More History by Gary Stevens, President of Doubleday Broadcasting 1977-1986
Doubleday Broadcasting was formed in 1967, when the book company bought the Trigg-Vaughn group, which had stations in Texas, Colorado, and California, primarily in medium markets (El Paso, San Antonio, Denver, San Bernardino, etc.). I joined in 1970, to manage a new station they had purchased in Phoenix. After I was made President, in 1977, I sold off the small stuff, and put the company into the Top 10 markets (New York, Chicago, Detroit, etc.) In 1985, Doubleday had some financial problems, and we sold the radio company in pieces for a total of over $100 million, a big number in those days. The following year, they sold the publishing business to Bertlesmann.
After KWK went dark in 1973, a bankruptcy cout supervised a bid process for the station, which Doubleday participated in, and won. Because the broadcast tower site had be ruined in the 1973 flood, the signal was vastly diminished. To counter that, we built a separate night site, so that pattern opportunities could be maximized. Even so, once signed on, it became obvious that to truly compete, we needed an FM. After trying (and failing) to buy KCFM, we bought Chuck Norman's Granite City FM, and eventually succeeded in moving it across the river to the Bank building.
While all this was going on, I was still running Doubleday's KDWB in Minneapolis. Hattrik had been working across the street at WDGY, until Storz pulled the plug and went Country. Learning I was slated to run the KWK operation once it was built, he literally camped out in my office. As a former DJ, I have a soft spot for these program guys, and over time, I concluded that he was smart, knew the St. Louis market, and most of all, badly wanted to work at KWK. I decided to hire him. I had done a similar thing with John Sebastian, at KDWB, who developed beautifully, and went on to program KHJ in LA, directly from KDWB. Bobby turned out to be better than I could have imagined, and we went on to build an exciting company with him, but we did burn out. Hindsight teaches us that you have to grow a product. We didn't.
In 1984 Doubleday was losing money, and involved in start ups in New York and Chicago, that were also a drain. I determined it would take another format change in St. Louis, and that was just too much to deal with, especially since there would be no guarantee of success. I put the stations on the block, and there were no takers. Finally, Larry Robinson, and his partners from Cleveland, came along with an offer that was in the ballpark. It was an OK deal for everybody, albeit, a disappointment, after working so hard to put that place back on the air.
