Irv Hunter emceeing a review of ten years of the ESSO Reporter program on WLBZ Radio. Anthony Morin, Jr., of Bangor, a 10-year-old-boy (helped by his brother, Robert) reviews major events of the past ten years. WLBZ is congratulated by several ESSO officials on bringing up-to-the-minute news to the listening audience several times each day. Speakers include Verne Carrier, June Richdale, R. M. Gray, and A. E. Webber and Edward E. Guernsey. Recorded in 1949.https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/wlbz_station_records/1060/thumbnail.jp

WLBZ Radio

English

University of Maine

The University of MaineDigitalCommons@UMaineWLBZ Radio Station Records Manuscripts1-1-1949ESSO Reporter's 10th Anniversary on WLBZWLBZ RadioFollow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/wlbz_station_recordsPart of the History Commons, and the Radio CommonsThis Book is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UMaine. It has been accepted for inclusion in WLBZ Radio Station Recordsby an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UMaine. For more information, please contact um.library.technical.services@maine.edu.Recommended CitationWLBZ Radio, ( January 01 1949) "ESSO Reporter's 10th Anniversary on WLBZ". WLBZ Radio Station Records. MS 608. D 16.2; CD 1Track 3. Special Collections, Raymond H. Fogler Library, University of Maine.https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/wlbz_station_records/59University of Maine Raymond H. Fogler Library Special Collections Department Transcript of a sound recording in MS 608, WLBZ Radio Station Records, Bangor, Maine, 1931-1973  Title:  ESSO Reporter’s 10th Anniversary on WLBZ Date:  January 1, 1949  Recording number: D 16.2; CD 1, track 3  Length of recording: 14:39  [transcript begins]  IRVING HUNTER:  On this first day of the New Year we present a special, transcribed broadcast to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the ESSO Reporter.  With the passing of 1948, the ESSO Reporter has completed ten years of broadcasting over WLBZ under the sponsorship of ESSO Standard Oil Company.   ESSO Standard Oil Company presents the ESSO Reporter over WLBZ four times each weekday, Monday through Saturday at 7:30 in the morning, 12:15 noon, 6:45 in the evening, 6 o’clock on Saturdays, and at 11 o’clock at night, and special broadcasts on Sunday at 11 a.m. and 6:15 p.m. and Monday through Saturday at 6:25 a.m. Here is your ESSO Reporter, looking back over the news events of the past ten years.   BOY’s VOICE: 1948, election year, Truman elected, Babe Ruth died 1947, Henry Ford died, the Marshall Plan 1946, the atomic bomb hit 1945, President Roosevelt died, Germany signs surrender 1944, D-Day, Roosevelt elected to fourth term 1942, General Doolittle led air raid on Tokyo  1941, Pearl Harbor 1940, the Battle of Britain January 1st, 1939, two New Year babies were born in Bangor.  They were David H. Green, son of Mr. and Mrs. Green of Clifton, and Anthony Morris Jr. of Bangor. REPORTER:  Today one of our ESSO Reporters has been one of the New Year’s babies of January 1, 1939, Anthony Morin, Jr., of Bangor, assisted by his brother, Robert.  During the ten years the ESSO Reporter has been broadcasting over WLBZ, this 1939 New Year’s baby has grown into the young man who has reviewed the past decade as our ESSO Reporter.  We want to thank you, Anthony, and as a remembrance on your 10th birthday, which is also the 10th birthday of the ESSO Reporter, we want to present this ten dollars in silver, one for each of your birthdays and ours, January 1st, 1940, January 1st, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1944, 45, 46, 47, 48, and January 1st, 1949.  Thanks for taking part in the broadcast Robert Morin, and Anthony Morin, Jr., and best wishes for a happy New Year from your ESSO Reporter. HUNTER:  And now as this broadcast moves along, we hear recorded telephone conversations from New York and Boston.  Through the medium of radio and electronics, we have brought together on this tenth anniversary broadcast officials of ESSO Standard Oil Company and others associated with them in presenting the ESSO Reporter.  By recorded telephone conversation, we present Verne Carrier, Assistant Manager, Advertising Sales Promotion Department, ESSO Standard Oil Company, speaking from his office in New York.   CARRIER:  It is a pleasure indeed to start the new year by taking part in this WLBZ program commemorating the tenth anniversary of the start of your ESSO Reporter radio news program.   Certainly they have been a busy ten years filled with news of tremendous importance to the world, the United States and to Maine.  ESSO Standard Oil Company recently sent to Mr. Guernsey of WLBZ a plaque that reads, “10 years of serving the public by working together, 1939-1949, WLBZ and ESSO.”  That I think pretty well describes the program, one of service to Maine and to the nation.  It’s been a pleasure to ESSO Standard Oil to be associated with WLBZ in this program and we all here look forward to the next year, the next ten years, of service and accomplishment. HUNTER:  Through the medium of recorded telephone conversation, we go next to Boston to hear a message from June Richdale, New England Division Manager, ESSO Standard Oil Company.   RICHDALE:  This is the tenth birthday of the ESSO news broadcast from Bangor, and I just can’t let the occasion pass without expressing my appreciation to WLBZ for their splendid cooperation in helping ESSO bring to the people of Maine up-to-the-minute news of the world, and no other decade has ever before been so packed with news as this last one.  When the ESSO Reporter first went on the air, over station WLBZ, war clouds were commencing to gather over Europe.  The great question in everyone’s mind was whether Hitler was a demon or a genius.  Then the European war broke, with all its fury, making momentous news, and from that time on we waited in breathless suspense from one news program to another as Lend Lease, Pearl Harbor, our declaration of war on the Axis countries, invasion of north Africa, our landing in France, the fall of Berlin, the death of Hitler, the atomic bomb, the surrender of Japan, were all broadcast to you who were waiting anxiously at your radios hungry for news.  We are deeply indebted to WLBZ for making it possible for ESSO to render this service to the people of Maine.  And we’re very grateful to the Webber Oil Company who have ably represented us in the Bangor area during this entire period.  We hope these cordial relationships will continue on for many years to come.  And to our listening audience, we wish you all a very happy and prosperous New Year. HUNTER:  The ESSO Reporter broadcasts are sponsored by ESSO Standard Oil Company, one of the nation’s greatest oil companies.  Oil is one of the most important commodities of our modern world.  Everywhere people are calling for more and more petroleum products.  Oil for power, oil for heat, oil for everything.  More oil products are being produced than ever before.  Men are working around the clock.  Many millions of dollars are being put into new plants and equipment.  ESSO Standard Oil Company has been doing, and will continue to do, everything humanly possible to produce more ESSO products to meet your needs and the needs of American industry.  Of course a member of the ESSO family you have come to know personally is the independent retail dealer who displays the red, white and blue ESSO sign.  When you patronize this dealer, you find exactly what you’re looking for, call it what you will, gasoline or service, motor oil or lubrication, tire inspection or good care which counts, it adds up to the pride of the ESSO dealer as an independent businessman in his product and services. Our program now returns to New York City by recorded telephone conversation, we present R. M. Gray, Manager, Advertising Sales Promotion Department, ESSO Standard Oil Company. GRAY:  On this tenth anniversary, I think we can both be proud of working with one of radio’s really remarkable achievements.  The ESSO Reporter formula of broadcasting unbiased and up-to-the-minute headline news several times a day has steadily increased in popularity over the years and it has brought us both a very real return in listener royalties.  We of ESSO are pleased and proud of our long association with WLBZ.  The extent of cooperation and excellent facilities the ESSO Reporter has been privileged to bring your large audience not only the latest news of the world, the nation, and the community, but also to render the important additional service of cooperating with many important local, national, and government associates.  As you begin your eleventh year of broadcasting the Reporter, please accept my best personal wishes for another highly successful year.  HUNTER:  Now back to Bangor as we hear from Mr. A. E. Webber of the Webber Oil Company.   WEBBER:  We of the Webber Oil Company consider that the ESSO Reporter broadcasters are a very welcome and vital service to the public.  Even the most remote villages, the people are kept as well-informed and as quickly informed on all important news as anyone anywhere through the broadcasts of the ESSO Reporter.  We know the public has appreciated this service through the years because of the ever-increasing patronage enjoyed by the ESSO stations.  The public has been kept up to date on all developments concerning ESSO products and ESSO service through timely advertising messages broadcast by the ESSO Reporter.  On this 10th anniversary broadcast, I’d like to take this opportunity to commend the ESSO people for developing the ESSO Reporter as a vehicle to carry the advertising message of the ESSO products and ESSO service.  I feel they also should be commended for their selection of such a fine radio station as WLBZ to broadcast the ESSO Reporter.  Because of the large number of loyal listeners, WLBZ has gained through its many years of broadcasting and because WLBZ reaches into the homes of so many of our patrons it is ideally suited to our needs.  And another factor in the public acceptance of ESSO products has been the proven quality of ESSO products and its fine quality is another reason the Webber Oil Company is proud to be associated with ESSO Standard Oil Company in service to the public.  This broadcast also gives me the very welcome opportunity to extend my personal regards to the many fine independent ESSO dealers and to offer them best wishes for a happy and prosperous New Year. HUNTER:  And now speaking for WLBZ, Mr. Edward Guernsey, Manager. GUERNSEY:  Thank you, Mr. Webber, for being with us on this 10th anniversary broadcast of the ESSO Reporter.  I also wish to thank Bob Gray, Verne Carrier and June Richdale for their part in this program.  I cannot let this opportunity pass without expressing my appreciation to Harold Harding, Maine District Manager for ESSO Standard Oil Company, Frank Smart, Manager of the Webber Oil Company, Kurt Peterson and Ned Whitehead of the [Marshock?] and Pratt Agency, as well as the gentlemen who participated in tonight’s broadcast for their fine spirit of cooperation which has made the ESSO Reporter such a successful program during the past ten years.  United Press, though whose world-wide facilities, news is brought by direct wire to the WLBZ newsroom, by its accuracy and alertness, has made the ESSO Reporter tops in news.  The ESSO Reporter is a fine example of the virility of the American economic system and freedom of the press.  Selection of the news to be broadcast is left entirely to the discretion of the ESSO Reporter and at no time has the ESSO Standard Oil Company said this or that news item should or should not be broadcast.  In fact, the sponsor of the ESSO Reporter is like you listeners in that the news broadcast by the ESSO Reporter is also news to him.  The ESSO Standard Oil Company and the Webber Oil Company are businesses with which WLBZ is proud to have been associated with in a common effort to serve the public during the past ten years.  To our listeners whose loyalty to WLBZ is so important and to the many ESSO dealers in Maine, most of whom I’ve had the pleasure of meeting personally, I extend best  [Guernsey’s message cuts off, as if over a skip in the record]. HUNTER: This is your ESSO Reporter concluding this special transcribed 10th anniversary broadcast, and as we begin the 11th year of news broadcasts under the sponsorship of ESSO Standard Oil Company, we look forward with pleasure to bringing you 365 days of the latest news.  [transcript ends]  For more information about this transcript, audio recording, or other materials in Special Collections at the University of Maine, contact: Fogler Special Collections 5729 Raymond H. Fogler Library Orono, ME 04469-5729 207.581.1686 um.library.spc @ maine.edu   

ESSO Reporter\u27s 10th Anniversary on WLBZ

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ESSO Reporter\u27s 10th Anniversary on WLBZ

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