Bartell Group
The Bartell Group, later known as Bartell Broadcasters, Bartell Family Radio, Macfadden-Bartell, and the Bartell Media Corporation, was a family-owned company that owned a number of radio stations in the United States during the 1940s through the 1960s.
Family members involved in the radio operations included five siblings, Gerald "Jerry" Bartell, Melvin Bartell, Lee Bartell, David Bartell, Rosa Bartell Evans, and one sibling-in-law, Ralph Evans. Several of them got their start in while attending the University of Wisconsin and participating in the operations of university-owned station WHA. They entered the radio business with Milwaukee station WEXT in 1947, on the belief that between them they had expertise in law, engineering, music, writing, and acting, all of which would prove useful in the field. Some of the more well-known stations the Bartell Group owned include WOKY in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, KCBQ in San Diego, California, KRUX 1360 in Phoenix, Arizona, and Spanish-language WADO in New York City. The family also owned a few television stations, including WMTV-TV in Madison, Wisconsin and Telecuraçao and Telearuba in the Caribbean. The family members left the radio business in 1968, but the Bartell Media Corporation name carried on into much of the 1970s.
The Bartell Group was an important broadcasting entity during the post-World War II era and helped pioneer the Top 40 radio format. Three of the Bartell family members have been inducted into the Wisconsin Broadcasters Hall of Fame.
Family origins
The Bartell siblings were the children of Russian Jews Benjamin and Lena Beznor. The father immigrated to the United States in 1911, with the mother following in 1913, as part of the wave of Central and Eastern European Jews who came to America.Three of the children were born in Belopolye in Russia: Belle, David B., and Lee K., while three of the children were born once the family was in the United States: Gerald A. "Jerry" in Chicago, Illinois, and Melvin and Elizabeth Robbin "Rosa" in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Belle was the only one of the siblings that did not become involved in the family radio business.
The family name of Beznor gradually evolved to Bartell, with it being done first by those siblings who were public performers. So while the first public mentions of Gerald in 1937 have him using Bartell, as late as 1949 and then 1953, David and Lee were still using Beznor in their public business work, until they switched too for consistency.
An interest in radio
The family's interest in radio began with Gerald Bartell's time at the University of Wisconsin during the 1930s, when he was on the student staff of university-owned station WHA. As one university history states, Gerald was "a talented student with natural ability for acting and producing." After graduating in 1937 with a B.A. in economics, he remained a staff member there as he entered graduate school, gaining a master's degree in 1939. During his time in school he also sometimes worked in Chicago as an actor in network radio soap operas. He also barked like a canine in a commercial for Red Heart dog food. Gerald subsequently became part of the faculty at the University of Wisconsin, being named an assistant professor of radio education in the Department of Speech in 1940. While on the faculty he took advantage of a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship and worked at NBC in New York in sales, merchandising, and production tasks.Melvin also was on the student staff at WHA and was a popular figure on the air through his graduation in 1938. An aspiring opera singer, he then went to the University of Rochester to attend its Eastman School of Music, from where he gained a degree in 1941. While in Rochester he worked at radio station WHAM.
Rosa too was a student at the University of Wisconsin and on the staff at WHA, where she was a singer, songwriter, program producer, and music librarian. There she met Ralph Evans, an electrical engineering student who worked at the station as a broadcast engineer, and they subsequently married a couple of years later.
Family in World War II
Captain Melvin Bartell served in the United States Army in the Pacific Ocean theater of World War II as part of the Armed Forces Radio Service. This operation was running the Far East Network through the Pacific, which provided important morale support to the armed forces engaged in the U.S. island-hopping campaign. Bartell was attached to the headquarters command of General Douglas MacArthur.Following the formal Japanese surrender that concluded the war, Bartell was part of the occupation of Japan. Bartell was put in charge of the takeover of JOAK, Tokyo's 50,000-watt radio station that had featured the broadcasts of Tokyo Rose. The station, which renamed itself as WVTR, was the first Armed Forces Radio station on air in Japan, signing-on with the phrase, "This is Armed Forces Radio Service, Station WVTR in Tokyo" on September 12, 1945.
On the station Bartell devoted the programming to original shows about the occupation, overseas Army shows such as Command Performance, as well as rebroadcasts of popular American shows. In addition to directing the programming, Melvin also appeared on-air.
Meanwhile, Rosa and Ralph Evans moved to Washington, D.C., where he worked as a civilian for the United States Navy in classified research into radar. She worked in personnel for the United States Naval Research Laboratory. She also worked at radio station WTOP in Washington for Arthur Godfrey, selecting records for him, in the period before he became nationally known.
Gerald Bartell enlisted into the United States Navy and at first was assigned to teach courses at a naval training school for radio operators that had been established on the university campus. Following that he became a naval aviation ensign and served for three years with the VPB-92 patrol bombing squadron including off the coast of Morocco during the North African Campaign.
Entering the radio business in Milwaukee
By January 1946, Melvin Bartell had returned to the United States. Following his discharge, he pursued a career as a singer. Rosa and Ralph Evans returned to Wisconsin, where he finished his engineering degree. David and Lee had become a lawyers, and Gerald was again on the faculty at University of Wisconsin, where he was assistant professor of radio education.Lee Bartell heard that broadcasting would probably be a good business to be in the post-war environment and, as Rosa later said, he "had this idea for us to go into the broadcasting business, because our respective professions included law, engineering, music, writing and acting. He felt that among the six of us, we had all the talent and expertise needed for a successful venture." The family raised $50,000 towards this new endeavor.
The Bartells had their origin in radio in the Milwaukee area,
in the form of WEXT, a 1,000-watt daytimer radio station at 1430 kilocycles in Milwaukee. It was founded by Lee, David, Gerald, and Rosa Bartell Evans and began operations on August 31, 1947. Its studio was located on Milwaukee's South Side.
The Milwaukee market's fifth radio station, WEXT did fairly well with a broadcast schedule that included popular music and ethnic programming, including a polka music show hosted by local radio legend John Reddy. Officially, Gerald was listed as station president, Rosa as program director, and Ralph was chief engineer.
The programming also included "Playtime for Children", a program narrated and sung by Gerald Bartell. These were recorded on tape and sent to a variety of radio stations around the state, including even other stations in Milwaukee such as WIBA. The program was aimed at pre-school children and those in nursery schools and kindergarten. Rosa appeared on that program as the "Lullaby Lady" and she was also the show's producer, collecting many of the elements that went in it. The program became popular with children, and in 1948 Billboard magazine named it the best children's program in the nation from a radio station in the 250– to 1,000-watt range. The magazine said that "Jerry Bartell, headman of the program, showed a deft touch in his handling of perhaps the most difficult type of children's show, one which all too often is completely ignored by many stations.... Bartell's warbling... is swell. It has resonance, and kids can probably ascertain that his heart is in it... the show is well-produced, well-written, and certainly well-thought out."
With WEXT finding an audience but only barely profitable, the Bartell family applied for full-time broadcast operations, and the result was a move down the dial to AM 920 and a new call sign, WOKY. In doing so they formed a new company named the Bartell Group.
WOKY launched in September 1950. WOKY initially aired a full-service variety format similar to WEXT's, including popular music shows and programs oriented toward housewives and children. This included the continuation of Playtime for Children. Audience figures went up once the station concentrated on a music-and-news format. WOKY is also noteworthy for being the first station in Milwaukee to broadcast traffic reports from a helicopter, courtesy of air personality Art Zander and his feature "The Safer Route". By October 1952, WOKY was the third-most popular radio station in the city.
Musical activities
Melvin did not join in the radio business right away. Still pursuing his singing career, he appeared in the opera Street Scene on Broadway in 1947. The following year, he received honorable mention in American Theater Wing auditions to perform a debut recital. That led to an engagement to sing leading baritone roles with the Covent Garden Opera in London during 1949. He lived in Italy for a while and sang there, then went on to become a regular performer for the Florentine Opera Company in Milwaukee, and by 1958 was president of that organization.Gerald Bartell, meanwhile, capitalized on his children's program to release a series of children's 78 rpm phonograph records under the name Jerry Bartell. The first of these came out in 1948 and was called Tingo, the Story of a Clown, a 12-minute tale that had been written by his wife Joyce. They featured him playing the characters and singing the songs. Subsequent releases included the song collections Playtime and Jerry Bartell's Playtime Album in 1949, and Pat and the Pixies and The Men Who Come To Our House in 1950, both of which his wife Joyce wrote the stories for. In a review, Billboard said of Pat and the Pixies that it was a "sensitive" and "warm" adaptation of an Irish folk tale, but that Bartell's following from Playtime for Children was not big enough to expect large-scale sales of the record.
In addition Bartell appeared on television in the program Playtime with Jerry, a 15-minute show that was syndicated to stations such as KTVI-TV Channel 2 in St. Louis, which broadcast it on Saturday mornings during 1957–58.