In the early days of radio, attracting national advertising accounts could make up a large portion of a radio station’s annual revenue. Radio stations were typically represented by national advertising firms that would broker advertising contracts for individual radio stations.
This advertisement was published in Radio Annual, a directory of all radio stations in the country. The directory would provide basic information on each radio stations including details such as, power, network affiliations and the names and roles of the station’s management team. These directories also sold advertising and radio stations could pay to include more specific messaging that would help to entice an advertiser to spend money in their market.
Here we have one such advertisement from WISL promoting the market estimates for Shamokin heading into 1953. We can see how economically robust Shamokin was in the early 1950s.
