DETROIT —WJLB, Booth Broadcasting’s 1,000-watt r &b operation here, has just launched a new programming policy centering around tighter production, faster pacing, and a new set of custom jingles by Quincy Jones.
WJLB AIR STAFFAugust 1967(click image for largest view)
Wash Allen, who just recently took over WJLB program director duties after being transferred from Booth’s WABQ in Cleveland, said the Detroit station would be “running with a full-blast, exciting young sound.” Playlist will be 40 records, to which he will add as necessity demands. “You can never tell how many good tunes will come out in a good week, but I think the average will be about five new records a week.” he said.
The aim will be to establish consistency in programming, Allen said. He felt his philosophy in programming was the same as Bill Drake, consultant to RKO General stations, and Paul Drew, program director of CKLW in Detroit.
“Certain top tunes must be played consistently and deejays must be consistent in their shows. One deejay can’t make a station; it has to be a total operation and this is a new concept in r &b radio. In the old days, one guy could make a station, he could make a record. It can’t be like that today.”
Things are changing so fast in radio, especially in r &b radio, that Allen felt many older deejays were finding it difficult to grasp what was happening. “To some extent,’ Allen said “it was necessary to teach radio to these Mitch Miller people. It wasn’t anybody’s fault that this situation developed.
It’s just that times are changing and a radio station has to move with the times.” Allen began his radio career with WVOL in Nashville while attending Tennessee State University. He had been with WABQ about two and a half years before moving to WJLB. He considers himself a “derivative of Ed Wright,” who’d been program director of WABQ prior to joining Liberty Records as head of its Minit label.
Allen wrote lyrics and produced the Jones jingles. Future plans call for psychedelic jingles. Station has brought in new equipment and is building up its news department. In Martha Jean Steinberg and Ernie Durham, Allen felt he had two of the top air personalities of any station in the nation. “Now, with the new equipment, we have everything to work with.”END
(Information and news source: Billboard; September 23, 1967)
Ford First in Marketing 8-Track Players for All Ford Vehicles, ’66
CHICAGO —There wasn’t a cartridge system that engineers had confidence in until 8-track was developed, stated Harold Sperlich, advance program and component planning manager for Ford, at the Billboard Cartridge Conference here last week. Sperlich offered some insight into the manufacturers’ historic decision to break with the 8-track instead of utilizing the already existing Fidelipac concept.
Harold K. Sperlich, Ford Motor Company, who spearheaded Ford first into the automotive tape-player market for 1966 (press photo, 1972).
Sperlich spoke at a Tuesday (August 30) session in which he painted a glistening picture for auto -installed playback units.
Ford’s decision to become one fourth of the Lear-Motorola -RCA Victor party heralding the creating of a new, untested playback system, was based on the approval of Ford’s engineers and the engineering opinions of these other companies.
Ford decided to act on the “sum knowledge” which theorized that 8-track would have the most success in the auto and because collective minds felt that system would survive. “We couldn’t know for sure that 8 would survive,” Sperlich said, “but the collective judgment said 8-track was superior.”
Sperlich said “It was the collective information” which spurred Ford’s decision to run with 8-track.
There was a period for four to six months, Sperlich said, about one year before the unit went into production, in which the “conference table was full of pros and cons,” with representatives from Lear, Muntz, Motorola and the music companies all offering their thoughts on the new industry.
Ford had been eyeing tape playback as an accessory item for “many years,” Sperlich said. The 4-track system had validity, the executive admitted, and Earl Muntz“had done a great job,” but Ford didn’t feel 4 was as good as 8.
Product planner John Nevin (recently promoted to another division) was as close to being the company’s decider to go with 8-track as any one individual could be in the huge organization. Ford’s initial interest was in the cartridge and player; the music business involvement through RCA came later.
A Ford Motor Company marketing ad of the company’s available (optional) 8-Track tape player kits for all-new model Ford vehicles for 1966.
There had been problems the first year with the system, Sperlich admitted, but the company expected that. Technological improvements in 1967 models would eliminate deficiencies, he said.
Asked if Ford was aware of comment arising from the West Coast – principally from Muntz – that 8-track system was troublesome, Sperlich replied Dearborn was cognizant of Muntz’s remarks. The California duplicator had attempted on several occasions to interest Detroit in his 4-track system. END
___
(Information and news source: Billboard; September 10, 1966)
DETROIT —The Chevrolet division of General Motors has thrown its hat into the tape CARtridge ring as it announced Monday (September 12) that it will offer cartridge playback units as optional equipment on most of its 1967 models.
The entry of General Motors into the field marks the second car manufacturer to embrace the cartridge concept on a factory-installed basis. Ford Motor Co. has offered 8-track continuous loop equipment since the beginning of the 1966 car year. Chrysler has jumped aboard the cartridge caravan following Ford, and American Motors disclosed it will offer players this year. Thus all four major car makers are in the field.
The unit on the Chevrolet will be 8-track continuous loop. This dispels all rumors that the division was eying the Philips 4-track reel-to-reel cassette. “We decided on the 8-track solid-state stereo player after nearly two years of study to find the best possible type,” a spokesman for the company said.
E. M. ESTES, General Manager Chevrolet Division, press photo circa 1970(click image for larger view).
Offered as a factory or dealer-installed option, the unit will be manufactured by General Motors’ Delco division. Cost of the accessory has not been determined. “We expect the tape cartridge player to become an important seller among the 400 options and accessories offered by Chevrolet,” said E. M. Estes, GM vice -president and Chevy general manager. The 8-track player will be available in all Chevrolet models except the Corvette and Chevy II.
The deck, mounted on the lip of the instrument panel, may be installed with an AM-FM push-button radio and FM stereo Multiplex to provide a “complete music center on wheels.” Four speakers, one in each corner, are mounted in the car.
Chevrolet has also disclosed a deal with RCA Victor in which the record company will furnish one tape cartridge to be given away by Chevy dealers when the customer orders a playback unit for his new car. The cartridge features Lorne Greene narrating a musical tour of the U. S. The cartridge will not be available elsewhere.
The tape cartridge unit will receive prominent play in all new model advertising run by the company. Also a special promotion package will be sent to dealer salesmen. The package contains window posters and literature on the product. Salesmen will be given special information on the playback equipment features. The unit will also be displayed on Chevrolet television commercials. END
DETROIT — At press time, both the Pontiac and Oldsmobile divisions of General Motors revealed that they would offer 8-track tape CARtridge playback units as factory-installed, optional equipment on their 1967 lines. Buick and Cadillac will not offer the equipment this year. A full report will follow next week. END
(Information and news source: Billboard; September 17, 1966)
From the Desk of Bill Gavin Billboard Contributing Editor
A S T A T I O N M A N A G E R recently said I don’t go along with this modern radio. My station programs for adults. “Let the formula stations entertain the kids.” I did my best to explain that “modern” radio means a lot more than that, but it didn’t do much good.
I asked another radio man what he thought about modern radio. “I’m all for it,” he said. “Our station is really modern, Top 40 survey, jingle package, time and temperature, news highlights every half hour, contests and prizes, keep the deejays from yakking — we’ve got all the modern gimmicks.”
Interesting to note, neither of these gentlemen was speaking for a winning station. Manager No. I claimed that the audience measurement services were phony because he knew “lots of people” who listened to his station. Manager No. 2 is perpetually optimistic that the next rating will move him up out of the No. 4 spot to which his station currently clings.
M O D E R N R A D I O is not teenage programming. Modern radio is not gimmicks, copied from some successful operation. There are so many different opinions about, and explanations of, modern radio that I offer the comments that follow with some difference, realizing that others may have a different and possibly a better description.
Modern radio starts with people. It grows out of a genuine respect for people’s interests, problems, tastes and feelings. Modern radio programming aims first at understanding what people want to hear, and then at giving them that plus something more. A continuing contact with living trends in all the many things it has to offer forms the basis of modern radio. Its program rule is objectivity. This is why sterile imitations of formulas and gimmicks show themselves so often to be vulnerable to aggressive competition. Modern radio, is briefly, audience centered.
Modern radio needs and uses a high degree of technical skill. The average listener seldom notices the expert efficiency with which records and tape cartridges are cued and started. Actually, if the technique is apparent to the listener, something is wrong with it. Skill and planning provide the continuous flow of sound and the feeling of movement that are characteristic of today’s most successful radio.
T O B E P R O F I T A B L E , radio must operate economically. In contrast to present day radio, the standards of the old network days seem incredibly wasteful, with their writers, producers and sound effects men, with announcers killing time while they waited to give the station call letters in between the network programs. The margin of profit is much smaller today, and the average effort required from each employee is proportionately greater.
Modern radio is more than entertainment. It is also companionship. It is a friendly voice in a hospital room, in a car, or in a lonely farm house. To be a companion, radio stations have emerged from the electronic anonymity of relay transmitters of entertainment, and have assumed personality and character of their own. Radio, like a good friend, is dependably there and dependably the same.
Pleasing an audience does not consist entirely of providing what people want. Very often, people don’t know what they like in the way of entertainment until they’ve tried it. Pleasing the audience consists largely in planning something that the audience will like. Surprise, novelty and variety are all part of modern radio. It takes creative imagination. often the combined work of many dedicated people, to keep radio continually alive and interesting. Some people call it showmanship.
Modern radio is the disk jockey. He is the voice of the station. He does much more than play records and talk about them. He may he casual or rapid fire; he may be witty or sincere; whatever he is, he is the key to a station’s acceptance by the public.
M O D E R N R A D I O is a living part of its community. Whether it’s the support of the symphony or of a children’s hospital or of a high school record hop, radio is doing something with and about the community where it lives. The old promotion idea was, “Listen to us.” Today, radio listens to people. More and more stations are inviting listeners to phone, and the phone calls are being broadcast. Modern radio is successful in this joint participation project only as it demonstrates concern and awareness of its listeners as co-partners in the same community of interests.
BILLBOARD July 25, 1964
News has always been an integral part of radio. Even television’s tremendous immediacy in the coverage of such major events as political conventions and the World Series has not reduced the listener appeal of radio’s consistently broader scale reporting.
The early 1950’s saw the beginning of the trend away from four to five quarter hour newscasts per day to the present prevailing practice of shorter summaries every hour or half hour. The news director in today’s radio is also a public relations director, guiding his station’s participation in community affairs.
Above all, modern radio is music. Practically all conceivable musical tastes can find satisfaction on radio’s AM and FM dials. The music comes, of course, from records. Without the rich variety of music made available by the record business, modern radio as we know it could not survive. A station’s selection of recorded music for airplay largely determines the type and size of its audience. Whether in the field of country music, blues, jazz, rock, pop or concert. Modern radio accepts the principle that listener preference, as demonstrated by record sales and other measurable response, is the guide line to programming.
Modern radio is not the same as it was yesterday, nor will it be the same tomorrow. It is always responsive to new trends, open to new ideas. Within the structure of modern radio there have always been those leaders who are willing to pioneer new concepts and approaches. As long as courage and vision survive among broadcasters, there will always be modern radio. END
___
(Information and news source: Billboard; July 25, 1964)
Popular Big 8 Jock Finds Place On Local TV Dance Show
CKLWTom Shannon1965
DETROIT — “The Lively Spot,” hosted by CKLW deejay Tom Shannon, bowed here on CKLW-TV (Channel 9) September 30 replacing the Robin Seymour “Swingin’ Time” show.
The show will be seen 3:30-4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and 6-7 p.m. Saturday when it will be known as “The Tom Shannon Show.”
Shannon will continue his popular 6-9 p.m. CKLW-AM show on the radio. Elmer Jaspan, director of programming for CKLW-TV, predicts Shannon will became a great favorite of Detroit young people on local Detroit/Windsor (Canada) television.
Shannon joined CKLW four years ago. A songwriter, he wrote the 1963 hit, “Wild Weekend,” while a jock in Buffalo. He also wrote “Soul Clappin,” a local hit now currently playing Detroit radio. END
___
(Information and news source: Billboard; October 5, 1968)
Tom Shannon Show on CKLW TV-9; TV Guide March-22-28-1969
DALLAS — Radio syndicator Toby Arnold & Associates have agreed to acquire the entire master tape library of PAMS, producer of jingles and production music.
“It’s taken us over two years to reach an agreement to purchase and clear the PAMS tapes and productions,” Arnold comments. “The inventory amounts to more than one-million in music and recording. It includes all of the PAMS jingle packages, commercial music back- grounds, concepts, syndicated programming libraries, sales features, program specials as well as television and film scores,” Arnold notes.
PAMS for more than 20 years was recognized as a leader in the jingle field. Financial difficulties in 1977 resulted in the shutdown of operations.
Arnold says many stations have asked him about the possibility of updating the PAMS productions. “I’ve contracted Dick Starr to serve as executive producer in charge of PAMS projects,” Arnold says.
Arnold also stated that Starr “helped us create many new ideas for syndication” while he served as program director for KYA-AM, San Francisco, and WFUN-AM, Miami. “Now with Dick in Dallas and heading up our I6-track Starr Studios facility, he’s the natural choice to work on the updating, remixing, sweetening and repackaging for today’s radio needs.”END
___
(Information and news source: Billboard; May 12, 1979)
Marketing Beatles’ UA Film LP Translates Sell-Outs
NEW YORK —United Artists Records’ soundtrack album of the Beatles’“A Hard Day’s Night“has become one of the fastest selling LP’s in the history of the record business. Within four days after the album’s introduction at the UA distributor meet in Miami Beach last week, 1,000,000 copies were sold and delivered.
BILLBOARD, July 11, 1964 (click on image for largest view)
UA released the 1,000,000 figure July I and reported that orders were continuing to pour in at the same fantastic rate.
The film, “A Hard Day’s Night,” is slated for saturation bookings and multiple city openings in early August. UA toppers are predicting that at least 3 million copies will be sold prior the opening, after which, with the movie play dates and coast-to-coast personal appearances of the Beatles building sales, it’s anticipated that five million copies will be sold by the end of the year.
The album contains eight vocal selections by the Beatles plus four instrumental themes from the film, all composed by Beatles John Lennon and Paul McCartney. The vocal selections are the title song, “A Hard Day’s Night,”“Tell Me Why,” “I Cry Instead,” “I’m Happy Just to Dance With You,” “I Should Have Known Better,” “If I Fell,” “And I Love Her” and “Can’t Buy Me Love.”
From the Desk of Bill Gavin Billboard Contributing Editor
M O R E B A D P R O G R A M M I N G is done in the name of “good music” than in any other form of radio. This opinion is not only my own but is also held by many broadcasters. It does not, of course, rule out the excellent programming being done by a number of “good music” stations in the U. S. and Canada. But by and large the exponents of the so-called “better music” or “non-rock” policies display an abysmal indifference to the basic nature of commercial radio.
“You can’t please all of the people all of the time,” said a disk jockey recently to his program director, in defense of the music he was selecting for his show. The PD’s reply is worth noting: “No, probably not. But let’s try.”
Within its policy limits, whether r &b, country, or whatever, a radio station aims to please as many listeners as possible. At least, this is generally conceded to be radio’s prime objective. In view of such a fundamental guideline, it is amazing how many “good music” stations ignore it.
Ask a “good music” station manager about his music policy. Chances are he’ll say, “We don’t play rock and roll.” Or he might even say, “We don’t play any top 40 records.” He’s also apt to tell you that his station doesn’t program kids’ music. It’s “strictly for adults.” So far, the good music man has told you what kind of music his station doesn’t play. When you finally pin him down to what he does play, it usually turns out that this is left to the discretion of the individual disk jockeys. As long as they avoid the forbidden area of rock ‘n’ roll (whatever that is) they play just about anything they like.
A C O M M E N T O F T E N H E A R D in the realm of “good music radio” is that each disk jockey’s selection of music is an “expression of his personality.” This is probably true. And if we analyze the personalities thus musically expressed on the air, we are forced to classify a good many of them variously as smug, condescending, biased, snobbish, conceited, archaic, uninformed, careless. indifferent and/or incompetent.
A friend of mine once remarked of such a station in his city that “the DJ’s treat the station as if it were their own 50-kilowatt hi-fi set on which they play records strictly for their own personal entertainment.” This may sound like a pretty serious indictment with which to charge a considerable number of stations, yet it is highly probable that each of our readers knows at least one station in his community to which the indictment would apply.
BILLBOARDDecember 19, 1964
It might be observed, parenthetically, that a tendency to program personal favorites can also be detected in fields of radio other than “good music.” There are not a few pop format stations where disk jockeys place personal preference ahead of an objective and informed awareness of community tastes in music.
In the area of “good music” programming, it is not quite fair to place all the blame on the disk jockeys for ignoring objectivity and programming their music to please themselves. Lacking any positive direction from the program department, it is probably better that they use their own taste rather than no taste at all. The common error made by so many “good music” operators is the assumption that by ruling out what they consider “bad” music they automatically achieve effective programming in the non-rock field.
It would be helpful to inquire just why it is that some good music stations enjoy high ratings and comfortable incomes, while others struggle on the brink of oblivion. The answer is to be found, I believe, in the fact that some few items of “good music” are greatly preferred by its followers. As in all kinds of music, there are always a comparatively few selections that stand out in their proved appeal to a large number of listeners, rising impressively above a surrounding environment of drab mediocrity.
S U C H A C O N C E P T A P P E A L obviously involves the classification of “popular” music, and perhaps a semanticist would find this term to be the obstacle that confuses so much of the prevailing thinking about “good music” programming. The idea of popular music implies mass appeal, and there are unfortunately too many programmers who feel that music with mass appeal cannot also have class.
The successful good music stations devote just as much attention to what is popular in their field as do the pop format stations to theirs. All disk jockeys are required to play a certain number of the strongest proven singles. The DJ’s are urged to concentrate on certain LP tracks that have been most effective in attracting listener comments. The music director makes a regular check of the retail stores and distributors to learn of any sales response to new singles and LP’s that are being programmed.
Regardless of his public disapproval of pop format competition, the successful “good music” operator acknowledges in private the practical value of much that his competitor does. Such techniques as short newscasts, tight cueing, bright pacing, frequent time -temp -weather, and minimum 1-1k are usually to be found in the most successful good music operations. The most important characteristic that the happier “good music stations” have in common with their pop format brethren is a rigorous objectivity in the selection of the music. Their DJ’s are encouraged to be good showmen and not permitted to be their own best audience.
Programming of music for radio has certain aspects of effective democracy. Successful music, like a successful candidate, depends on the people’s choice. END
___
(Information and news source: Billboard; December 19, 1964)
Bid To Buy Chapter 11 Vee-Jay Records; Set Hearing June 3
LOS ANGELES —June 3 has been set as the date for Chicago bankruptcy referee Shaeffer to hear local attorney William Bluestein’s formal proposition for the purchase and reorganization of Vee Jay Records, currently in chapter 11 status.
Bluestein represents a group of individuals who are interested in reorganizing the label. He said that referee Shaeffer had “tentatively approved as feasible,” his program for rejuvenating Vee Jay last Tuesday (May 17) but then continued the hearing into June.
The matter of who gets possession of 69 Four Seasons masters was also continued until June 3.
Bluestein revealed that Vee Jay owes the government $11/2 million and has $1.8 million in creditor’s debts. The attorney said he has worked out a plan with the government to liquidate the tax claims and that all creditors would receive a percentage of the moneys owed them.
The label would be brought back to L. A. Bluestein intends to purchase all the stock owned by James and Vivian Brackens and the small per cent owned by Mr. Bracken’s brother. Bluestein’s combine is interested in operating Vee Jay’s R&B and gospel catalog. END
___
(Information and news source: Billboard; May 28, 1966)
CHICAGO — An unidentified West Coast combine is bidding for debt-ridden Vee-Jay Records, a bankruptcy hearing in U. S. District Court here revealed last week.
The group’s attorney said the purchase is contingent upon whether or not 69 Four Seasons’ masters would be included in the acquired assets. The Seasons formerly recorded for Vee-Jay.
The masters in question were awarded to Vee-Jay in a settlement when the singing group was signed by Philips records. Under terms of that agreement. the masters were to go to Mercury Record Corp. in the event that Vee-Jay, even then on shaky ground financially, went bankrupt.
An attorney representing Four Seasons’ agents, Barneget Enterprises, declared in court here last week that the masters must revert to Mercury. The issue of who gets the Four Seasons’ masters will be decided by the court referee in a hearing May 17. If the ruling grants the masters to Mercury-Philips, the West Coast combine will drop its purchase bid. If the ruling favors sale of the masters to Mercury-Philips, the West Coast combine will drop its purchase bid. If the ruling favors sale of the masters to the Vee -Jay buyers, the combine will pick up Vee-Jay’s $1.8 million debt with a promise to pay creditors a dime on every dollar.
A separate arrangement will be made, in the event of a Vee-Jay sale, with regard to taxes owed the government.
NOT BANKRUPT
At the moment Vee-Jay is not technically bankrupt. The company is under chapter II of bankruptcy law, still seeking a financial arrangement under a petition filed here in January.
At that time Vee-Jay president James Bracken said, “The proceedings were instituted with the expectation that the corporation could be reorganized on a sound financial basis. . . “
If in the May 17 hearing the Four Seasons’ masters go to Mercury and the purchase offer is withdrawn, the court will order receiver Gerald W. Grace of Chicago to take steps to liquidate Vee-Jay.
Meanwhile, Vee-Jay has suspended all operations and all employees have been released. Telephone callers discover that Vee-Jay’s telephone has been disconnected.
Formed in Chicago, in 1953, Vee-Jay moved to Los Angeles in 1964 to be closer to its management team. The company was hot at the time, with the Beatles under contract. The company fell into financial difficulty, lost the Beatles, and moved back to Chicago last fall.
At its return to Chicago, Vee-Jay had Jerry Butler, Betty Everett, Jimmy Reed, Little Richard, John Lee Hooker, the Dells, Joe Paige, Russ Morgan, Harry (Sweets) Edison, Fred Hughes, Joe Simon, Orville Couch and several gospel acts under contract.
Butler’s contract with Vee-Jay expires May 31, and he has been signed by Mercury.
One of the group seeking to buy Vee-Jay is reportedly Betty Chiapetta, former Vee-Jay controller. Identities of other parties in the combine are being withheld, but it is believed that some well -known industry figures are involved. END
___
(Information and news source: Billboard; May 14, 1966)
From the MCRFB NEWS archive: 1967
