IT'S KAREL, NOT DR. BILL, SAYS CITADEL

[fandango]

This is an interesting thread, but I'm left still wondering what KGO is going to handle the body blows it has experienced over the last several months.

If Karel isn't quite ready for newstalk prime-time; I have to say that Brian Copeland is positively awful. Consistently trivial topics; incorrect information, superficial but loud opinions -- he is like the substitute teacher we all used to have in Geography class that knew how to teach and how to lead a discussion -- but didn't know squat about Geography. I listen to Rachel Maddow on KKGN instead of Copeleland. Rachel knows what the f**k she's talking about.

Cristine Craft is the only voice I've heard that can handle news-talk well enough to substitute for Ward -- and I really, really miss Bernie Ward. He was entertaining, provocative, informative, and always left me with information I needed to know by the end of his show.

f

 

[DavidKaye]

"In fact, all the 4 male stars of the original Perry Mason series were gay."
Ray Collins (Lieutenant Tragg) was gay? I'm shocked!

Yes, even Lt Tragg. I'm not sure if they all knew each other before or exactly what or whether it was just coincidence. As Dr Dean Edell says, just because people who die of heart attacks are likely to have eaten carrots the night before....

 

[chris319]

I certainly am no fan of Gabbert and his ego/chutzpah/bravado. You may be, but I'm not. Yacht parties and picking up guys do not impress me. My take on the success of KIOI was that he was playing disco music in San Francisco in the '70s -- how could you go wrong with that formula? Was there something else to it that I'm missing? The only good thing about my association with him was that it was short-lived. BTW, he and Lincoln were not living together when I worked for the TV station in the early '80s.

I'm not sure Merv was bisexual after he was divorced. Eva Gabor and Nancy Reagan struck me as being beards. I worked with him once -- he arrived with his "tennis partner" Keith -- and he was charming, delightful and complimentary of my work (praise coming from someone with Merv's experience was extra special). He and I used to work for the same employer and I regaled him with stories. I also worked with Lily Tomlin when she was doing her one-woman show at the Doolittle Theater in Hollywood in the '80s and she was the bitch from hell, second only to Zsa Zsa Gabor. She was surly and demanding and a pain to deal with. I met Jerry Jensen at KGO-TV at the ripe old age of 20. Shaking hands with him was ... well ... squishy.

the KGO ALL STARS in fall 1995

I think you mean 2005.

 

[DavidKaye]

I certainly am no fan of Gabbert and his ego/chutzpah/bravado. You may be, but I'm not. Yacht parties and picking up guys do not impress me.

Doing all that while operating an extremely successful station while most people had no idea what was going on, well, that was the stuff of legends.

My take on the success of KIOI was that he was playing disco music in San Francisco in the '70s -- how could you go wrong with that formula? Was there something else to it that I'm missing?

I don't remember KIOI doing disco, but regardless, KIOI was successful long before they "went rock". In fact, there was a major hue and cry when KIOI "went rock" which meant they dropped the string orchestras and went MOR. A friend at the time, Jerry Yarberry, was very disappointed that KIOI didn't sound "classy" anymore. A listen to the airchecks from the 1960s shows that KIOI (aka KPEN) was downright dowdy to listen to. KIOI was your basic pop station as far as I know. It wasn't a station I listened to much because I felt it was more oriented toward women.

As for disco and success, well, KSFX tried disco for a time and it didn't work against KFRC. In fact they even applied to the FCC to change their callsign to KDIS, but KDIA objected to it. KSFX then went to a more mainstream rock effort, emulating KLOS and WPLJ pretty much if I remember correctly.

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[LKellerIII]

"My take on the success of KIOI was that he was playing disco music in San Francisco in the '70s -- how could you go wrong with that formula? Was there something else to it that I'm missing?"

K-101 was more of a chicken rock station - Top 40 hits, whether disco or not, but nothing too hard rock.

I'm neither a fan or a detractor of Gabbert's, but he deserves some credit for a number of firsts in both radio and TV. If not actually "first," in some of these examples, he was certainly way ahead of the curve:

1. An early convert to Stereo sound on FM - in the mid 50s. Probably the first in the Bay Area.

2. Early with pop (chicken rock, or whatever you want to call it) on the FM dial. He was a couple of years ahead of the first mainstream Top 40 FM or chicken rock FM stations in LA (K-100 and KKDJ), and K-101 sounded more professional than those 2 stations in Market #2.

3. Reportedly the first to play around with frequency as a station brand - K-101 from KIOI. For better or worse, he supposedly started the trend that sent us down the road to all the Z95.7s, K-108s, X-100s, not to mention Wolfs, Eagles, and Bears.

4. One of the first to bring stereo sound to TV, a year or more ahead of other stations.

5. K-101 also did some clever formatting (oddball jingles, back announcing after commercials, etc) that nobody else was doing.

And I think he deserves credit for turning that s_ _ _hole KEMO TV station into a viable business. Chutzpah? - yes, and he needed it. His publicity generating stunts were silly (3-D, etc.), but they worked. Remember those ubiquitous blue and orange TV20 bumper stickers on half the cars in the Bay Area?

Gabbert may not deserve credit as a cultural icon, marketing genius might have been closer to a mark - a very clever businessman.

 

[chris319]

Remember those ubiquitous blue and orange TV20 bumper stickers

I remember the transit ads with Gabbert's visage on them and something like "Jim Gabbert says watch TV 20". People used to gouge the eyes out. I also remember being ashamed to tell people which TV station I worked for. I once tried to be elusive and said "one of the cheap ones" and the person who asked immediately guessed "TV 20". He did become a master of self promotion once he acquired the TV station.

 

[DavidKaye]

I also remember being ashamed to tell people which TV station I worked for. I once tried to be elusive and said "one of the cheap ones" and the person who asked immediately guessed "TV 20". He did become a master of self promotion once he acquired the TV station.

James Gabbert was always a master of self-promotion. Heck, he took a nothing FM channel that had been abandoned by the Oakland Tribune and put it on the air (after Ney Landry of the FCC chided him for doing AM pirate radio and suggesting that he could pick up 101.3 cheap).

He and Gary Gielow worked their asses off day and night up on King's Mountain in the mud hut keeping that thing on the air when they could barely afford to pay the power bill. In those days nobody was listening to FM. Then he managed to convince people to lend him money to move the transmitter, the city of license, and the studio closer to SF -- still at a time when few people listened to FM.

And then he bought an old Western Electric transmitter on the cheap -- a transmitter I'm told that nobody in his right mind would have -- and tweaked it so that it sounded decent. And he upped the power. And then he bought a second WE transmitter, again against the judgment of others, and did the vertical polarization thing. In those days, FM was only horizontally polarized because the FCC assumed that most people would listen in their homes with FM antennas (that look just like TV antennas).

But Gabbert knew that the future of FM was in car listening and with vertical polarization, he could reach those car radio antennas.

And he, of course, did the stereo and quad things, and went to great lengths to promote audiophile equipment to get the technogeeks listening.

And all the while he promoted the hell out of the station. He didn't have much money to work with, so instead he spent more of the money on fancy looking studios to create the must-have look. In short, Gabbert was the Steve Jobs of radio. He created the flash. Going to the KPEN (later KIOI) studios was a crowning achievement for any radio geek. Sure, we cared about visiting, oh, KBRG or KNBR or KFAX, but what we really really really wanted to do was visit KPEN/KIOI.

It can be argued that James Gabbert made FM work in the Bay Area.

 

[HCochet]

Christene Craft sounds like an angry old bag on the air. One night she was discussing how terrible
some of the young female TV news anchors were, it was obviously professional jealousy. Just google
her history, she was fired righteously years ago from a TV gig for being unattractive & negative. Karel
is a frigging embarrasment to talk radio, jeez didn't anyone else apply?

I agree about Karel. I don't like his show. I listen some because I pretty much keep it on KGO no matter what. Shann Nix used to have his time slot. Bring her back.