From the MCRFB radio scrapbook: 1944
WJLB Going After Hep-Cat Business
DETROIT (September 16) — WJLB is making what is believed to be the first sustained effort by a station in this territory to build a listening habit among the serious hep-cats. Hitting the teenagers after school, a show, Strictly Jive, is being aired Mondays through Fridays at 3:15 p.m.
Program is handled by Bill Randle, known locally as an expert in the hot jazz field, who interlards a program of all hot jazz selections with keen comment. Interviews with famous jazzmen are also used on the show, and, to top-off listener interest, a quiz on the subject is staged three-days a week. Awards are right in the listener’s alley, too — albums of jazz, plus copies of ‘Jazzmen,’ ‘The Jazz Record Book,’ ‘The Real Jazz’ and ‘Jazz.’
Program is scheduled at an hour when it can hit the teenage group with maximum ease, when they probably have maximum proprietary rights in the radio, after the housewife’s show earlier in the day, and before the rest of the family gets home after a day’s work.
Program started off as a half-hour feature and proved so strong in the responsiveness that it recently extended to 45-minutes, and is tentative slated to go to a full hour September 15. END
(Information and news source: Billboard; September 23, 1944).
