Chevrolet Musical Moments Revue

Chevrolet Musical Moments Revue, also known as Musical Moments or the Chevrolet Show, is an electrically transcribed or recorded radio program issued by World Broadcasting System.^[1]

Overview

It was a musical variety show which in 1935–36 featured David Rubinoff and Westbrook Van Voorhis (as "Hugh Conrad"), Monday through Friday for 15 minutes. A great many musicians and musical ensembles appeared on this show including Gus Haenschen/Carl Fenton and his orchestra; the Song Smiths; Casper Reardon, jazz harpist; and Metropolitan Opera soprano Josephine Antoine in 1937.

Format

The program's musical numbers were supplemented with promotion of Chevrolet. Each episode contained two one-minute commercials for the manufacturer and left time for a one-minute message about local Chevrolet dealers. In addition to those local commercials, each musical selection was preceded by a statement such as "Your local Chevrolet dealer presents the music of ...".^[2]

Distribution

Broadcast schedules for the show varied from station to station, with episodes scheduled "at the hour that is best suited to the listening audience in every locality".^[3] In some markets, two stations carried the program, with the schedule arranged to provide six broadcasts per week.^[3] In some situations, the show was broaddcast on all stations in a given market.^[2]

In 1937, the program was broadcast on more than 400 stations, "the largest group of stations ever employed by any sponsored broadcast".^[4] The series was interrupted because of a strike at General Motors in 1937. It was on 380 stations when it went off. When it resumed in late March 1937 it was on 401 stations^[5] in 341 cities. The total of 401 was reported to be "the largest group of radio stations ever used on any sponsored program."^[6]

More than 155 recorded shows are known to exist in radio collections.^[7]