Live Studio Audience At WMBR

I’ve never thought much about radio as a spectator event but apparently this show production at WMBR packed them in with the overflow audience watching from outside the viewing window.  Quite the formal affair as well.  I love how the men are all in their suits and ties and the women all wore their hats.  Only the kids got a little leniency in the formality of their attire.

I don’t have any specifics about this particular photograph but radio station WMBR was the second radio station to set up shop in Jacksonville.  It started broadcasting in 1934 from a studio in the Carling Hotel.  It was the first competition for the city run station WJAX which opened about a decade before. In 1949 the owners of WMBR started the first TV station in Jacksonville named WMBR TV-4.  WMBR was bought by Post-Newsweek in 1953 and the name was changed to WJXT TV-4.  Five years later the radio station was sold off.

Bonus Trivia:  The MBR in WMBR stood for Miami Beach Radio.  The station started in Miami in 1927, moved to Tampa and then was sold and relocated to Jacksonville.

For this post I liberally borrowed information from a story I found written by a dearly departed co-worker at The Florida Times-Union, Bill Foley who could bring history to life and weave a story like few people I have ever had the privilege to work with.

Tags: audience, clothing, formal, historic photograph, radio, studio, TV-4, vintage photography, WJXT, WMBR