Copyright 2020
Greenstone Media Consulting, LLC
Greenstone Media Consulting, LLC
American Broadcasting Company
Seattle - 1929
Seattle - 1929
Racing Toward the Cliff
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Coming from a modest family background, Adolph Linden found success in no small measure through his marriage to Esther Elizabeth Anderson, daughter of the president of Puget Sound Savings and Loan for which Linden worked. Upon his father-in-law’s death in 1923, Linden became president of the bank and was fully enjoying the fruits of financial and social prominence.
In 1923, while still a vice-president of the bank, Linden formed a partnership with another of the bank’s vice-presidents, Edmund W. Campbell and in 1925, they created the Camlin Investment Group and decided to pursue construction of the Camlin. With both men in significant control of the bank, they apparently jointly began using bank funds for the Camlin’s construction. The group, whose name was a contraction of their two last names, produced an elegant residential hotel in downtown Seattle and the majestic Camlin remains a Seattle landmark.
The decision to use funds from the bank in that way, however, is revealing both in terms of the judgments involved as well as the path on which it set Linden who later observed that using Puget Sound Savings and Loan funds for the Camlin was the biggest mistake of his life.
One of Linden’s attorneys later observed that Linden was really more an artist than a business man which could help explain both Linden’s approach toward the Camlin’s construction as well as his other decisions in 1929.
With ABC, Linden was already painting on a much broader canvas than had previously been the case. The Camlin was a Seattle property and had no relationship to other hotel properties. While ABC’s four radio stations were geographically distributed, they were, nevertheless, a joint regional undertaking. It was the American Broadcasting Company - under Linden’s ownership - that sought to expand to nationally significant proportions (and achieved some success in that goal). But those ventures were not Linden’s sole exercises in further spreading his wings.
Notwithstanding ABC's operating at a significant loss, 1929 found Linden pursuing in a host of new undertakings which included negotiating for an airplane to fly between Tokyo and Seattle as a publicity venture (he had already chosen his pilot). He was also pursuing going into the production of motion pictures (talkies!) and had taken an option on property for a soundstage and flown in experts from New York and Hollywood to consult on facility design. In an effort to promote the sale of the ABC stock, which was for the first time offered to the public in June, 1929, he purchased Seattle’s Business Chronicle, a local financial news publication. And, in addition to working on developing a newspaper content syndication business, he was also exploring a radio program production partnership business with Radio Productions, Inc., a New York based corporation.
With the meteoric growth of ABC’s business scope in program in 1929, Linden’s attentions to these other arenas for his vision, energy and financial resources were obviously misplaced.
And then there were the concerts.
In May, 1929 Linden announced a Midsummer Stadium Concerts series to be held at the University of Washington. A 20-event program was announced (it was ultimately unclear whether there were 20 or 21 events actually presented) featuring the 70-piece American Broadcasting Company Orchestra accompanying a variety of largely imported artists. To be held at the UW’s Husky Stadium (with a capacity of 30,000), the series had major soloists imported from New York and San Francisco. The Wednesday and Sunday concerts scheduled every week beginning June 9, offered series subscription prices with single seat admission of $1 for Sunday concerts (the equivalent of about $15 in 2020) and 75 cents for Wednesday events.
One of Linden’s attorneys later observed that Linden was really more an artist than a business man which could help explain both Linden’s approach toward the Camlin’s construction as well as his other decisions in 1929.
With ABC, Linden was already painting on a much broader canvas than had previously been the case. The Camlin was a Seattle property and had no relationship to other hotel properties. While ABC’s four radio stations were geographically distributed, they were, nevertheless, a joint regional undertaking. It was the American Broadcasting Company - under Linden’s ownership - that sought to expand to nationally significant proportions (and achieved some success in that goal). But those ventures were not Linden’s sole exercises in further spreading his wings.
Notwithstanding ABC's operating at a significant loss, 1929 found Linden pursuing in a host of new undertakings which included negotiating for an airplane to fly between Tokyo and Seattle as a publicity venture (he had already chosen his pilot). He was also pursuing going into the production of motion pictures (talkies!) and had taken an option on property for a soundstage and flown in experts from New York and Hollywood to consult on facility design. In an effort to promote the sale of the ABC stock, which was for the first time offered to the public in June, 1929, he purchased Seattle’s Business Chronicle, a local financial news publication. And, in addition to working on developing a newspaper content syndication business, he was also exploring a radio program production partnership business with Radio Productions, Inc., a New York based corporation.
With the meteoric growth of ABC’s business scope in program in 1929, Linden’s attentions to these other arenas for his vision, energy and financial resources were obviously misplaced.
And then there were the concerts.
In May, 1929 Linden announced a Midsummer Stadium Concerts series to be held at the University of Washington. A 20-event program was announced (it was ultimately unclear whether there were 20 or 21 events actually presented) featuring the 70-piece American Broadcasting Company Orchestra accompanying a variety of largely imported artists. To be held at the UW’s Husky Stadium (with a capacity of 30,000), the series had major soloists imported from New York and San Francisco. The Wednesday and Sunday concerts scheduled every week beginning June 9, offered series subscription prices with single seat admission of $1 for Sunday concerts (the equivalent of about $15 in 2020) and 75 cents for Wednesday events.
With artists including Marian Anderson (2 performances), the Chicago Grand Opera’s Mina Hager, the Metropolitan Opera’s Paul Althouse and Arthur Hackett, conductors included ABC’s own Francesco Longo, Meredith Willson (who Linden had lured to ABC from New York) and Mishel Piastro (then the assistant conductor of the San Francisco Symphony). Where FREE summer concerts in New York’s Central Park the often produced audiences of 20,000 in a city of nearly 7 million, Linden’s 3-month long extravaganza sought to pay the sizable bills for these concerts from ticket sales in a city of 360,000. The series’ most successful concert drew an audience of 20,000 and Husky Stadium’s must have had nights in which the vast majority of seat were empty - especially when the weather wasn’t cooperative.
While it was subsequently suggested that adverse weather significantly contributed to both the concert series’ losses and ABC’s subsequent financial ruin, one has to wonder at the grandiosity that suggested to Linden that this series was a gamble worth taking when ABC was already so significantly treading water. On its face, the concert series seemed at best unlikely to breakeven.
But Linden had grand vision, had been emboldened by his successes to that date and seemingly inured to the possibility of failure.
While it was subsequently suggested that adverse weather significantly contributed to both the concert series’ losses and ABC’s subsequent financial ruin, one has to wonder at the grandiosity that suggested to Linden that this series was a gamble worth taking when ABC was already so significantly treading water. On its face, the concert series seemed at best unlikely to breakeven.
But Linden had grand vision, had been emboldened by his successes to that date and seemingly inured to the possibility of failure.