What If?

[Questor]

What if number 1
What if KFRC did not change formats in 1986 and was on 610 today as a CHR/Top 40 Station?

We would have missed the transition of KC & the Sunshine Band's "Shake Your Booty" from sinful disco single to highly spiritual hymnal.

Please note there's more than one way to say where you sit at church, i.e., "pew."

 

[Bryan Simmons]

What if? I go over this in my head all the time. So about KFRC. What if they never sold KFRC-FM, the one at 106.1 and just moved everyone, format and all to FM in 1986? Would KFRC still be an up to date, relevant CHR? Or would it have flipped to oldies eventually? I could ask the same question about KHJ and KRTH (Formerly KHJ-FM) had they done the same thing in 1980 when they flipped the AM to Country. The entire landscape of radio for LA and SF could have been different. Or... it might just be the same. After all, the real landscape changer here is the Communications Act of 1996. I have always loved KFRC. I'm still saddened every time I think of it's ultimate demise. As far as I'm concerned the call letters are merely "parked" high up on the AM dial for posterity and not much else. It's a terrible frequency, but it is a placeholder for what might someday return. I doubt it though as the image of those call-letters to the general listening public would seem to be damaged at this point. Oh crud, now I'm bummed out...

Bryan: They would have needed to make the move more like 1983, to avoid the FM penetration losses that Mike Phillips said were already underway when he replaced Gerry Cagle as PD in early '84.

But RKO was going to lose its licenses anyway...so KFRC was bound to end up in other, less historically invested hands.

What if RKO had kept its licenses? Well, truth is, it had lost most of its mojo by the 80s. KFRC under Cagle was the exception. Most likely they would have ended up following trends without much of what you and I think of as KFRC still in the mix....just another FM CHR.

See, we think of DDR, Sholin, Ocean, John Mack Flanagan, Bill Lee and Don Sainte-Johnn. But odds are that by mid-decade it still would have been Willie Sancho and Jack Silver...maybe The Slim One, maybe Osh and maybe Sholin. But whether it would have been any good would have depended on the PD. Cagle was a goner for other reasons. Probably would have been Phillips...and that was so whitebread, stale and boring by KFRC standards. And DDR, God rest his soul, would have had his coronary at KFRC instead of K-101.

We would have been spared Walt Sabo and The Game Zone...that's about it.

Michael, you are correct, but I look at the loss of licenses for RKO to be a given. The process took so long though they (RKO) were able to keep operating their stations for years. Yes, they would have ended up in someone else's hands and you are also correct that they seemed to be losing there mojo in many markets. But had they kept the FM and transitioned in the early 80's they may have stayed relevant for many years. Someone else would have owned them and if they were smart could have kept the flame burning. KFRC FM did well for many years at 99.7, but I always felt that in the 90's especially they were a little too loose for my tastes. It may have had the call letters, but it was always a bit of a watered down oldies station. I do think that they sounded pretty good in the 2000's when Bobby Ocean was doing PM Drive, but it really depended on who was on the air at any given time. Never cared for the Cagle version of KFRC, even though it was a ratings winner. Guess just knowing about him and how he operated made me less than thrilled with what he did with the station. Radio changed a bit in the 80's and even more so in the 90's so KFRC may have ended up as just another CHR. If it had continued on to today it might be populated by urban/hip hop jocks with strange sounding names and music neither one of use would find pleasing. But perhaps KFRC-FM could have evolved into a great Drake style oldies station the way KRTH did in LA, never will know for sure, but if done correctly I still think it's a viable format for SF. Jhani Kaye works for CBS and while he does have his hands full, he could get it up and running and do it right. All in all I agree with your assessment, but as a KFRC lover I still dream...

 

[michael hagerty]

But perhaps KFRC-FM could have evolved into a great Drake style oldies station the way KRTH did in LA, never will know for sure, but if done correctly I still think it's a viable format for SF. Jhani Kaye works for CBS and while he does have his hands full, he could get it up and running and do it right. All in all I agree with your assessment, but as a KFRC lover I still dream...

Bryan: KFRC-FM would only have needed the one thing KRTH had...Bill Drake himself.

And come to think of it, that was pretty much RKO's story, too. Until Drake, they were WOR-AM and WGMS. The stations that went on to become the legendary KHJ and KFRC were low-rated embarassments.

The fact that RKO lasted as a dominant force in Top 40 as long as it did after Drake left in 1973 has everything to do with what Drake put in place...including and especially the talent...both on-air and programming. Yes, including Paul Drew, who gave us Michael Spears and Dr. Don Rose.

As those people gradually cycled out to their next career moves, RKO lost its bench strength...and that bench strength...dozens of jocks at stations around the country trained with the same playbook, ready to move from WRKO to KFRC or WHBQ to KHJ in a weekend, were what set RKO apart from other station groups. And it was Drake who gave them that in the first place.

KRTH's greatest achievement has been to maintain the Drake spirit even though Bill's association with the station ended 15 years ago.

 

[lostinspace]

Sue Hall & Celeste Perry et.al introducing Snoop Dog's Latest? ..That's CHR for the 90's on righ??-
Gangster"RAP"?!! That Garbage that passe for music and the talent-less gangster trash that intimidates the
once respectable record company owners to put on their labels - that only exist for one
very dirty secret- "Gangsters Can't Sing" You hear that you fools
You Can't sing so you - hee- hee --haha
Rap! -- Fabulous that in rhymes with Crap! --- There would have been no CHR for a modern day KFRC to play.
The Talent-Less Punks Took it Alll away!!

 

[michael hagerty]

Sue Hall & Celeste Perry et.al introducing Snoop Dog's Latest? ..That's CHR for the 90's on righ??-
Gangster"RAP"?!! That Garbage that passe for music and the talent-less gangster trash that intimidates the
once respectable record company owners to put on their labels - that only exist for one
very dirty secret- "Gangsters Can't Sing" You hear that you fools
You Can't sing so you - hee- hee --haha
Rap! -- Fabulous that in rhymes with Crap! --- There would have been no CHR for a modern day KFRC to play.
The Talent-Less Punks Took it Alll away!!

My sides are gonna hurt all day tomorow from laughing so hard.

Once-respectable record company owners?

Really?

I mean, I like Herb Alpert a lot, so I'll be happy to count him as the exception....but we're talking about a business that was from its inception steeped in corruption, ties to organized crime, payola (in the forms of cash, trips, hookers and drugs), falsified sales figures and rigged chart numbers.

Read Frederick Dannen's "Hit Men". Or even Ahmet Ertegun's reminiscences in that gorgeous coffee table book commemorating Atlantic Records' 60th anniversary...or Stan Cornyn's brilliant "Exploding".

This is a match made in heaven.

 

[LKellerIII]

If RKO General had kept 106.1, and KFRC had somehow managed to survive all these years as a CHR - it likely would have morphed into what KMEL or KYLD became - I have no doubt that it would look nothing like the KFRC of old. Even if the call letters remained, you'd only hear them at the top of the hour, like you do now on KCBS. It would probably go by some typical modern brand-name. Uh...how about Power 106?

Sue Hall, Celeste Perry, and DJs of that era have kept busy for two decades by working primarily on Oldies, Classic Hits, and Lite Rock stations. Dave Sholin was off the air for years until the short-lived and pathetic revival of KFRC.

When you think about it, Don Bleu is about the only CHR jock from the 80s that is still working in the format. Ric Chase went to obscurity in Sacramento before passing away, Ron Engleman is gone, John London is a low rated "hot talk" host, Marcos Gutierrez does only Spanish language broadcasting as far as I know...etc.

As for RKO - yes, they had great success with Top 40, but it seems to me that you can mostly credit their intelligence in hiring Bill Drake to do the heavy lifting, though I guess you can credit them for continuing the success after they showed Drake the door. In the 50s thru 80s, Their KHJ-TV 9 in Los Angeles was considered by many to be the worst TV station in the market - and that's saying a lot considering the presence of the equally pitiful KCOP 13...the butt of many Johnny Carson jokes.

 

[Bryan Simmons]

Yes, if RKO had survived it might have been sold off completely after 1996, or it could have built itself up to be a super group, one will never really know for sure. There was a system in place mainly because of Bill Drake and he did use the stations he consulted as a farm system. Many Boss Jocks can boast several Boss or RKO stations on their resume' like Charlie Van Dyke, Mark Elliot, Bobby Ocean and Chuck Browning to name the most prominent. Many more worked their way up from KSTN, KYNO, KAKC and KGB. I worked for Terry Nelson who had been a jock at WXLO and KFRC. As I recall Don Bleu did a stint at KHJ during the John Sebastian era before heading to SF. Don't know who Ric Chase was, but I left Sacramento for LA in 1982, so it may have been long after I moved. Most CHR jocks from the 60's, 70's and 80's moved to oldies, classic rock or AC long ago as a natural progression. And really in the radio that we hear now, most of those guys are too smooth to work the CHR format as it currently stands. No longer do you hear guys with great voices and smooth deliveries. Now many stations sound like they found their talent right off the streets, and I guess that's okay until you hear one of these guys try to do oldies or AC and then it becomes apparent that for those formats you need a different skill set.

At some point we all become part of the mists of time... We can "what if" all we want, but it is what it is...

 

[TheBigA]

Yes, if RKO had survived it might have been sold off completely after 1996, or it could have built itself up to be a super group, one will never really know for sure.

That's what makes it an interesting "what if."

After the divestiture, General Tire sort of wallowed around for a while and even sold off the tire division to the Germans. Today GenCorp is a bland boring holding company with investments in airplanes and other stuff. Hardly the multi-billion corporation it once was.

Had they not been pursued by the government for ten years, they were starting to invest in pay-TV and other media things. They might have been a player in buying or merging with MCA instead of Vivendi. MCA bought their TV station in NYC. On the other hand, older American companies were cashing out to foreign companies in the early 90s (before 96), so things may have ended up the same way. The real story of the 90s was that almost all of the diversified companies got out of radio. Even media companies like NBC and MetroMedia got out of radio. That left a bunch of radio-only companies with no alternate source of funding once the radio business went south.

 

[LKellerIII]

Bryan - Ric Chase (no relation to Eric Chase) was the very popular afternoon drive jock at 106/KMEL for most of the 90s. He was more-or-less a shock jock, and part of his 'mystique' was based on his reputation as someone who was barely in control.

According to the internet, he was fired in 2000 when he became Christian. He ended up on the air in Sacramento for a few years, and passed away suddenly

 

[Bryan Simmons]

Bryan - Ric Chase (no relation to Eric Chase) was the very popular afternoon drive jock at 106/KMEL for most of the 90s. He was more-or-less a shock jock, and part of his 'mystique' was based on his reputation as someone who was barely in control.

According to the internet, he was fired in 2000 when he became Christian. He ended up on the air in Sacramento for a few years, and passed away suddenly

Radio... The Silent Killer... I know of many who left due to ill health. I had a bout myself some years ago. The stress can kill you...

 

[SFStatic]

Have heard High Blood Pressure = The Program Director's Disease more than once...

 

[LKellerIII]

Bryan - Ric Chase (no relation to Eric Chase) was the very popular afternoon drive jock at 106/KMEL for most of the 90s. He was more-or-less a shock jock, and part of his 'mystique' was based on his reputation as someone who was barely in control.

According to the internet, he was fired in 2000 when he became Christian. He ended up on the air in Sacramento for a few years, and passed away suddenly

Radio... The Silent Killer... I know of many who left due to ill health. I had a bout myself some years ago. The stress can kill you...

It seemed like many of the DJs I heard in my youth never made it past their mid or late 50s. B. Mitchell Reed (WMCA, KFWB, KMET) comes to mind. Chase may have been a special case, though. Part of his 'out-of-control' reputation included alleged alcohol and drug abuse. Even his voice on air sounded wheezy and phlegmy, like it might give out at any minute. He was obviously hired for his vicious wit, not his voice.

 

[landtuna]

I've had better luck than Keller apparently. My three biggies:

Chris Borden - still going strong in retirement in Northern CA.

Buck Herring - reportedly doing religious music somewhere in CO.

Frank Kalil - at last report still running his radio brokerage biz in Tucson.

 

[BossRadioDJ]

I don't think radio has anything to do with the early demise of anyone. It's stress, lifestyle and the individual's ability to deal with it successfully.

For every Tom Donahue, I can counter with Frank Dill. For every Don Sherwood, I can counter with Al Hart. It's not radio; it's the individual. If you talk into a microphone, drive a truck, work in customer service or perform heart surgery, you have stresses. How you handle it, or what substances you choose to put into your body, is not about the job.

(And if the person who responded a while back with "You don't know what it's like to work in a business where your boss could fire you without a moment's notice" wants to chime in again, feel free...)

 

[michael hagerty]

I don't think radio has anything to do with the early demise of anyone. It's stress, lifestyle and the individual's ability to deal with it successfully.

For every Tom Donahue, I can counter with Frank Dill. For every Don Sherwood, I can counter with Al Hart. It's not radio; it's the individual. If you talk into a microphone, drive a truck, work in customer service or perform heart surgery, you have stresses. How you handle it, or what substances you choose to put into your body, is not about the job.

David's right. Gary Owens is 74 this year...Casey Kasem 78...and you've got Jim Lange and Gene Nelson, Chuck Blore and Dan Sorkin, Jim Gabbert and Norman Davis.

And that's just the guys who worked Bay Area radio.

 

[LKellerIII]

I don't think radio has anything to do with the early demise of anyone. It's stress, lifestyle and the individual's ability to deal with it successfully.

For every Tom Donahue, I can counter with Frank Dill. For every Don Sherwood, I can counter with Al Hart. It's not radio; it's the individual. If you talk into a microphone, drive a truck, work in customer service or perform heart surgery, you have stresses. How you handle it, or what substances you choose to put into your body, is not about the job.

David's right. Gary Owens is 74 this year...Casey Kasem 78...and you've got Jim Lange and Gene Nelson, Chuck Blore and Dan Sorkin, Jim Gabbert and Norman Davis.

And that's just the guys who worked Bay Area radio.

The Caser is a long-time vegan. He'll probably be 'reaching for the stars' for another quarter century. He even sounded mellow to me in that infamous (and very funny) AT40 off-air temper tantrum that somebody recorded. (You can find it online).

 

[barman]

What if.....

What if Dr. Don had decided to become a champion flower breeder instead of a radio air personality? Would we all still be here today, similarly agog over Dr. Don's rose? (cue the slidewhistle)

 

[TheBigA]

He even sounded mellow to me in that infamous (and very funny) AT40 off-air temper tantrum that somebody recorded. (You can find it online).

He's an example of someone who doesn't get heart attacks...he GIVES them.

 

[Bryan Simmons]

Yes I agree that it's the individual. You can be stressed anywhere in any job I suppose, but there's no arguing that radio is a high pressure business for a lot of us. Depends on who you work for and how they manage. Also depends on heredity. Two people in the same job will still have different health problems because of their family history, genealogy etc.

That being said, sure seems like a lot of radio people leave feet first, on a gurney. I'll bet that even the people who are still around in their 70's have had their share of health problems. Gary Owens was quite sick a few years back and his voice didn't come back that fast after he recovered. Sure am glad he's still with us though. He's not just a great talent but an all around nice guy too.

 

[BossRadioDJ]

That being said, sure seems like a lot of radio people leave feet first, on a gurney.

Bryan, with all due respect, that just tells me that the scope of your experience is in radio.

I've worked in retail sales, several warehouses, print shops, call centers, steel fabrication plants, newspapers, a film company, and various and sundry other enterprises over the past 35 years, and the bottom line is this:

It sure seems like a lot of people, regardless of their line of work, leave feet first, on a gurney. Radio, in and of itself, is not the specific cause of any disease.