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CBS Radio Sports To LA?
- Thread starter recto101
- Start date
LARadioRewind said:
Respectfully, I can't even begin to describe the howls of laughter you would get from people who worked at KMPC if you were to say that to them.
As the occupants of cubicles and of some offices diminished, office supplies were hoarded and traded for.
In 1990, the company stopped its matching contributions to the employees' savings & investment plan.
"Creative bookkeeping" screwed with the commissions of sales people, some leaving in disgust.
Lisa Bowman, part-time and fill-in host on KMPC Sports talk shows, resigned in anger after Mr. Ward discovered some technicality that allowed him to pay her less than AFTRA scale. She left abruptly, and wrote him a very negatively-toned letter of resignation.
An old joke about Bill Ward was that on out of town trips, he would drive his rent-a-car backwards.
He did bring a new meaning to the term, "Out of town by sundown."
RicoGregg said:
My favorite experience was hearing him say, in late '97 at the KSCA studios near the entrance to Forest Lawn, that 106.7 could never get any better than a low one share because, after all, the signal was the problem.
New owner, new format, and it got a 4.4 in Spring of '97.
T
Thomps2525
Guest
Respectfully, Mister Gregg, I have no idea what went on within the walls of the KMPC building on Sunset Boulevard, but, judging by the air talent that Bill Ward hired, he wasn't a miser. However, based on what you've reported here, he was a miser. Apparently he skimped on pay and benefits for some people so he could splurge on others.
Dennis Constantine, who was program director of KBCO in Boulder, Colorado, put together the airstaff and playlist when 101.9 switched to adult album alternative, but---if I'm not mistaken, which I often can be---wasn't the format change Ward's idea?
Dennis Constantine, who was program director of KBCO in Boulder, Colorado, put together the airstaff and playlist when 101.9 switched to adult album alternative, but---if I'm not mistaken, which I often can be---wasn't the format change Ward's idea?
RicoGregg said:
Brain F--t. Of course, I meant 101.9.
I always found it borderline odd that they located the station at the "gateway" to Forest Lawn.
They had an entire wall filled with artist signatures and little comments. When the station moved to Hollywood and Vine, apparently some of the former airstaff removed the drywall that had the autographs on it. I wonder if someone still has it?
LARadioRewind said:
He probably got tired of people removing the hyphen from K-LIT on the outside of the Sunset Blvd building and changed format to avoid the problem.
T
Thomps2525
Guest
Ha ha! That brings to mind the story that KKHJ program director Alfredo Rodriguez managed to get the original KHJ call letters back after he convinced the FCC that "KKHJ" was vulgar in Spanish: the "KK" was pronounced like "caca," the word for...umm..........
LARadioRewind said:
Definitely a tip of the "Dusty Resistol" to Alfredo Rodriguez for getting call letters returned to KHJ. A similar event happened in the OKC suburb of Noman when WNOR changed call letters to WWLS. A nice play of the grandfather clause...
LARadioRewind said:
The true top-dollar talent (apart from Robert W. Morgan) was chased out the door by Ward's predecessor, Ken Miller, during the switch to talk in 1980. That's where they lost Geoff Edwards, Wink Martindale, Gary Owens and Roger Carroll.
When they came back to music in May, 1982 (with Miller still GM for another few months, but Ward running the radio division according to Billboard...Thanks, Google Books!), Morgan was the only real big-bucks talent. No disrespect to the abilities of Neil Ross, Eric Tracy, Larry McKay or Deanna Crowe, but they didn't have the name recognition of Geoff, Wink, Gary or Roger, and I'll be amazed if someone tells me they made Geoff, Wink, Gary or Roger dollars.
Yes, they got Johnny Magnus to come back after KPRZ flipped to KIIS, but (and I am a huge Magnus fan) I doubt it was for Godzilla bucks. And when Robert W. bailed for KMGG for a couple of years, I'm sure Ward did everything he could to pay Jim Lange less than he was paying Robert W (and maybe less than Lange made at KMPC in 1970).
Frankly, from 1973 on, KMPC wasn't the shop it once was (at least one person on the inside has expressed the opinion that Gene opened up a can of bad karma when he dumped Ira Cook after almost 20 years of "you'll always have a job with me").
When Russ Barnett handed the programming reins off to Mark Blinoff, Mark rushed the move from traditional MOR to Adult Contemporary. The music change was too abrupt, it wasn't going to attract younger listeners on its own (they were used to 15 of those songs an hour, not six), and the long-time KMPC audience started trying the FM button in their Buicks, Mercurys and Oldsmobiles and finding KJOY, KOST and KBIG.
Losing Magnus hurt. Clark Race was a disaster (personal problems), Sonny Melendrez never really got traction, and the station could have and should have groomed Kathy Gori into a big deal...and squandered that opportunity.
We've already covered Bill Ward. Bill Watson should never have been allowed in the building. He just accelerated the disconnect that turned KMPC into just another AM station struggling to find its way.
Whittinghill stayed far too long. KMPC hired potential successors for 17 years (starting with Gary Owens). They offered Bob Crane $300,000 a year in 1973 (he thought he still had a future in TV and movies). And by the time they finally shoved Whit overboard and put Robert W. Morgan in the chair, it had been four years since he'd been a morning man in Los Angeles and six years since he'd been one with numbers (at KIQQ, Morgan was tied for 33rd in the fall '74 ratings). Ten years since he'd been number one. He did fine, but the momentum that was squandered is incredible.
All this is what happened before 1980. After that, when the rot really set in and Gene (and more importantly, Jackie) didn't have the fire in the belly to do whatever it took to be the best radio station in America anymore....it just got worse.
LARadioRewind said:
Actually, Alfredo could have cared less about the call letters.
It was the KKHJ chief engineer who was nostalgic about the calls (and who even did a tribute that ran when the calls changed). The owner saw the commercial value in the heritage calls at the agency level, too.
Although the calls were never, ever used in Spanish as the legal ID was done in English as "Kay, Kay, Ach, Jay" the FCC bought the allegation that "Kah Kah Achay Jota" was a reference to excrement and allowed the rollback to the original call letters.
michael hagerty said:
Put the late, great Sie Holliday in that same category. The Station of the Stars should have made Sie Holliday a star.
Truer words have never been written on these boards. "Mr. Kicks" is the textbook example of the old saying that goes, "It's better to be lucky than good."
Bill Watson jokes continued in the building long after his dismissal.
I'm probably reading too much into this, but AllAccess.com's note on KATY in the IE Names Rick Shaw For PD/Afternoons references how he replaces JIM DANIELS, who recently left for weekends at Sports/Talk KABC-A/LOS ANGELES. Sports/Talk? Could it be that KABC is destined to become a sports and talk hybrid with some CBS Radio Sports destined to show up on 790's air?
T
Thomps2525
Guest
From 1974 to 1997 and from 2008 to 2011, KABC carried Dodgers baseball. In 2013, KABC has...umm...not the Dodgers or Angels...or Kings or Ducks...or Lakers or Clippers...or Galaxy...or USC or UCLA...or Santa Anita or Hollywood Park...Golly gee, KABC has no sports teams! And on weekends the station airs nothing but a couple of cooking shows, a couple of real estate shows, and what seems to be at least five hundred financial programs. I can't see any kind of sports format, even weekends-only, succeeding on KABC...but on the other hand, their ratings can't get much lower. You could be right, Mister David.
....it just got worse. And the rest is now history too! and still worse!
T
Thomps2525
Guest
So "Jim Daniels" has joined KABC. That sounds like a pseudonym that might be used by a hundred different DJs in the country. Does anyone know if this is the same Jim Daniels who, in the 1990s, did mornings at KOMP in Las Vegas and KGGI in Riverside and had a talk show on KLSX? (Not all at the same time, of course.)
LARadioRewind said:
Googled Jim Daniels and KATY. Got his bio. Same guy.
T
Thomps2525
Guest
When Jim Daniels joined KLSX, he replaced Ken Ober and Susan Olsen. Susan, of course, played Cindy Brady on The Brady Bunch, 1969-74. Instead of Cindy, they should have hired Marcia! 
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