ABC Network - Seattle 1929-East and West

It is now hard to understand Linden’s thinking in taking his next steps so we are left to speculate.

On August 25, 1928 Linden announced the opening of ABC New York offices at 119 West 57th Street. The press statement also reported that George A. Coats had been named ABC’s Eastern Representative and Frederick C. Dahlquist ABC’s general manager. While Coats was working from the New York location Dahlquist may have been at KYA in San Francisco. But in order to understand Linden’s opening of New York quarters one needs to look at another network - the Columbia Broadcasting System.

Coats was an entrepreneur and has been described as someone whose principal interest was making money without having much attachment to any particular field in which it was generated. Radio was new and thriving and, while his money had been earned in other arenas including paving equipment, he apparently saw radio as promising. The National Association of Broadcasters’ Fourth Annual Meeting was held on September 14, 1926, at which Coats made a huge splash in a fiery speech opposing moves by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) for radio performance fees. David Sarnoff was then in the midst of planning for the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) launch two months later and would have attended. Likely, artist representative Arthur Judson was also present. Judson was then pitching Sarnoff to establish an artists bureau which he hoped would furnish talent to the NBC - a plan of which Sarnoff had been encouraging. Judson may already have known Coats as they had mutual friends through the New York Philharmonic which Judson managed. In any event, Judson and Coats incorporated the Judson Radio Program Company on September 26 intending to supply programming to NBC.

Following the formal announcement of NBC’s launch, Judson returned to Sarnoff to move his venture along and, to his surprise, was rebuffed. Sarnoff liked the idea but had decided to take Judson’s plan and create an in-house division of NBC for that purpose. A stung Judson then retorted that he would start his own network which prompted a skeptical laugh from Sarnoff.

Judson and Coats (along with 2 other principals) incorporated United Independent Broadcasters (UIB) on January 27, 1928 and set about establishing a network to compete with NBC and utilize their talent company’s artist services.

Coats was a promoter - pure and simple. He calls to mind something akin to the Professor Harold Hill character in Meredith Willson’s “The Music Man”. Willson had actually been hired by Linden for the KJR/ABC staff in 1928 although there is now no basis for believing that the Hill character was even partially based upon Coats. In any event, UIB was nothing but an incorporation document in February, 1928 when Coats went on the road to find affiliated stations and money to launch the network. Ultimately, he persuaded the Columbia Phonograph Company to invest $163,000 in the venture and UIB and Columbia jointly caused the incorporation of the Columbia Phonograph Broadcasting Corporation (CPBC) on April 5. The plan was for Columbia Phonograph to invest its $163,000 in the new CPBC which would, in turn, sell advertising to sponsors on the new network the funds from which would repay Columbia Phonograph’s original $163,000 investment.

Coats was partially successful. Getting stations to affiliate with a network which had no programming and no public position wouldn’t have been easy and yet he did secure affiliations with 16 stations. Raising capital proved harder and CPBC limped onto the air on September 18, 1927 with Coats scaring up capital wherever he could find it over the next 11 months. However, it was clear the new network would soon fail for lack of financing.

Likely during the summer of 1928 Coats left for Philadelphia pitching purchase of the network to various parties which resulted in Congress Cigar Company family interests making a significant investment. A young family member, William Paley, had previously dabbled with radio advertising for the company’s La Palina Cigar division, had thus become interested in radio. Recognizing the family's investment, he was appointed president of the network in September, 1928 and, fairly promptly, renamed the network the Columbia Broadcasting System.

So Coats’ perseverance and salesmanship saved CPBC and launched CBS. Linden must have been both impressed and attracted by Coats’ proven ability to snatch salvation from disaster. Clearly hoping Coats would work the same magic, he installed Coats in ABC's New York office as the network's Eastern Representative.

For reasons that are not now entirely clear, Linden also set up a separate corporation, the Allied Broadcasting Companies, Inc.(All-BC) to manage ABC’s interests for matters “as far West as Chicago”. While it isn’t clear how early Coats was formally brought into Linden’s orbit, by May, 1928 Linden had also brought Eric H. Palmer into the fold.

Palmer had a durable resume. He was in charge of advertising for the Freed-Eisemann Radio Corporation, a major radio manufacturer located in Brooklyn, NY, and was a frequent contributor to publications like Radio World, Radio Digest, Radio Doings and similar publications. He was president of the Brooklyn Press Club and was also appointed the City of Brooklyn’s official “radio negotiator” for radio matters before that city. Palmer was also occasionally an official representative for Freed-Eisemann and general radio industry matters in Europe. So, Palmer had a strong position in the New York radio industry in the 1920s.

By 1928, however, Palmer had left Freed-Eisemann and was the publicity director for the Cigar Institute of America in which capacity he might well have known Bill Paley. Palmer’s professional roots seemed more in radio than tobacco, however, so he must have been intrigued Linden’s emerging network.

On November 1, 1928 Linden formally incorporated Allied Broadcasting Companies, Inc. (All-BC) with offices in the same New York location originally announced for the American Broadcasting Company. It is not clear in which state All-BC was incorporated although the incorporation announcement was carried in the Washington, D.C. “Star” newspaper. Linden was the new corporation’s president and, by November 17, Eric Palmer was being identified as its vice-president. Likely, Linden thought Palmer could be helpful in lining up affiliated stations and for general representation of ABC’s interests in the east while Coats’ would seemingly have been more responsible for securing investment capital.

It is hard to know why Linden decided to establish a second corporation. The use of the plural (Companies) in the All-BC name suggests a potentially broader vision than ABC’s network business. Or perhaps Linden or Coats wanted a more east coast-focused enterprise in which to invest their energies. Or perhaps Linden believed it would be easier to attract capital for the radio network with a more solid eastern office and staff. Press coverage of the relationship between ABC and All-BC is exceedingly vague and both Palmer and Coats were variously described as handling both ABC’s and All-BC’s eastern interests.