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.