Bandstand Flashback: April 1953
Dick Clark and American Bandstand had a good friend in TV Guide. In fact, you might call the magazine a member of the family.
TV Guide debuted in April 1953, about six months after Bob Horn's Bandstand hit the air. TV Guide was owned by Triangle Publications, the same company that owned WFIL-TV (host of Bandstand) and the Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper.
Walter Annenberg owned Triangle Publications, a media conglomerate started by his father, Moses "Moe" Annenberg. Annenberg moved into the TV listings field in 1952, buying the local television listings magazines in Philadelphia, Chicago and New York. In April 1953 he launched TV Guide. By 1977 it was the biggest-selling magazine in the world and Annenberg was earning as much as $1 million a week from TV Guide alone.
TV Guide was barely a month old when it described Bandstand as the place where “Teen-agers let loose” in its sixth issue on May 8, 1953. Many subsequent issues were supportive of Bandstand and, later, American Bandstand.
Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand -- Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. Go here to learn the story behind the writing of Bandstandland or here to listen to the Pennsylvania Cable Network's interview with author Larry Lehmer.
Larry Lehmer's book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died -- is available at Amazon.
