March 23 Radio History

Paula Winslowe, William Bendix

➦In 1910...Paula Winslowe was born Winifred Reyleche (Died  at age 87 – March 6, 1996). She was a radio and television actress and is known for her role as Bambi's mother in the 1942 movie Bambi.

Winslowe played the role of Mrs. Martha Conklin in Our Miss Brooks on both radio and television. On radio, she played Peg Riley in The Life of Riley, She was also heard in Silver Theater, Big Town and Broadway Is My Beat.

She briefly portrayed Mrs. Foster on Big Town, which starred Edward G. Robinson. She starred in several episodes of Suspense, including June 14, 1955 ("The Whole Town's Sleeping") written by Ray Bradbury; July 11, 1956 ("Want Ad"); January 24, 1956 ("The Cellar Door"); and June 5, 1956 ("The Twelfth Rose").

➦In 1922...KMJ-AM, Fresno, California signed-on.

KMJ was originally owned by the San Joaquin Light and Power Corporation. It was later acquired by the McClatchy Newspaper Company in 1925. It is also the 38th oldest licensed, and continuously operated radio station in the United States.

KMJ operated on a number of other frequencies between 1925 and 1932; some of the frequencies used included 820 and 1350 kHz.

McClatchy was intent on improving the signal, and competed with KTAB in Oakland for a new frequency (580 kHz), which was being made available by the newly created FCC.

Eventually, they were awarded the new channel, and KMJ moved to 580 kHz in 1932, operating with 1 kW non-directional from a building rooftop in Downtown Fresno.

In 1936, a new 5,000-watt non-directional transmitter site was constructed, which utilized a 5/8 wave antenna, and was located 5 miles east of Fresno, at the northeast corner of the Kings Canyon Road and Fowler Avenue intersection.

The Fresno Bee - April 1940

In 1941, Hammer Field (which later became Fresno Air Terminal) was constructed, as a training base for the Army Air Corps. The KMJ tower was directly in line with the runway, and the Army wanted the site relocated.

The site was then moved some 16 miles west of Fresno, the existing tower was unstacked and moved as well; however, it was only 660 feet in height. The remaining 330 feet were stored on the site, with the intention of creating a directional array, altough World War II interrupted the project and it never resumed.

The extra portion was eventually moved to Sacramento, and used in the construction of the KFBK transmitter site in 1945.

Today, KMJ-AM operates on the regional channel 580, with 50Kw and a directional antenna array.

KMJ 580 AM (50 Kw, DA2) Daytime 2 mV/m contour

From 1925 until 1987, KMJ was owned by McClatchy Company, who also owned KFBK in Sacramento, KBEE in Modesto, KERN in Bakersfield, and KKOH in Reno. McClatchy Newspapers also owned three daily newspapers in Fresno, Sacramento, and Modesto. In 1953, McClatchy signed on KMJ-TV on channel 24. The television station would be sold off in 1981 to become KSEE.

In November 2006, KMJ and its sister stations KFPT (AM), KWYE (FM), KSKS (FM), KFJK (FM), KOQO (FM), and KMGV (FM) were sold by CBS Radio to Peak Broadcasting, for $90 million.

In March 2009, Peak Broadcasting replaced the KFJK Jack FM format on 105.9 FM, with KMJ-FM; it is a partial simulcast of KMJ-AM.

In the fall of 2012, Premiere Radio Networks exercised a termination clause and ended its relationship with both the AM and FM KMJ stations. As of January 1, 2013, all Premiere-controlled syndicated shows were moved to Clear Channel-controlled stations in the greater Fresno area. From 6:00 A.M. until 6:00 P.M., Monday through Friday, KMJ-AM broadcasts all live and local talk shows.

On August 30, 2013, a deal was announced in which Townsquare Media would purchase Peak Broadcasting, and then immediately swap Peak's Fresno stations, including KMJ, to Cumulus Media in exchange for Cumulus' stations in Dubuque, Iowa and Poughkeepsie, New York. The deal is part of Cumulus' acquisition of Dial Global. Peak, Townsquare, and Dial Global are all controlled by Oaktree Capital Management. The sale to Cumulus was completed on November 14, 2013.

Today the station airs a news/talk format.

WEW Chief Engineer Gordon Sherman 1933

➦In 1922...WEW-AM, Saint Louis, Missouri began broadcasting.

Saint Louis University established the station 9YK around 1912, using Morse code to communicate seismological and weather information. George E. Rueppel, assistant director of the Meteorological Observatory at SLU, worked with 9YK before he founded WEW in 1921. Audio transmissions began at 10:05 a.m. on 26 April 1921; the first voice heard was SLU president Rev. William Robison. The station received radio license #560 to broadcast on 618.6 kHz (wavelength 485 meters) as WEW on 23 March 1922;  KSD had been licensed on March 8.

The station has claimed to have broadcast the first quiz show, Question Box Hour, in 1923.

The station later moved to 833 kHz (360 meters). In April 1927 it was changed to 1210 kHz then 850 kHz; and changed in 1928 to 760 kHz, which was moved to 770 kHz on 29 March 1941 when NARBA took effect.

WEW 770 AM (10 Kw-D, 200 watts-N) Daytime 2 mV/m contour

On April 28, 2016 the station was granted a Federal Communications Commission construction permit to move to a new transmitter site, increase day power to 10,000 watts and add nighttime operation with 200 watts while still protecting clear-channel station WABC (AM) in New York City.

Today the station is owned by by Birach Broadcasting and airs diverse ethnic programs.


➦In 1938...CBS Radio newsman Christopher Glenn was born (Died at age 68 from liver cancer – October 17, 2006).  He was a news journalist who worked in broadcasting for over 45 years and spent the final 35 years of his career at CBS, retiring in 2006 at the age of 68.

Christopher Glenn

Glenn worked at various radio stations in New York, Connecticut, and Washington, D.C. before joining CBS in 1971. He was a narrator for In the News, a long-running Emmy award-winning TV news program geared toward children and young people, which aired between the network's Saturday-morning children's shows. Glenn also appeared on camera as an anchor for the short-lived 30 Minutes, a young people's version of 60 Minutes.

He served as an anchor for two of the CBS Radio Network's signature news roundups carried by affiliates in the United States - The World Tonight (now the CBS World News Roundup Late Edition) from 1988 to 1999, and the morning CBS World News Roundup from 1999 until his retirement. Glenn's final morning broadcast occurred on February 23, 2006.

Glenn made his best-known report on January 28, 1986, when he anchored CBS Radio's live coverage of the launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger. Glenn had just signed off—after what was thought to have been a normal launch—when the shuttle disintegrated, killing the seven astronauts on board. "I had to get back on the air real fast to describe that, and had a very difficult time doing that," he recalled. Glenn and correspondent Frank Mottek (now a reporter at CBS Radio Station KNX) covered the Challenger disaster from that point as a CBS NetAlert bulletin.

Ralph Edwards

➦In 1940...The game show “Truth or Consequences” was first heard on the NBC Radio Network.

Ralph Edwards stated he got the idea for a new radio program from a favorite childhood parlor game, "Forfeits". The show premiered on NBC Radio in March 23, 1940, and was an instant hit with listeners.

Edwards hosted the show from 1940 to 1957 and on television from 1950 to 1954.  Other TV hosts were Jack Bailey (1954–1956), Bob Barker (1956–1975), Steve Dunne (1957–58), Bob Hilton (1977–1978) and Larry Anderson (1987–1988). The television show ran on CBS, NBC and also in syndication. The premise of the show was to mix the original quiz element of game shows with wacky stunts.

Truth or Consequences was the first game show to air on broadcast television, airing as a one-time experiment on the first day of New York station WNBT's commercial program schedule on July 1, 1941. However, the series did not appear on TV again until 1950, when the medium had caught on commercially.

In the late 1940s, Hot Springs, New Mexico agreed to host a T or C radio episode, resulting in the community renaming itself to Truth or Consequences; it still continues to use that name today.

AFVN Saigon - 1972

➦In 1973...American Forces Vietnam Network (AFVN)  radio and TV signed off permanently after serving the American fighting men and women for many years in Vietnam. During that time over a thousand military personnel served at one of the many in-country sites



➦In 2008…Big Jack Armstrong died at age 62 in High Point NC. (Born -  John Charles Larsh on December 4, 1945).  He was also known as Jack Armstrong, Jackson W. Armstrong, and Big Jack Your Leader, was a top-40 disc jockey of the 1960s through the 1980s, and an oldies DJ until 2006.

Jack Armstrong at WMQX

He held a Guinness World Record for "fastest talking human alive" at one point in his career.[6] He developed two imaginary sidekicks - the Gorilla, who speaks in a raspy bass, and likes women, banana juice, and whiskey, in that order - and the Old Timer, who wheezes, tells lame jokes, and was always getting shot after one of them.

Larsh was known for his distinctive signoff. At WKYC, it was a few catchphrases, spoken over the instrumental version of The Beatles' "And I Love Her". On WKBW, he used "Shimmy Shimmy Walk II" by the Megatons. On most stations, he used no background music. Eventually, it became a Motormouth extravaganza, spoken so fast it was hard to understand.

He began his radio career at WCHL in Chapel Hill, North Carolina in 1960 at the age of 14 as an after-school and weekend job. He also worked at WCDJ in Edenton in the summer when his family would go back home during summer break. At some point, he worked for WSSB in Durham, but the time frame is unclear.

Upon graduating from high school in 1964, Larsh moved to Atlanta, where he got an FCC First Class engineer's license, while working on the radio at WDJK. His parents enrolled him in Guilford College in Greensboro in the pre-med course. Larsh dropped out almost immediately, having gotten a radio job at WCOG.

In early 1966, WAYS-AM in Charlotte had begun 24-hour operations. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations at the time required that any station must have an engineer on duty at all times the station was on the air. When Larsh applied for a job there, the station quickly saw an opportunity to fill two sets of shoes with one person, since Larsh already had a First Class license. He was hired to fill the overnight shift.

At WAYS, Larsh met Jack Gale, a seasoned veteran of both the radio and music business who would become his mentor. Larsh later remarked, "Jack (Gale) has forgotten more about the radio business than I've ever known." When asked, he often cited Gale as one of his major influences.

Larsh's first big break came later in 1966, when he landed a job at WIXY-1260 in Cleveland, Ohio. The evening disc jockey at this station was always called 'Jack Armstrong' after the 1930s radio serial Jack Armstrong the All American Boy. With his fast-talking, young, friendly approach, Larsh became a huge hit in Cleveland - so huge that floundering WKYC-1100 asked him to break his WIXY contract, and come to work for the 50,000-watt station in January 1967.

'Jack Armstrong' was a copyrighted moniker in the market, so Larsh adopted the alias 'Big Jack Your Leader', and went to work for WKYC. He also occasionally taunted WIXY by calling himself Jackson W. Armstrong.

With WKYC heard all over the eastern half of the US, Larsh went national. He attracted fans all over the region, and became a huge hit. WKYC was listed as the number three record-buying influence in Miami in that era, no doubt due to 'Big Jack' and the 50,000-watt night signal that was so strong over the East Coast of the US.

Larsh moved on, working at other 50,000-watt stations such as WMEX 1510 in Boston; CHUM 1050 in Toronto (Click Here for aircheck) ; KFI 640 in Los Angeles, KTNQ 1020 in Los Angeles, and WKBW 1520 in Buffalo.  Larsh was one of the original disc jockeys hired for the all-new 13-Q in Pittsburgh in the early 1970s. In the late '70s, he could be heard on Indianapolis' 1310 WIFE before it went dark.

Larsh also worked at KFRC, The Big 610 in the early 1980s, dominating the midday, late-night, and overnight shifts at the station. Later on, he became part of 93 KKHR in Los Angeles, doing afternoons. In the late 80s, he worked at Power 98 in Myrtle Beach. His late career was spent doing mornings at WMQX Oldies 93 in Greensboro, NC, and voice tracking nights on Entercom Communications sister station WWKB in Buffalo.

Larsh was working at WWKB-1520 in Buffalo, New York, when the sudden format change in 2006 to liberal talk put him in the unemployed ranks. Larsh took this opportunity putting pen to paper and wrote his biography, which was completed four months before his death.  On March 22, 2008, Larsh died at his home in High Point, North Carolina as a result of a stroke or heart attack (an autopsy was not performed).

George Weber

➦In 2009...former WABC-AM NYC and ABC Radio newsman, George Weber, was found murdered at age 47.

George Weber was born in Philadelphia March 23, 1961 and was a radio newsman on the ABC Radio Network doing hourly news updates. For several years he was on the WABC 77 morning show, with Curtis Sliwa and Ron Kuby in New York City.

John Katehis

Weber began his radio career at WBUX (AM) in Doylestown. He then went on to WAEB in Allentown, where he worked for two and a half years as a reporter and news anchor. After contacting Phil Boyce, then news director at Denver station KIMN, he received an offer to be a street reporter and anchor with that station. Two and a half years later (after KIMN's demise) Weber went to crosstown rival KOA, where he began a new career as the host of a night-time talk show. Some other important stops on his way to a full-time job with WABC were KGO, KOGO, KTLK, and KMPC.

On March 25 police arrested 16-year-old student John Katehis of East Elmhurst, Queens, New York for the murder. Katehis was convicted in 2011 at retrial, and sentenced to 25 years to life.