Dan Seymour (announcer)

Seymour died of a heart attack July 27, 1982, at his apartment in New York City. He was 68. He was survived by his wife, a son, three daughters and 10 grandchildren.

He first was employed by the Young & Rubicam advertising agency. An invitation to "administer a lift to the General Electric program" for Y & R led to "a permanent role with the agency as a television and radio executive." In 1953, he was appointed a vice president in charge of programming in the agency's radio-television department. He resigned from Y & R October 1, 1955, to become a vice president of the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency. Later, he became president and chief executive officer at the Thompson agency.

Three months after Seymour became producer of We the People in February 1950, the program's television Nielsen rating had almost doubled.

In 1950, Seymour left the on-air side of broadcasting to work in programming. He explained his transition by saying: "I never really enjoyed being a performer. The process of simply reading lines became a bore. I became fascinated with the whole business of mass communications and mass persuasion. This was where the challenge lay."

Seymour was elected to one-year terms on the board of the New York City local of the American Federation of Radio Artists for 1948 and 1949.

In 1946, Seymour and Kathryn Murray shared narration on an eight-sided 78rpm album, Arthur Murray Teaches the Fox Trot. The instructional recordings were issued in conjunction with Arthur Murray's dance studios.

In 1945, Seymour, director Tony Leader, and writer Judson Phillips combined efforts to create P.L.S. Productions, a radio producing team, with offices in New York City. The team's first program was You Make the News, which began November 15, 1945, on the Mutual Broadcasting System.

Seymour was once recognized as "Radio's best announcer." An obituary observed: "Seymour was best known as the deep-voiced announcer who startled Americans with a convincing but fictional account of Martians landing on Earth in the War of the Worlds broadcast in 1938."

His first job in radio announcing came in 1935 at WNAC in Boston, Massachusetts, after his college graduation. While at the station, he was also an announcer for the Yankee Network. In 1936, he resigned and joined CBS in New York City. His first major assignment there was announcing for Major Bowes Amateur Hour.

Dan Seymour (June 28, 1914 – July 27, 1982) was an announcer in the era of old-time radio and in the early years of television and later became an advertising executive.