Mutual Broadcasting Systems

The Mutual Broadcasting System (commonly referred to simply as Mutual; sometimes referred to as MBS, Mutual Radio or the Mutual Radio Network) was an American commercial radio network in operation from 1934 to 1999. In the golden age of U.S. radio drama, Mutual was best known as the original network home of '' The Lone Ranger'' and '' The Adventures of Superman'' and as the long-time radio residence of '' The Shadow''. For many years, it was a national broadcaster for Major League Baseball (including the All-Star Game and World Series), the National Football League, and Notre Dame Fighting Irish football. From the mid-1930s and until the retirement of the network in 1999, Mutual ran a highly respected news service accompanied by a variety of popular commentary shows. Mutual pioneered the nationwide late night call-in radio program in the late 1970s, introducing the country to Larry King and later Jim Bohannon.

In the early 1970s, acting in much the same style as rival ABC had two years earlier (in 1968), Mutual launched four sister radio networks: Mutual Black Network (MBN) (initially launched as "Mutual Reports"), which evolved to today's American Urban Radio Networks (AURN); Mutual Cadena Hispánica (or in English, "Mutual Spanish Network"); Mutual Southwest Network, and Mutual Progressive Network (was later re-branded "Mutual Lifestyle Radio" in 1980, then retired in 1983).

Of the four national networks of American radio's classic era, Mutual had for decades the largest number of affiliates, but the least certain financial position (which prevented Mutual from expanding into television broadcasting after World War II, as NBC, CBS and ABC did). For the first 18 years of its existence, Mutual was owned and operated as a cooperative (a system similar to that of today's National Public Radio), setting the network apart from its corporate owned competitors. Mutual's member stations shared their own original programming, transmission and promotion expenses, and advertising revenues. From December 30, 1936, when it debuted in the West, the Mutual Broadcasting System had affiliates from coast to coast. Its business structure would change after General Tire assumed majority ownership in 1952 through a series of regional and individual station acquisitions.

Once General Tire sold the network in 1957, Mutual's ownership was largely disconnected from the stations it served, leading to a more conventional, top-down model of program production and distribution. Not long after the sale, one of the network's new executive teams was charged with accepting money to use Mutual as a vehicle for foreign propaganda. The network's reputation was severely damaged, but soon rebounded. Mutual changed ownership several times in succeeding years—even leaving aside larger-scale acquisitions and mergers, its final direct corporate parent, Westwood One, which purchased Mutual in 1985, was the seventh in a string of new owners that followed General Tire.

History

1934–1935: The launch of Mutual

Attempts at establishing cooperatively owned radio networks had been made since the 1920s. In 1929, a group of four radio stations in the major markets of New York City, Chicago, Cincinnati, and Detroit organized into a loose confederation known as the Quality Network. Five years later (in 1934), a similar or identical group of stations founded the Mutual Broadcasting System. Mutual's original participating stations were WOR–Newark, New Jersey

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