A question, and SEEKING 1950's radio station CHARTS!

[chartguy]

For the San Antonians, what is the timing of KTSA/KAKI/KTSA on 550? I've found discussion of that short-lived call change, and I understand they "had to" change back to KTSA quickly because "kaki" sounded too much like, well, another word for s---. That argument never made much sense to me - also, KAKI was a perfect set of call letters for such a strongly-military area, with so many people dressed in their khaki uniforms. Consider that they probably couldn't have gotten the "vulgar" call letters KAKA even if they wanted to...those call letters were being used in Wickenburg, Arizona at least by 1960 and probably just that little bit earlier when the 550 thing happened. An interesting footnote is that those "vulgar" KAKA call letters are currently in use...on a religious FM station in the middle of Kansas! My 550 question is, though...does anybody know the dates (approximate, at least) that they briefly switched to, and back from, KAKI?

Meanwhile, I am a SERIOUS collector of radio station CHARTS, a/k/a "Surveys" or "top 40 lists." However, having been active since 1963, and being pretty active the entire duration, it's not "EASY" to find ones that I need. I am ONLY seeking to get ONE from every possible different radio station, seeking a chart as old as possible, with a strong preference for something from before 1960 IF it exists.

One of my most sought charts from anywhere is the old KTBC in Austin. In fact, a recently-gotten 1958 chart from KOKE Austin is the only chart from that city (or nearby) that I've ever seen from before 1963. (Actually I think my chart from KTAE in Taylor might be 1962...) I am not likely to need anything, even Fifties, from Houston or Dallas (cities outside the scope of this forum, but probably still of interest to some readers here). However, I would MOST surely be interested in any chart from KTSA dated BEFORE they "ran through" the KAKI call letters...and if a chart from KAKI were to turn up, well, YOU can name your price. I'm serious...

There are MANY places that I need charts from - especially from before 1960 - so my request is NOT limited to central Texas at all. I have nothing that old from west of San Antonio (i.e. Abilene, Lubbock, El Paso, Amarillo, Midland-Odessa, Wichita Falls, etc). My search is actually WORLDWIDE, so even if you're in Spartanburg or Grants Pass or Saskatoon or Buenos Aires or Adelaide and you see this, you may well have something of great interest to me. There are fourteen U.S. states and 7 Canadian provinces (including, astonishingly, BC and QC) that I have NO Fifties from at all, and those are especially wanted.

Assumptions that I might not want something because it's "boring music," or because its condition has seen better days, or because it's a "cheap ugly thing" from a Mimeograph machine or something, are not valid - in fact, I am actually MORE likely to want an "inferior" chart than something that was elegantly printed for mass distribution. What I seek is nearly the OPPOSITE of what's usually "collectable."

My most sought TYPE of charts are the Top Ten lists that were reported weekly and published in local newspapers in some markets large and small (most prevalent in the 1950's and early 1960's). There's a near-total dearth of research on any of these, however - I've actually had to do the research myself when I travel and reach a city and look through microfilm newspapers. The extent of my research has disclosed no such newspaper reports in Nashville, Birmingham or Grand Rapids - and somebody telling me one of the Tampa-St. Pete newspapers had such a column in the Fifties - and that the "Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph" had these of which I strongly seek ANY Saturday newspaper between Sept/55 and Feb/58 - and that my offer for the September 24, 1955 Detroit TIMES (this date ONLY) would be spectacular... All other such known entities elsewhere I've been able to find sources who pretty much "completed" the cities for me, including Washington DC, Cleveland OH and a couple others...

If anybody has any of this stuff, you may be able to do well in running it by me...

 

[davideduardo]

Meanwhile, I am a SERIOUS collector of radio station CHARTS, a/k/a "Surveys" or "top 40 lists." However, having been active since 1963, and being pretty active the entire duration, it's not "EASY" to find ones that I need. I am ONLY seeking to get ONE from every possible different radio station, seeking a chart as old as possible, with a strong preference for something from before 1960 IF it exists.

http://www.davidgleason.com/Radio Musical Quito 57 de la semana.pdf

This URL has the Jan 3, 1970 chart from Radio Musical (HCRM1) 570 in Quito, Ecuador which had the Top 57 of the Week list published in the daily El iempo newspaper ever week.

There is only one known copy of the chart in existence, and this link is a PDF of it.

 

[chartguy]

Thanks-man!! I guess an illustration of just how deep I've dug in my collecting, is that I HAVE one of the HCRM-1 charts...I talked Dave Gleason into sending me one at the time. But the source you sent me, that IS the type of stuff that I'm looking for. Newspaper-published charts are probably my most-wanted of all, especially from the Fifties...because, often, the chart was not published in any other "available" form.

 

[gabigley1]

Mr . Brian A. Billeck of KTSA Radio has given me permission to post the brief history of KTSA radio on this thread:

| | | Inbox

Beginning in 1913, the United States government has generally separated
the assignment of K and W call letters. For land stations, the original
policy was that stations in the west normally got K-- calls, while W--
calls were issued to stations along the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic
seaboard. The original K/W boundary ran north from the Texas-New Mexico
border. However, in late January 1923, the K/W boundary was shifted east
to the Mississippi River. With this change, K's were assigned to all new
grants west of the Mississippi. However, existing W stations that were
located west of the Mississippi were allowed to keep their now
non-standard calls.

There was also an anomaly that occurred for eleven months, from June
1920 through April 1921. For some reason, during this period almost all
new land stations, east and west, got KU-- or KD-- four-letter calls.
Finally, this review lists stations by their city-of-license, and does
not include stations, which only had transmitters on the other side of
the divide. (Call letters are assigned according to the station's city
of license--the location of its transmitter, even if it is on the other
side of the divide, does not matter).

Stations west of the Mississippi River that were licensed before the
late January 1923 boundary shift, and were located in the slice of W
territory that existed west of the Mississippi prior to the shift.
(Originally about 170 stations, not including Minnesota and Louisiana.
However, due to very high deletion rates plus later call changes, only
twelve of these original calls survive: WEW, WHB, WKY, WOC, WOI, WBAP,
WDAF, WDAY, WJAG, WNAX, WOAI, and WTAW).

WCAR signed on in 1922 when it was sold and the call-letters went
through the FCC, the boundaries for W's vs. K's had changed and
therefore the call-letters would also change from WCAR to KTSA. Since
call letters were assigned according to the station's city of license,
the call letter would become KTSA (K-now denoting being West of the
Mississippi, T-Texas, S-San, A-Antonio).

In 1922 San Antonio's first radio station (WJAE) broadcast, but lasted
only a few months. The second radio station to sign on was WCAR in May
9, 1922 - owned by Alamo Radio Electric Co. broadcast from 324 N.
Navarro St. WCAR was later renamed later KTSA (in Feb. of 1927).

Over the years KTSA has not only changed owners but also call letters,
WCAR / KTSA / KAKI / KTSA-550 San Antonio, TX.

During the time Gordon McLendon owned KTSA, (owning the "Texas Triangle"
KLIF-Dallas, KILT-Houston, and KTSA-San Antonio) he changed the call
letter to KAKI (to go along with Khaki) in late 1959. San Antonio is
home to several military bases so he thought it would be a great way to
brand the station with military families. What he did not think about
is that KAKI also has a special meaning in the Spanish community. When
said as "Khaki" it means crap, poop, etc. Shortly thereafter McLendon
changed the call letters back to KTSA.

KTSA has had it share of historical markers. KTSA was San Antonio's
first long-standing radio station. KTSA is listed as the 67th oldest
radio station in the country and one of KTSA's shining moments was a
meeting between two historical figures held in San Antonio live on the
air.

October 28, 1940-KTSA conducted a very rare interview with H.G. Wells
and Orson Welles. First time they appeared together and met for the
first time in San Antonio. The interview and only one ever conducted
with the two, was broadcast live on KTSA. H.G. Wells was here to
address to the United States Brewers Association and Orson Welles was
here for a Town Hall Forum. Charles C. Shaw moderated the interview.

In this rare interview, Orson Welles "plugs" his upcoming 1941 movie
Citizen Kane, in which he utters the soon to be famous line, "rosebud",
and already famous for playing the part of Lamont Cranston in the radio
show, The Shadow. H.G. Wells is the famous of author of numerous books,
including The Invisible Man. As for the masterminds behind the event,
H.G. Wells and Orson H.G. was initially dismayed by Orson's
dramatization because he felt it distorted the fundamental message of
his book which was the destructive imperialism of a technologically
advanced race. Fortunately by this time his dissatisfaction had been
mitigated by a curiosity about the stir the broadcast had caused.
Interestingly enough, Adolf Hitler mentioned the "panic" stirred by the
broadcast in one of his many infamous oratories, and Orson refers to
this particular "Great Munich Speech" during their meeting:
"Mr. Hitler made a good deal of sport of it, you know... Its supposed to
show the corrupt condition and decadent state of affairs in democracy
that The War of the Worlds went over as well as it did."
We must remember also that the Second World War had been raging for the
British for fourteen months already, and H.G. was high on the Nazi list
of banned authors, and many of his books had already been burned during
bonfire rallies. Wells was more pragmatic about the way the world was
going and said to Orson, "You aren't quite serious in America yet; you
haven't got the war right under your chins. And the constant is you
construe, [you] play with ideas of terror and conflict... It's the
natural thing to do until you're right up against it... Then it ceases
to be a game."
In 1947, the Express Publishing Company acquired radio station KYFM, the
city's first FM station. It then bought KTSA-AM and KTSA-FM in 1949,
resulting in the formation of the CBS-affiliated Sunshine Broadcasting
Co.
Although the Express and the News had the circulation lead at the time
of Hearst's death in 1951, the Light pulled off a major coup the next
year by obtaining rights to some of its opponents' most popular
syndicated comics, including "Little Orphan Annie" and "Dick Tracy."
Within a week, the Light was ahead in the circulation race.
Express Publishing sold the KTSA radio stations in 1954 and bought
KEYL-TV and another radio station. It switched their names to KENS, the
last three letters of which stood for Express News Stations.

Another first for KTSA occurred on Friday, July 23, 1982 at 6:14 pm.
KTSA became "The very first AM radio station in America to broadcast in
AM STEREO using the Kahn ISB system." Sadly, "Since switching the from
a music format to their present News/Talk format on Saturday, April 6,
1991, KTSA discontinued stereo transmission."
____________________________________________
Brian A. Billeck | Marketing / Promotion Director
102.7 JACK-FM & 550 KTSA-AM

 

[chartguy]

Thanks Brian...what an INTERESTING post! That's the first that I was ever aware of the K/W call leter division basically taking place at the Mountain Time Zone in the early days. I had always wondered why there were as many W's in that area as there are, because I figured those were very early assignments, and that whenever they stopped giving W's there couldn't have been tons of stations in the area.

It all makes perfect sense now. 170 stations at the time they quit, and yes of course there was a massive shakeout later on, especially in the 1930's during the Depression, and especially in the parts of the Great Plains which had to bear the double-whammy of that AND a temporary desert climate (a/k/a The Dust Bowl). Also, as with most brand-new technologies, radio sort of "over-built" in the early and mid-1920's. (How many automobile companies were there around 1915 or 1920? About 300?) It would be interesting to research when in the Twenties the number of "U.S. broadcasting stations PER CAPITA" peaked...and how long it took the number to rebuild to that per-capita number or higher. Of course, during that interim a growing U.S. population has to be accounted for, as well.

As for the KTSA history, thank you for THAT clarification as well. Extremely interesting; I never realized that the KTSA call letters were actually an arbitrary FRC assignment, I always assumed them to be early vanity calls. So, as far as KAKI, the temporary change was THAT late? I somehow thought it was 1956 or 1957 at the latest. That means that my KTSA survey from (I think) 1958 should be from before KAKI, and since I always count every change of call letters as a "separate" survey, that would mean that the Fifties KTSA, when gotten a couple years ago, would indeed be considered a "new" survey for me.

And if, indeed, KAKI came along THAT late, I think that increases the hope that a chart under those call letters "just could" turn up someday. I guess I stand corrected on the word for "excrement," too - I always thought it was kaka in Spanish, as I have heard that word used a number of times when people have done humor/jokes with "Mexican" inflections. I don't remember hearing kaki used that way before, and the "i" would be a very irregular noun-ending in Spanish as well, as Spanish observes gender, and many of their nouns end in "A" or "O" if the ending isn't a consonant.

I'm glad that I've "re-found" this board. It had been so long since I was there previously, that I had even forgotten my username, which was a very short-lived name I started using in late 2003.

 

[davideduardo]

Thanks-man!! I guess an illustration of just how deep I've dug in my collecting, is that I HAVE one of the HCRM-1 charts...I talked Dave Gleason into sending me one at the time. But the source you sent me, that IS the type of stuff that I'm looking for. Newspaper-published charts are probably my most-wanted of all, especially from the Fifties...because, often, the chart was not published in any other "available" form.

Do you have a different chart than the one on my website? I thought that was the only one in existence, and I would love to have another (a _am_ the former owner of HCRM1, by the way).

 

[TallstickEng]

Don't forget about WACO-FM in of course Waco TX.

 

[chartguy]

I believe that mine is the very same week.

I still have no way of making scans, etc. - that's something I want (and NEED) to be able to do in the near future. I can't keep going through these years where less than $1,000 of income/transactions initiate between late July and mid-January.

Ironically my surveys have been hard to get to, because I've not had a place to put them that I felt was entirely safe...