• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Tower nuts

"This is WKBW Buffalo, one of America's two great radio stations."
OK, what was the other one?

BTW, if you haven't already, don't forget to order the 2009 calendar
from that guy in Rochester who has no idea what we're talking about. ;D
 
HAH! Fan, Jeff Kaye got ya.

Here's the rationale behind the positioner "one of America's TWO great radio stations" (WKBW, ca. 1966-1972.)

Kaye reasoned that a marketing phrase to the effect of "America's Greatest Radio Station" would sound arrogant and presumptive and be dismissed by the listeners. So: the completely different reaction which you express - the typical one, naturally becomes: what's the OTHER one? when you hear the one-of-two claim. (Thus accepting without challenge the proposition that WKBW is ONE of TWO great stations.)

A little convoluted. But you have to admit: it worked.
 
The BC-6 series, like most RCA consoles of the period, used high-impedance mixing - so all the tubes had to have little corrugated metal jackets installed on them. There was also a tendency for those consoles to be noisy in RF environments. But they were built like a Sherman tank.
 
Savage said:
Here's the rationale behind the positioner "one of America's TWO great radio stations" (WKBW, ca. 1966-1972.) Kaye reasoned that a marketing phrase to the effect of "America's Greatest Radio Station" would sound arrogant and presumptive and be dismissed by the listeners. So: the completely different reaction which you express - the typical one, naturally becomes: what's the OTHER one? when you hear the one-of-two claim. (Thus accepting without challenge the proposition that WKBW is ONE of TWO great stations.) A little convoluted. But you have to admit: it worked.
Click to expand...

Exactly, RCS. Jeff believed strongly in the values of good writing and imaging. It's to your credit that you acknowledge Kaye's tactics, especially given your recollections of Jeff's memo upon your arrival at KB. You're a big man. Some guys wouldn't have been as gracious. To this day, the "Two Great Radio Stations" slogan is a strong imaging line. A successful large-medium or major market AM news-talk station with a big signal (west of Buffalo) could use it, as long as the station could back it up.
 
As I recall, KB was not the first station I heard that used the phrase, "one of America's two great radio stations". I'm not sure about the station, but I know I heard it years before Jeff came to KB Radio. WARM in Scranton or WLS in Chicago, maybe.

Like so many others, I wondered what the other station was as well. Of course, the phrase could have been "one of America's TOO great radio stations" also. Spelling was never specified.
 
yugoidar said:
As I recall, KB was not the first station I heard that used the phrase, "one of America's two great radio stations". I'm not sure about the station, but I know I heard it years before Jeff came to KB Radio. WARM in Scranton or WLS in Chicago...
Click to expand...

Maybe it was Seventy Sevennnnn, Double You Ayy Bee Ceee ?
 
Someone once said that as a stock KB answer if ever put in some kind of corner about the "other great station" was "The Voice of America"..but it makes more sense for it to be used as a psych phrase..

Hey...WJJL was really neat when we were at the old Hotel Niagara on the mezzinene floor..It had been a gracious and elegant hotel, and the radio station was an important part of the "decor" of the hotel..I started there before they moved to Main Street. When you walked into the lobby there was a nice receptionist desk..and the main studio was sunken toward the rear of the lobby..you could see all the workings, and the station was really very well equipped with a new (at the time) General Electric modular console..ATC cart decks and Ampex tape decks..The also had those neat Altec "Birdcage" mics on big booms, and fully grown 16" collins turntables..with those big bulbous GREY research viscious damped tome arms...loved it there

When the move came it was overnight ONE day to the new Main Street location in the Falls..just up the street from the Round the Clock restaurant. The CE and his pals and us, worked to remove, move and re-install all that equipment. For awhile we worked in the production room with the good old Gates YARD board, and I remember how bad those rooms sounded..sheet rock on the walls and NO soudproofing..and Tom Talbott didn't want to spend money for a good phone line going to the transmitter site, so we got a "voice grade" line and the whole station sounded like the Mutual Broadcasting network for months. That place burned huh? Wow..my friend Joe Chille and I worked there in the early 70's..Great memories there.
 
WJJL, now in lavish digs at Southgate Plaza, West Seneca, with transmitter and antenna still in Niagara Falls, providing great service to both communities.
 
"Kaye reasoned that a marketing phrase to the effect of "America's Greatest Radio Station" would sound arrogant and presumptive and be dismissed by the listeners. So: the completely different reaction which you express - the typical one, naturally becomes: what's the OTHER one? when you hear the one-of-two claim. (Thus accepting without challenge the proposition that WKBW is ONE of TWO great stations.)
A little convoluted. But you have to admit: it worked."

All true. And Sandy Beach once told me that there was also a genuine, specific answer to the question of "what's the other one." Tom Murphy and Dan Burke, CapCities' boardroom dynamic duo, considered KB one of their two radio flagships because it was one of the two (at that time, pre-ABC acquisition) big 50,000 watt blowtorches in their portfolio. The other one, the other of the "two great radio stations", was WJR in Detroit. I don't know if 'JR ever used the "two great radio stations" phrase on the air or if it was exclusive to 'KB (I never heard it anywhere else myself). But in the halls of CapCities, the "two great radio stations" were WKBW and WJR.
 
WJJL, now in lavish digs at Southgate Plaza, West Seneca, with transmitter and antenna still in Niagara Falls, providing great service to both communities.
Click to expand...

Good sarcasm. Do they have any live dj's these days?
 
Bob, that's what I always thought. Many forget the stature off WJR.

Mike


All true. And Sandy Beach once told me that there was also a genuine, specific answer to the question of "what's the other one." Tom Murphy and Dan Burke, CapCities' boardroom dynamic duo, considered KB one of their two radio flagships because it was one of the two (at that time, pre-ABC acquisition) big 50,000 watt blowtorches in their portfolio. The other one, the other of the "two great radio stations", was WJR in Detroit. I don't know if 'JR ever used the "two great radio stations" phrase on the air or if it was exclusive to 'KB (I never heard it anywhere else myself). But in the halls of CapCities, the "two great radio stations" were WKBW and WJR.


[/quote]
 
For what it's worth, Jeff Kaye told me that he made it up out of whole cloth.
I never knew him to be a blowhard so my first inclination is to buy it.

However it came about, It was brilliant.....we're still talking about it 40(?) years later.
 
WJR, on 760, could be heard 24/7 on almost any car radio in Buffalo. Their slogan was "The Goodwill Station". I often wondered if WJR had thrift stores around Detroit.

For some reason I was under the impression that the other "great station" was WBZ in Boston where Mr. Kaye worked prior to coming to Buffalo.

Amazing how threads on this board run off on tangents. I suppose nearly all stations have towers.
 
"For what it's worth, Jeff Kaye told me that he made it up out of whole cloth.
I never knew him to be a blowhard so my first inclination is to buy it."

I would too...it probably was woven out of whole cloth, and when it came to promotion, Jeff was and is a master tailor.

Although it's entirely possible that Sandy's also right about who supplied the fiber. ;)
 
Wind-swept Beach

Bob1370 said:
"For what it's worth, Jeff Kaye told me that he made it up out of whole cloth.
I never knew him to be a blowhard so my first inclination is to buy it."

I would too...it probably was woven out of whole cloth, and when it came to promotion, Jeff was and is a master tailor.

Although it's entirely possible that Sandy's also right about who supplied the fiber. ;)
Click to expand...

If I have to pick which of the above is more likely to be a blowhard, I'm going for Jeff's version. BTW, that's the version I heard from the Jeff himself during a conversation at one of the WHTT Buffalo Radio Reunions some years back.
 
My source for the explanation of "One Of America's Two Great Radio Stations" was, like Rox's, Jeff himself. He related it during my job interview in November 1969.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom