Excerpt #16 from the long-awaited book that Chuck Blore has almost finished writing ...

www.chuckblore.com

OKAY, OKAY, I WROTE THE BOOK

Al Jarvis was a huge part of the success of Color Radio but when I first presented the concept to the KFWB air-staff, Jarvis’ response was ... “Is this imminent?” When Bob Purcell, our GM, assured him that it was, Al said, “You’ll have to do it without Jarvis.” Bob asked why and Al responded, “Asking Al Jarvis to do the kind of radio you’re talking about is like asking Picasso to paint a house.” He excused himself and left the meeting.

That was a real blow. I was so looking forward to working with this great man. As I mentioned way back in Chapter one, without his ever knowing it, Al had been a huge influence on my life. I was ten years old when my mother happened to ask what I wanted to be when I grew up. The radio was on and Al Jarvis was on it. He sounded like he was having a pretty nice time, so I answered, “I want to talk on the radio.” That was the moment the obsession began. Talking on the radio was everything, and the only thing, I ever wanted to do. And now, the first time I’m in the same room with my inspiration, he’s walking out the door. No kidding, I was heartbroken.

At KELP I had managed to get unheard of rating numbers by making ‘the rules’ in Gordon McLendon’s policy book inviolable, something even Gordon himself had never bothered to do. At KFWB, my Color Radio format was made up of ‘the rules’ from Gordon’s book plus a few things I had always admired from The Storz Stations. It was an exacting format and my greatest fear was that it could get very repetitious very fast so it was essential that each deejay should bring a completely fresh approach to it.

It took about a second to determine which of the guys already on the WB staff were going to be able to do “This Color Radio thing.” Four of the six, Bill Ballance, B.Mitchell Reed, Joe Yokum and ultimately Jarvis, brought such talent with them that when I asked for a fresh approach what I heard was un-heard of ... it was absolute magic. Every one of these guys was an entertainer, every one with his own idea of a fresh approach, every one of which flat-assed knocked me down. The first night after that first day was spent rewriting my ‘Policy Book.’ The chapter on ‘Entertaining Radio’ was new and suddenly my ‘Top Forty’ format had a heart.

The other two staff announcers were very capable news readers and I reassigned them to what was a seriously undermanned news department. Great way to start ... didn’t have to fire a soul. But those transfers to the news department would one day come back to bite me. Bite me very hard. More on that later.

I needed seven jocks, I had four. The three I hired were all from McLendon stations. Bruce Hayes from KLIF was our morning man, Elliot Field, from KILT in Houston was to do afternoon drive and Ted Quillan who had worked with me in El Paso would do the all night thing. They all knew the format, except for what I had just added but with the kind of talent these three had the ‘heart part’ was a cinch.
Over the next three weeks, I was conducting Color Radio classes in the KFWB recording studio. Every one of the jocks had to prepare and present an hour a day. I would listen, take notes, and suggest ways to make it better and the next day, we’d do it again. Now and then Al stopped for awhile to listen to what was going on.

One morning, about a week before “launch” Al was waiting for me in the parking lot when I arrived at the station. “If I agree to do your Color Radio thing,” he said, “What’s in it for Jarvis?”

I said, “I’ll make you Number One again, Al.”

“Okay. Tell the guys Jarvis is gonna do it.”

“You tell them, Al”

“Right.”


We became very close. God, how I admired that man. He was a Christian Scientist and suffered from excruciating painful ulcers. Sometimes I would walk into the booth to find him, doubled over in pain. But as the record ended he reached for the microphone and, I swear not one of the 450,000 people he had listening to him at any given time, had any idea that the amazingly communicative voice they were listening to and loved so much was covering so much pain.

One day, a year or so after I left KFWB, Al came to my office to hang out for awhile and after we had reminisced about our five great years together at KF, he said to me,
“You ought to write a book about radio programming. When you do, I’ll write the forward and it’s gonna say ... ‘To Chuck. You wrote the book.’ ”

I mentioned Al was America’s first deejay. I don’t mean first, as in he was Number One (although he certainly was that) he was the first one to do it ... to play records on the radio.
Al’s been gone for over ten years and I’m finally at least beginning to write the book. This one’s for Al Jarvis. The man who started it all. And this is the perfect place o repeat the story Al told me when I asked him how it all began.

It was something like 1932, when Al, fresh out of college saw an ad in the paper; “Man Wanted To Talk On The Radio.” The ad listed an address on Seward Street in Hollywood and said, “Use Rear Entrance.”

Al opened the door to the rear entrance to find a room full of two feet high Superheterodyne vacuum tubes in an otherwise empty room. “Am I too late?” Al asked the vacuum tubes.

“You here for the ad?” said a large red-headed man popping up from behind a row of tubes.

“Am I too late?”

“You’re the first one.”

“Are you still looking for someone to talk ...”

“Talk on the radio. Yeah.,”

Al asked what he would have to do and the response was, “Just talk.”

“Well, I can do that.” Al answered, “What does it pay?”

“Fifty cents an hour and it’s four hours a day Monday through Friday and two hours a day Saturday and Sunday. You interested?”

Al said, “Well, I really like to talk.” and he was hired.

The radio station was called W6RXT, or something like that, and it was on the air daily from 10 to 2. Al was the entire staff. On his first day of ‘just talking’ he ran out of things to talk about in his first 30 minutes on the air. Luckily he had a newspaper with him and for the next three and a half hours, he read the paper. Which I guess, would also make him the country’s first news reader. On the second day, along with the newspaper he brought several joke books, his record collection and his Victrola. When he needed a break from reading news items and/or jokes, he wound up his Victrola, held the mike close to it’s large speaker and played a recording. Al like talking on the radio. He also liked the idea of just working four hours a day. Some day he’d probably have to get a real job, but for the moment, this was fun.

About two weeks into his new career, the joyous station owner announced, “Al, I closed our first deal. We have a sponsor!”

“A what?”

“An advertiser! Franilla Ice Cream.”

“Oh.” said Al. “Great.” (PAUSE) “What do we do?”

“We talk about the Ice Cream. We try to get people to buy it. Tomorrow at 12:00.” His happy boss handed Al a Franilla Print Ad, “Here. Use this. Talk about the Ice Cream and give the phone number a lot. Say it’s the best Ice Cream ever. You know.”

Al didn’t know but he wrote up a few things to say about Ice Cream ... “I scream, you scream, we all scream for Ice Cream. And we scream even louder for Franilla.”

The next day, the transmitter caught a cold or something and the station was thrown off the air at 11:30. Oh My God! Their first ad and no way could they deliver it. Figuring correctly that there were no radios at the Franilla factory and they would have no way of knowing that the station was down, Al and the station owner called everyone they knew and begged them to call Franilla Ice Cream right at 12:00 and order some ice cream. 32 people agreed to call.

The station got back on the air at 1:15 and Al started talking about the ice cream.. He poured his heart and soul into every word, “Please buy some Franilla Ice Cream. It’s real good. Please, PLEASE buy some Franilla Ice Cream!”

Al walked out of his little studio area at 2:00 to find his boss beaming. The man from Franilla had called to say that they got 32 calls at noon, and he thought the ad had worked pretty good, but the most amazing thing happened at 1:15; three hundred people called to order the ice cream. Three hundred people! Al thought, “Wow! Maybe there’s something to this talking on the radio.”

25 years later, Al was still talking on the radio and my Color Radio format had helped reestablish him as the dominant radio voice in Southern California. Al actually had an audience share of over 40. This, in a market with more than 30 measurable radio station signals. The second station had a 9. I swear to God it’s true. Matter of fact, on my fiftieth birthday my older daughter, Cathianne, gave to me an old Hooper Rating she had kept for all those years. She had had it framed and it still hangs in my office. I’m looking at it right now. HOOPER RADIO AUDIENCE INDEX. October 1958 thru January 1959. Sunday thru Saturday KFWB has a 42.2 share and KMPC has 8.1. January ‘59 was exactly one year after KFWB had become, Color Radio. Pretty neat.

(...to be continued)