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The History behind 104.1 KRBE Calls...

T

TroyG

As Houston's ONLY Top-40 Station celebrates its 50th Anniversary in September, Here is something You Oughta Know; Here's what the Station's call Letters Stands for:

The Key to
Radio
Broadcasting
Excellence

With that, this station has endured 5 decades of Today's Hit Music. From Elvis to The Beatles, The Bee Gees to Duran Duran, and from Mariah to The Jonas Brothers, KRBE really DID survive itself. Happy Anniversary. :)
 
More like

we Know
our Radio station
will be Boring
for Ever

or at least as long as Cumulus owns us.
 
Or how about

We Know
how 2 Ruin
Broadcasting
Everyday

or how about

Knowing how 2
do Really
Bad
non Entertaining radio

this is fun. give it a try.
 
I hope you'll be laughing your head off...

104 KRBE means:

Kumulus
Really does
Bull*beep* on
Everybody.
 
Troy Goodwin said:
As Houston's ONLY Top-40 Station celebrates its 50th Anniversary in September, Here is something You Oughta Know; Here's what the Station's call Letters Stands for:

The Key to
Radio
Broadcasting
Excellence

With that, this station has endured 5 decades of Today's Hit Music. From Elvis to The Beatles, The Bee Gees to Duran Duran, and from Mariah to The Jonas Brothers, KRBE really DID survive itself. Happy Anniversary. :)
Click to expand...

Nope..I hope that was in jest (let me guess, you got that from Wikipedia which is as reliable as Clear Channel's sale seems to be right now ;) )....The story that I know is that it was due former owners back in the early 70s/late 60s when the KRBE callsign was assigned......the E stands for Edith iirc....the R for her husband (Robert I think) and the B was their last name, Baker...the same who owned 106.5 for a while. KRBE was a classical station before the late 60s or early 70s when it flipped to Top40, so enduring 5 decades of hit music? Nope, thats wrong.....
 
CW said:
KRBE was a classical station before the late 60s or early 70s when it flipped to Top40, so enduring 5 decades of hit music? Nope, thats wrong.....
Click to expand...


"5 CENTURIES of hit music!"
 
Troy Goodwin said:
Nope..I hope that was in jest (let me guess, you got that from Wikipedia?]
Click to expand...

Wikipedia is always right.
Click to expand...

I sure hope you are kidding!

Anybody can alter information on Wikipedia at anytime. There is no way to verify what information is correct on there.
 
It's true, seriously guys. Go to wikipedia.com, type in KRBE in the search box, and it'll take you there to give you the whole story.
 
Seriously Troy, with all due respect, I understand why you feel that the history is accurate. However, I am compelled to agree with Shane. Due to the fact, that anybody can change a posting makes the information unreliable. Last year, when information was incorrectly added about the history of 1070 KENR, I had to correct it. Others have corrected as well. Unfortunately, the info sometimes posted on any historical item could be subjective and not objective. That alone makes Wiki, unreliable.
 
As one Wikipedia critic writes: "Do you really want to waste an hour updating an article on mathematics, only to have some high school student delete your equations – with his only explanation being that he felt they were too technical? [...] Sure, in theory, with plenty of editors, the website will be self-correcting and such mistakes will be addressed; but the reality is that it takes a very long time for inaccuracies to be fixed. [...] Unfortunately, if you rely upon the Wikipedia as a reference, you will inevitably get burned – and Allah forbid, what if people start referencing the Wikipedia’s errors?? Since 90% of Wikipedia’s fact-checking involves an Internet search, self-perpetuating errors are probably already occurring."
 
KRBE - Early History

I worked at KRBE from June 1966 to January 1967, at just the time when it was changing hands from its original to its second owners. The original owners were Roland and Edith Baker. When I was hired, I was told that the call letters stood for Roland Baker Enterprises. The Key to Radio Broadcasting Excellence was a snappy slogan somebody in sales came up with much later.

The new owner of KRBE was Wagenvoord Broadcasting of New Orleans. Wagenvoord moved us out of our old studios in the 1400 Hermann Drive apartment building and put us in our new "showcase studios" on the ground floor of a (then) new office building on Kirby Drive, just off the Southwest Freeway. You could stand on the sidewalk outside and look through our front window right into Master Control. For at least the first year after the move to the Kirby Drive location, KRBE kept its classical format.

The problem was that Wagenvoord was woefully undercapitalized; it was counting on revenues from the station to help pay the cost of acquiring it. But the Bakers had heavily traded the station out. Almost none of our accounts were paying the station anything. We advertised Caribbean cruises, luxury cars, luxury apartment buildings, restaurants, movie theatres. Everybody who worked at the station could go to the movies free or eat free at the Ming Palace (the Chinese restaurant that used to sit next to the River Oaks Theatre) and other restaurants. The top management people lived free in luxury apartment buildings, drove free luxury cars, and took Caribbean cruises. Roland Baker paid the station's bills out of his business account - Roland Baker Enterprises.

Wagenvoord nearly went broke in the first few months. When the new owners failed to make payroll three months after the move to our new studios, I went job hunting. I found an afternoon drive gig at KXYZ ("beautiful music" on 1320 AM), gave my notice, and got out of there.

Jeff Riggenbach
 
I think they were some good history behind One of Houston's greatest radio stations. I give credit to The Baker Family for putting this station on the map. I believe the calls stood for BOTH K Roland Baker Enterprises, and for it's slogan: The Key to Radio Broadcasting Excellence. Thanks for the history lesson, Jeff.
 
KRBE-FM signed on November 8, 1959, a Sunday, at 6pm, from studios in the 1400 Herman Drive building, a high-rise luxury apartment building across from Herman Park. By the end of the month, ads in the paper for the station used the phrase 'The Key to Radio Broadcast (not Broadcasting) Excellence.'

The 1958 date in Wiki may be the date of the application or the date of the permit or just a figment of someone's faulty memory.

The story in the Chronicle about the launch did not mention the owners name and I had never heard of Roland Baker until radiotxcal commented on my blog last year.

I also heard form another person who knew Ellis Gilbert who was the General Manager and Program Director who described the studios as a pit-like area with the announcer surrounded by equipment on all sides. He also said all the announcers 'doubled in brass,' i.e., were in sales or management positions, also.
 
hrhwebmaster said:
KRBE-FM signed on November 8, 1959, a Sunday, at 6pm, from studios in the 1400 Herman Drive building, a high-rise luxury apartment building across from Herman Park. By the end of the month, ads in the paper for the station used the phrase 'The Key to Radio Broadcast (not Broadcasting) Excellence.'

The 1958 date in Wiki may be the date of the application or the date of the permit or just a figment of someone's faulty memory.

The story in the Chronicle about the launch did not mention the owners name and I had never heard of Roland Baker until radiotxcal commented on my blog last year.

I also heard form another person who knew Ellis Gilbert who was the General Manager and Program Director who described the studios as a pit-like area with the announcer surrounded by equipment on all sides. He also said all the announcers 'doubled in brass,' i.e., were in sales or management positions, also.
Click to expand...

All I know is - my daughter brings her friends on trips to Houston sometimes, they absolutely love KRBE - they think it is way better than KHKS Dallas, and I am constantly showing kids how to stream it now.
 
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