said:
Little factoid; Pat Sajak from Wheel of Fortune fame was the PM drive hose on WSM for many years.
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And I believe that was when the station was AC except for the Opry.
 
The thing people don't understand about the Opry is that it was both a live show in a theater and a radio show. So people who attend the Opry today pay to see a show, and in the middle of the show, they sit through host-read commercials. Imagine doing that at any other live event. People here often complain about spotload. They combine sponsorship with individual spots. So the major sponsor of the Opry is Humana, and then each half hour has its own sponsor with :60 host reads from the stage. A typical hour might have three performers, and the spots occur between the acts. When the Opry is televised, the TV portion has its own sponsorships, and there's a rejoin between TV and radio.
 
Interesting to note that the Opry wasn't intended strictly as entertainment, but it and WSM were started to sell insurance. The radio station signed on in October 1925, and the Opry began a few weeks later. This was in a day when insurance was sold door-to-door. The salesman would knock on doors and try to get the residents to buy insurance. WSM was started by the National Life Insurance company. Selling life insurance wasn't easy, but it was much easier when a salesman began his pitch by telling stories about the Opry or Minnie Pearl. After using music to break the ice, it was much easier to get people to sign up for a life insurance policy. Quite a few insurance companies realized the value in radio, and followed National Life into radio ownership.
 
TheBigA said:
Interesting to note that the Opry wasn't intended strictly as entertainment, but it and WSM were started to sell insurance. The radio station signed on in October 1925, and the Opry began a few weeks later. This was in a day when insurance was sold door-to-door. The salesman would knock on doors and try to get the residents to buy insurance. WSM was started by the National Life Insurance company. Selling life insurance wasn't easy, but it was much easier when a salesman began his pitch by telling stories about the Opry or Minnie Pearl. After using music to break the ice, it was much easier to get people to sign up for a life insurance policy. Quite a few insurance companies realized the value in radio, and followed National Life into radio ownership.
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Yep, Nationwide Insurance had a broadcast division called Nationwide Communications, Inc. from 1946 to 1997.
Entercom/Audacy paid something like $110M for radio stations from the old Lincoln Financial Media Group, a division of Lincoln Financial and Lincoln Insurance.
 
Kelly A said:
Yep, Nationwide Insurance had a broadcast division called Nationwide Communications, Inc. from 1946 to 1997.
Entercom/Audacy paid something like $110M for radio stations from the old Lincoln Financial Media Group, a division of Lincoln Financial and Lincoln Insurance.
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Insurance companies still use broadcasting, but they don't own stations anymore. Typically the most common advertisers for radio are GEICO and Progressive. Others include State Farm, Nationwide, and Liberty.

radioink.com

Progressive Rules Radio For Third Straight Week - Radio Ink

After two weeks of free fall, national radio ad play among the top five advertisers started to right itself, per data from Media Monitors.
radioink.com radioink.com
 
TheBigA said:
Insurance companies still use broadcasting, but they don't own stations anymore. Typically the most common advertisers for radio are GEICO and Progressive. Others include State Farm, Nationwide, and Liberty.
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All the same ones we regularly see on TV too. And when you think about it, name one major company whose product or services aren't involved with radio, that still has a radio division. Considering most of the original company-owned stations were primarily built and operated to promote the parent company, that alone speaks volumes of how the industry evolved over time.
 
To this day I still DX AM 650 if I'm in the car after sunset as it comes in pretty clearly in Southeastern Virginia.

I also sometimes watch the Circle Network but that will soon be gone as Ryman is pulling out of the linear TV portion of that venture at the end of the year. Based on the post below from the National TV thread, I take it the network was not cleared in many areas.

Megatron said:
I know none of broadcasters aired Circle I know Spectrum has Circle I think it is channel 483 in Kazoo next to a few of the low end Byron Allen channels, Cars, Justice, Pets & his cooking show channel.
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Cordelia Chase said:
To this day I still DX AM 650 if I'm in the car after sunset as it comes in pretty clearly in Southeastern Virginia.

I also sometimes watch the Circle Network but that will soon be gone as Ryman is pulling out of the linear TV portion of that venture at the end of the year. Based on the post below from the National TV thread, I take it the network was not cleared in many areas.
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I believe Circle is on a subchannel in the Knoxvillle market and a half hour or more will be used as weekend filler on the CW affiliate.
 
TheBigA said:
Insurance companies still use broadcasting, but they don't own stations anymore. Typically the most common advertisers for radio are GEICO and Progressive. Others include State Farm, Nationwide, and Liberty.

radioink.com

Progressive Rules Radio For Third Straight Week - Radio Ink

After two weeks of free fall, national radio ad play among the top five advertisers started to right itself, per data from Media Monitors.
radioink.com radioink.com
Click to expand...
As I heard often when I worked in financial services, insurance isn't bought, it's sold.
 
gr8oldies said:
I believe Circle is on a subchannel in the Knoxville market and a half hour or more will be used as weekend filler on the CW affiliate.
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Yes, Knoxville makes sense, but I wonder what the clearance for Circle was in markets outside of the South. I'm certainly not saying that only southerners like country music and country-related content, but would there even be much interest up North?
 
TheBigA said:
Interesting to note that the Opry wasn't intended strictly as entertainment, but it and WSM were started to sell insurance. The radio station signed on in October 1925, and the Opry began a few weeks later. This was in a day when insurance was sold door-to-door. The salesman would knock on doors and try to get the residents to buy insurance. WSM was started by the National Life Insurance company. Selling life insurance wasn't easy, but it was much easier when a salesman began his pitch by telling stories about the Opry or Minnie Pearl. After using music to break the ice, it was much easier to get people to sign up for a life insurance policy. Quite a few insurance companies realized the value in radio, and followed National Life into radio ownership.
Click to expand...
And remember that the only other clear channel 50 kw (albeit a 1-B) in Nashville belonged to National Life's major competitor!

My introduction to Mexican radio began in 1963 when Herbert Evans, the head of the radio division of Nationwide Insurance, got me an introduction / invitation to Mexico where I interned at the Radio Centro group.

At the time, insurance companies had, as their major task, the job of trying to invest income so that it produced more than operating expenses and payouts. Radio, during most of the period from 1925 to 1990, was both a good promotional vehicle and a good income generator.
 
Kelly A said:
Yep, Nationwide Insurance had a broadcast division called Nationwide Communications, Inc. from 1946 to 1997.
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And it was based, initially, in the offices of their 880 kHz AM daytimer in Columbus, Ohio. At age 16, I visited those offices and that was the beginning of my career in Latin American radio!

("Hey, let's send this pesky kid as far away as we can! How about Mexico? That will cure his adolescent fascination with radio for sure!")
 
DavidEduardo said:
And it was based, initially, in the offices of their 880 kHz AM daytimer in Columbus, Ohio. At age 16, I visited those offices and that was the beginning of my career in Latin American radio!

("Hey, let's send this pesky kid as far away as we can! How about Mexico? That will cure his adolescent fascination with radio for sure!")
Click to expand...
Their plan worked perfectly! ;)
 
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