Re: "The Voice Of Firestone" (Was: Re: Retro:Cleveland Primetime Monday, Feb. 28, 1955)
> Tim Lones takes us back to Cleveland on the final evening of
> February, 1955:
>
> > WXEL 8 ABC/DuMont
> >
> > Akron
> > WAKR 49 ABC
>
> > 8:30
> > 8 49 Concert ABC
>
> "Concert" (ABC) was actually "The Voice Of Firestone", a
> prime-time showcase for classical and operatic music
> sponsored by the tire company of the same name.
>
> Although it was a very popular radio program for NBC Red/NBC
> from 1928 until the early 1950's, the TV version was far
> less successful. After five years of low ratings on TV, NBC
> wanted to move "Firestone" out of it's 8:30 P.M. (EST/EDT)
> timeslot on Monday evenings (which the show had had since it
> premiered on radio way back in 1928) and into a later slot,
> as to minimize ratings damage to shows that would follow
> "Firestone" on NBC's prime-time schedule.
>
> Firestone refused to accept a different timeslot, but ABC
> offered to televise "Firestone" in the show's traditional
> Mondays-at-8:30 time slot. So, the show changed networks in
> June of 1954 (in fact, the first telecast of "Firestone" on
> ABC was exactly one week after the show's last telecast on
> NBC!). Once more, the show wasn't much of a success on TV,
> and by 1959, ABC wanted to move "Firestone" into a
> late-evening slot, again, to minimize ratings damage to
> shows that would follow it. Firestone refused, and after a
> combined TV/radio run of 31 years, the show went off the
> air.
>
> It should be noted that in 1957, "Voice Of Firestone" was
> moved back a half-hour to Mondays at 9 P.M. ET, where it
> would remain until it left the air in 1959.
>
> In 1962, Firestone accepted an ABC offer to return "Voice Of
> Firestone" to television, this time on Sunday nights at 10
> P.M. ET. With ABC having started it's Sunday-night movie
> (running from 8 to 10 P.M. ET that season), and with the
> movie being a lead-in to "Firestone", ABC fully expected
> "Firestone" would finally be a hit on television, given the
> huge lead-in the Sunday movie would give it, especially on
> weeks when some "big" titles were broadcast.
>
> Didn't happen. Most of the large audience who tuned-in ABC's
> Sunday movie in the 1962/1963 television season changed
> channels (to CBS' "Candid Camera" or NBC's "DuPont Show Of
> The Week"), or turned off their sets entirely when
> "Firestone" came on at 10 P.M. ET.
>
> Howard Barlow led the orchestra during "Firestone"'s entire
> run on television, although he was not seen every week
> during the final (1962/1963) season; instead, "name"
> conductors from the nation's top symphony orchestras
> occassionally replaced Barlow as "guest conductors".
>
> I wonder if today's Bridgestone/Firestone would be willing
> to underwrite a updated version of "Voice Of Firestone". If
> they were, such a program would probably appear on PBS,
> since I doubt any commercial broadcast network would
> consider it (even in a Sunday-morning timeslot), and I doubt
> any basic-cable network that ran commercials would want it
> either.
>
> Brooks and Marsh have written in their reference work on
> prime-time programs that one reason "Firestone", a
> tremendously successful program on radio, did not become a
> successful show on TV was that although it was "pleasant to
> hear", it was also "boring to watch".
>
When NBC announced it was dropping "Firestone" on Monday nights,
it, CBS, and (possibly) ABC offered it a Sunday-afternoon slot.
One of the Firestone family was incredulous; his reply was, "Who
watches television on Sunday afternoon? They're all out playing
polo." When ABC revived "Firestone" in 1962, Sen. Thomas Dodd
wrote the network, commending it for bringing the program back.
However, only about 2.5 million people (according to Brooks and
Marsh) watched, leading to permanent cancellation in 1963.
"Firestone" has long been a symbol of the basic conflict of
television: "quality" is not enough; the program has to have
big ratings as well.
