Radio's Creative Era

[cyber]

A previous thread raised the issue of a creative era in radio. I say there was one, another poster calls it a myth. Just out of curiousity, what do you out there think? Not only if there was one or not but who were the movers and shakers that once made radio great. A brief list of mine includes:
WMCA...WABC...WIBG....WFIL....WMMR...WDAS...WIP and many of their personalities. I wasn't a WIP fan but they made all the right moves for their audience.
I'd also like to see if anyone will include surburban stations where a lot of unheralded programming went on between the brokers.

 

[amfmsw]

At WMCA, Murry The K
At WIBG, WPEN Dean Tyler
At WFIL Jim Hilliard, Jay Cooke
At WMMR Jerry Stevens
At WABC a definite joint effort w/Rick Sklar
At WDAS Butterball
At WIP ?

 

[DG02816]

Not being from Philly originally I can't speak to what went down here, but I DO agree....there
was a time when radio was creative in ways to grab the ear. In Providence, we had the battles between WPRO, with Salty Brine, Joe Thomas, and Big Ange, and WICE, featuring King Arthur Knight, Brad Pierce, Eric Starr, to name a few. True, radio is in existence to sell,as flintstone/emacee says, but you can grab the ear without the in your face style so popular today. Holland Cooke has an example on the Providence board of what WPRO was like in the '70's...radio that brought back vivid memories for me.

Dave Gardiner

WVCH 740/WNWR 1540

Philadelphia

 

[fredflintstone]

A previous thread raised the issue of a creative era in radio. I say there was one, another poster calls it a myth. Just out of curiousity, what do you out there think? Not only if there was one or not but who were the movers and shakers that once made radio great. A brief list of mine includes:
WMCA...WABC...WIBG....WFIL....WMMR...WDAS...WIP and many of their personalities. I wasn't a WIP fan but they made all the right moves for their audience.
I'd also like to see if anyone will include surburban stations where a lot of unheralded programming went on between the brokers.

Don't misquote me. I said radio has always been a business. Sales and revenue have always driven programming decisions. That includes the stations on your list.

In any medium, however, there are examples of success in both art and commerce.
Early underground WMMR is an example.
So was original personality-MOR WIP (although not as much as the station it tried to copy, 1130 WNEW or Gene Autry's KSFO). But Metromedia Radio was always a class act.
So was early Group W Radio. It's known around here for all news but equally - maybe more - outstanding examples of great radio (and profitable radio) were Group W's Personality-Full Service-Adult Top 40 stations: KDKA, WBZ and WIND.
Until Black Rock started mucking things up, the early CBS full service and pioneering news-talk stations were excellent and classy operations (although too expensive to maintain), notably pre-76 WCAU. Also KMOX
Cap Cities once had some outstanding radio properties (pre-ABC) including Full Service WJR, Detroit and Top 40 WKBW, Buffalo.
And any list of stations that did well and did good must include "The Nation's Station," Crosley Broadcasting's WLW, Cincinnati. And WGN, Chicago. These two, along with WJR, had strong and unique local personalities, excellent news departments, a high degree of local involvement and made tons of money.
WCFL IMHO was the best top 40 station ever. A+ in every category. Personalities. Jingles. News. Local involvement. Even comedy bits (i.e., Chickenman).

On the other hand....
Storer stations were all schlock. Mediocre radio done on the cheap, but profitable. If their hired anybody with talent, they didn't stay long.
WFIL was warmed over Drake-Chennault. It's success due to Wibbage's weakness. The news, while slickly packaged, reflected Walter Annenberg's right-wing agenda. And Drake was the precursor to everything you denounce in today's "uncreative," formula-driven radio.
WABC (like KQV, WXYZ and WLS), despite a few great talents like Cousin Brucie, all suffered from too much corporate group-think and showed an underlying stodginess. They hired guys with great pipes but Brucie and Mickey Schorr in Detroit were the only real personalities they had.

WCOJ in the Art Douglas era was an example of everything a community radio station (suburban or small market) could be and should be. A stable group of personalities (Douglas did the morning show for some 40 years). A four to six person news department that made it all the meetings and worked the corridors between meetings, plus chased sirens and everything else. Lots of local programming and participation all day long. You didn't have to listen long to hear somebody you knew on the station. Local school sports. It was block programming without a real format but somehow it worked. Stuff kept happening and apparently a lot of people didn't want to miss anything. They even did a local top 40 DJ show in evening which gave the Center City rockers real competition in Chester County. And they made money, too. Now they fail at both cash flow and creativity. Very sad.

 

[BRUSSTAR]

WABC (like KQV, WXYZ and WLS), despite a few great talents like Cousin Brucie, all suffered from too much corporate group-think and showed an underlying stodginess. They hired guys with great pipes but Brucie and Mickey Schorr in Detroit were the only real personalities they had.

So Dan Ingram wasn't a "real personality"?

 

[DToTheJ]

WABC (like KQV, WXYZ and WLS), despite a few great talents like Cousin Brucie, all suffered from too much corporate group-think and showed an underlying stodginess. They hired guys with great pipes but Brucie and Mickey Schorr in Detroit were the only real personalities they had.

So Dan Ingram wasn't a "real personality"?

Apparently not, George. Just like Steve Bryant isn't a "real guest". ;D

 

[fredflintstone]

So Dan Ingram wasn't a "real personality"?

Not in my book. Good pipes. No personality. Like a hundred other time-and-temperature guys.
At the end of the "musicradio" era, WABC had Ross and Wilson. Also great personalities; far better together than either was separately.

George, you should re-run the Roylle James segment from last year, where she talks about why radio decided they didn't want personalities any more. Drake, Joseph, Sklar and others were the lord high executioners of personalities in top 40 radio.

 

[BRUSSTAR]

Those who know me know I detest the terribly redundant "agree to disagree" phrase, but that's the only solution that comes to mind for any debate over whether or not Dan Ingram was/is a "personality"... To me, he is the textbook definition of such...

Since you bring up the later days of WABC, then shall I mention Howard Hoffman who took over nights there in the late '70s (fresh from WPRO-FM Providence, I believe)? Was he a personality? (The classic New Year's Eve aircheck bringing in 1980 is one of my all-time favorites.)

George, you should re-run the Roylle James segment from last year, where she talks about why radio decided they didn't want personalities any more.

The Rollye segment is one of the few we have available for on-demand listening at our "right-wing nut" website. While I agree with the overall spirit of what Rollye was saying when she made that statement, I do think it was a bit of a generalization (and perhaps she'd even agree there, I don't know).

Drake, Joseph, Sklar and others were the lord high executioners of personalities in top 40 radio.

By "executioners", I assume you aren't talking about "making it happen" but rather in a "firing squad" sense... I'll spot you Bill Drake-- even though somehow "personality" managed to still survive within the confines of Drake in the '60s and '70s on RKO outlets like KHJ and CKLW. But Sklar and Joseph? It's hard for me to judge Rick Sklar off the cuff, since the only work of his I'm really familiar with would be 'ABC (and there were lots of other hands in that as well) plus the fact that it's been years since I read his book. As for Mike Joseph, I couldn't disagree more. This is the man who hand-picked Terry Young for WCAU-FM in 1981. Is he a "personality"?

 

[fredflintstone]

I would say BDI was an excellent Top 40 jock. Great voice. Great energy. Really good at executing the top 40 format. But being a good (or great) jock is different than being a personality. A few, like Brucie, were both. I reserve the term "personality" for someone who is unique, original and distinctive. And a jock has to be given the opportunity to be a personality. Not many have been given the chance.

The only radio broadcasters who worked locally I'd call true "personalities" were Bob Menefee and Joey Reynolds.
Others that come to mind: Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh, Arthur Godfrey, Don Imus, Michael Jackson, Steve Allen, J.P. McCarthy, Joey Reynolds, Mickey Schorr, Dick Purtian, Wally Phillips, Gene Shepherd, Wolfman Jack. Not all of them were my cup of tea but they all qualified.

PDs don't like personalities. People listen to them, not the station. They are hard to control. They may demand more money. If they leave, listeners may follow them. And not all air-talent has what it takes; they try to be personalities and they are terrible. A programmed format means quality control and predictability. Besides, most PDs are control freaks.

I don't think personalities did survive on the Drake stations, especially on The Big 8 (although I understand Robert W. Morgan and couple of others did get longer leashes). Drake had a rigid format and he hired people who could execute it well. In a different environment, probably some could have been personalities. We can't know.

To my ear, WABC was corporate and stodgy (as much local New York radio tended to be). The only consultant I can think of who encouraged personality was Ken Draper. Mike Joseph took credit for Keener 13, which did allow Dick Purtian to bloom as a personality in morning drive, but the PD and music director mostly redid his concept before the station launched (except for the contests - the guy was obsessed with contests and they destroyed WMAQ's attempt to move to a more contemporary MOR sound).

I never heard Terry Young on WCAU-FM (I was in New York at the time). I am listening to him as I type this, recreating WIFE, Indianapolis on XM's 60s on Six. He does an excellent job of recapturing "the sound" of various well-remembered AM Top 40 stations. Maybe he could have been a personality under the right circumstances.

So Dan Ingram wasn't a "real personality"?

Apparently not, George. Just like Steve Bryant isn't a "real guest". ;D

No, Diamond Joe. More like he was bringing back "the rotating chair." If you were in the studio talking about your own show, I wouldn't call you a "guest" either, given you involvement in the Racket. But your attempt to ingratiate yourself is duly noted for the record.

 

[8638]

So Dan Ingram wasn't a "real personality"?

Not in my book. Good pipes. No personality. Like a hundred other time-and-temperature guys.

You're entitled to your opinion, 'Fred.' But I grew up listening to my 'kemosabe' (we moved to South Jersey in 1971, where I embraced Famous 56 and Wibbage...er...WIBG, "Where your friends are"), but still dialed over to 77 all the time. How on God's green acres can you say Dan Ingram lacks personality? The man reeked personality. I wonder about you sometimes!

BTW, are you Fred F. Flintstone, Frederick J. Flintstone, or Frederick J. Blublubluh?

Just the Luddite's two cents.

 

[starlitejon]

"A REAL PERSONALITY"
A Real Personality is a Talented Person That can make You Smile,Make You Laugh or Cry and Talk's to You and not at You !!!!!
Some Examples are DICK CLARK, HY LIT, "COUSIN' BRUCIE", JOEY REYNOLDS, THE LATE DR. DON ROSE AND JIM O'BRIEN And Many others. On the TV SIDE: JOHNNY CARSON (He Kept America up late for over 29 years and was unbeatable)
And YES DAN INGRAHM Was and is a Great "PERSONALITY" (Not Time and Temp. at all) and anyone who thinks he wasn't cannot possibly have a Personality thereself !!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[WTUX]

To understand Dan Ingram and why he is remembered by so many with great fondness, simply go to www.musicradio77.com and listen to the many clips of Dan in his prime. WABC in that era gave the time after every song ("chime time") but Dan did more in the reading of commercials and with the 8" song intros than most jocks could do in an hour.

If you hear Dan from the 60's and 70's (when his ratings hit 25 percent of the New York market) you'll understand why he is still the star of the WABC Rewound Show each Memorial Day. His stint as the morning guy on WABC was not remarkable. The Big Dan of the WCBS-FM days was not nearly in the same league with the man we loved in the 60/70's. But as Julius would say, "airchecks don't lie". The Dan Ingram who ruled NYC afternoon drive, as he did in many other markets as well (I was a regular listener here in Delaware) was the greatest air personality I have ever heard.

 

[martymoose]

Fred- No disrespect, but i find it hard to imagine that anyone would say Dan wasn't a personality. Dan was the epitomy of what a great radio personality is all about. Dan was also a smart personality. Many comics will tell you that it's easy to make people laugh at blue humor. It takes talent to be able to convey the same comedy in a "clean" way. Dan was the king of double entendre. Throw a song title at Dan, and he'd have a line in moments. Pick out a news story, and Dan would crank out a line in no time. What's more, Dan was able to convey funny thoughts in under 15 seconds. But Dan was more than a funny guy. Dan also knew how to deal with serious issues as well. Again, never overdoing it, but he was able to reach and touch you, as a friend. Don't believe me? Go listen to some of Dan's airchecks the day Lennon died. Pure gold. I agree with the previous poster, go back and listen to some BDI airchecks.

Incredibly, Dan also has the distinction of pulling a 20 share in pm drive in NYC! Nobody has ever even come close. When a reporter asked Dan about his 20 share, Dan replied that he was never really impressed, because 80% of NY still wasn't listening!

Many of today's "personalities" were inspired by Dan, and I'd say they have good reason to be.

 

[MikefromDelaware]

Shifting back to the original post and offering my spin.>>A previous thread raised the issue of a creative era in radio. I say there was one, another poster calls it a myth. Just out of curiousity, what do you out there think? Not only if there was one or not but who were the movers and shakers that once made radio great.>>

There have been numerous times of great creativity in radio as radio can offer the opportunity for creative expression in audio form. The "Golden Days of Radio" the 1930's-40's where the creative talents of such folks like Orsen Wells and others created the "Theatre of the Mind" for the nation with radio dramas like the Shadow (Wells did the voice of the Shadow for a number of years) and of course his "Mercury Theatre On the Air" and their version of "War of the Worlds". This is a different form of creativeness than what we are used to hearing today, but was creative and made radio a special medium back before the days of Television.

As it's rare to hear a radio drama today, unless you find recordings of the old ones, you can get a similar experience by listening to audio books (some audio books will use more than one reader with sound effects, most only use one reader and no sound effects, but still is quite effective if the reader is good). Both radio dramas and audio books offer a different experience than watching the same story on TV. With the audio presentation your mind creates the sceanery, what the people look like, etc. I think that has a lot to do with why people will say that the book was better than the movie, also the book usually goes into more depth than a movie or TV show could.

Obviously, there were creative people who helped radio make the switch from a drama/comedy, live remote music show oriented medium to a mostly music oriented format that used records with a DJ to make an entertaining program of music and light chatter radio's main staple for the past 50 years.

I think you will find creative people in radio at all times of its existance, even today. What made Rush Limbaugh so popular. He didn't invent talk radio (my understanding is that Joe Pyne did that back in 1949 on WILM), but Rush re-invented talk radio, or if you will modernized it for a whole new generation of listeners. I think many would agree it wasn't his conservative talk as much as how he went about doing his talk show. Rush can be entertaining, even if you don't agree with him. He has a good sense of humor, and the spoofs and paradees add to the appeal of his show. Limbaugh used his talents of being a DJ to help make his talk show have more "life" than previous talk shows. Like him or not Limbaugh IS the Standard for Talk Radio.

There are people at local stations around the nation doing creative things too, that most of us would not get to hear, but they're out there. Will we go back to the days of "personality radio" where the DJ was a star? Probably not, but as long as there are live broadcasts on radio there will be some creativity as I believe that's part of what drives some of the people to go into radio and to stick with it in spite of the negatives that go with a career in radio.

One area where the creative spirit can still come out in radio is in producing spots. Some of the most entertaining things heard on radio, can be the spots. Sometimes there are good laughs, sometimes the sound effects are great, as the creative minds try to keep you from tuning out for their 30 second spot. So that may be the place where the most creative folks today are going in radio is to the ad agencies.

 

[martymoose]

I don't think you're going to get any decent answers because most of the people who post here are from the same era, and grew up listening to the same stations/markets. "Creative," is a subjective term. Are you talking jocks? production? Music? Talk?

Certainly during OUR era, the creative names would have to include Randy Michaels, who had a big hand in changing the way radio was/is done, you also have to credit Stern, who turned radio on it's ears with what can best be described as Reality Radio.. That said, you then have people like Mark Driscoll who created a great station with an unusual approach to production. Scott Shannon created the Morning Zoo concept and the gang who created the Power Pig in Tampa. Mike Joseph's Hot Hits was considered creative.

Going back, Imus was considered an innovator at one time, and Dan Ingram and the whole line-up at WABC were innovators DURING THEIR TIME. I can only speak from this region as I haven't lived out West.

 

[WTUX]

Going out west, you had guys like Robin W. Morgan, who Imus considered one of the best in the business and who taught Imus much of what he used to reach his peak in the 70's and 80's. Wolfman Jack was another great.

I am certainly no fan of Stern, but I have to say he was/is talented. Rush almost singlehandely saved AM radio by re-inventing the talk show. For too long, talk radio was caller driven. He made it personality driven with comic bits. He basically used the formula of Top 40 radio without music. People like Stern, Rush, Hannity and Imus stand out today because much of radio is cookie-cutter no personality noise.

 

[rdcuffpa1]

A previous thread raised the issue of a creative era in radio. I say there was one, another poster calls it a myth. Just out of curiousity, what do you out there think? Not only if there was one or not but who were the movers and shakers that once made radio great.

The timeline for what I'd call the "creative era" was roughly 1955-1970 or so, but my perspective is based on growing up in Western NY, not the Philly region.

However, this era did give birth to KYW as all-news, and any all-news formats, in that time, were innovative.

This was also the height of 'KB up in Buffalo.

Someone had mentioned Group W earlier...I used to enjoy WOWO, Fort Wayne, IN from WNY...

In terms of personalities, KB had a handful -- the aforementioned Joey Reynolds, George "Hound Dog" Lorenz (before he started his own station, WBLK) , Jefferson Kaye (he of NFL Films and the WPVI Action News open). Buffalo's WBEN had a sports-plus-music format in the evening called "Free Form Sports" that was innovative.

At that time, radio was much less cookie-cutter...each city's stations had their own personalities. However, the existence of "clear channel" radio meant you could hear plenty of diversity due to all the local origination.

Sadly, most of what one hears on clear channel radio are the same satellite-delivered formats.

Richard in Allentown