Linden’s acquisition of control over NRS in Spring,

1928 brought him the four radio stations NRS

owned as well as the existing American Broadcasting Company (ABC) name and

circuit connections. While ABC had apparently previously been an informally

assumed business name, Linden opened an ABC New York City sales office in April

and formally incorporated the American Broadcasting Company in the state of

Washington in November 1928. Both gave some indication of his intention to

compete on a national scale on the existing networks’ home grounds.

While the ABC programming had initially been more sporadic, under Linden’s more

ambitious ABC vision the network’s program schedule debuted on December 22,

1928, with a three-hour special sponsored by the

Union Oil Company followed by an expanded schedule

of network offerings.

Linden also contracted with the Columbia

Broadcasting System whose network at that time

ended in Omaha and was, therefore was anxious to

extend its coverage in the West. Under the

arrangement ABC picked up Columbia’s programming

in Omaha and relayed it to ABC’s affiliated stations.

Occasionally, Columbia would reverse the phone

lines and relay ABC’s programs to the Eastern half of

the U.S. ABC’s first carriage of a Columbia program occurred on October 9, 1928

and consisted of a performance by the popular vaudeville team Moran and Mack as

“The Two Crows”. And on January 9, 1928, Columbia formally inaugurated its

connection with Linden’s ABC.

In 1929, the ABC rapidly expanded and placed AT&T line orders to connect stations

both in California as it simultaneously began

moving east. According to Homer

Pope, who began working at KJR/ABC in

mid-1928, initially ABC used telegraph

lines to link the stations. There was

precedent for that since the NBC Blue

Network had started out linking its

stations with Western Union lines. But

the telegraph lines provided inferior

quality and Linden gradually moved to

connect ABC’s stations with the more

expensive AT&T long-distance circuits.

On January 6, 1929, new telephone circuits were

added to

feed additional affiliated ABC stations in Omaha

(KOIL),

Denver (KLZ), Salt Lake City (KDYL) and Los Angele

KMTR

(which later took the call sign KLAC). The burgeoning network now had eight

stations. At its height, ABC's connections went as far east as Chicago while the

network was simultaneously announcing new affiliation agreements with stations all

the way to the Atlantic seaboard.