Radio Names

[Daryl Lynn L.A.]

Drake designed his stations to have a uniform sound, where the sound of the station always trumped the individual jocks. That doas aesn't mean personality wasn't important, but jocks didn't ramble on about nothing, and other that Morgan and Steele in the prime slots, other than radio geeks one might be hard-pressed to know who was on.

I guess I was a radio geek, then !! LOL.

 

[Daryl Lynn L.A.]

Daryl:

Los Angeles was a very media-aware town. I'm from there, too. It's not typical, even among major markets. And even in L.A., there were far more people who didn't know or care who the jock was as long as they liked the song that was playing at that moment. If they could find a station playing better music with fewer interruptions, they'd go there.

Always worth remembering...a 40 share of the audience (think BMR, The Real Don Steele) was huge. But it meant 60 percent of the audience was listening to something else.

So, I'm playing "devil's advocate" here....... if there are far more people who don't care who the jock is at any one moment, and the d.j. is irrelevant.........then why is it so important in a station line-up who is in the "drive time" shifts? Is it true that the strongest air talent are given the drive time shifts, when there are the most listeners? Why would it matter who is staffing those particular shifts? Also, in the Bay Area, there are some stations that only featured air talent in the morning, such as Sarah and Vinnie on KLLC in the morning, or Ryan Seacrest's syndicated Top 40 show on Star 103 in the morning, etc. The rest of the day, most stations are automated. If on air talent doesn't matter to most listeners, and about the highest rating a talent can get is a 40..... ( and 60% of the audience is listening elsewhere), then why would it be important who staffs which work shifts throughout the broadcast day?
In your opinion, is this why on air live talent is disappearing and is almost a thing of the past? Or, is that due to the availability of music on the internet, where listeners can create their own playlists?
( I'm not trying to argue.........I'm just fascinated to talk about this, because this message board is full of such tremendously knowledgeable people, and almost everyone is from the entertainment industry here). Thank you in advance for your viewpoint. -- Daryl Lynn L.A.

 

[Identnut]

In contrast, in Spanish language radio... including all of Latin America... adopting "radio names" is particularly uncommon. About the most extreme I have seen is a jock in Miami and Puerto Rico using her more common and "easy" maternal last name rather than the paternal one.

The exception is with "DeeJays" who all invent ultra-clever and novel names, no matter if they speak English, Spanish or Tagalog. That means that Hispanic jocks, whether in English or Spanish, playing hip hop or reggaetón, are likely to create a name that is similar to those preferred by the artists they play.

El Gángster, Funky Joe, Red Shadow, Moonshadow, Frankie Jay, Rocky the Kid, Molusco, Piolín, and el Cucuy all say hi.

(I'd mention Don Cheto and Erazno, but those are full-fledged characters, not just radio names. That's a whole other thing Spanish Radio does.)

 

[michael hagerty]

Drake designed his stations to have a uniform sound, where the sound of the station always trumped the individual jocks. That doesn't mean personality wasn't important, but jocks didn't ramble on about nothing, and other that Morgan and Steele in the prime slots, other than radio geeks one might be hard-pressed to know who was on.

To the point that the same guy (one with a very distinctive voice and delivery) was "Bob Elliot" on KGB in 1966 and '67, and when he returned to KGB in 1971, he was "K.O. Bailey".

 

[michael hagerty]

So, I'm playing "devil's advocate" here....... if there are far more people who don't care who the jock is at any one moment, and the d.j. is irrelevant.........then why is it so important in a station line-up who is in the "drive time" shifts? Is it true that the strongest air talent are given the drive time shifts, when there are the most listeners? Why would it matter who is staffing those particular shifts? Also, in the Bay Area, there are some stations that only featured air talent in the morning, such as Sarah and Vinnie on KLLC in the morning, or Ryan Seacrest's syndicated Top 40 show on Star 103 in the morning, etc. The rest of the day, most stations are automated. If on air talent doesn't matter to most listeners, and about the highest rating a talent can get is a 40..... ( and 60% of the audience is listening elsewhere), then why would it be important who staffs which work shifts throughout the broadcast day?
In your opinion, is this why on air live talent is disappearing and is almost a thing of the past? Or, is that due to the availability of music on the internet, where listeners can create their own playlists?
( I'm not trying to argue.........I'm just fascinated to talk about this, because this message board is full of such tremendously knowledgeable people, and almost everyone is from the entertainment industry here). Thank you in advance for your viewpoint. -- Daryl Lynn L.A.

The difference is that the industry now believes that it is more important not to repel listeners than it is to actively attract them.

There are exceptions, of course. iHeart makes a lot of money off Ryan Seacrest's name and visibility.

But because stations know that, mathematically, it's not possible to get monster shares, they want talent that is warm and relatable, that can develop a following among listeners who want to imagine a friend on the other side of the speaker, but who is inoffensive and unobtrusive enough to not blow off the listeners who want as minimal a presence as possible.

There are, of course, exceptions----in your face rock, talk or sports talk formats would be an example.

 

[davideduardo]

So, I'm playing "devil's advocate" here....... if there are far more people who don't care who the jock is at any one moment, and the d.j. is irrelevant.........then why is it so important in a station line-up who is in the "drive time" shifts? Is it true that the strongest air talent are given the drive time shifts, when there are the most listeners?

Drake advanced magnificently the concept of "stationality". Yes, every jock had a personality all their own, but the first thing was to share the feel of the station. As I explained it to a staff I was training years later, we have to think of the 007 movies. There have been a number of James Bond actors, but there is no doubt that the character is pure Bond in each movie.

And, yes, the ones with the deepest personality within the very concise and precise timing were given drive times. But the fastest paced and "hippest" got evenings... and so on.

Why would it matter who is staffing those particular shifts? Also, in the Bay Area, there are some stations that only featured air talent in the morning, such as Sarah and Vinnie on KLLC in the morning, or Ryan Seacrest's syndicated Top 40 show on Star 103 in the morning, etc.

That is because the taste in talent and how much they participate in a show is very different. In the 60's and 70's, jocks were your friends on the radio, companions, outside contacts. Today, we have all of that with social media and don't want idle chat from announcers.

The rest of the day, most stations are automated. If on air talent doesn't matter to most listeners, and about the highest rating a talent can get is a 40..... ( and 60% of the audience is listening elsewhere), then why would it be important who staffs which work shifts throughout the broadcast day?

Because the mood in each daypart is different.

In your opinion, is this why on air live talent is disappearing and is almost a thing of the past? Or, is that due to the availability of music on the internet, where listeners can create their own playlists?

It's that and what I mentioned... radio was social media back then, and there were no other alternatives.

( I'm not trying to argue.........I'm just fascinated to talk about this, because this message board is full of such tremendously knowledgeable people, and almost everyone is from the entertainment industry here). Thank you in advance for your viewpoint. -- Daryl Lynn L.A.

20 years ago, the Jack format evolved because people were starting to want something from radio... and a growing group did not want DJ chatter. We have now come even farther.

 

[davideduardo]

The difference is that the industry now believes that it is more important not to repel listeners than it is to actively attract them.

There are exceptions, of course. iHeart makes a lot of money off Ryan Seacrest's name and visibility.

But what makes Seacrest and Bobby Bones and Charlemagne appealing is that they are "insiders" and have things nobody else gets. One-liners and joke services don't cut it any more.

But because stations know that, mathematically, it's not possible to get monster shares, they want talent that is warm and relatable, that can develop a following among listeners who want to imagine a friend on the other side of the speaker, but who is inoffensive and unobtrusive enough to not blow off the listeners who want as minimal a presence as possible.

There are fewer "shows" today and more jocks who sort of make people feel they are not the only person in the waiting room...

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

I remember in San Francisco Joe McConnell had to change radio names from McConnell to Joe Vincent whenever he was on KGO-AM. But when McConnel is on other radio stations he's Joe McConnel like iHeartRadio News and KQED. This has to be how the contracts were written between what named to use. Shadow Traffic now known as Total Traffic set it up that way.
Also Julie Debbish is one name on KQED but another name and Julie Shannon for another station.

 

[Identnut]

But what makes Seacrest and Bobby Bones and Charlemagne appealing is that they are "insiders" and have things nobody else gets. One-liners and joke services don't cut it any more.

There are fewer "shows" today and more jocks who sort of make people feel they are not the only person in the waiting room...

Every late night host from Paar to Fallon has played nationwide, but somehow people bemoan their local country station for playing Bobby Bones and not their NBC affiliate for playing the Tonight Show instead of some local schmo.

 

[michael hagerty]

Every late night host from Paar to Fallon has played nationwide, but somehow people bemoan their local country station for playing Bobby Bones and not their NBC affiliate for playing the Tonight Show instead of some local schmo.

Different mediums. Radio, by its portability was always better suited for local, and became relied upon for area news and weather. Today, other devices and services can provide that.

 

[michael hagerty]

I remember in San Francisco Joe McConnell had to change radio names from McConnell to Joe Vincent whenever he was on KGO-AM. But when McConnel is on other radio stations he's Joe McConnel like iHeartRadio News and KQED. This has to be how the contracts were written between what named to use. Shadow Traffic now known as Total Traffic set it up that way.
Also Julie Debbish is one name on KQED but another name and Julie Shannon for another station.

Small world department: Jodi Applegate was a couple years behind me at my first TV station (the CBS affiliate in Reno). After that, she went to SF, where this video shows her, and shortly after this was recorded, she was hired at the ABC affiliate in Phoenix where we worked together for three or four years.

 

[gr8oldies]

I guess I was a radio geek, then !! LOL.

So was I. My friends weren't, and at a public pool, no one's listening to DJ patter. We didn't have the "I'm Ronny Radio with stax o' wax" guys

 

[Daryl Lynn L.A.]

The difference is that the industry now believes that it is more important not to repel listeners than it is to actively attract them.

There are exceptions, of course. iHeart makes a lot of money off Ryan Seacrest's name and visibility.

But because stations know that, mathematically, it's not possible to get monster shares, they want talent that is warm and relatable, that can develop a following among listeners who want to imagine a friend on the other side of the speaker, but who is inoffensive and unobtrusive enough to not blow off the listeners who want as minimal a presence as possible.

There are, of course, exceptions----in your face rock, talk or sports talk formats would be an example.

Micahel, thank you so much for patiently and kindly answering my questions. I sure appreciate it.

 

[davideduardo]

El Gángster, Funky Joe, Red Shadow, Moonshadow, Frankie Jay, Rocky the Kid, Molusco, Piolín, and el Cucuy all say hi.

Those are all Personality shows, not DJs. And in the final two cases, both used those nicknames, but also used Eddie Sotelo and Renán Almendriz Coello on the air And they did not change their given names for radio names.

(I'd mention Don Cheto and Erazno, but those are full-fledged characters, not just radio names. That's a whole other thing Spanish Radio does.)

And there are plenty of those in all kinds of Morning Shows (or shows in other dayparts that behave like morning shows)

 

[Daryl Lynn L.A.]

Drake advanced magnificently the concept of "stationality". Yes, every jock had a personality all their own, but the first thing was to share the feel of the station. As I explained it to a staff I was training years later, we have to think of the 007 movies. There have been a number of James Bond actors, but there is no doubt that the character is pure Bond in each movie.

And, yes, the ones with the deepest personality within the very concise and precise timing were given drive times. But the fastest paced and "hippest" got evenings... and so on.

So was I. My friends weren't, and at a public pool, no one's listening to DJ patter. We didn't have the "I'm Ronny Radio with stax o' wax" guys

So was I. My friends weren't, and at a public pool, no one's listening to DJ patter. We didn't have the "I'm Ronny Radio with stax o' wax" guys

That is because the taste in talent and how much they participate in a show is very different. In the 60's and 70's, jocks were your friends on the radio, companions, outside contacts. Today, we have all of that with social media and don't want idle chat from announcers.

Because the mood in each daypart is different.

It's that and what I mentioned... radio was social media back then, and there were no other alternatives.

20 years ago, the Jack format evolved because people were starting to want something from radio... and a growing group did not want DJ chatter. We have now come even farther.

This is fascinating, and I think your analogy to "James Bond" movies is exactly right. Thank you so much, and I'm learning a lot here.

 

[Daryl Lynn L.A.]

So was I. My friends weren't, and at a public pool, no one's listening to DJ patter. We didn't have the "I'm Ronny Radio with stax o' wax" guys

Always nice to meet another geek ! I was so much of a geek that for my high school senior history project, I gave a half-hour presentation on the history of radio and broadcasting, beginning with Marconi. I explained the difference between AM and FM signals, and why FM stations were better suited to playing music. I'm a girl, and girl radio geeks were almost unheard of back then. I must have been a real propeller-head type. LOL.

 

[Daryl Lynn L.A.]

This is fascinating, and I think your analogy to "James Bond" movies is exactly right. Thank you so much, and I'm learning a lot here.

David, I'm sorry for asking, but who is Drake? Was he a famous station owner or programmer? Thank you for helping me learn about this.

 

[michael hagerty]

David, I'm sorry for asking, but who is Drake? Was he a famous station owner or programmer? Thank you for helping me learn about this.

I got this one, David.

Bill Drake was a program director who believed in eliminating a lot of the extraneous stuff found in Top 40 radio in the 50s and early 60s, long jingles, talkative disc jockeys with nothing to say, etc.

He programmed WAKE in Atlanta, moved on to KYA in San Francisco and, after a falling out with the owner there, went to KYNO in Fresno, which was in a ratings battle with crosstown KMAK. Drake won, and KYNO's owner, Gene Chenault, formed a program consulting partnership with Drake.

The first client was KGB in San Diego, which was up against the then-dominant KCBQ (this is 1964). And Bill Drake wins.

KGB's owner was a guy named Willett Brown, who sat on the board of directors of RKO General (the remnants of the old RKO Pictures movie studio after it merged with General Tire and Rubber). It owned KHJ. Brown recommended RKO hire Drake to fix KHJ in 1965.

Drake worked out a deal with RKO giving him complete programming control. The General Manager would focus on sales and business affairs. Drake would hire and oversee a day-to-day program director for KHJ (he chose his Fresno rival, Ron Jacobs) and only they would be allowed to give any direction to jocks or news staff.

The "Boss Radio" sound of 1965-1971...acapella jingles, disc jockeys who got what they needed to say said over the intro to a record, the forward momentum, never "that was", but always what was happening now---and the flawless on-air production of the sound that, regardless of whether it was Robert W. Morgan, Charlie Tuna, The Real Don Steele, Humble Harve or any other jock on at the time, would ALWAYS sound like KHJ----that was Bill Drake.

Aided by the promotional genius of Ron Jacobs, they were number one, against the well-established KFWB and the then-hot KRLA, in six months. And RKO then gave Drake control over its other stations---KFRC, San Francisco, WRKO, Boston, WOR-FM, New York, CKLW Windsor/Detroit and WHBQ, Memphis.

 

[michael hagerty]

The approach became known as the "Drake Format", and those stations that couldn't hire Bill Drake (he had clients outside the RKO chain including KGB in San Diego, KAKC in Tulsa and WUBE in Cincinatti), tried to copy the elements, resulting in dozens if not hundreds of "Fake Drake" stations around the country.

 

[davideduardo]

David, I'm sorry for asking, but who is Drake? Was he a famous station owner or programmer? Thank you for helping me learn about this.

Bill Drake developed a fast and clean Top 40 format in the earlier 60’s His first success was in Fresno, and he quickly went to KGB in San Diego where the owner recommended him to RKO General for KHJ and soon after stations like KFRC in San Francisco, WRKO, CKLW, WHBQ and others.

Twoof his PDs, Tom Rounds and Ron Jacobs, later formed Watermark and created American Top 40.