Your Hit Parade

''Your Hit Parade'' was an American radio and television music program that was broadcast from 1935 to 1953 on radio, and seen from 1950 to 1959 on television. It was sponsored by American Tobacco's Lucky Strike cigarettes. During its 24-year run, the show had 19 orchestra leaders and 52 singers or groups. Many fans inaccurately referred to the show as ''The Hit Parade''.

When the show debuted, there was no agreement on its title. The press referred to it by several names, with the most common being "Hit Parade", "The Hit Parade", and even "The Lucky Strike Hit Parade", also "The Lucky Strike Parade". The program title officially became "Your Hit Parade" on November 9, 1935.

Every Saturday evening, the program offered the most popular and bestselling songs of the week. The earliest format involved a presentation of the top 15 songs. Later, a countdown with fanfares led to the top three finalists, with the number one song for the finale. Occasional performances of standards and other favorite songs from the past were known as "Lucky Strike Extras".

Listeners were informed that the "''Your Hit Parade'' survey checks the best sellers on sheet music and phonograph records, the songs most heard on the air and most played on the automatic coin machines, an accurate, authentic tabulation of America's taste in popular music." However, the exact procedure of this "authentic tabulation" remained a secret. Some believe song choices were often arbitrary due to various performance and production factors. The show's ad agencies—initially Lord and Thomas and later Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborne—never revealed the specific sources or the methods that were used to determine top hits. They made a general statement that it was based mainly on "readings of radio requests, sheet music sales, dance-hall favorites and jukebox tabulations"; '' Radio Guide'' claimed "an endless popularity poll on a nationwide scale."

Radio

Lucky Strike's first radio endeavors

The origins of the format can be traced back to the ''Lucky Strike Saturday Night Dance Party'' sponsored by Lucky Strike cigarettes. Led by Benjamin A. Rolfe, the show was heard on the NBC Red network Saturdays between 10 and 11 pm beginning in September 1928. The program was devised by American Tobacco's George W. Hill, an attempt to popularize the consumption of tobacco products, which were increasingly used by young people and women. For the latter demographic group, the company also launched the slogan "Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet" at the same time. In a cross-promotion, Rolfe made recordings for Edison Records credited as "B.A. Rolfe and his Lucky Strike Orchestra".

Beginning in April 1930, the show became known as ''The Lucky Strike Dance Hour'', as a second hour-long show began airing Wednesday nights on the NBC Blue network (9:30 to 10:30 pm). During the fall, the Wednesday show was replaced by Tuesday and Thursday night broadcasts, also on NBC Red. AMG, ''B.A. Rolfe Biography''/ref>

During its first three years, the show featured Rolfe's band playing popular songs and novelty tunes interspersed with plugs for Lucky Strikes by the announcer, whose other role was introducing each number. During the fall of 1931, the program was revamped as ''The Lucky Strike Magic Carpet Show'', a variety show hosted by Walter O'Keefe featuring the orchestras of Rolfe, Anson Weeks, Jack Denny, George Olsen, Abe Lyman, Phil Harris and others supplied exclusively by Jules Stein's Music Corporation of America, and the bands were picked up from diverse points across the US instead of originating entirely from New York, which was a novelty at the time. The "variety" segments included dramatizations of cases from the New York Police Department, society gossip by Walter Winchell (then a gossip columnist for Hearst's tabloid ''New York Daily Mirror'', featuring a style different from the one Winchell is more remembered for), and comedy by Bert Lahr and Jack Pearl. During the spring and summer of 1933, the Tuesday and Thursday broadcasts were phased out and the show reverted to the original ''Lucky Strike Saturday Night Dance Party'' format with Rolfe's orchestra and the Men About Town trio, running until early 1934.

Your Hit Parade on radio (1935–1953)

''Your Hit Parade'' began on NBC April 20, 1935, as a 60-minute program with 15 songs played in a random format before presenting the number 1 song. Initially, the songs were more important than the singers, so a stable of vocalists went uncredited and were paid $100 per episode, equal to $ in . In 1936–37, it was carried on both NBC and CBS. Script continuity in the late 1930s and early 1940s was written by Alan Jay Lerner before he found fame as a lyricist. The first number one song on the first episode was "Soon" by Bing Crosby.

Some years passed before the countdown format was introduced, with the number of songs varying from seven to 15. Vocalists in the 1930s included Buddy Clark, Lanny Ross, Kay Thompson and Bea Wain (1939–1944), who was married to the show's announcer, French-born André Baruch. Frank Sinatra joined the show in 1943, which gave the show even more popularity. By 1944 however, Sinatra's move to Hollywood led to a conflict with American Tobacco as it determined that the singer was the one to pay the production costs (including the telephone hook-up to New York) and was fired for messing up the No. 1 song, " Don't Fence Me In" by interjecting a mumble to the effect that the song had too many words and missing a cue. An AFRS transcription survives of this show. As Sinatra zoomed in popularity, he was rehired, returning (1947–49) to co-star with Doris Day.

Hugely popular on CBS through the WWII years, ''Your Hit Parade'' returned to NBC in 1947. The show's opening theme, from the musical revue '' George White's Scandals of 1926'', was " This Is Your Lucky Day", with music by Ray Henderson and lyrics by Buddy G. DeSylva, Stephen W. Ballantine and Lew Brown.

Orchestra leaders over the years included Al Goodman, Lennie Hayton, Abe Lyman, Leo Reisman, Harry Salter, Ray Sinatra, Harry Sosnik, Axel Stordahl, Peter Van Steeden, Mark Warnow and Raymond Scott (1949–1957). The chorus was led by musical director Lyn Murray.

Dozens of singers appeared on the radio program, including "Wee" Bonnie Baker, Dorothy Collins