Richard M Roberts wrote:
Indeed, it may have been a radio station, in fact, it may have been NBC, especially if you got the blurb off lantern, whose search engine has a bad tendency to sometimes read the "N's" as "I"'s, especially if the scan of the page has the initials on the bend of the spine.
There was also an IBC in New York, which stood for a broadcasting conglomerate that owned a number of radio stations in the Midwest and had offices in New York, but I haven't found nor ever heard of any example of an IBC Film Studios in Hollywood, nor does it make sense for Warners to have rented any more studio space in Hollywood to shoot her scenes.
RICHARD M ROBERTS
fwiw, this confusion did not come from Lantern, but from a trip to the Warners archive at USC and a search of the daily memos for the production. As they are carbons, it's possible that 'I' was intended to be an 'N'.
Thanks to Joan Myers. She verified there is no IBC studio in the LA Directory in 1934. In addition, with her help, I have verified the Vallee Fleishman Hour broadcast from November 15, 1934 came from KFA, which (caveat emptor - according to Wikipedia) was the NBC-Red affiliate. the KFA studio at the time was located in Burbank near the Warners studio.
So maybe Warners chose to use a real nearby radio station to film the scene rather than build a set on the lot - or maybe it was early product placement - or some sort of in-joke - or a way to make vallee's multitasking of prepping his weekly radio show with his shooting schedule for SWEET MUSIC.
I need to watch the film again to see if the call letters or any other information can be spied.
My reward for jumping down this rabbit hole: that November 1934 radio broadcast survives (as well as another Morgan Vallee appearance) - copies are in the process of being procured.
Thanks Richard and all here.