The Top 40 format, which took off in the 1950s, reached new heights in the 1960s and 1970s, driven by powerhouse stations like KHJ in Los Angeles and WABC in New York. On the West Coast, it was the era of Boss Radio, fueled by high-energy voices like Don Steele and Robert W. Morgan. So who brought that same fire to the airwaves at WABC?
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The Rise of Top 40 Radio
- Thread starter chuckmcmillan
- Start date
Dan Ingram, Cousin Brucie (Morrow) ...
Who did mornings?
In separate eras, Herb Oscar Anderson and Harry Harrison.
@chuckmcmillan , you might find this page (in fact, the entire site) helpful:
Full site:
While WABC went Top 40 in 1960, it had significant competition from WINS, WMGM and WMCA.
WABC didn't really become dominant until '64-'65, after WMGM dropped out in 1962 and WINS in 1964. Still, WABC put up one hell of a fight until '68 or so.
Full site:
While WABC went Top 40 in 1960, it had significant competition from WINS, WMGM and WMCA.
WABC didn't really become dominant until '64-'65, after WMGM dropped out in 1962 and WINS in 1964. Still, WABC put up one hell of a fight until '68 or so.
Until January of '68, WABC was saddled with Don McNeill's Breakfast Club from the network.
And WABC was a latecomer to the Top 40 party. The first real Top 40 went on in 1951 in Omaha. The early stations played pop songs, but not nock 'n' roll which was still about four years away. But it was in that decade that we saw the stations that got 40 and 50 shares in some markets.
By the 60's, most markets had more than one Top 40... some had three or even four. And they were fragmented.
I don't think either of those ever even got a 20 share. The real "heights" were gotten by stations like KLIF, KELP, KTSA, KILT, WAKY, KOMA, WDGY, WTIX, WQAM, and the other early Storz and McLendon stations that were soon imitated in the later half of the 60's by ones like WERE in Cleveland with Specs Howard.
KHJ became Top 40 almost a decade and a half into the format and was challenged by still-strong KRLA and KFWB. And as Michael said, WABC had a lot of competitors; in fact in the inner Pulse survey area, WMCA generally beat it for its first 5 years or so.
And by the very late 60's, harder rock had fragmented Top 40, with the early 70s seeing such stations surge in many markets and even become dominant after Burkhart and Abrams move "Superstars" out onto over 100 stations further into the 70's, beating Top 40 stations in some cases.
Correct - at least among all available data.
WABC's largest recorded share was a 19.0 in a August 1965 Pulse survey.
KHJ's largest was a 17.0 in a May 1968 Hooper survey.
Nearly a decade earlier, KFWB did reach a 32.4 in early 1959.
KFWB was with no full time full signal competition. KRLA didn’t go Top 40 until September of 1959.
WABC was up against WMCA and KHJ against KRLA.
Also worth noting:
While Top 40 did start in the places David mentions in 1954-55, L.A. was later, at least in terms of the format being on a fulltime, full market signal. The earliest Top 40 was KPOP, the daytimer at 1020 AM that is now KTNQ, David's alma mater.
KFWB was the first 24 hour station to try it. It went Top 40 on February 1, 1958.
KRLA followed in September of 1959, but it wasn't popular until 1963, when they brought in an impressive group of hired guns including Emperor Bob Hudson and Casey Kasem from KEWB in Oakland, Dave Hull from WFLA in Tampa and Dick Biondi from WLS. Later that year, they toppled KFWB. But within two years, KRLA was second and KFWB third to KHJ, which launched April 27, 1965.
KFWB had five years of dominance. KRLA two.
KHJ was number one for four years, in the top two (with KABC) for 11, and didn't lose to another Top 40 station for 14 years, despite competition along the way from KFWB, KRLA, KDAY, KGBS, KKDJ, KIQQ, KIIS-FM, KTNQ and KFI.
It might not have been pulling McLendon numbers from another era, but that's a real strong showing.
While Top 40 did start in the places David mentions in 1954-55, L.A. was later, at least in terms of the format being on a fulltime, full market signal. The earliest Top 40 was KPOP, the daytimer at 1020 AM that is now KTNQ, David's alma mater.
KFWB was the first 24 hour station to try it. It went Top 40 on February 1, 1958.
KRLA followed in September of 1959, but it wasn't popular until 1963, when they brought in an impressive group of hired guns including Emperor Bob Hudson and Casey Kasem from KEWB in Oakland, Dave Hull from WFLA in Tampa and Dick Biondi from WLS. Later that year, they toppled KFWB. But within two years, KRLA was second and KFWB third to KHJ, which launched April 27, 1965.
KFWB had five years of dominance. KRLA two.
KHJ was number one for four years, in the top two (with KABC) for 11, and didn't lose to another Top 40 station for 14 years, despite competition along the way from KFWB, KRLA, KDAY, KGBS, KKDJ, KIQQ, KIIS-FM, KTNQ and KFI.
It might not have been pulling McLendon numbers from another era, but that's a real strong showing.
It should be noted that while each of the two stations you mentioned had different sets of power deejays, they were also working using completely different rules. While Dan Ingram and Cousin Brucie were very chatty on WABC, Bill Drake opted for less chatter and more music on all of the stations he controlled, including KHJ. At KHJ, only the morning man, Robert W. Morgan, was allowed to break format; everybody else could talk but they had to make what they said short and sweet (like maybe two sentences per topic?)
Drake also had different rules for commercials. Especially during the early years, you never heard a jingle between commercials on KHJ; the jingle was supposed to be used to say that the next (or almost next) thing you would hear would be music. On the other hand, WABC sold itself to advertisers by saying that all commercials would have program content on at least one side of the advertisement; that meant putting jingles between commercials to create the necessary programming content.
Growing up in Northern New Jersey at the time, 770 WABC slowly made its way to the top with Top 40.
As was mentioned above, 570 WMCA, 1010 WINS, 1050 WMGM were all playing RnR (Top 40) when WABC started, WMGM gave up on RnR in 62, WINS in April, 65 when they went All-News.
570 WMCA hung in there until 1970 or so, at one point going 1/2 the day talk and 1/2 the day music.
But the next move for 570, was all-talk, leaving just WABC, until 970 became WWDJ with Top 40, on AM.
By the way WOR-FM (a jingle they had --- IN STEREO - THE SOUND IS 98.7 - WOR-FM NEW YORK!!!), started with Top 40 in 1966 . . . I liked them, teens were buying AM / FM stereo radios for home and people were putting FM converters in their cars because FM was suddenly waking up to Top 40 and other music choices beside classical in NYC.
I was always told (at the time) that WMCA did better in the ratings in NYC proper then WABC. But WABC did better in the surrounding areas, WABC had a very good signal with its 50kw NDA . . . WMCA was 5kwDA, pushing most of it over NYC.
I had friends that hated WABC . . . I have mentioned this in the past here . . . they HATED when the "jocks" would talk over the beginning of a song . . . as I've said before here ---- I LOVED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!
These friends liked WMCA better, also WMCA played more of a selection of Top 40 songs then WABC, my friends that knew nothing about radio - heard this just by listening to the stations and knew it!
When WABC went Top 40, beside the Breakfast Club at 10AM, WABC also had a block of news at 6PM - 7PM (give or take 1/4 or 1/2 hour, I forget) and it was weekdays only.
WABC eventually did away with these both and was now just Top 40, except for some public service programming on Sundays.
As was mentioned above, 570 WMCA, 1010 WINS, 1050 WMGM were all playing RnR (Top 40) when WABC started, WMGM gave up on RnR in 62, WINS in April, 65 when they went All-News.
570 WMCA hung in there until 1970 or so, at one point going 1/2 the day talk and 1/2 the day music.
But the next move for 570, was all-talk, leaving just WABC, until 970 became WWDJ with Top 40, on AM.
By the way WOR-FM (a jingle they had --- IN STEREO - THE SOUND IS 98.7 - WOR-FM NEW YORK!!!), started with Top 40 in 1966 . . . I liked them, teens were buying AM / FM stereo radios for home and people were putting FM converters in their cars because FM was suddenly waking up to Top 40 and other music choices beside classical in NYC.
I was always told (at the time) that WMCA did better in the ratings in NYC proper then WABC. But WABC did better in the surrounding areas, WABC had a very good signal with its 50kw NDA . . . WMCA was 5kwDA, pushing most of it over NYC.
I had friends that hated WABC . . . I have mentioned this in the past here . . . they HATED when the "jocks" would talk over the beginning of a song . . . as I've said before here ---- I LOVED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!
These friends liked WMCA better, also WMCA played more of a selection of Top 40 songs then WABC, my friends that knew nothing about radio - heard this just by listening to the stations and knew it!
When WABC went Top 40, beside the Breakfast Club at 10AM, WABC also had a block of news at 6PM - 7PM (give or take 1/4 or 1/2 hour, I forget) and it was weekdays only.
WABC eventually did away with these both and was now just Top 40, except for some public service programming on Sundays.
That’s not all they were saddled with. Being the “flagship” station of the ABC Radio Network (now there’s an outdated term!) they were required to carry ABC network news every hour as well as all news bulletins, Presidential addreses and feature programs such as “Flair Reports.” Just about the only ABC Radio program they didn’t carry was Paul Harvey.
PD Rick Sklar said that 1/1/1968, the day the old ABC Radio Network was replaced with the four-network setup, was his “liberation day,” freeing him from almost all network commitments.