Black-appeal stations

Last updated

Before the development of the radio format called "Top 40" was born, "Black Appeal Stations" reinvigorated radio. By playing a specific group of songs aimed specifically at the young African American demographic, "Black Appeal Stations" helped keep radio alive. Many other radio stations soon began to employ the "Top 40" radio format, in which the vast majority found their stations to rise from the bottom to top of ratings in their markets.

Contents

By employing "Top 40" as a radio format, stations were also making a decision to target a niche in the listening audience rather than trying to appeal to everyone as they had done since the beginning. Thus, several different stations could engage in format radio that included songs that appealed to various niche audiences within a community. This strategy of marketing radio broadcasting was made clear and successful through the developments and maturation of early "Black Appeal Stations".

History

As 1952 drew to a close, the world of broadcasting was a maelstrom of probes, experiments, deals, and adjustments. Everything was in flux due to losing audience and programs to television. In Chicago, Jack Cooper, a black DJ with a big band audience refused to play R&B as it was considered 'low life' and had 'suggestive lyrics' that were somewhat sexual due to the double entendres, the cultural connotations were that it was music your mother didn't let you listen to. The music of black appeal stations gained a popular and mostly black audience in 'juke' joints, jukeboxes, and record stores. [1]

Radio, sensing disaster, looked for new functions. Some stations became "Negro Stations"; most of these were owned by whites but aimed at the African American "market" with various kinds of "Negro" music. WDIA Memphis claims to be the first black format radio station. Blues great B.B. King started his career as a disk jockey on the station programmed by Nat D. Williams with a rhythm and blues sound. But the station also featured discussion of race issues as experienced and viewed by black announcers. [2]

The format was successful, and quickly spread to other stations in Birmingham, New Orleans, Nashville, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Washington, D.C., among others. In 1949 only four stations aired a black appeal format. By 1952 there were around 200 such stations and by 1956 there were 400. [3]

Some people thought radio should become the medium of intellectuals. One-time radio greats like Eddie Cantor and Paul Whiteman were disk-jockeys. Taboos had vanished; now at this time almost anything could be discussed on radio. But ratings still plunged, and major sponsors were ready and eager for the switch. As the comedian Fred Allen put it, "they were ready to abandon radio like the bones at a barbeque." [4]

The nation began to flock to television. Bishop Fulton J. Sheen was placed into a weekly series against Milton Berle and his Texaco program. Information Please began to transition itself from radio into the realm of television. Another radio veteran, Walter Winchell, wearing his hat like a 1930's movie reporter, transitioned from radio as well and shouted out news insights with a gravelly voice. Edward R. Murrow and a young collaborator, Fred W. Friendly, had transformed their documentary radio series Hear It Now into See It Now . [5]

As the audience for comedy, variety, and drama shifted toward television and away from radio, radio stations had to find a new way to attract an audience. Stations that had remained independent had been familiar with the answer for several years. That answer was found in the newly permitted freedom to play recorded music.

In the mid-1940s technology for the recording industry had advanced to the point that recorded music was equal to or better than live performances on radio. Therefore, radio stations were airing fewer and fewer live performers through the decade with more airtime being devoted to records. Network affiliates had to fill more and more airtime on their own, and they too began to turn to recorded music. [5]

In the 1950s these new sounds from the recording industry began to find prominent airtime on the radio. This influence was in large part to Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed, who developed a new term for the upbeat music that combined elements for rhythm and blues, gospel, and country. He called it Rock and Roll. This popular new music through the tremendous aid of "Negro Stations" or "Black Appeal Stations" soon was being played on numerous jukeboxes in young adult and teen hangouts.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alan Freed</span> American disc jockey and rock-and-roll figure (1921–1965)

Albert James "Alan" Freed was an American disc jockey. He also produced and promoted large traveling concerts with various acts, helping to spread the importance of rock and roll music throughout North America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rufus Thomas</span> American singer (1917–2001)

Rufus C. Thomas, Jr. was an American rhythm-and-blues, funk, soul and blues singer, songwriter, dancer, DJ and comic entertainer from Memphis, Tennessee. He recorded for several labels, including Chess Records and Sun Records in the 1950s, before becoming established in the 1960s and 1970s at Stax Records. His dance records, including "Walking the Dog" (1963), "Do the Funky Chicken" (1969), and "(Do the) Push and Pull" (1970), were some of his most successful songs. According to the Mississippi Blues Commission, "Rufus Thomas embodied the spirit of Memphis music perhaps more than any other artist, and from the early 1940s until his death . . . occupied many important roles in the local scene."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WLAC</span> Radio station in Nashville, Tennessee

WLAC is a commercial radio station in Nashville, Tennessee. Owned by iHeartMedia, it broadcasts a talk radio format. The studios are in Nashville's Music Row district. It identifies itself as "TalkRadio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC" using the dial position of its FM translator at 98.3 MHz, as well as its AM frequency.

A radio format or programming format describes the overall content broadcast on a radio station. The radio format emerged mainly in the United States in the 1950s, at a time when radio was compelled to develop new and exclusive ways to programming by competition with television. The formula has since spread as a reference for commercial radio programming worldwide.

WERD was the first radio station owned and programmed by African Americans. The station was established in Atlanta, Georgia on October 3, 1949, broadcasting on 860 AM. The National Black Radio Hall of Fame Atlanta Chapter is reopening WERD which still exists at its birth location and will also include a historical museum with it after renovations of the facility are completed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WTOB (AM)</span> Radio station in North Carolina, United States

WTOB is an AM radio station licensed to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States, which serves the Piedmont Triad area. The station is currently owned by Richard Miller and Robert Scarborough, Ken Hauser and Richard Parker through licensee Southern Broadcast Media LLC. and airs a classic hits format.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WLIB</span> Gospel radio station in New York City

WLIB is an urban contemporary gospel radio station licensed to New York, New York. WLIB is owned by the Emmis Corporation. The three stations share studios in the Hudson Square neighborhood of lower Manhattan, and WLIB's transmitter is located in Lyndhurst, New Jersey.

WWRL is a commercial radio station licensed to New York, New York, owned by iHeartMedia, Inc. The station airs an all-news radio format as an affiliate of the Black Information Network (BIN).

WDIA is a radio station based in Memphis, Tennessee. Active since 1947, it soon became the first radio station in the United States that was programmed entirely for African Americans. It featured black radio personalities; its success in building an audience attracted radio advertisers suddenly aware of a "new" market among black listeners. The station had a strong influence on music, hiring musicians early in their careers, and playing their music to an audience that reached through the Mississippi Delta to the Gulf Coast.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WGVL</span> Radio station in Greenville, South Carolina

WGVL is a radio station licensed to Greenville, South Carolina. It is owned and operated by iHeartMedia, Inc. The station serves as Greenville's Black Information Network affiliate.

KWAM is a commercial radio station in Memphis, Tennessee, featuring a conservative talk radio format known as "The Mighty 990". Owned by Todd Starnes via Starnes Media Group, LLC, the stations serves the Memphis metropolitan area. KWAM's studios are located in Memphis, while the transmitter is in Marion, Arkansas. KWAM was founded in 1947 in West Memphis, Arkansas, as KWEM, helping "break" artists such as Elvis Presley, B.B. King, Johnny Cash, Ike Turner and Howlin' Wolf in the late 1940s and 1950s.

Douglas "Jocko" Henderson was an American radio disc jockey, businessman, and hip hop music pioneer.

WRAP was an historic radio call sign, that was transferred, along with a black-oriented format, between three Hampton Roads stations from 1952 until 1989. WRAP began as one of only a handful of American radio stations broadcasting full-time to the African American community, featuring R&B, soul music and black gospel, along with news and talk programs. Communities that were served included Portsmouth, Newport News, Hampton and Virginia Beach.

GI Jive was a 15-minute radio program transmitted by the Armed Forces Radio Service for entertainment of soldiers in World War II. Its initial frequency of five days per week later increased to six days per week. It was included in the group of "programs proposed for production on the AFRS's initial schedule". GI Jive differed from AFRS programs like Command Performance and Mail Call in that it used a disc jockey format, with someone playing popular recordings of the day. In contrast, Command Performance and Mail Call broadcast live performances by popular entertainers.

Arthur Bernard Leaner, who was known professionally as Al Benson, was an American radio DJ, music promoter and record label owner in Chicago between the 1940s and 1960s. He was particularly significant for his promotion of rhythm and blues music and black involvement in the recording industry in Chicago.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of radio disc jockeys</span> History of radio employees

The history of radio disc jockeys covers the time when gramophone records were first transmitted by experimental radio broadcasters to present day radio personalities who host shows featuring a variety of recorded music.

Joseph Deighton Gibson Jr. was an American radio disc jockey and actor. He attended Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri, from 1940 to 1942, earning a bachelor's degree in science. He is regarded as the father of the Black appeal radio format.

Nathaniel Dowd Williams, known as Nat D. Williams or simply Nat D., was an American high school teacher, disc jockey on Black Appeal radio, journalist and editor. He was born on Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee. Known for his jive patter on the air, Williams had 10% of African-Americans in the U.S. listening to his program and heralded the changing radio style which helped to create "Black appeal radio", which it turn led to the urban contemporary listening format of Black radio in the 1960s and '70s.

Ed ‘Eddie’ Castleberry (1928–2009) was a pioneering newscaster, columnist and air personality at the Mutual Black Network, which produced 5-minute news spots that were broadcast on affiliated radio stations, MBN was later taken over by rival Sheridan Broadcasting Company in 1978 and by 1990 SBN had over 150 affiliates and grossed $15 million annually.

The All-Negro Hour was an American broadcast show that was the first radio program to feature an exclusively African American cast of performers. This sixty-minute variety show was created and hosted by Jack L. Cooper who was known as the first African American radio broadcaster. The All-Negro Hour first premiered on November 3, 1929, on World Stage Battery Company (WSBC), a white-owned radio station in Chicago, and ran until 1935. The program aired on WSBC’s “ethnic appeal” station every Sunday night at 5 p.m. The “ethnic appeal” station was owned by Joseph Silverman, a battery manufacturer, who sold time on WSBC to individuals who were looking to appeal to a specific ethnic group. With the success starting from the program, The All-Negro Hour, Cooper is considered to be the creator of "black appeal", otherwise known as black radio.

References

  1. ↑ Barlow, William (1999) Voice Over: The Making of Black Radio. Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press ISBN   1-56639-666-2, p. 100
  2. ↑ Hilmes, M. (1997). Radio Voices: American Broadcasting, 1922–1952. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 272–273. [ ISBN missing ]
  3. ↑ Hilmes, M. (1997). Radio Voices: American Broadcasting, 1922–1952. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, p. 273. [ ISBN missing ]
  4. ↑ Barnouw, Erik (1990). Tube of Plenty: The Evolution of American Television . New York: Oxford University Press. pp.  1–581.
  5. 1 2 Perry, Stephen (2004). A Consolidated History of Media. Bloomington, IL: Epistelogic Publishing. pp. 1–119.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.