October 29 Radio History

➦In 1957...Bobby Helms was in Nashville to record “Jingle Bell Rock” for Decca Records. It made it into the Billboard Top Ten pop singles both this year and next, and has been a radio staple at Christmastime every year since.

➦In 1965....Bandleader John Scott Trotter, who was musical director for Bing Crosby on radio, and George Goebel on TV, succumbed to cancer at age 67.  He also conducted the sound track for almost all the Charlie Brown TV specials.

➦In 1995...Howard Stern’s “Miss America” book was in stores.  Lawyers for the actual Miss America pageant were not happy.

➦In 2003…According to the results of a Nielsen study, a third of the sales of "Beatles 1" were to fans aged 19 to 24, skewing the band's fan base even younger than it had been previously.

➦In 2005...Radio programmer Julian Breen, former Assistant PD at 77WABC NYC and PD at KFRC San Francisco, died.

Following success at WABC New York and KYA San Francisco, Julian was largely responsible for developing two radio formats.

First, “Back Seat Music,” established at WPEN in 1975.  It was Julian's belief that people cherished most the music that was popular at the time that they lost their virginity.  He could never quite back it up with research, but didn’t let that stop him.

He also developed the Magic format that was launched at WMGK and cloned nationally.  “It was beautiful music for people who didn’t feel old,” Julian said.