MY BRUSH WITH OLD TIME RADIO

BY DAN MILLER

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I'm fascinated by old radio and TV facilities, especially when the rooms and hallways reveal remnants of broadcast history.

When I moved to Los Angeles in 1986, I worked for KCBS television news.
The TV station was -- and still is -- located in, what's called, Columbia Square on Sunset Boulevard.

In 1938, Columbia Square was built by the CBS Radio Network with studios where many live shows from the "Golden Age of Radio" originated.

As a child, I listened to lots of those old radio dramas and comedies, so -- for me -- working in that building was pure magic.

The KCBS-TV newsroom was literally located in the former studio where George Burns and Gracie Allen -- and many others -- staged their radio broadcasts in the 1940's and early 50's.

Whenever friends or family visited California, I would take them up a flight of stairs to a spooky place, hidden just behind the newsroom wall.
It was an old theatre balcony, with rows of seats still in place -- now littered with boxes and papers and video tapes.

But many years earlier, those seats were filled most nights with audiences looking down on the live broadcasts of Gene Autry's Melody Ranch.... or the Bing Crosby Show.... or the Edgar Bergen Show (with Charlie McCarthy).... or Red Skelton.... or Jack Benny.

There was -- I figured -- a good chance that Jack Benny or George Burns had performed years earlier at the very spot where my desk was then situated, right in the middle of the television newsroom.
And, there's an excellent chance that -- as they were performing -- I was down in Georgia, snuggled under the covers in my bedroom, with the volume on my radio turned low so my parents wouldn't know I was still awake.... listening.

Today construction is underway on a new studio for KCBS-TV, and next year the station will move from Columbia Square to new facilities several miles away in Studio City.

I'm told there's a list of protected historic structures in Los Angeles, and -- amazingly -- Columbia Square is not on that list.
So there had been great concern that the old place will be demolished.

In recent months came word that a developer had purchased Columbia Square.... and there is a glimmer of hope that it will somehow be preserved.

I hope so.

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