www.chuckblore.com

Okay, Okay I Wrote the Book

Once the KEWB air staff was put together, I headed North to San Francisco where I had planned to spend the next few weeks of my life. I was about to put the new guys through the same kind of intensive ‘Color Radio’ training that we had done in L. A. prior to the KFWB launch. One thing was different. They all knew about our success in South California and when at least three of them mentioned they had heard ‘air-checks’ of KF, I thought that was a good place to start. At our first deejay meeting, I played bits and pieces of KFWB and pointed out ‘why’ what they were hearing, was contributing to the overall sound. We wanted to emulate KFWB, but also, because it was San Francisco, I thought it ought to be a little more sophisticated than what we were doing in L.A. I remember being very pleased when each of the jox asked to have a copy of the L. A. air check tapes. What took four weeks of really concentrated schooling for KFWB, took less than a week at KE. And, we were ready in every way to knock The City on it’s tail. But then, as if having two or three other stations already doing some form of Top Forty, we heard that Gordon McLendon had purchased a San Francisco station. I was, for the first time since prior to the KF launch, really scared. I had already dismissed the other Top Forty stations as non-competition. To my ear, they all had huge weaknesses and once the audience heard what we bringing to them, we’d have no problems. But, Gordon McLendon ... this was the guy who invented it all. The man who taught me the basics of what I’d been doing ever since. He was the master, I was the student. I was almost overwhelmed with an enormous fear of failure. Then, I heard he was calling his station KABL (pronounced cable) in The City where cable cars were a much loved and an enormous part of the local identity. Oh, man! Why couldn’t I have thought of that? But that was typical of Gordon. How could I compete with that kind of superior thinking?

The day after I had learned about KABL, I had a staff meeting to talk about possible ways to enhance what we were doing to be more competitive. Art Nelson and Ken Knox, fresh from KLIF, the McLendon flagship station in Dallas, both expressed the feeling that what they had been doing during this ‘training’ period was a far cry from what they’d been doing in Texas. I specifically remember Art Nelson telling me, “Gordon may have invented the airplane, but you’ve given it jet propulsion.” I’ll never forget that, but I’ll also never forget it didn’t help to quell the queeze in my belly.

Milt Klein, who had been sales manager in L.A. was the new GM in San Fran. He had been called out of the staff meeting, and when he returned, it was with the addition of a great big smile. “I have some interesting information.” he said. “I just got off the phone with our Blair rep.” Blair was the name of the hottest station rep service at that time. (Station Reps are companies that represent radio stations to advertisers and advertising agencies.) Blair was our rep in L.A. and was taking on the same assignment for KEWB. Blair also represented The McLendon Stations. I’m not certain about the ethics of any rep service, who may represent many different stations at once, telling one station what another, especially a competitor, is doing. However, in this case, I thought this was a message directly from the Radio Gods. “Blair says McLendon is going beautiful music with KABL.” I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. At first I thought it must be some sort of a trick. Gordon McLendon, the father of modern radio, the Godfather of Top Forty, programming a beautiful music station? It was almost too good to be true. But Blair, the company that would be selling it, certainly would have had to know what type of format they’re selling. Actually there probably couldn’t be a more reliable source. KABL was beautiful music radio and KE was beautiful color radio. Turns out ... color won. At least in the short run. Years later KEWB had come and gone, but KABL was still beautifying the San Francisco air. KEWB did become the dominant radio station in The Bay Area, in fairly short order, but the”Buzz” was all about what McLendon had done.

Our third station was in Minneapolis-St.Paul. We purchased a station called WISK, so called because there was a very popular detergent at the time called, Wisk. The man that first put WISK on the air figured that every time the station did a station break, it would be like a little commercial for the detergent. He thought he could make them a continuing advertiser. He applied for the call letters and the FCC obliged. The makers of Wisk however, said “No thank you.” But, until we bought the station, every time the station mentioned their own call letters, several times every hour, it was indeed like a little commercial for the detergent.

The initial problem we had in The Twin Cities was that, in all their broadcast history, there had never been a radio station on any frequency below 1,000 on the dial. There was 1070, 1130, 1490, etc., but nothing had ever been heard on the lower part of the dial. WISK, soon to be known as KDWB, was at 630, a spot no one in the listening area had ever heard, or even heard of. So, our problem was not only to be the best station on the air there, we first had to convince them there was a ‘there’ there. There, at 63, where no Minnesotan had gone before. We had to convince them that there was a pretty good radio station way, way down on the other end of the dial, and also, to get them to remember to go into that uncharted. unfamiliar area. With that in mind I had Charles Arlington record, as only he could, a theme line ...”Sixty Three. That’s easy to remember.” Of course, we could say that, 63 times an hour, and if no one knew we were there, it wouldn’t be that ‘easy to remember.’ So, we had to do something that would let people know we were ‘there’ there.

Years before all of this, there was Serutan, and all of that. A fellow out of Texas, after first commissioning himself a Colonel, had created a national phenomenon by bottling what was essentially prune juice, calling it Serutan. He told the great American radio audience, over and over again, day after day, “Serutan is ‘Natures’ spelled backwards. And, as we all know, anything that is ‘nature’s own’ is good for what ails you.” Almost everybody in the country who had anything at all ‘ailing’ them, bought into the pitch and made the Colonel very rich. Everyone agreed that this guy could sell anybody anything. I called him. I told him what we had in mind. He laughed and bought into my pitch.

Thinking about how to tell the good people of the Twin Cities that there was some good radio on the South end of the dial was pretty much all I was thinking about. Billboards? I guess. But in Minneapolis-St Paul, a good part of the year was snowbound, and it was really hard to see the billboards through all that sleet. Newspapers? Yeah, but I hated newspaper advertising. It’s dead, it just sits there. Whatever the approach, it had to be as different as our position on the dial.


I had hired Don French to be the KD PD. Don and I were both part of the KTSA deejay team in San Antonio a couple of years earlier. I always respected his unusually creative approach to all things radio. We were thinking about this ‘positioning’ problem and Don remembered the Colonel, and his pitching prowess. “We ought to get him to tell people about how good things are when you reach 63.”
“Oh, sure.” was my response, “What are we gonna do? Advertise on the other stations?”

We looked at each other for a long time. Then, we started to smile. A moment later we were rolling on the floor, rocking with laughter. Rocking and rolling and repeating over and over, “We’ll advertise our station on the other stations. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!”

We did it. We hired an advertising agency which represented a large local chain of drug stores. We instructed the agency to negotiate non-cancellable contracts with all eight of the Twin City Stations. (Only eight stations in a market that size. How times have changed, eh?) And, one other requirement. They were to buy only “guaranteed times”and only when they could get exactly the same “guaranteed times” on all stations.

The result of this was, when a person tuned to any station, at a given time, they would hear exactly what was on every other station at that same time. At least 48 times a day. If you happened to be tuning across the dial at that given time, all you could hear was the Colonel saying, “You remember me? A couple years back I brought you Serutan, the product guaranteed to cure what ails you. Now I’m back to tell you about an even better product, guaranteed to cure an even bigger problem. It’s called, Formula 63. And it’s guaranteed to relieve ... ennui!” He spoke about the dangers of ennui, tedium and boredom and how these things could absolutely dull your life ... “Formula 63, will relieve ennui ...” he promised, “ ... right from the first moment you try it. And you can try it today. A free sample is waiting for you at any Fisher’s (not the real name) Drug Store. A touch of Formula 63 is the perfect way to brighten up your mundane day.” The spot ended with, “63 ... that’s easy to remember.”

At every Fishers Drug Store there was a mountain of little “Formula 63" boxes, beneath a huge sign saying, “Free Samples of Formula 63. Relieve Ennui today!” Inside the box was a beautiful color picture of the Twin-Cities radio dial, with a large arrow pointing to the left end of the dial and an invitation to “Come on down.” If you suffer from lusterless, uninteresting radio, etc., etc., come on down and put a little color in your life.

It wasn’t long before the radio stations heard about the fact that they were advertising a competing radio station. All of them called the ad agency making all kinds of threats. The stations were told they had a non-cancelable contract. Seven out of eight stations said, essentially, “screw your non-cancelable contract and, I’m sure it was after checking with their attoneys, one by one they dropped our little campaign. All except for a little country station called K-COW. As a courtesy, once we had been exposed, the agency called apologetically offering to rescind the non cancelable clause. K-COW said, “Uh uh! We have a contract and you’ll be billed for 2 spots an hour for 2 days.” They continued to run the spots. WCCO called us to express their outrage and to let us know they were taking “This whole fraudulent farce to the FCC.” That kind of ended when Mr Purcell reminded them that they, like every station, were required by FCC rules to know who their advertisers are.

We thought Formula 63, and the Colonel, was really a good way to introduce our station. What we didn’t realize was how much unexpected publicity we would get in the Twin City Newspapers and on TV. Suddenly it was true, “63 ... that’s easy to remember.”