Liberty Broadcasting System
{{short description|American radio network}}
{{Use American English|date=February 2025}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=July 2023}}
File:Gordon McLendon Liberty microphone.jpg with a Liberty-branded microphone]]
The Liberty Broadcasting System (commonly referred to simply as Liberty; sometimes referred to as LBS, Liberty Radio or the Liberty Radio Network) was a U.S. radio network of the late 1940s and early 1950s founded by Gordon McLendon, which mainly broadcast live recreations of Major League Baseball games, by following the action via Western Union ticker reports. The sound effects were very realistic, and many listeners were not aware the broadcasters were not announcing the action live. At that time some major league teams and almost all minor league baseball clubs used recreations of their road games as an economy measure.
Availability
Founded in 1948, the network was mainly in Texas and the southwest but did have nine affiliates in Oregon, an outlet in Los Angeles, Seattle, and as of September 29, 1950, WHAV in Haverhill, Massachusetts. At one time, it had close to 500 radio stations on the line,{{cite web |title=Network Histories |url=https://www.oldradio.com/archives/prog/nets.htm |website=www.oldradio.com |quote=Liberty went nationwide in October 1950, with 240 affiliates getting 10 hours of programs a day. At its peak, it had 458 affiliated stations.}} being second in size only to the Mutual Broadcasting System.
Major League Baseball
File:Liberty Broadcasting System advertisement (1950).gif
It carried various types of programs (for instance, late night band remotes were another feature carried by Liberty) but McLendon, known as the "Old Scotchman", and his daily ball game recreations off the Western Union ticker provided the big money maker. The recreations used himself and future sportscasting stars such as Lindsey Nelson and Jerry Doggett.
It was a live, not recreated, game that provided McLendon and Liberty with their greatest career moment. The Scotchman himself was behind the Liberty mic at the Polo Grounds in New York on October 3, 1951, for the finale of the three-game National League play-off series between the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers.
Radio was still the more popular nationwide medium then. With Russ Hodges' famous radio call limited to the Giants' network, McLendon's call is how most Americans heard the NL clincher, including Giant Bobby Thomson's ninth-inning three-run homer into the left-field stands to win it for New York. Excerpts of the McLendon broadcast were highlighted in the 2001 HBO documentary Shot Heard 'Round the World.
{{see also|Shot Heard 'Round the World (baseball)#The broadcasts}}
=Rights fees=
According to Time magazine articles of the era, McLendon only paid Major League Baseball $1,000.00 per year for the rights to broadcast the games, but in 1951, the leagues raised the price to $250,000.00 per year, and prohibited broadcasts in any city which had a minor league franchise and in the northeastern and midwestern United States.[https://www.angelfire.com/ky2/cumberlandgapbc/index61.html The Liberty Broadcasting System]
=Liberty baseball commentators=
- Bud Blattner (1950–1951)
- Jerry Doggett (1950–1951)
- Gordon McLendon (1949–1952)
- Lindsey Nelson (1950–1951)
- Don Wells
- Wes Wise
{{see also|Major League Baseball Game of the Week}}
=Demise=
Sports were the lifeblood of Liberty. Restrictions on Major League Baseball broadcasts in minor league franchise areas, as well as bans on National Football League broadcasts within a 75-mile range of league cities, were the one-two blow which ended the network. Since the baseball games were a major draw for both listeners and affiliates, the blackout was a disaster for the fledgling company, which had only posted modest profits during its first few years of operation. More than 100 stations left the network, and, faced with mounting debts, on May 16, 1952, the network ceased broadcasting.
National Basketball Association
Liberty also broadcast NBA games from roughly, the 1950-51 through 1951-52 seasons.{{Cite news|title=West Definite Favorite Over East in NBA All-Star Game at Garden Tonight|date=February 11, 1952|first=Harry|last=Molter|newspaper=Christian Science Monitor|page=13}}
=Commentators=
- Hilliard Gates{{cite web |url=http://www.mashf.com/1992_inductees.htm|title=The Muskegon Area Sports Hall of Fame |website=Muskegon Area Sports Hall of Fame }}
- Marty Glickman{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RS77LwF52WoC&pg=PA132&sig=brtCHl9DkoLVjOOdT2BErAae7l0&hl=en|title=Lapchick: The Life of a Legendary Player and Coach in the Glory Days of Basketball|first=Gus|last=Alfieri|page=132|publisher=Globe Pequot|year=2006}}
- Johnny Most
Liberty Broadcasting System today
In the mid-2000s, a Spokane, Washington-based broadcaster, the Mutual Broadcasting System (not related to the former network), began using the Mutual and Liberty names on its two stations, KTRW AM 970 Spokane; and KTAC FM 93.9 Ephrata, Washington. These stations have no connections with the original network, but present adult standards, nostalgia, and some Christian programming, using these names as part of the nostalgia-style branding.
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- [http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/ttusw/00118/tsw-00118.html Gordon McLendon Papers, 1917-1978, in the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library at Texas Tech University]
- [https://westmb.org/L_Networks/L_Networks-Liberty.html Liberty Broadcasting System] — Western States Museum of Broadcasting
{{Major League Baseball on the radio}}
{{American broadcast radio}}
{{Major League Baseball on Liberty}}
{{NBA on the radio}}
Category:Defunct radio networks in the United States
Category:Defunct radio stations in the United States
Category:Mass media companies established in 1948
Category:Major League Baseball on the radio
Category:Mass media companies disestablished in 1952