September 15, 1968 – Ron McArthur offers evidence of the tough life a disc jockey must lead. When KIRO AM was running its Dreams of the Every day Housewife contest, McArthur intercepted a multi-dream request from Mrs. Nancy Nygard of West Seattle. She wanted to be a disc jockey for a day and to win the Slush Cup at Mount Baker, wearing a bikini. McArthur suggested combining the two. So, wearing bikini and snow boots, Mrs. Nygard showed up one afternoon at the Space Needle where McArthur’s afternoon show originated. It was a good show, but it might’ve had more appeal on television.
NBC Radio has a new drive-time feature designed for the commuter, in five-minute takes not unlike Monitor, featuring big show-biz names. KING is not carrying the feature.
Gary Todd has left KOL. Paul Oscar Anderson, topical disc jockey from Eugene, Oregon, is the new morning man on KOL…
Jeff Boeing will jet off to WNBC New York next week. He will drop his assumed name (“after all, the name Boeing doesn’t mean much back East”) and pick up his original air name, Dick Hayes…
Jason Bernard is off KVI and back at the Seattle Repertory Theatre.
Robert O Smith, whose specialty is “falling down and getting up funny,” moves from the production room at KSND to the forenoon air-shift at KOL. Falling down at KSND doesn’t fit the format…
New program director and morning disc jockey at KJR will be Mike Phillips, who returns after several years as one of the super voices on KFRC San Francisco…
Frosty Fowler, this week on tour of Europe, will begin next Sunday morning as board man on KVI. Fowler has been busy with tours, politics and free-Lance commercials. The idea of a key personality wading through the recorded programs on Sunday morning hours is intriguing.
He may not ruffle the waves very much, but Buck Harmon has taken on the task of injecting a little personality into KBBX is “Oceans of Beautiful Music” weekday mornings during drive time. “Still lots of music, short bits of information, doing the unexpected, but not much talk,” is what Harmon promises.
Larry Wade, KBLV FM’s all-night or (from 1:30 AM), is a pretty funny fellow. If you are up to that kind of stuff at that hour of the morning.
KETO AM’s attempts to operate 24-hour a day help to rush it send. About a month ago, it successor, KSND surreptitiously dumped it’s all-night programming. Danny Holiday, program director, says the station is just trimming out unprofitable hours. KLSN dropped it’s all-night operations the past week following a year of experimentation with it.
Second Row: Dale Parsons, Steven Rabow, Mike ( Beaver) Bell
RECALLING KYYX FM (Ronald DeHart)
September 1, 1968 – Ward Lucas, moderator of an afternoon talk show on KTW jumps kilocycles tomorrow to initiate a similar talk show on KBLE AM. Scheduled to begin at 4:30 p.m., his two-hour talkshow (combined with shorter broadcast days) eats up the segments of Western music and rebroadcasts of Bill Carter’s talk show on KBLE AM.
George Boucher, station manager, said the program will be open to all callers. He does not expect the program to be dominated by a particular group.
He is likely to be wrong; programs which precede the show include Richard Cotten, Fulton Lewis III, and W. Stuart McBirney’s Voice of Americanism.
In any event, Lucas is a pleasant-enough daytime moderator. He is not above urging listeners to move to action on a paid political activity, but he does give opposing callers a fair listen.
The introduction of the show is an oddity, since the time in which it is now scheduled will eventually disappear as local sunsets happened earlier.
August 6, 1961-Tacoma (AP)- Radio station KFHA in the Lakewood district, south of here, resumed operations under new ownership and management last week. The station, which has been silent for a year, was purchased recently by the Radio Sales Corporation of which R. W. Burden, owner of KEEP in Twin Falls, Idaho, is president.
August 24, 1954 – Station KMO TV yesterday began production of a half-hour dramatic program titled “Furlough to Brussels,” which will be presented at nine o’clock Sunday evening on channel 13.
Written by Orville Danforth and directed by Richard Lauren, the play is based on Second World War incidents compiled by Leonard Aikens, who now lives near Puyallup. The cast will be made up of Tacoma actors.
Station officials said, “Furlough to Brussels” will be the first “live” dramatic show to be produced in the Pacific Northwest.
03-10-2013 – Pat O’Day speaks out on the deplorable state of radio these days [from Old Radio DJS website on Facebook] “Maybe, just maybe some day current radio owners, and their brain dead PD’s will understand that radio is companionship, or it’s no better than an IPod. While talk and sports keep AM much alive, FM is to a great extent, killing itself. I started in radio in 1956. I saw radio panic over the LP. Many said, (Gee, now that there’s twelve songs on one record, we are in big trouble. We’d better shut up and play more music.) Then came the 4 track cart for the car leading to the cassette. Now radio went into total panic. “Just read the liners, shut up, and play more music!”
Now, with multiple new music delivery vehicles, further panic. So, neutral voices with inane voice tracks or in many cases, nothing at all after morning drive but music. No friendship, no information, no news, no immediacy, no laughs, nothing remarkable, just more music. Companionship and immediacy, radio’s only advantage vanishes. The illness seems near terminal. Radio actually needs all of you who re-built the industry back in the 50′s and 60′s to program and return radio to it’s roots. I pray someday,
one operator will pull it’s head out of it’s ass and create a REEL RADIO STATION. People haven’t changed! Only radio which they once loved!
Thanks for letting me rant.
Pat O’Day, Seattle.
(2013) Steve Randall sends a note to our blog: Steve says when he was at the top of his game, he was surrounded by others who were as aggressive or more so. These were years where the excitement was contagious.
CRAZY STEVE RANDALL: “Each of us did our thing , many of us emulated, some imitated, but all who were unique and there were many, stood out. I was inspired by so many in radio, dating back before radio was replaced by TV. We who listened to the soaps, the crime shows and all the Theater of the Mind, used that influence when it was our time to contribute. Then there were our idols in radio and air checks to listen to and learn from and get excited about. I have said before how grateful I was to Gary Bryan to let me be me at KNBQ and to those good weirdo listeners in Pierce county who let me come into their home, school, business and , State Mental Hospital and play. KYNO/Fresno, Sean Conrad and Les Garland were supporters in the early days of my radio education and I will be always grateful to them as well.
After KNBQ, radio was never the same. Many of those who hired me might have liked what I did at other stations, but didn’t have the stomach to support it at their stations.
Radio has gone the way of the buggy whip or become today’s Penny Saver, as my good friend Jerry Hill recently said. It is a sad fact that there is no longer a place where Theater of the Mind can be practiced and supported. That’s life, things change.”
WHEN STATIONS WERE STAFFED 24/7 WITH LOCAL DJs…
KTAC line-up changes (1980) [Sheila Anne Feeney-Seattle Times] – October 27, 1980- With the introduction of Dave Christianson into the 6 PM – 10 PM slot at Tacoma’s KTAC 850, the weekday lineup is reordered as follows: Ron Harris from 2 AM to 6 AM, J. J. Reagan until 10 AM, Greg Cook from 10 AM-2 PM, Sean Carter until 6 PM, when Christianson takes over, and Jaynie Dillon from 10 PM-2 AM.
Ric Hansen, KTAC, station manager, said Christiansen (formerly of KCMU, KGW, and KING-AM) was hired when another KTAC employee, formerly of KING-AM, Paul Miller, left the job in late summer. Miller since has returned to KING-AM to work weekends, Hansen said. “A montage of people” has filled the 6 PM-10 PM void since Miller’s exit, Hansen said. Harris, morning-air personality, recently was promoted from part-time to full-time air-staff status.
December 1972 – Victor Stredicke (Seattle Times) A milestone of sorts at KOMO Radio. Women’s voices were used on those short “KOMO Country” descriptions, aired from time to time.
Joy Losey, a television news coordinator, and Barbara Tanabe, television news reporter, did them–anonymously of course. They see it as a major breakthrough in the all-male regime on the radio. It’s the first time that a woman’s voice has been heard outside the kitchen or off the PTA lectern.
The two television women said Jay Ward, radio manager, and Don Cannon, afternoon announcer, had been arch enemies of the female voice.
Ward had been singlehandedly responsible for regrooming a feeble network affiliate into a modern giant. Playing middle of the road music, hiring only deep-voiced announcers (and throwing reverb behind his own station identifications), Ward and his male cohorts have captured as much as 20 percent of the Pacific Northwest radio audience.
“We’ve always rotated announcer voices on those station promos,” Ward said in measured cadence and manly voice. “I think the spots you are talking about offer variety.”
Washington DC. March 1. (1952) – (A P)
Television’s self-imposed “code of good practice,” which frowns on plunging necklines and barnyard humor became effective today with the big majority of television outlets agreeing to follow its principles.
As of last midnight, all of the national networks—American, Columbia, Dumont and National, and 82 of the 108 individual stations now on the air had put their names on the dotted line as subscribers to the codes regulations.
By that action, the networks and stations pledged adherence to program policies which, in the words of the code itself, “give full consideration to the educational, informational, cultural, economic, moral, and entertainment needs of the American public.”
[August 13, 1973 AP Report] Tacoma – A disc jockey arrested during a Tacoma radio station broadcast has been charged in Pierce County Superior Court with possession and sale of marijuana.
Tacoma police arrested the announcer, George Farquhar Heard, 25, while he was broadcasting Friday from KLAY, an FM station which broadcasts progressive rock at night. The broadcaster told listeners the station was signing off “due to technical difficulties.”
Heard’s bail was set at $5,000. Two others were also charged with marijuana sales in connection with the arrest.
Former radio columnist for the Seattle Times (1964-1989).
— View other articles by Victor Stredicke
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