MEMO TO CBS/SAN FRANCISCO

[airpab]

To Whom it May Concern:

Wake up!

KFRC-still weak! 2nd rate Midwest sounding! Tweak it to sound like WCBS or KRTH.

MOVIN-not working either. Look at the San Jose (where the population is) books! KDON regularly pulls a 1 share or more with a carrier signal from Monterey that only covers half of the South Bay, at best. Go down to Monterey, hire talent at KDON, bring em up to the Bay, get back all the listeners Hot 97.7 left behind and do HOT 99/7....then watch your ratings go ridiculous! How hard is this?

ALICE-is languishing. Give it a shot of adrenaline with a mix of Dance/Retro/Today! With that signal you can make Energy 92.7 go away in 5 seconds.

KITS-sounds decent, but bring back the sound of a few years ago...music mix was much better and ratings showed it.

KKSF-Sinking ship. Why? Because there's no vitality or energy. Tweak it and call it Groovin 103.7 and do a cool mix of good AC/Jazzy R&B/Grooves format. Catch lots of KOIT listeners as well as KBLX and KBAY!

Or, easier yet, hire me. I'll do it for half of what you're paying your "Pros"...and then I'll take all the glory!

 

[MikeAmatori]

KKSF is a Clear Channel Property, Not a CBS property.

No wonder you'll work for half price....Your worth ever penny.

 

[airpab]

Laughs....Just lowered my stock. Ok, I'll do it for free for CC and CBS! oops

 

[DavidKaye]

To Whom it May Concern:

Wait a minute. I have some leftover formats here myself...let's see if I can read them from under all this dust....

Beautiful Music -- Lush string selection, then bouncy orchestra number, then jazz vocal, then exotic tune such as a samba or something. Worked for KABL for a couple decades.

Western -- Bring back Cottonseed Clark, Blackjack Wayne, Billy Jack Wills, and other local greats and pepper them in with some current local bands like the Saddle Cats and Carrie Lee & the Saddle-Ites. Yum! KVSM (later KOFY) and KSAY both went that route, as did KEEN in SJ.

Quiz Shows -- The Game Zone was a KFRC staple for jeezzz...what was that, 10, maybe 15....hmmm it must have been a good 18 weeks.

Yes No Radio -- KLOK and KWIZ went that route. It worked for them, though, really, did anybody at the station really really pay attention to listener requests?

Talknet -- NBC had this thing called Talknet. It was unique in that it was an all-advice talkshow format hosted by people who wanted to be helpful, without (for the most part) any political axe to grind. Talknet was very successful for a number of years, though it was mainly in fringe times. KNBR ran a lot of Talknet, as did KMJ, etc.

Lucky Lager Hour and/or 76 Party Time -- I'm barely old enough to know these, but KNBR ran live remotes of dance bands from the various hotels around SF featuring the likes of George Liberace and other popular dance band leaders of the day. Heck, it was popular enough that a beer and an oil company sponsored it.

 

[tripton99]

"Lucky Lager Dance Time" was solely sponsored by Lucky Lager Beer and the show was created and hosted by Bill Gavin, one potential nominee for the Bay Area Broadcasters' Hall of Fame.
The show was the first anywhere in the world to do a weekly countdown of the area's hit singles. Before anyone tries to include "Your Hit Parade," I said a countdown of the actual hit singles, not renditions by Snooky Lanson etc.
Bill Gavin's Lucky Lager Dancetime was heard throughout the Western United States and was based on station playlists submitted to Bill at KNBC in San Francisco. Bill took those playlists and compiled a legitimate ranking based on playlists. As bogus as those lists might have been, I know for a fact that Bill took the information as the truth and his weekly chart, one that evolved into his "Bill Gavin Report" trade sheet was a legitimate as could be for its time.

 

[1069_KIFR]

Did they change their name back from Albertsons Lager to Lucky Lager?

 

[DavidKaye]

"Lucky Lager Dance Time" was solely sponsored by Lucky Lager Beer and the show was created and hosted by Bill Gavin, one potential nominee for the Bay Area Broadcasters' Hall of Fame.
The show was the first anywhere in the world to do a weekly countdown of the area's hit singles.

Hmmm...I guess I'm remembering something else. Well, I was extremely young at the time. I'm thinking of a program featuring live bands playing dance band music and sponsored by a beer company. At least I think there was something else going on besides Union 76's program. Again, I'm barely old enough to remember it.

 

[tripton99]

Post war radio in the Bay Area had more than one live big band radio show. They occurred daily. And Lucky Lager could well have been a sponsor. I'm not saying they didn't.

 

[chris319]

Post war radio in the Bay Area had more than one live big band radio show. They occurred daily.

Del Courtney's afternoon show on KSFO from the Fairmont would have been one of, if not the last, correct? That one I remember from the late '50s (a mere tyke at the time).

 

[chris319]

Apropos of absolutely nothing, I am truly bummed that I cannot find a picture of the old, animated Hamm's beer sign on Google Images. When I lived in S.F. in the '70s I should have shot 100' of 16mm film just of that sign doing its thing at night and kept it for posterity.

 

[chris319]

Scroll down a ways:

http://www.artbusiness.com/1open/032107.html

 

[ty567]

After looking at the trends today and seeing where KDON and KMVQ are, your 2nd option doesnt seem so bad.

 

[airpab]

And to top it off, KDON just pulled a 1.7 in the latest San Jose book. These guys seem to be sleeping at CBS?

100's of millions dollars in KMVQ, KLLC, KITS and KFRC...and look at their ratings collectively?

 

[davideduardo]

And to top it off, KDON just pulled a 1.7 in the latest San Jose book. These guys seem to be sleeping at CBS?

100's of millions dollars in KMVQ, KLLC, KITS and KFRC...and look at their ratings collectively?

KDON-FM puts s 60 dbu or better over San Jose, while KITS does not; KYLD hits a bit of it with a 60 but not much.

In other words, KDON covers the San Jose embedded market while the other two barely graze it with a distant signal.

Naturally, KDON is in a better position to get ratings there because listeners can hear it. However, in the latest book, KDON got a 0.8. The 1.7 was in a trend, not a fully weighted and balanced book.

 

[DavidKaye]

Del Courtney's afternoon show on KSFO from the Fairmont would have been one of, if not the last, correct? That one I remember from the late '50s (a mere tyke at the time).

My memory of live big band broadcasts extends as late as about 1966 or so on KNBR when they alternated on Saturday nights from a half hour of live music to a half hour of records. I seem to remember Ted Fio Rito, George Liberace, and Ernie Heckscher at 9, 10, and 11pm respectively. Let's see if the radio museum has anything on it....nope. Hmmm...

The first half hour of the hour was the live broadcast "courtesy of Musician's Local 6", and the bands would play the same songs over and over each week it seemed. Horst Jankowski's "A Walk in the Black Forest" was a popular tune Heckscher played, so this has to have been 1965 or 66.

The second half hour was a DJ segment with, oh, maybe Jim Jones or Ron Lyons at the mic.

 

[radioID]

And to top it off, KDON just pulled a 1.7 in the latest San Jose book. These guys seem to be sleeping at CBS?

100's of millions dollars in KMVQ, KLLC, KITS and KFRC...and look at their ratings collectively?

KDON-FM puts s 60 dbu or better over San Jose, while KITS does not; KYLD hits a bit of it with a 60 but not much.

In other words, KDON covers the San Jose embedded market while the other two barely graze it with a distant signal.

Naturally, KDON is in a better position to get ratings there because listeners can hear it. However, in the latest book, KDON got a 0.8. The 1.7 was in a trend, not a fully weighted and balanced book.

Regardless of signal strength KYLD or KITS is aiming at that demo in that side of the city. Its like a country station being mad they can't be heard in a ghetto part of the city when they know nobody listens to them. Although, the cowboy rapper is an exception. who? exactly.

KDON before was at a 1.5 anything before that it was close to a 1.0 which is pretty good. Maybe CBS should hire people from here and take them to SF like some guy said in the other thread.

 

[Newname]

Del Courtney's afternoon show on KSFO from the Fairmont would have been one of, if not the last, correct? That one I remember from the late '50s (a mere tyke at the time).

My memory of live big band broadcasts extends as late as about 1966 or so on KNBR when they alternated on Saturday nights from a half hour of live music to a half hour of records. I seem to remember Ted Fio Rito, George Liberace, and Ernie Heckscher at 9, 10, and 11pm respectively. Let's see if the radio museum has anything on it....nope. Hmmm...

The first half hour of the hour was the live broadcast "courtesy of Musician's Local 6", and the bands would play the same songs over and over each week it seemed. Horst Jankowski's "A Walk in the Black Forest" was a popular tune Heckscher played, so this has to have been 1965 or 66.

The second half hour was a DJ segment with, oh, maybe Jim Jones or Ron Lyons at the mic.

Was KNBR's big band show the Union 76-sponsored broadcast? If so, I've seen references mentioning that it aired into the mid-70s.

 

[DavidKaye]

Was KNBR's big band show the Union 76-sponsored broadcast? If so, I've seen references mentioning that it aired into the mid-70s.

Yes, and it wouldn't surprise me if it lasted that long. The networks were slow to change much of anything. Don MacNeil's Breakfast Club (rebranded the Don MacNeil Show) lasted until 1969, and I believe the Arthur Godfrey radio show some time after that.

 

[BossRadioDJ]

My memory of live big band broadcasts extends as late as about 1966 or so on KNBR when they alternated on Saturday nights from a half hour of live music to a half hour of records. I seem to remember Ted Fio Rito, George Liberace, and Ernie Heckscher at 9, 10, and 11pm respectively. Let's see if the radio museum has anything on it....nope. Hmmm...

I'll check with Ken Ackerman. He provided me with a fragment of a Del Courtney remote that included only the open and close. Ditto with Ernie Hecksher. In fact, we just digitized a 1972 interview that Ken did with Hecksher at the Fairmont.

For the purposes of this thread, can we count the live remotes of the "tea dances" on KMPX Big Band 99 (98.9 FM) in the late 1970s from the Hyatt Regency ... or Dick Bright and His Sounds Of Delight on Alex Bennett's special "Breakfast With Bennett" broadcasts on Live 105?

As to KNBR, my only recollection is Ed Brady's Bandstand in the late 1960s, which featured Big Band records on Saturday nights, but nothing live. In fact, Mike Cleary got his start on KNBR as vacation relief for Brady in May 1970.

Tripton99: are there any aircheck recordings of Bill Gavin in your collection? I figure that if anyone has them, either you or BF-T must. Considering his status as a deity, I'm surprised that there aren't at least a few Gavin airchecks in circulation.

DJ

 

[chris319]

Rhetorical question: Does a live broadcast originating from the Tonga Room of the Fairmont in the '60s and broadcast on KSFO really count as a remote (it's all in the same building)?

FWIW, Art Linkletter's House Party was broadcast on CBS Radio from January 15, 1945 to October 13, 1967.