Boss Radio

Last updated

Boss Radio was the name of two radio programming formats, both launched in the early 1960s: One in the United States, and one in the United Kingdom. Although the names were the same, the formats were quite different.

Contents

The word "boss" was early 1960s American slang for something fashionably attractive or impressive.

Boss Radio in the United States

Although developed earlier at other stations, the U.S. "Boss Radio" format is most closely associated with KHJ in Los Angeles, at 930 kHz AM.

KHJ, one of the first radio stations in Los Angeles, had gone on the air in 1922 and in later years was owned by RKO, a major U.S. corporation which produced movies, television and radio programming over its own stations. In the 1940s and 1950s, KHJ broadcast a mix of drama, mystery, soap operas, news, and music, both live and recorded. In the early 1960s the format was adult contemporary music. The audience ratings were dominated by KFWB, KRLA, KABC and KMPC, and KHJ lagged far behind the other stations.

Block programming gave way to Top 40 radio during the 1950s. Stations played from 40 to 75 current records each week. Disc jockeys were talkative and the jingles were often a full minute in length. Two California radio programming pioneers, Bill Drake and Gene Chenault, modified the Top 40 formula to include a smaller number of records, heavier rotation of the biggest hits, very short jingles and less talk. The new sound would come to be known as "Boss Radio". KHJ General Manager Ken DeVaney originated the phrase. [1] The word "boss" had come to mean something hip, new, exciting and the top of its class. Drake had tested some of the format elements in 1961 and 1962 while he served as program director and morning man at San Francisco's KYA, a station that promoted itself at the time as "The Boss of the Bay". At about the same time, competitor station KEWB promoted itself via its station ID jingles as "Boss Radio".

Drake and Chenault introduced and further developed this format at KYNO in Fresno, KSTN in Stockton, and KGB AM in San Diego. In April 1965 they brought it to KHJ.

Within a few months the "Boss Radio" format had brought KHJ to the top of the ratings in the Los Angeles market. It also firmly established the careers of several "boss jocks" such as The Real Don Steele and Robert W. Morgan who helped to put "Boss Radio" on the air in Los Angeles, under the guidance of program director Ron Jacobs. (The other original Boss Jocks in the spring of 1965 included Roger Christian, Gary Mack, Dave Diamond, Sam Riddle, and Johnny Williams.)

As a result of the station's success, several other stations adopted the format, notably KFRC in San Francisco, WFIL in Philadelphia, WRKO in Boston, and eventually reaching as far north as Canadian border blaster CKLW in Windsor, Ontario (targeting metro Detroit area). As a result of its massive clear channel signal and overnight signal propagation, CKLW was able to garner an international audience—even as far as Soviet Russia, making it almost certainly (though unprovably) the biggest of the "Boss Radios".

Swinging Radio England

Swinging Radio England or "SRE" was the "home of the boss jocks and much more music". The radio station began life in the spring of 1966 on board the former US Army/Navy Vessel USS Deal (FS-263, AKL-2, AG-131) MV Olga Patricia, renamed the Laissez Faire. The ship was anchored three and a half miles off the Frinton-on-Sea, Essex coast of Britain in international waters.

SRE's format was not so much a format as a hybrid of formats. The station was totally unlike any other radio station that had previously been heard in Europe or probably anywhere else in the world at that time. While the PAMS jingles were a resung version of those heard on WABC in New York City and many other stations throughout the States, SRE had a custom melody line unused anywhere else in the world, the high-power "bannerline" news presentation had been lifted from WFUN in Miami, Florida and the DJs were using the heavy echo and the forced approach of stations such as KBOX in Dallas, Texas.

The U.S. "boss jocks" who came over with the ship trained the few English air personnel how to develop this same style of presentation. Everything was "over the top" when it came to the 50 kilowatt transmissions of SRE. While some listeners loved it, most remained tuned to the more relaxed top 40 formats of its competitors such as Wonderful Radio London and Radio Caroline South.

Swinging Radio England shared the ship from which it broadcast with another 50 kW station named Britain Radio, a beautiful music format station which called itself the "Hallmark of Quality". These two 50 kW stations attempted to broadcast at full power by using caged antennas slung from a central broadcasting mast, which caused constant headaches for the radio engineers. Because of the difficulty in getting the two stations to stay on the air, much early investment money was squandered.[ citation needed ] Other problems also arose when the British government announced that it would introduce legislation to close all of the offshore stations.

Because of the technical difficulties and the slow start, compounded by a lack of advertising, SRE was forced to sign off the air during November 1966 in a cloud of adverse publicity surrounding its London based advertising sales arm which went out of business in a hailstorm of debt.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CKLW</span> Radio station in Windsor, Ontario, Canada

CKLW is a commercial radio station in Windsor, Ontario, serving Southwestern Ontario and Metro Detroit. CKLW is owned by Bell Media and has a news/talk radio format. It features local hosts in morning and afternoon drive times, with syndicated Canadian hosts in middays and evenings, plus Coast to Coast AM with George Noory overnight. Evening newscasts are simulcast from CHWI-DT Channel 16 CTV Windsor.

KHJ is a commercial AM radio station that is licensed to Los Angeles, California. Owned and operated by Relevant Radio, Inc., the station broadcasts Roman Catholic religious programming as an affiliate of the Relevant Radio network.

Bill Drake, born Philip Yarbrough, was an American radio programmer who co-developed the Boss Radio format with Gene Chenault via their company Drake-Chenault.

Swinging Radio England ("SRE") was a top 40 offshore commercial station billed as the "World's Most Powerful" that operated from 3 May 1966 to 13 November 1966 from a ship in the North Sea, four and a half miles off Frinton-on-Sea, Essex, England. While the station was dubbed a pirate radio station, its operation took place within the law and its offices were in the West End of London. Its representation was by a company formed earlier in the year to represent in Europe the ABC radio and television stations of the United States.

KRTH is a commercial radio station that is licensed to Los Angeles, California, United States and serves the Greater Los Angeles area. The station is owned by Audacy, Inc. and broadcasts a classic hits format. KRTH's studios are located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile district of Los Angeles. The station's signal covers an extremely large area of Southern California due in part to its antenna location on Mt. Wilson. It can be heard as far south as San Diego, as far east as Moreno Valley, as far west as Santa Barbara, and as far north as Barstow. KRTH is the flagship station for the nationally syndicated program Rewind with Gary Bryan.

Contemporary hit radio is a radio format that is common in many countries that focuses on playing current and recurrent popular music as determined by the Top 40 music charts. There are several subcategories, dominantly focusing on rock, pop, or urban music. Used alone, CHR most often refers to the CHR-pop format. The term contemporary hit radio was coined in the early 1980s by Radio & Records magazine to designate Top 40 stations which continued to play hits from all musical genres as pop music splintered into Adult contemporary, Urban contemporary, Contemporary Christian and other formats.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">RKO General</span> Former broadcasting mass media corporation

RKO General Inc. was an American broadcasting company that, from 1952 through 1991, served as the main holding company for the noncore businesses of the General Tire and Rubber Company and later on GenCorp. The concern was based around the consolidation of its parent company's broadcasting interests, which dated to 1943 and were brought together under the General Teleradio umbrella in 1952. The company was renamed RKO Teleradio Pictures following its 1955 purchase of the RKO Pictures film studio, and then RKO General in 1959 after dissolving the motion picture division. Headquartered in New York City, the company operated six television stations and more than a dozen major radio stations around North America between 1959 and 1991.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">KLSD</span> Radio station in California, United States

KLSD is a commercial radio station in San Diego, California. It is owned by iHeartMedia and broadcasts a talk format branded "The Patriot AM 1360". The radio studios and offices are on Granite Ridge Drive in the Serra Mesa neighborhood on the northeast side. Nationally syndicated shows heard on KLSD include Glenn Beck, Jesse Kelly, Dana Loesch, Mark Levin, Chad Benson, Red Eye Radio and America in the Morning.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CIDR-FM</span> Radio station in Windsor, Ontario

CIDR-FM is a commercial radio station in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, targeting the Detroit–Windsor metropolitan area, with fringe reception into Toledo and Cedar Point/Sandusky in Ohio. It is owned and operated by Bell Media and airs a Top 40/CHR format. The studios and offices are located on Ouellette Avenue in Windsor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CKWW</span> Radio station in Windsor, Ontario, Canada

CKWW is a Canadian radio station in Windsor, Ontario. It is owned by Bell Media and airs an oldies format targeted to the Windsor/Detroit market. Most of the playlist is made up of hits from the 1950s, 60s and 70s. The studios and offices are on Ouellette Avenue in Windsor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jones Radio Networks</span> Former American radio syndication network

Jones Radio Networks & Jones Media Group were branches of Jones International before being sold to Triton Media Group. JRN and JMN provide local radio stations with satellite-delivered formats. They also offer other services to local radio such as news and talk programs, syndicated radio shows, music scheduling, show preparation, and music and sales Research. Jones Media Network also owns many national syndication shows such as Lia, All Night with Danny Wright, The Ed Schultz Show, The Stephanie Miller Show, The Bill Press Show, The Neal Boortz Show, The Clark Howard Show, and A&E Network's Live by Request. Jones Media Networks & Jones Radio Networks own production studios in: New York, NY; Los Angeles; Chicago; Washington, DC; Seattle, WA; Centennial, CO; and Florida. Clark Howard and Neal Boortz are broadcast from the studios of WSB-AM in Atlanta, GA; those shows are produced by Cox Radio. Jones Media Networks reaches about 1.3 billion weekly listeners in radio. In 2006, Jones purchased TM Century, a Dallas-based company providing jingles and production services for radio stations across the country.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert W. Morgan</span>

Robert Wilbur Morgan was an American radio personality best known for his work at several stations in Los Angeles, California, in particular KHJ-AM.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">KSTN (AM)</span> Radio station in Stockton, California

KSTN (1420 kHz is a commercial AM radio station in Stockton, California, owned by Robert LaRue, and licensed by KSTN, LLC. It airs a country music radio format, known as "105.9 The Bull."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">KFIG</span> Radio station in Fresno, California

KFIG is a sports station in Fresno, California, United States.

KYNO is a radio station licensed to Fresno, California and is owned by John Ostlund and Katrina Ostlund. KYNO airs an oldies format, switching to Christmas music for much of December. KYNO's radio studios and offices are on Fulton Street in Fresno and its transmitter is off Avenue 384 in Monson, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Drake-Chenault</span> Radio syndication company

Drake-Chenault Enterprises was a radio syndication company that specialized in automation on FM radio stations. The company was founded in the late-1960s by radio programmer and deejay Bill Drake (1937–2008), and his business partner, Lester Eugene Chenault (1919–2010). Drake-Chenault was the predecessor of Jones Radio Networks with its syndicated satellite-delivered formats.

The History of Rock & Roll is an American radio documentary on rock and roll music, first syndicated in 1969. Originally one of the lengthiest documentaries of any medium, The History of Rock & Roll is a definitive history of the Rock and Roll genre, stretching from the early 1950s to the present day. The "rockumentary," as producers Bill Drake and Gene Chenault called it, features hundreds of interviews and comments from numerous rock artists and people involved with rock and roll.

KYAA is a radio station broadcasting a Catholic radio format. It is licensed to Soquel, California, and serves the Monterey Bay, Santa Cruz and San Jose areas. The station is owned by Relevant Radio, Inc.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">KVEN</span> Radio station in California, United States

KVEN is a commercial radio station that is licensed to Port Hueneme, California and serves the Ventura County area. The station is owned by Gold Coast Broadcasting and broadcasts a Spanish-language talk/sports format.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ron Jacobs (broadcaster)</span> American broadcaster (1937–2016)

Ron Jacobs was an American broadcaster, author of books and magazines, record producer and concert promoter. He is best known as the program director of KHJ radio in Los Angeles during its ground-breaking "Boss Radio" period (1965–1969), and as co-creator of the countdown show American Top 40, and the seminal radio program The History of Rock and Roll (1969).

References

  1. Jacobs, Ron (2010). KHJ: Inside Boss Radio. Magic Broadcasting Publishers. p. 40. ISBN   978-0-578-06379-9.

Bibliography