Bill Tanner passed away two years ago. At the time, he was the VP of programming for the Summit stations. Before that he had been head of programming for SBS after being with Cecil Heftel for the second time at KLVE in LA.
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Union Turntable Broadcast Operators
- Thread starter MadMan
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Was he the "Tanner" in the old Pepper Tanner jungle company? I don't trust Wikipedia
what a cool photo!WCFL, WLS and others were cart-based with only an occasional record on a turntable played live. The tight show was one engineer with a group of cart machines (too large to be called a “stack” back then) “Record-turners” were members of the AFM, which was/is affiliated with the AFL-CIO. WCFL was owned by the Chicago Federation of Labor, even tagged ID’s with “The Voice of Labor”.
WCFL, picture was dated 1972, but is probably earlier. I believe they were using ITC SPs by the 70s.
no, not the same Tanner.
WCFL changed to Top 40 in 1965, probably was full-cart from the beginning. As far as WLS, I have no definitive info, but given the format and frequency of pay of the top 40, singles would have been cue-marked in just a day or so. So carts would be more than just a convenience or a way around the musicians union. If they didn’t start out with carts at the format change in 1960, they certainty followed soon after.
The photo I posted of the control room is identified as both WLS and WCFL depending on what site you look at, so who knows. Looks like early 60s though.
No, he began in radio in Vicksburg, then did some work in Monroe, LA., and New Orleans and became PD in Jackson, MS, where he did one of the very first personality modern AC stations.
I was PD at similarly formatted WERC in Birmingham and we traded jock referrals and talked about the format. He moved to 13-Q in Pittsburgh, and then in 1975 went to Y-100 to take over from Buzzy who was kinda' out of control then.
At the stations I was at into the early 70's we played songs off of vinyl, and even with 60 or so plays a week, we did not have to replace the disks for a very long time... months, usually.
All-carts was easier to do earlier at high-billing larger market stations.
By the 70s we had Shure M44-7 cartridges and Stanton’s. In the 60s tone arms were like the heavy RCAs or Gray Research with the GE VR I and II cartridges with rotating 78 and micro groove stylii with considerable tracking force of 4-10 grams. Singles were cue marked in 10 or 15 cuings.
The Tanner from Pepper-Tanner was William B. Tanner (not the same as Bill Tanner). He latter bought John Pepper out and the company name became the William B. Tanner Company.
I don't know about a prison vacation, but they sure knew how to do things like 5:1 trade ratios (you gave $2,500 in airtime for a $500 cart machine). For small stations and low rated ones, this was a way to keep from spending cash for equipment and things the owner needed.
For that reason, IIRC, radio stations used to receive 25 copies of each single.
That would have been nice, but no. You could ask for more, but with no fewer than 200 songs in rotation that's 5000 singles to keep track of, including dates and plays.
No. Just...no.
Even when I was at a larger market (Birmingham, AL) Top 40 and Modern AC, we only got one copy of each single in the early 70's. Labels assumed that we put at least the high rotation songs on cart.
Rita Coolidge was one of the singers at Pepper-Tanner's jingle company...
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