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KJLH

fybush said:
KPRS in Kansas City has been operated by the Carter family since 1949. The Carters bought a partial interest in the station in 1952 and have owned it outright since 1969.
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Ummm...not quite.

KPRS (KPRT on AM since November 1974) originally was in Olathe, Kansas, now a Kansas City suburb, intended to serve the Johnson County, Kansas suburbs. The Black-owned Twin City Advertising Agency bought the station in 1952 (announced in March, closed in August) and moved the transmitting site to Kansas City that fall, enabling it to go back on the air November 1. The president of the firm was Ed "Cookie" Pate, who was a DJ on Leavenworth, Kansas station KCLO in addition to being president of the advertising agency. Andrew "Skip" Carter was the vice-president. The agency was created a couple of years earlier and began some programming over KCLO (now KKLO) at that time.

When the Carter family bought a controlling interest in the station in June 1969, the Kansas City Star stated that KPRS, by that time both on AM and FM*, was one of four Black-owned radio stations in the U.S.

* KPRS-FM went on the air March 17, 1963.
 
Question: is there a definitive book or paper about black ownership and management of radio in the US? I'd think that there are plenty of stories and lessons in that slice of history.
 
Mark Roberts said:
Ummm...not quite.

KPRS (KPRT on AM since November 1974) originally was in Olathe, Kansas, now a Kansas City suburb, intended to serve the Johnson County, Kansas suburbs. The Black-owned Twin City Advertising Agency bought the station in 1952 (announced in March, closed in August) and moved the transmitting site to Kansas City that fall, enabling it to go back on the air November 1. The president of the firm was Ed "Cookie" Pate, who was a DJ on Leavenworth, Kansas station KCLO in addition to being president of the advertising agency. Andrew "Skip" Carter was the vice-president. The agency was created a couple of years earlier and began some programming over KCLO (now KKLO) at that time.

When the Carter family bought a controlling interest in the station in June 1969, the Kansas City Star stated that KPRS, by that time both on AM and FM*, was one of four Black-owned radio stations in the U.S.

* KPRS-FM went on the air March 17, 1963.
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I know better than to argue KC radio history with you!

I do know that the Carters were mentors to Andrew Langston during his long fight to get WDKX on the air here in the late 60s into the 70s.
 
DavidEduardo said:
Not sure on this... but:

Back in the late 50's and early 60's WEUP in Huntsville, AL, portrayed itself as the first Black owned station.

The We-Up call letters honored Huntsville's rocket ship history.

Wikipedia (with all the cautionary notes applied):
WHIY began broadcasting, as WEUP, on March 20, 1958, on a 1000-watt 1600 kilohertz (kHz) AM transmitter. This transmitter was built by the Brennan/Benns group while building WVOK, WAPE, and WBAM. The station was owned by Leroy and Viola Garrett, who became the first African-American owners of a radio station in the state of Alabama.

en.wikipedia.org

WHIY - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
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In the early 60s short-lived KIIX TV ch 22 launched in LA with programing targeted to the African-American community, similar to another TV station (WOOK-TV) in Wash. DC. Just wondering if these two in their day were the only Black owned TV stations in the country?
 
TomásEstefan said:
In the early 60s short-lived KIIX TV ch 22 launched in LA with programing targeted to the African-American community, similar to another TV station (WOOK-TV) in Wash. DC. Just wondering if these two in their day were the only Black owned TV stations in the country?
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Wasn't WOOK-TV owned by Ricard Eaton of "United Broadcasting"? Eaton was the owner of many ethnic stations, several of which (WOOK AM and WFAB AM) lost their licences due to unacceptable practice. Eaton was as white as my Irish great-great-grandfather.
 
DavidEduardo said:
Wasn't WOOK-TV owned by Ricard Eaton of "United Broadcasting"? Eaton was the owner of many ethnic stations, several of which (WOOK AM and WFAB AM) lost their licences due to unacceptable practice. Eaton was as white as my Irish great-great-grandfather.
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Well I'll be darned...Who knew? (I didn't). Out of curiosity, what were the unacceptable practices?
 
TomásEstefan said:
Well I'll be darned...Who knew? (I didn't). Out of curiosity, what were the unacceptable practices?
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At WOOK, a paid preacher program used fake Bible verses to do a numbers game.

At WFAB, there was double billing.... lots of it... on coop accounts (where a dealer is given funding by a supplier for inclusion of their brand in ads) where the supplier was billed at a high rates to that the local dealer did not pay anything. In addition, the state of Florida was investigating Eaton's own insurance company because United would fire any employee with a serious or terminal illness to avoid paying high costs.

At WJMO / WCUY we had to buy our own soap and toilet paper as the company would take 3 or 4 month to renew a supply... from its own supplier! That was not an FCC issue, but it annoyed all of us. In the AM studio they had a voodood doll that looked like Richard Eaton with lots of pins in it.

Through his wife, he owned XERF in Villa Acuña, México, famous for selling the Resurrection Plant and the prayer tablecloth and... the biggie was the autographed photo of Jesus.
 
KIIX was also not Black-owned even during its brief run with Black programming.

As best I can tell, WGPR-TV in Detroit was the first TV station with actual Black ownership a decade later. I am quite certain WHEC-TV in Rochester became the first Black-owned VHF station and network affiliate when Gannett sold it to Ragan Henry's BENI group in 1979.
 
DavidEduardo said:
At WOOK, a paid preacher program used fake Bible verses to do a numbers game.

At WFAB, there was double billing.... lots of it... on coop accounts (where a dealer is given funding by a supplier for inclusion of their brand in ads) where the supplier was billed at a high rates to that the local dealer did not pay anything. In addition, the state of Florida was investigating Eaton's own insurance company because United would fire any employee with a serious or terminal illness to avoid paying high costs.

At WJMO / WCUY we had to buy our own soap and toilet paper as the company would take 3 or 4 month to renew a supply... from its own supplier! That was not an FCC issue, but it annoyed all of us. In the AM studio they had a voodood doll that looked like Richard Eaton with lots of pins in it.

Through his wife, he owned XERF in Villa Acuña, México, famous for selling the Resurrection Plant and the prayer tablecloth and... the biggie was the autographed photo of Jesus.
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Reminds me of Don Imus' preacher satire where if you sent in a substantial donation he would send you a "Praying Hands TV Antenna" and you'd become a member of the "First Church of the Gooey Death".
 
I remember I used to come down hard on KJLH back in 2011 because at the time their music was all over the place. They played R&B, Hop Hop, Old School and Gospel and I used always say that KJLH was unfocused at the time.
 
K6JHU said:
Can I ask about WDIA?
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I don't know a lot about it other than the influence it had on the growth of rock music. It wasn't a black-owned station, but they hired the first black DJ in the south. Their studios were on Union Avenue down the street from where Sam Phillips started Sun Studios. Most of his artists listened to WDIA, and got their music played there. Elvis Presley credited the station for his musical influence, and performed at some station functions after he became successful. There may be some artifacts from the station in the Sun Studios museum, although I haven't been there in years. Here's a link to a book on the station:

 
DavidEduardo said:
At WJMO / WCUY we had to buy our own soap and toilet paper as the company would take 3 or 4 month to renew a supply... from its own supplier! That was not an FCC issue, but it annoyed all of us. In the AM studio they had a voodood doll that looked like Richard Eaton with lots of pins in it.
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I worked at a station like that, the GM was always trying to do barter deals, for TP, coffee, office supplies, just about anything....except records which we could use. Not fun when people called to request a song and we had to tell them it's not in our record library. I ended up dragging so many of my oldies to the station to use. Don't know if the owners knew he was doing that and probably wouldn't care if they did.
 
I did not know that Stevie Wonder was blind until last week! But I did know that he owned KJLH. And he made it sound great
 
nd2023 said:
I did not know that Stevie Wonder was blind until last week! But I did know that he owned KJLH. And he made it sound great
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I find it hard to believe you never knew he was blind. It's as if you live alone in a cave. How old are you???
 
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