Radio's most famous linesman passed into limbo last week. The Cooperative Analysis of Broadcasting, Inc., sponsor of the "Crossley rating" system, closed its Manhattan office and went out of business. Cause of death: radiomen decided last summer that the industry-financed C.A.B. was duplicating the independent telephone poll of C. E. Hooper (TIME, May 25, 1942).
C.A.B., organized by radio advertisers in 1929, early hired pioneer market researcher Archibald M. Crossley* to measure the unseen audience. In up to 81 U.S. cities for 16 years, Crossley aides thumbed through telephone directories, called subscribers at random, asked them what program, if any, they were...