https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/10/30/241797346/75-years-ago-war-of-the-worlds-started-a-panic-or-did-it

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75 Years Ago, 'War Of The Worlds' Started A Panic. Or Did It? : The
Two-Way On the evening of Oct. 30, 1938, Orson Welles and his troupe
went on the air to say that Martians had invaded New Jersey. Ever
since, stories have made it sound as if the broadcast caused a mass
panic. But that might not have been the case.
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From 'The War of the Worlds' broadcast: 'This is the end now.'

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75 Years Ago, 'War Of The Worlds' Started A Panic. Or Did It?

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75 Years Ago, 'War Of The Worlds' Started A Panic. Or Did It?

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October 30, 20138:10 AM ET

Mark Memmott

[martian302]
Enlarge this image

Invader? No, it's a man dressed as one in 1988. He was in Grovers
Mill, N.J., at a 50th anniversary celebration of The War of the
Worlds broadcast. Chris Lischy/AP hide caption

toggle caption
Chris Lischy/AP

Invader? No, it's a man dressed as one in 1988. He was in Grovers
Mill, N.J., at a 50th anniversary celebration of The War of the
Worlds broadcast.

Chris Lischy/AP

We interrupt this blog to bring you a special bulletin:

    Martians have invaded New Jersey!

OK, as far as we know that hasn't happened.

But we wanted to issue that faux alert because 75 years ago tonight,
as our friend Korva Coleman pointed out on the NPR Newscast, Orson
Welles and his troupe of radio actors interrupted the Columbia
Broadcasting System's programming to "report" that our planet had
been invaded.

Ever since then, it's been accepted as fact that the broadcast scared
the dickens out of many Americans.

Morning Edition, for instance, reported in 2005 that "listeners
panicked, thinking the story was real." Many supposedly jumped in
their cars to flee the area of the "invasion."

Just this past weekend, our colleagues at Radiolab devoted their very
first live hour to a "deep dive into one of the most controversial
moments in broadcasting history: Orson Welles' 1938 radio play about
Martians invading New Jersey."

According to Radiolab, about 12 million people were listening when
Welles' broadcast came on the air and "about 1 in every 12 ...
thought it was true and ... some percentage of that 1 million people
ran out of their homes."

"That constitutes a major freakout," Radiolab says.

[welles302w]
Enlarge this image

Orson Welles delivering a radio broadcast in 1938, the same year he
aired his War of the Worlds fake news program. /AP hide caption

toggle caption
/AP

Orson Welles delivering a radio broadcast in 1938, the same year he
aired his War of the Worlds fake news program.

/AP

Well, Slate has a different opinion. "The supposed panic was so tiny
as to be practically immeasurable on the night of the broadcast," it
concludes. According to Slate:

    "Far fewer people heard the broadcast -- and fewer still panicked
    -- than most people believe today. How do we know? The night the
    program aired, the C.E. Hooper ratings service telephoned 5,000
    households for its national ratings survey. 'To what program are
    you listening?' the service asked respondents. Only 2 percent
    answered a radio 'play' or 'the Orson Welles program,' or
    something similar indicating CBS. None said a 'news broadcast,'
    according to a summary published in Broadcasting. In other words,
    98 percent of those surveyed were listening to something else, or
    nothing at all, on Oct. 30, 1938. This miniscule rating is not
    surprising. Welles' program was scheduled against one of the most
    popular national programs at the time -- ventriloquist Edgar
    Bergen's Chase and Sanborn Hour, a comedy-variety show."

Slate also argues that there's no data to support the idea that many
radio listeners heard about the broadcast and tuned in during it. And
it points out that "several important CBS affiliates (including
Boston's WEEI) pre-empted Welles' broadcast in favor of local
commercial programming, further shrinking its audience."

So how did the story of the "panic" grow over the years? Slate blames
newspapers, which allegedly "seized the opportunity presented by
Welles' program to discredit radio as a source of news. The newspaper
industry sensationalized the panic to prove to advertisers, and
regulators, that radio management was irresponsible and not to be
trusted."

Radiolab isn't the only news outlet marking the 75th anniversary, of
course. There's also this report from PBS-TV's American Experience,
which says that "although most listeners understood that the program
was a radio drama, the next day's headlines reported that thousands
of others plunged into panic, convinced that America was under a
deadly Martian attack."

From the Web: A transcript of The War of the Worlds broadcast.

So which was it, mass panic or hyped-up hysteria? Something in
between? This blogger recalls his father saying the broadcast went
mostly unnoticed in the quiet hills of Western New York State.

Any other first- or second-hand memories are welcome in the comments
thread.

From 'The War of the Worlds' broadcast: 'This is the end now.'

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