Spotlight Bands

Spotlight Bands stemmed from Coca-Cola's desire to advertise to a wider market, particularly younger persons, in much the same way as cigarette companies sponsored radio shows to broaden their reach. It was conceived as a nightly quarter-hour show (with a half-hour Saturday version) in which each episode would "spotlight" a different band. Eventually, the Mutual Broadcasting System gave it an opening in 1941, but it failed to break through the competition in its time slot, as it was up against many of the most popular shows of the day, such as Lux Radio Theater, Kraft Music Hall, and Fibber McGee and Molly.

In early 1942, Coke pulled the show from Mutual, reworked it, and moved it to the NBC Blue network, where it aired until 1945. In the new half-hour format, big bands visited military facilities--bases, hospitals, training camps, anywhere they found a welcome--and performed before the staff and troops. Most of the famous bands of the day participated, as well as many who have since faded from memory, such as Tommy Tucker, Shep Fields, and Hal McIntire.

For more information, see Jim Ramsburg's Gold Time Radio.

Series description provided by Frank Bell.