Dragnet : Switch from Fatima to Chesterfield sponsor?

Anyone know why Liggett & Myers switched from the Fatima brand to Chesterfield for sponsorship of the show? I;ve been listening to the radio show a lot lately and it seems like about early 1952 (after the death of Barton Yarborough) that the sponsor cigarette brand was switched.

Could this be because Webb blamed Yarborough's heart attack on Fatimas? Maybe Webb thought Chesterfields were a better quaity of toabacco and less likely to cause health problems?

I'm guessing that it was a simple matter of more $$$$$.

As a follow up to this, I found out that Fatima and Chesterfield were both owned by Liggett and Myers tobacco company, so I guess that they just decided to start pushing the brand that they wanted to promote.

Chesterfield was the flagship brand for the company. In the early days of the show, they were reluctant to "hitch their wagon" to an unknown quantity. At that time, no one knew Dragnet would be such a hit.

After it became evident that it was a tremendous hit, they switched to advertising Chesterfields because of it's prestige. Since shows were so closely identified with single sponsors in those days, I suppose it made sense.



"He was running around like a rooster in a barnyard full of ducks."--Pat Novak

I listen to the radio show & see on eBay unopened packs of Fatima & Chesterfields. Always tempting.

The radio spots are interesting. For Christmas, Webb says pick up a carton of cigarettes as a gift. A gift??? I'm now noticing more mentions of how Chesterfields have been tested & shown to cause no ill effects.

I've been listening to a lot of old radio Dragnets with the commercials intact, and I have to say, they are awful. A consistent theme is that the Fatima and Chesterfield cigarettes are somehow more healthful for you because they are longer and that somehow keeps the burning smoke away from you longer. They also follow a group of smokers for one year and declare them perfectly healthy. How about following them 20 years? Another thing you notice is during the Dragnet episodes themselves, people are constantly smoking.

Webb croaked in his early 60's. Want to bet that smoking hurried this along?


"He was running around like a rooster in a barnyard full of ducks."--Pat Novak

...once had a radio show sponsored by Pall Mall cigarettes. He kept talking about his son Chester and no body at the cigarette company ever caught on to the inside joke.

(As told to me by my late father.)



The past is a series of presents. The present is living history we are privileged to witness