I mentioned that on my fiftieth birthday, my daughter Cathianne, gave me an early Hooper rating which she had been saving for a special occasion.   It showed KFWB with audience averages in the low forties.  The second station had a thirteen share, the third station a nine, and more than twenty other stations divided up the rest.  And it all happened so quickly.  It was like lightning had struck and revealed a whole new way of doing things.  But it was a way of doing things that was not paying off in the sales department. 

Bob Purcell, our esteemed GM, called me into his office one day about ninety days into the Color Radio thing.  The Sales manager and the Number One sales guy were there and they did not look happy.  “Chuck,” said Mr. Purcell, “We have a problem.” 

“Problem?  What kind of problem?” I had the new Hooper Rating Book in my hand, “Everybody in L.A. is listening to us.” 

“Well,” said Purcell, “Not quite.” 

“Sales are actually off.”  That was Milt Klein, sales manager. 

“What?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. 

“The agencies hate what you’re doing!”  Spoken with some vehemence by Bobby Kaufman, Number One sales guy.  In today’s terms, Number One Account Executive.  Much classier. 

“How could they hate it?” That was me ... Mr Naive.  “It sure makes their buying easier.  Just one station gets them damn near half the audience.” I was waving the Hooper at Bobby. 

“They can’t stand that Rock and Roll shit.”  Bobby fit the description of ‘Sales Guy’ much better than ‘Account Executive.’  “They say the audience is nothing but a bunch of stupid kids.” 

“Hold on, Bobby.” Purcell was in command.  He was always the master of any situation. He looked at me with that ‘this-is-very-important look “Chuck, Bobby says the agencies think we have nothing but teenagers listening.” 

“The whole audience is like, twelve.” said our Number One sales guy, “They like that Rock and Roll shit.” 

“Knock it off, Bobby!”  When Mr Purcell was very serious his voice dropped down into his shoes and shook the floor.  This was like an earthquake.  

“Every agency says the same thing.”  Which Bobby was now repeating, “You got nothing but kids listening to that sh... crap.  Stuff.”  

“We’ll fix it!” Purcell turned to me and said, “This is a real problem Chuck.  How are we going to fix it?”

Dammit, I was pissed.  To my ears the radio station was sounding like a symphony.  A Rock and Roll Symphony to be sure, but it was the very next thing to perfect.  “Well, he could show them the book.”  I was pushing The Hooper Book toward Bobby.  “It’s true that we have more than forty percent of the audience when Mitch Reed and Bill Ballance are on, when kids are listening.  But we also have damn near thirty percent during the day when no kids are available.  That’s thirty percent of ten million people.”  I wasn’t sure about the size of L A.s population at that time but that sounded like a pretty reasonable estimate. 

“We’re all very proud of that book, Chuck.” said Purcell, “But it’s obviously a tough sell.  We need something on the air that says adults like what we’re doing.  Think about it.” 

For the next couple of days, all I could think about were the L.A. Ad Agencies who were not only not tuned in to us, they were obviously not tuned into what was going on in the real world.  I was bewailing that fact to my wife and our five year old.  “Well,” said Cath, my loyal wife, “I love it.  I think it’s the best station I’ve ever heard.” 

“Well, thank you.  I know you’d say that no matter what, but ...” 

“It’s true Daddy.  Mommy listens to KFWB all the time.” 

“Yeah, I know that’s true, but ....”  Oh, wait a minute ... from the mouths of babes!  

I took the five year old genius Cathianne to work with me the next day.  We were in Purcell’s office.  “Okay baby, say it for Mr. Purcell.” 

Then like the person who would one day be recognized as one of the top three female voice-over talents in the country, Cathianne proudly announced, “My mommy listens to KFWB.” 

Mr. Purcell smiled and said to the beaming little girl standing proudly in front of him. “I would imagine she does, honey.” 

“Robert,” I said, “Listen to what she is saying.”   

And without the slightest cue Cathianne repeated, “My mommy listens to KFWB.” 

Purcell looked at me as if to say, Am I missing something? 

“Mommys are not  teenagers Bob, but mommys are listening to ...” 

“Oh! That is perfect!”  He got it.  He said, “Mommys are young adults.  Ad agencies are always trying to reach the young adult demographic.  Perfect.  Perfect.  Let’s record her doing the line.  Put it on the air every hour.” 

“Yeah.”  We were in absolute sync.  “And look at this.”   

I had drawn a very rough full page newspaper ad.  It was a little girl and her mommy walking happily along.  Mommy was carrying a portable radio which was conspicuously tuned to 98.  Amongst the squiggly little lines and musical notes coming out of the speaker were pieces of lyrics such as, ‘I love Rock n’ Roll music.’ ‘Rock and Roll is in my soul.’ etc.  Above all of this, written in a childlike hand, was ‘My mommy listens to KFWB.’  I could tell he liked the ad so I said, “Now according to Bobby Kaufman, the agencies are not listening to us, so in order to get to those buyers we are going to have to be in the newspapers.” 

“And the trades.” added Robert.  “They all read the trades.”  

“Yeah.  Great.  So, we need to get an artist to draw the ad.” 

“Oh no,” said Robert, “I love what you’ve drawn.  It has a real roughness to it.  It will really stand out among all the slick agency ads. 

And just like that, I was a published artist.  My mother would be proud.  

The next step wasn’t quite that easy.  I took Cathianne into our recording studio to record the line.  At that time, Bill Ballance was being sponsored by RC Cola and there was a giant cooler filled with bottles of RC in the studio.  I gave Cathianne one, sat her in front of the microphone and went to the control room where I could see her through the glass.  “Okay, Cathianne, say it.”

She was much too busy sucking on that RC Cola to want to do anything else.  “C’mon, Cath.Say it!”  Too busy.  I opened the talk-back to the studio and said, “If you don’t say the line right now, I’m going to take that bottle away from you.”   

With that, she looked at me and said as fast as she possibly could, “Mymommylistenstokfwb.” 

“Cathianne.  Say it properly.” 

“Mymommylistenstokfwb.”  And back to sucking on the bottle.   

With that, I stormed out of the control room and stomped into the studio where I took the bottle out of her hand and demanded, “Now ... say it!” 

She stuck her little chin out, squinted her eyes, wrinkled her nose and with a look of absolute defiance, she said, “Myyyyy Mommy listens to K  F  W ...” she almost spit that last letter at me “...B!”   

I was about to be even more furious, when that reading played back in my head.  I looked toward the engineer in the control room, “Did we get that?” 

“Yeah.” 

When I heard the playback I thought, ‘Whoa, I would never ever have thought to even attempt a reading like that, but hearing it played back, it sounded like a little girl who had just won a My-mommy’s-better-and-smarter-than-your-mommy contest and was bragging about it to the world.  Perfect!

I guess it worked pretty well.  Mr. Purcell thought so much of it he had all the station stationery redone with a drawing of a little girl saying the line.  It became part of the station logo.  Plus, before another three months had passed our billing was higher than it had ever been in the 29 year history of KFWB. 

Oh, and one other thing, Western Advertising, a much respected trade publication at the time, honored what my five year old daughter had written as one of the 10 best advertising lines of the year.  

Perfect!