Broadcast Marks 80 Years

From the crossroads of the West, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir welcomed listeners to its 4,166th broadcast of Music and the Spoken Word in July, marking 80 years for the world’s longest-running continuous network broadcast.

At a special ceremony held in the Conference Center after the landmark broadcast, President Thomas S. Monson said he could not remember a time when the program was not a part of his life and remarked that countless lives have been changed and hearts lifted by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

The program of beautiful music and brief, inspirational messages first aired on July 15, 1929, from the Salt Lake Tabernacle.

Through eight decades and only three program announcers— Richard L. Evans (1930–71), J. Spencer Kinard (1972–90), and Lloyd D. Newell (1990–present)—Music and the Spoken Word has grown to be broadcast by more than 2,000 radio, television, and cable stations.

Brother Newell said that the broadcast is as needed today as it was when it began in 1929. “Today’s challenges are different in some ways—the world seems more noisy and confusing than it once was—but we continue to find in Music and the Spoken Word a welcome reprieve, a beacon of hope steadying troubled hearts and enhancing life’s joys.”

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir celebrated 80 years of Music and the Spoken Word.

Photograph by Craig Dimond