George A. Mayoral was the owner of the Supreme Broadcasting Company, licensee of WRCM 97.1 FM, New Orleans' pioneer FM station (Is it still WEZB? It's still on the air.) When FM failed to take off in postwar America, Mr. Mayoral, like many FM stand-alone owners, applied for an AM station, a daytimer on 990 AM, which he called WJMR.
It had a variety of programs, that I remember--but I am remembering from a long time ago. There was popular music in the mornings and noontime, followed by Poppa Stoppa, a white disc jockey who played rhythm and blues until sign-off. Actually, Poppa Stoppa was a series of disc jockeys, the best known of whom was Clarence Hayman (not sure of the spelling of his last name) and who was still alive in the early 1980's and living in Slidell. Supposedly, in those late 1940's, Afro-Americans were not allowed on the air. I don't know if that is true; perhaps it was a perception, or perhaps owners were afraid to put black disc jockeys on the air in the South because they feared white listeners' reactions. How much all of this is true, as I say, I do not know, but it would make a great doctoral dissertation to research it.
As a kid, I loved New Orleans Dixieland jazz, and New Orleans jazz band leader Tony Almerico had a Sunday program over WJMR that I used to listen to. The weekend programs were different. But back in the late 1940's and early 1950's, block programming was the rule-- the philosophy then was that any one station ought to offer something for everyone. That philosophy would change with the advent of more stations, commercial television, and Top 40.
Mr. Mayoral told me in a conversation a long, long time ago that he had been a General Electric engineer in Schenectady and worked on designing UHF broadcasting equipment. He came to New Orleans, built WRCM, WJMR, and applied for a television license, which was awarded to him in 1953-- for WJMR-TV channel 61, which was the highest channel allocated to New Orleans. When other permittees allowed their UHF CP's to expire, he moved WJMR-TV down to channel 20 and was running 5,000,000 watts at one time. But UHF was a disaster for most stations, which could not compete with VHF stations, and eventually he, working with the Louisiana Congressional delegation, had channel 12 dropped into New Orleans, over the protests of channel 12 in Jackson (the callsign was WJTV, I think). Mayoral and Columbia Pictures went in partnership for the license, and WVUE was born. Later, sometime in the early seventies, it would switch channels with WYES and move to channel 8, which had a better coverage that the short-spaced, directional channel 12.
All of these stations --WJMR, WRCM, WJMR-TV, but not WVUE-- operated from the tower atop the historic Jung Hotel on Canal Street not far south of Claiborne Avenue. The tower was there before Katrina, but I do not know if it is still there at all.
There are people in New Orleans who know a lot more about this than I do. I believe Mr. Mayoral's son still lives in the area.
Incidentally, when James A. Noe's WNOE won the hearing about 1950 and the FCC issued authorization for it to move to 1060 AM and 50,000 watts day and 5,000 watts night (WNOE was the Mutual affiliate in New Orleans), that opened up its old frequency, 1450 AM, for applicants. Mr. Mayoral was one of several who applied for it, to move WJMR there for a fulltime signal. He and others lost to one Royal Broadcasting Company, which put WTIX, the city's first classical music station (commercial operation) on the air. Three years later, they sold the station to Todd Storz of Omaha, who changed it to Top 40. The rest is history.
It's great that you are interested in old New Orleans radio history. Ask around if there are any oldtimers still living in the area. Most, I'm afraid, are long gone, and with them, the history of it all.
