In the 1960s-1980s, KMOX in St. Louis got 27-30 shares with Cardinals baseball and other sports, heavy news and what they called At Your Service, which was mostly talk about local issues and events.
I wonder why adults were interested in such programming in the past, but today‘s generation of under 55 adults would not be.
They grew up with news and informed talk being an increasingly attenuated presence on radio. At this point, I would posit that anyone 65 or under grew up primarily listening to FM, where news and informed talk (i.e. not just opinion that's not necessarily supported by facts) were much less of a presence than they were on AM.
Sticking with St. Louis as an example, do you really think the average adult in 2024 is as informed about their community and the world as one who in 1974 listened to KMOX all day, read both the Post Dispatch and Globe Democrat and came home and watched Walter Cronkite?
(The Globe? Ummmm.... As long as you didn't read the editorial page....)
When you go back to the ratings in 1974 St. Louis, they were quarterly diaries, so therefore not very accurate. Even then, KMOX didn't do as well with adults under 35 as they did 35-49. So it was an older demographic even then. In the early 70s, radio usage wasn't as personal as it became later in that decade.
This should not take away from the enormous success that KMOX was. Bob Hyland knew talent. He knew how to keep it away from KSD and other competitors. He had a well-staffed news department, led by John Angelides, that did both spot news and feature news, without the pretentiousness that NPR can have sometimes. In some ways, "Total Information", the morning and afternoon-drive news blocks presaged NPR's in-depth news programming. No, it did not appeal to younger folks other than for sports. (Of course, he had all the teams' broadcast rights locked up.) It didn't need to. In 1984, the Post-Dispatch estimated that KMOX had $16-18 million a year in revenue. Jack Carney, the hugely popular mid-morning personality who died late in 1984, was believed to be responsible for about a fourth of that. Bob Hyland was also extremely attentive to details and was known for being at the station at any hour of the day or night. He was often described as a "taskmaster" but the kind of taskmaster who was loyal to those who met his expectations. Aside from all that, he still had energy left over to maintain extensive and tight connections to the St. Louis business establishment. When he died in 1992, it was inevitable that the station wouldn't be what it once was.
In addition, listeners my age were listening to FM - KSHE and KADI and KWK-FM for the album rock; KSLQ for the hits. Aside from KMOX, AM ceased to be much of a factor. KXOK declined rapidly after KSLQ came about in 1972. Die-hard country listeners had WIL, but it did not have the best signal. KMOX's closest competitor should have been KSD. But, unlike KMOX, where CBS kept the radio and TV operations entirely separate from one another, KSD increasingly became an adjunct to the TV station. The radio news operation was smaller, and heavily leveraged KSD-TV's reporting. KSD programmed adult-contemporary music, until making a brief run at an all-news format. That was starting to have some success when the station was sold and, ultimately, became country KUSA.
So don't lump KMOX in with the rest of the AMs that have seen better days. It was something special, even if I didn't appreciate it fully at the time. It really was "The Voice of St. Louis".
