Stations without network affiliation tended to offer three different

types of programs. Talk programs, including little plays, were

reasonably easy and inexpensive to mount. Phonograph records were an easy source of music programming

but were frowned on. Indeed, federal authority gave better frequency and power facilities to stations which

didn’t play records so the larger and more important stations broadcast live music from their studios. An

individual station’s programming mix dramatically influenced the station’s operating expenses due to the

payroll costs for musicians and actors for locally produced programs.

A network affiliation helped in that equation because it both reduced the number of hours a station had to fill

with locally developed programming as well as allowed for a more efficient “centralizing” of production costs

since one orchestra could be presented over an entire network of stations (as opposed to the cost of each

station locally hiring musicians for those same broadcast times). A popular alternative for stations was

remotely broadcasting the orchestra at a local hotel which would have already been scheduled to perform

during lunch, dinner and late-night dancing hours.

Linden clearly decided to get into radio in a “big time” way. Under his ownership ABC assembled large

constellations of performers. Pope reports that Linden went to New York to entice the most talented

musicians to Seattle. Linden also apparently imported some New York writing talent.

But that was just the musical side of the ABC. Linden pioneered significant exploration of the radio situation

comedy. Amos ‘n Andy (under a different name) had been on the air since 1926 locally in Chicago and didn’t

graduate to the NBC Network until the Fall of 1928. NBC also had a few scattered “comedy skits” in its

schedule. Linden, by contrast, imported writers and actors to offer regular series such as “The Great

American Appleburys”, the “Chronicles of Katz” and “Harper’s Corner” and “The Histories of Paul Bunyan”.

Generally 30 minutes long, these programs were on the air from the beginning of

January, 1929 until the network’s final days. Interestingly, all of these scripts were

copyrighted while there does not appear to be any evidence that NBC’s “skits” were. Taken together, ABC

copyrighted nearly 150 of these comedy scripts during its brief life.

Another ABC dramatic offering slightly pre-dated the network's formation. Cecil and Sally had

started as a local feature on KYA shortly before the network was established, was quite a hit

and graduated to the ABC when the network launched. A young John Patrick (who went by

Johnny at the time) wrote the 15-minute program and starred as the bashful Cecil. Helen Troy

was Sally. Patrick later went to a

successful

career as a writer (his most well-known work was "Tea House of the August Moon").

Given the ABC’s daylong schedule of music and drama, a comparison of the KJR/KYA program schedules before

and after Linden’s acquisition of control over those stations is striking.