But how else could we have known that Paul McCartney was dead?
But you are forgetting the "inside start" electrical transcriptions of the 30's even to the 60's. On glass or aluminum core "acetates", many ETs were distributed labeled "inside start" and played from the center outwards.
"Standard 16-inch transcription discs of the 1930s and 1940s usually held about 15 minutes of audio on each side, but this was occasionally pushed to as much as 20 minutes. Unlike ordinary records, some were recorded inside out, with the start of the recording near the label and the end near the edge of the disc. The label usually noted whether the disc was "outside start" or "inside start". If there was no such notation, an outside start was assumed."
In the mid-60's I used to get ETs from McCann-Ericson with their ad buys. Some were inside start even then... but recorded on 12" blanks, not 16" ones. Usually, though, they were outside start, and had the same commercial 4 to 6 times on the disk so that as the first cut wore out, stations would play the second or later cut. Of course, I had cart machines but nobody else did then.
