June 1 Radio History

➦In 1921...Conductor & musician  Nelson Riddle was born in Oradell New Jersey.  His career stretched from the late 1940s to the mid-1980s. His work for Capitol Records kept such vocalists as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Judy Garland, Dean Martin, Peggy Lee, Johnny Mathis, Rosemary Clooney and Keely Smith household names.

He found commercial and critical success again in the 1980s with a trio of Platinum albums with Linda Ronstadt. His orchestrations earned an Academy Award and three Grammy Awards.

He died of liver ailments Oct 6, 1985 at age 64.

➦In 1936...the NBC Blue network’s Lux Radio Theater moved from New York City to Hollywood. On the first show from Tinseltown, program host and “producer” Cecil B. DeMille introduced Clark Gable and Marlene Dietrich in The Legionnaire and the Lady. It attracted a remarkable (for the era) listening audience of 40 million.

➦In 1945...WLB-AM in Minneapolis MN changed call letters to KUOM.

➦In 1961..WVNJ 100.3 FM signed-on (today it is iHeartMedia's WHTZ Z100). 100.3's origins date back to 1942 when it was WMGM, licensed to New York. The station went off the air in February 1955. During 100.3's down time, the frequency was allocated to WFHA in Red Bank. On June 1, 1961, 100.3 was resurrected as WVNJ, now licensed to Newark. WVNJ featured an easy listening/jazz format that continued until August 2, 1983, when WHTZ "Z100" was born.

➦In 1961...FM stereo began.  At 12:01 a.m., GE's WGFM 99.5 FM (now WRVE) Schenectady, NY became the first FM station in the United States to broadcast in stereo.  The station, which had been simulcasting WGY 810 AM,  started airing classical music.

The first commercial FM broadcasting stations were in the United States, but initially they were primarily used to simulcast their AM sister stations, to broadcast lush orchestral music for stores and offices, to broadcast classical music to an upmarket listenership in urban areas, or for educational programming.

By the late 1960s FM had been adopted by fans of "Alternative Rock" music ("A.O.R.—'Album Oriented Rock' Format"), but it wasn't until 1978 that listeners to FM stations exceeded those of AM stations in North America.

During the 1980s and 1990s, Top 40 music stations and later even country music stations largely abandoned AM for FM. Today AM is mainly the preserve of talk radio, news, sports, religious programming, ethnic (minority language) broadcasting and some types of minority interest music. This shift has transformed AM into the "alternative band" that FM once was.

➦In 1967...The Beatles released 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' album.

➦In 1968...'Mrs. Robinson' by Simon and Garfunkel hit Number One

Don Imus

➦In 1968...Don Imus started at KUTY in Palmdale, CA.  He stayed at the station until 1969 when he left for a job at KJOY, a small radio station in Stockton, California. He was later fired for saying "hell" on air.  After being fired in Stockton, he went to KXOA in Sacramento, California.

Three years later, he landed the morning spot at WNBC in New York City before his firing in 1977.

In 1979, Imus returned to WNBC and stayed at the station until 1988 when the show moved to WFAN. Imus gained widespread popularity when the show entered national syndication in 1993. He was labelled a shock jock radio host throughout his later career and his programs have been popular and controversial.After nearly 50 years on the air, Imus retired from broadcasting in March 2018.

His on-air pranks, such as calling up a restaurant and ordering 1200 hamburgers to go, made his show immensely popular and boosted ratings. He was inspired to pursue a career in radio by listening to California radio personality Don MacKinnon.  The iMan died December 27, 2019.

➦In 1969...Tobacco advertising was banned on Radio and TV stations in Canada.

In the U-S, the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act banned the advertising of cigarettes on television and radio effective January 2, 1971.

Bob Crane had been called a genius in radio by his radio colleagues at WICC in Bridgeport, CT, and KNX and KMPC in Los Angeles. All sound effects, gimmicks, and voices are performed by Bob Crane (who was also known in radio as the Man of 1,000 Voices), either as pre-recordings or live right at the mic. Bringing all the pieces together, Bob transforms an otherwise bland commercial reading into a dazzling comedic performance.

In this commercial for Winston Cigarettes, he sounds as if he is carrying on a full conversation with his engineer. But in all actuality, it's all Crane.

➦In 1971...Ed Sullivan's final TV show on CBS

➦In 1980…Arthur C. Nielsen, Sr., founder of the Nielsen ratings system, died at the age of 82.

➦In 1980...CNN debuted on cable as TV's first all-news station. The Cable News Network was launched at 5:00 p.m. After an introduction by Ted Turner, the husband and wife team of David Walker and Lois Hart anchored the channel's first newscast. Burt Reinhardt, the executive vice president of CNN at its launch, hired most of the channel's first 200 employees, including the network's first news anchor, Bernard Shaw.

Since its debut, CNN has expanded its reach to a number of cable and satellite television providers, several websites, and specialized closed-circuit channels (such as CNN Airport). The company has 42 bureaus (11 domestic, 31 international), more than 900 affiliated local stations (which also receive news and features content via the video newswire service CNN Newsource), and several regional and foreign-language networks around the world. The channel's success made a bona-fide mogul of founder Ted Turner and set the stage for conglomerate Time Warner's eventual acquisition of the Turner Broadcasting System in 1996. 

A companion channel, CNN2, was launched on January 1, 1982 and featured a continuous 24-hour cycle of 30-minute news broadcasts. The channel, which later became known as CNN Headline News and is now known as simply HLN, eventually focused on live news coverage supplemented by personality-based programs during the evening and primetime hours.

➦In 1984...KWK-AM in St Louis MO changes call letters to KGLD

➦In 2014…Radio production executive Tom Rounds died.  He is best known for his association with 'American Top 40'. He died of complications following surgery at 78.

Tom Rounds

After first entering the broadcasting profession at the campus radio station of Amherst College in Massachusetts in the late 1950s, Rounds worked at 1010 WINS in New York City as a newsman in 1959 before agreeing to travel to Honolulu with the station's general manager to work at station KPOI. While in Hawaii, Rounds—hoping to gain publicity for his new position as a disc jockey—set the world record for sleeplessness. The period of 260 hours awake was attained while Rounds was sitting in a department store window display. Rounds became a regional celebrity following the stunt, and eventually rose to lead the station as program director.

Ron Jacobs had been program director at KPOI before moving to KHJ in Los Angeles under influential radio programmer Bill Drake. Drake was seeking to install his signature Boss Radio format in the Bay Area in 1964; Jacobs recommended Tom Rounds for the position at KFRC in San Francisco.

While at KFRC, Rounds began promoting large multi-act concerts to benefit charity and gain publicity for the station and the bands it featured. After holding the Beach Boys Summer Spectacular at the Cow Palace in 1966, Rounds and KFRC conceived of a large outdoor festival featuring a fair atmosphere similar to the popular Renaissance Pleasure Faire. The KFRC Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival was held in the second weekend of June 1967 at Mount Tamalpais State Park in Marin County, California, to support the Hunters Point Child Care Center. Featuring Jefferson Airplane, The 5th Dimension, The Doors and many other acts, it drew nearly 60,000 attendees. The Fantasy Fair produced by Rounds is considered the first rock festival in history, preceding the more well-known Monterey Pop Festival by one week.

Rounds left KFRC in the Fall of 1967; his decision to move beyond the restrictions of AM radio was documented on the front cover of the first issue of Rolling Stone magazine, with the headline "Tom Rounds Quits KFRC" on the upper right beside a large photograph of John Lennon.

In 1969, Rounds and Jacobs formed Watermark Inc., a radio production and syndication company that created a variety of programs which it then distributed to radio stations throughout North America. The most widely recognized of the programs Rounds headed at Watermark was American Top 40, which featured the team of host Casey Kasem and producer Don Bustany. The program was popular in large markets and also allowed small market stations to present a three-hour national music chart countdown show at nominal cost that nevertheless produced good ratings and helped generate advertising revenue.

The program reached audiences at over 500 radio stations in the United States by the 1980s. The show is still in syndication, hosted by Ryan Seacrest and distributed by Premiere Networks, a division of the American media conglomerate iHeartMedia.

Morgan Freeman is 86

🎂HAPPY BIRTHDAYS:

• Singer Pat Boone is 89. 
• Actor Morgan Freeman is 86. 
• Actor Brian Cox (“Deadwood”) is 77. 
• Guitarist Ron Wood of the Rolling Stones is 76. 
• Actor Jonathan Pryce is 76. 
• Actor John M. Jackson (“NCIS: Los Angeles”) is 73. 
• Country singer Ronnie Dunn of Brooks and Dunn is 70. 
• Actor Lisa Hartman Black is 67. 
• Actor Tom Irwin (“Devious Maids”) is 67. 
• Bassist Simon Gallup of The Cure is 63. 
• Comedian Mark Curry (“Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper”) is 62. 
• Actor Teri Polo (“Meet The Parents”) is 54. 
• Model Heidi Klum is 50. 
• Singer Alanis Morissette is 49. 
• Actor Sarah Wayne Callies (“The Walking Dead”) is 46. 
• Comedian Link Neal of Rhett and Link (YouTube’s “Good Mythical Morning”) is 45. 
• TV host Damien Fahey (MTV’s “Total Request Live”) is 43. 
• Singer Brandi Carlile is 42. 
• Comedian Amy Schumer is 42. 
• Actor Taylor Handley (“The O.C.”) is 39. 
• Actor Zazie Beetz (“Atlanta”) is 32. 
• Actor Willow Shields (“The Hunger Games”) is 23.

✞DEATH ANNIVERSARIES

• In 1968..Helen Keller, American political activist, author (The Story of My Life) and lecturer, who was the 1st deaf-blind person to earn a BA, dies at 87
• In 1973..Harvey S. Firestone Jr, American tire manufacturer, dies at 75
• In 1980..Arthur Nielsen, American market analyst (b. 1897)
• In 1981..Hank Ketcham, American cartoonist (Dennis the Menace), dies of prostate cancer at 81
• In 2014..Ann B. Davis, Stage and screen actress (Bob Cummings Show - "Schultzy"; The Brady Bunch - "Alice"), dies from subdural hematoma incurred in a fall at 88