WE OPEN IN TWO WEEKS
HOW THE HELLERWE GONNA DO IT?
 JOX , JINGLES, LOGS, FORMATS,
NEWS, WEATHER, SPORTS AND TRAFFIC.
WHAT?  SCREW TRAFFIC!
YOU CAN’T SAY SCREW TRAFFIC!
SURE I CAN, I’LL WRITE A MEMO
ATTENTION ALL DEPARTMENTS: SCREW TRAFFIC.
YOU CAN’T SAY SCREW TRAFFIC! THOSE REPORTS ARE SOLD!
WRITE ANOTHER MEMO.
ATTENTION ALL DEPARTMENTS: DISREGARD SCREW TRAFFIC MEMO!
I AM OPEN TO SUGGESTIONS AS TO HOW TO MAKE THEM SEXY.

 

When I wrote that last one I was using the word “sexy” to mean easier to listen to.  I was suggesting we find a way to make our traffic reports attractive to the 85% of our audience who did not happen to be in cars at that moment.  Putting stuff on the air which you know 85% of your audience has no interest in, regardless of the fact that “Those reports are sold!” to me was a form of programming suicide.  I went to Mr. Purcell, “Robert, you said that anything I thought would interfere with programming would not be allowed on the air.” 

“So I did.”  

“Well this memo from you ...”  I put the memo on his desk and put my best, ‘I trusted you’ look on my face  “... says I can’t say ‘screw traffic’ because those reports are sold.” 

“I didn’t write that.” he said.  He looked at the memo for a moment.  His next words were to his intercom.  “Ask Milt Klein to come in here, please.”  Milt Klein, was the KFWB Sales Manager.  Purcell handed him the memo, “You can’t do this.” he said. 

“I didn’t write this.” said Milt, “But I’ll take care of it.” 

“If not you ...”  Mr Purcell could be absolutely frightening when he shoved his voice down to it’s lowest register.  The room rumbled as he said, “then ..WHO?”  

“One of the sales guys must have...” 

“The sales guys do not dictate to the Program Director.  Period!”  That ‘period!’ also caused a small tremor in the room.  “We’d better have a sales meeting.”  He then turned to me and said, “I need a Continuity Acceptance memo.” 

Oh God, I thought.  Another memo.  But this one I actually enjoyed writing. 

We will not accept any advertising which might disrespect our audience.  We will not lie to them, or misrepresent.  We will not shout at them, or overuse the echo chamber ...”BE THERE OR BE SQUARE!!!”  We will not treat our audience like idiots.  Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.   

The results of that meeting and it’s continuity acceptance standards gave KFWB a strength and a purity that I don’t believe any station has had, before or since, although the immediate response from Mr Purcell was. “What does all this have to do with sales people not dictating to Programming?  This is just you dictating to sales.” 

“Well, sir.” I replied, “I thought you handled that Sales dictating to Programming thing pretty well.” 

“Yes, actually, I suppose I did.”  Mr.  Purcell was often very pleased with himself, this was one of those times.   

“And when you asked me to write a Continuity Acceptance memo.  I thought you were asking me for a guide to what kinds of commercials would be consistent, or which would be inconsistent, with the programming we are about to launch.” 

Then Mr. Purcell looked at me and said, “I thought you handled that pretty well.” 

I could not, not smile, when I repeated to him what he had said the night he hired me, “I think we make a good team.”  Mr.  Purcell was often very pleased with himself, this was twice in thirty seconds, that coulda been a record.

Next day he summoned me to his office to say “I think our Traffic Reports are a good public service and I think you’re gonna have to live with them.  But I like the part of your memo which said,” he read from it, “I AM OPEN TO SUGGESTIONS AS TO HOW TO MAKE THEM SEXY.  I think that’s a very good idea.” 

“What is?” 

“Make them Sexy.”  He said.  “Your wife has a very soft voice, maybe she...” 

I know I’m getting a little bit ahead of myself here, but that’s how T.I.G.E.R was born.  Traffic Information Girl Exclusive Reports, in which Catherine kind of whispered information about L.A. traffic problems.  I had them scheduled at five minutes past the hour at 6, 7, 8 and 9am. and then at 3, 4, 5 and 6pm.  That would have been too long a day for Catherine and Bruce Hayes our morning man, had an actress wife with a very sexy voice who loved doing the mornings.  I also had Billboards along the Freeway picturing a very sexy looking lady with the words “Take Me Home With You.  I’ll tell you where the traffic sucks!”  Those are not the exact words, but it’s very close.

When TIGER started getting more fan mail than the jocks, I knew we had made another lemon into a very juicy lemonade.

The word was getting around that KFWB was about to go Top Forty.  Actually KFWB never did go Top Forty per se.  About ten days before we were due to blast off, all the guys who were to be the on-air staff were finally gathered in one room.  I was giving the deejays specific kinds of special features each of them would be in charge of, “ .... and on Saturday Mornings Joe Yocum would do the Top Forty Count Down and introduce our pick of the week, The KFWB Disc/covery.”

I remember Joe Yocum saying,  “Do we have to call it Top Forty?”

“Well, that’s what it is.”  Another of my lightning quick ad-libs.

“Top Forty, to me,” said Joe, “is that crappy kind of stuff we’ve been hearing on small town stations in the Midwest.  It’s what we hear on The Mighty 690 out of Tijuana.  It’s nothing like we’ve been practicing here for the past couple of weeks.” 
The Jarvis joined in, “Top Forty, it seems to me, is all about 40 records.  What we’re doing is about the audience.”

Then, B. Mitchel Reed, “It’s fun stuff.  It’s entertaining.”

Bruce Hayes said something like, “Chuck, the radio we did in Dallas which I thought was great, by the way, was Top Forty.  What we’re doing here is a long way from that.  What we’re doing is fabulous.” 

 “Fabulous Forty.” said Joe.  And so it was

 One more thing about the memos.  The more the word got around that KFWB was going Top Forty, or whatever, the more record promotion men started showing up at the station.  And, not really coincidentally, somehow most of the memos I wrote  would find there way to KABC Radio, which had announced that they would be bringing Top Forty to Los Angeles on Christmas Day.  I really wasn’t too worried about the competition aspect of it. They had hired, as their Program Director, the guy I had fired the day I got to El Paso.  But, almost every promotional thing I put into a memo, would be promoed the next day as coming to KABC a day or so before I had it scheduled.  I knew how to stop it.  I would write a memo about something so outrageous they couldn’t possibly copy it without using their entire programming budget to do it.  Yeah, but what?  Ah hah!  I wrote a memo saying that KFWB was buying a HELICOPTER! “We’ll cover the cities news like never before.”  Two days later KABC started promoting, “The KABC News Chopper, covering Southern California like never before.”  They did it!  That helicopter must have cost them thousands of dollars, but they put it up there.  And it stuck. It’s been over forty years and it’s still up there.

Must have been a good idea. 

I think I screwed up.