Al microfono: discorsi trasmessi alla Radio -Stazione W.O.F. [sic] [At the Microphone: talks transmitted on Radio Station W.O.F.]. New York: [n.p.], 1937.

Al microfono: discorsi trasmessi alla Radio -Stazione W.O.F. [sic] [At the Microphone: talks transmitted on Radio Station W.O.F.]. New York: [n.p.], 1937.

As the title of this self-published work states, these are transcriptions of talks transmitted by the author to his radio audience in 1937. The talks include mostly anodyne subjects, like "Holy Thursday," "Goodness," "The Book" -  "if good, is your best friend." There's also a talk on"Mother's Day" and about "Two friends" - canine friends, that is.

The title page calls the station "W.O.F.," but the cover calls it "W.O.V."

According to Ario Flamma, Giuseppe Loffredo (b. 1900 New York), though born in New York, at age 12 went to Italy, attending the gymnasium at Caserta and the liceo at Naples. He was in the Italian Army in 1918-1919, but in October of that year returned to the U.S., and after seven months returned to Italy, attending university in Naples for three years. In 1922, he returned to New York, where he completed a course in economic and commercial science at Columbia University.

In 1927, he returned again to Italy as director for Italy of the Otis Elevator Co., and then directing the offices of that company in Egypt, Turkey and Greece, to 1930. He again returned to the U.S., and after some time in business, entered into journalism, with various Italian-American weeklies, but then then dedicated himself to the compliation of radio programs on W.H.O.M. (then W.O.V.) radio.

Of W.O.V. radio, I find the following: on September 16, 1928, W.G.L. changed its call letters to W.O.V. and was sold to Sicilian-born importer John Iraci. 

W.O.V's initial programming was aimed at a general audience, but by the mid-1930s, it strengthened its ethnic ties and expanded its Italian-language programming to fill the daytime hours.

As Stefano Morello has noted, Bill Jaker et al. points out in The Airwaves of New York: Illustrated Histories of 156 AM Stations in the Metropolitan Area, 1921-1996 (McFarland & Company, 1998), by 1943, W.O.V. had “developed an appeal that crossed language and racial lines [through] a durable format of ‘Italian all day, jazz all night’” (159). In 1946, W.O.V. also established a studio in Via di Porta Pinciana in Rome—making it the only foreign-language station in the United States with a permanent facility outside of the United States—from which it aired one of its most acclaimed shows, "La Grande Famiglia," a request hour that brought audio recordings of family and friends in Italy to listeners in America.

He was also editor of the magazine Divagando (of which there are many issues from 1943-1951 in the Collection). During his tenure in that post, Novasio managed the magazine from Rome while also hosting a daily show for W.O.V.; see items by or about Pietro Novasio in the Collection.

W.O.V. soon became the dominant Italian voice in the Northeast through its affiliation with share-time station WBIL and Iraci's WPEN in Philadelphia.

Giuseppe Loffredo

[n.p.]

1937

21.5 x 13.5cm; 302 p.

Italian