Popular songs were "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes", "Boulevard of Broken Dreams", and "The Easter Parade"
Roosevelt was in the White House, the Volstead act (prohibition) was repealed, Fiorello H. LaGuardia was elected mayor of New York City.
In Portland, KXL was broadcasting from the Multnomah Hotel with 100 watts; KEX originated (with 5,000 watts) from the Terminal Sales building; and KOIN came out of the New Heathman Hotel. All these buildings still stand. But they had different addresses in 1933. For that was the year that Portland began renumbering all of their addresses into one, contiguous street numbering scheme.
A small news item in Portland was the abundance of trolley cars. The local trolley company began burning the excess cars instead of mothballing them. The big news that summer was also fire. That was the year of the first Tillimook burn which devastated the coast range.
National news came from such notable voices as Lowell Thomas, David Lawrence; and H.V. Kaltenborn.
Radio was more than news. Amos & Andy was in it's fourth season and was heard 5 times each week at 7 pm. Ovaltine was pushing "Lil Orphan Annie" for her second year. Fleischmann was sponsoring Rudy Vallee Show, and Johnny began his famous "CAAAALLL FFFOOORRR PHILLLIPPPP MORRRASSSSS".
While "alphabet soup" agencies came from the Federal Government, Tubes had a few of their own. In April RCA marketed the "pentagrid converter". From Britain, Cossor introduced the DD/pen, and Lissen produced the Vari-mu pen.
On the outside, radios had a new look. Atwater Kent, General Electric & others came out with the six-legged consoles. Some of the spindle-legged beauties were still "high-boys" while others displayed legs of only 6 inches. The AK model 711 with 11 tubes sold for $150.00.
It was doubtless a less expensive set that the patients at the Shriner's children's hospital were listening to when a high school student named Marie Ballard was there in October.
"Midget" radios were popular & nearly every line touting a cathedral for under $50.00. Philco sold their Model 60B for $29.50.
Amateur radio operators were busy saving their pennies to buy the newest superhetrodynes, like National's line of crystal filtered sets.
Over all, radio was helping the nation forget the depression and it worked.