➦In 1900... the man who, for 27 years was the announcer for Bing Crosby, Ken Carpenter was born in Avon Illinois. He became a staff announcer at KFI Los Angeles, and called USC & UCLA football games in the early 1930′s, and the Rose Bowl game in 1935. In 1936 he began his career-long association with Crosby. He also announced for Al Jolson and Edgar Bergen, The Life of Riley, Great Gildersleeve, The Halls of Ivy, from 1952-55 Lux Radio Theatre, followed by Lux Video Theatre (1953-57.)
He died following a brief illness Oct. 16 1984 at age 84. ➦In 1923...one of early TV’s most prolific sportscasters Chris Schenkel was born in Biuppus Ind. Although he did playbyplay for ABC TV on college football, Major League Baseball, NBA basketball, golf and tennis tournaments, boxing, auto racing, and the Summer and Winter Olympic Games, he is best remembered today as the voice of Professional Bowling for more than 35 years. He died of emphysema Sept. 11 2005 at age 82.
Jack Buck
➥In 1924...sportscaster Jack Buck was born in Holyoke Mass. His deep gravelly voice is best remembered for his baseball playbyplay of the St. Louis Cardinals over more than 40 years. He also did NFL football on TV, plus World Series Baseball and (for 20 years) Monday Night Football for CBS radio. He died of lung cancer June 18 2002 at age 77.
➦In 1935...the Benny Goodman Orchestra played a concert that’s considered to be the beginning of the Swing Era. The band’s exhuberant performance was at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles, and was heard by millions coast-to-coast on radio.
➦In 2003...longtime voice of the Boston Red Sox Ken Coleman died of bacterial meningitis at age 78. Early in his career in Cleveland he called every touchdown scored by football great Jim Brown.
➦In 2005...the inventor of the Moog Synthesizer, Robert Moog passed away at age 71, four months after being diagnosed with brain cancer. Dr. Moog built his first electronic instrument, a theremin , at the age of 14 and made the MiniMoog, “the first compact, easy-to-use synthesiser” in 1970
UPDATE 8/20/18 3PM: Tom Kelly's Debut on SiriusXM's 60s on 6 channel has been delayed by one week. No reason was given. Start date is now scheduled for August 27, 2018. Stay tuned.
Original Posting....
This coming Monday, Aug. 20, is the day that “Shotgun” Tom Kelly finally makes his debut on SiriusXM’s Channel 6 – Sixties on Six. Reports indicated Kelly's shift will be 7p to 11p Eastern.
Shotgun Tom Kelly
Shotgun, who has worked at KDEO, KPRI, KGB, KCBQ, KOGO, KBZS and KFMB-FM, replaced the late The Real Don Steele in the afternoon slot at Los Angeles oldies station KRTH-FM, K-Earth 101.
In August 2015, Kelly was taken off the air and became KRTH's "Ambassador," doing personal appearances throughout Southern California. He eventually returned to the air as a weekend host. Kelly exited KRTH in November 2016.
“You know, when I got hired at K-Earth, I thought that would be the last radio station I would ever work at,” Kelly told me. “I mean – how do you get better than that? But that was 20 years ago … at the time, there was no satellite radio. Now I will be heard throughout the United States and Canada! I cannot even begin to explain how exciting this is to me!”
Kelly will be recording the show from studios in San Diego.
At a time when other local news outlets are cutting resources, Cable TV giant Charter Communications is launching a 24-hour local news channel in November that will be available in the 1.5 million homes in greater Los Angeles that receive the company’s Spectrum pay-TV service.
According to the LA Times, the channel would be the first of its kind in L.A., representing a bold effort to challenge decades of dominance by such broadcast stations as KABC-TV Channel 7, KTLA-TV Channel 5 and Spanish-language KMEX-TV Channel 34.
And, in what may be heresy in local TV circles, Charter executives say they don’t plan to fill news programs with two-minute stories about crime or those ubiquitous police pursuits throughout L.A.
“White Broncos? That’s not us,” Mike Bair, executive vice president for Spectrum Networks, who will oversee the channel, said in a recent interview.
The company’s journalists will explore community issues and happenings that typically fly below the media radar, such as beach cleanups, charity events and high school sports.
But the new venture faces hurdles, analysts say. Already, there is a glut of TV news, with round-the-clock presence from cable networks Fox News, MSNBC and CNN and an expansion of local news at network-affiliated broadcast stations. In L.A., local news runs morning, noon and night, leaving just one daylight hour — 2 to 3 p.m. — without a newscast.
Charter plans to hire about 125 employees to staff the channel, which will be based in El Segundo, where the company already manages two sports channels, Spectrum SportsNet and the Dodgers-owned SportsNet LA. Charter executives won’t disclose details just yet, including the name of the channel, its budget or its launch date.
Charter has had an expanded profile in Los Angeles since 2016 when it acquired Time Warner Cable, the largest pay-TV provider in the region. That same year, Charter rebranded its pay-TV and internet service as Spectrum to mark a fresh start after years of Time Warner Cable foibles.
Only Spectrum customers will have access to the channel, which limits its distribution to a little more than a quarter of the estimated 5.5 million TV homes in the Los Angeles region. But the channel will be prominently featured in Spectrum homes because it will automatically appear as soon as the TV is first switched on.
Spanish Broadcasting System, Inc. Friday day reported financial results for the three- and six-months ended June 30, 2018.
“Our second quarter results marked a continuation of our solid financial and operating performance as we built upon the momentum in our business,” said Raúl Alarcón, Chairman and CEO. “Our top-line growth was supported by a continued focus on actively managing our costs which were down significantly compared to last year and helped drive healthy margin expansion. We have built a multi-platform leadership position serving the needs of Latinos nationwide and connecting brands with highly attractive demographic groups. Moving forward, we will remain focused on advancing our multi-platform strategy while driving improved performance.”
Quarter End Results
For the quarter-ended June 30, 2018, consolidated net revenues totaled $34.8 million compared to $34.2 million for the same prior year period, resulting in an increase of $0.6 million or 2%. Our radio segment net revenues remained flat due to increases in network and local revenue, which were offset by decreases in barter, special events, national and digital sales. Our local sales increased in our Los Angeles, Puerto Rico, Miami and San Francisco markets, while our national sales increased in our Los Angeles, Puerto Rico, and San Francisco markets. Our special events revenue decreased primarily in our San Francisco and Los Angeles markets, mainly due to lower event activity which was partially offset by increases in our Puerto Rico, New York, and Miami markets.
Our television segment net revenues increased by $0.6 million or 21%, due to the increases in local and subscriber-based revenues, and hurricane related insurance proceeds for business interruption in Puerto Rico.
Six Months Ended Results
For the six-months ended June 30, 2018, consolidated net revenues totaled $68.7 million compared to $65.5 million for the same prior year period, resulting in an increase of $3.2 million or 5%. Our radio segment net revenues increased $1.0 million or 2%, due to increases in network, local, and special event revenue, which were partially offset by decreases in barter and national revenues. Our local sales increased in our Puerto Rico and Los Angeles markets, while our national sales decreased in our New York, San Francisco and Miami markets. Our television segment net revenues increased by $2.1 million or 35%, due to increases in special events, and subscriber-based revenues and hurricane related insurance proceeds for business interruption in Puerto Rico.
The Indianapolis Colts Sunday announced that Colts radio announcer Bob Lamey, the “Voice of the Colts” for more than three decades, is retiring from his duties as the team’s play-by-play voice for Colts radio broadcasts.
“I have had a great deal of fun for 35 years, and it’s time,” Lamey said. “Great things and great people. I cannot thank Colts fans enough for their support through the years. I also owe the world to the Irsay family, particularly Jimmy. I’ve never worked for a better person or a ‘got-your-back’ boss like him. I will always bleed blue.”
“Bob Lamey is a legend and icon, and his name is synonymous with Indianapolis Colts football,” said Colts owner & CEO Jim Irsay. “With his historic calls, familiar sayings and passion for football, he became part of the fabric of this entire community. No one has been more ‘Indianapolis’ than Bob Lamey. Even more so, he was very much a part of our team family, and he’s as dear to us as anyone who has ever worn the Horseshoe.”
Lamey worked 31 seasons as the club’s radio play-by-play voice, serving from 1984 to 1991 and again from 1995 to 2018. He previously worked as the official play-by-play voice of the Indianapolis Racers hockey team from 1974 to 1977 and the Indiana Pacers from 1977 to 1984.
He also worked 23 years for WIBC Radio in Indianapolis, the last 15 as sports director. Lamey was inducted to the Indiana Sports Broadcasters and Writers Hall of Fame in 2008.
Matt Taylor, Colts radio host and preseason sideline reporter, will handle play-by-play duties in the interim. Taylor has been the manager of radio production with the Colts since 2012, handling all aspects of Colts radio programs and the One America Radio Network. Taylor also has been the teams' radio gameday sideline reporter and pre-game show host since 2013.
The Beatles Channel, which recently celebrated its one-year anniversary on SiriusXM, has an expansive mission, according to Rolling Stone magazine. First and foremost, it hopes to broaden the Beatles’ narrative to encompass nearly everyone whose orbit they touched in any way. History is written by the winners, so how did the singers who were swept off the charts by the Beatles’ British Invasion fare? You knew that John Lennon was murdered, but did you know that James Taylor lived just a block away and heard those fatal shots from his window?
“I think that even the intense fans, you can never know all,” adds Bill Flanagan, host of the show called Northern Songs. “You can’t know everybody’s perspective.” Listen to the Beatles Channel, though, and you’ll start to get close.
But any single-artist programming endeavor presents a challenge: How do you keep generating new content based around a finite catalog of 206 usable titles? Even Flanagan was initially skeptical that a weekly program would be able to keep Beatles fans hooked. “Really, two hours a week?” he remembers thinking when presented with the idea of co-hosting a call-in show. “You don’t think we’re gonna run out of ideas? They’re like, ‘Nope.'”
Flanagan has experimented with several through-lines. “Just yesterday, one of the producers said to me, ‘People don’t realize how many non-Beatles records Ringo has been the drummer on,'” he recalls. “So that sent us off on a show about, Ringo played on this Clapton record, this Joe Walsh record, this Howlin’ Wolf record. There’s a show I don’t think anybody has heard before: 16 or 18 songs by various famous artists from Stephen Stills to T Bone Burnett to Tom Petty where the drummer is Ringo Starr.”
Some shows are organized around grander themes. “One of my favorites was called the ‘Let It Be’ moment,” Flanagan explains. “It was about the fact that at the same time that ‘Let It Be,’ a secular hymn, came out, Simon and Garfunkel did ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water, ‘ James Taylor did ‘Fire and Rain,’ then George [Harrison] did ‘My Sweet Lord,’ Billy Preston produced by George did ‘That’s the Way God Planned It,’ and then John answered the whole thing with ‘God,’ which was kind of a hymn for atheists. Suddenly you have a show that’s basically a theological argument from the Beatles in 1970 and 1971.”
After a year working on the Beatles Channel, Flanagan now understands how “you can do the Beatles 24/7 and not run out of subjects.” “It’s just an endless well,” he explains. “It’s kind of the Big Bang that a million planets were formed from. So you have all these planets that you can reflect on — how the Beatles shaped them, their relationship with the group.”
CHOI 98.1 FM Radio X's Jeff Fillion, 50, is among the most prominent and provocative talk radio hosts on Quebec airwaves, dominating what his critics call “radio poubelle,” or trash radio. According to the NYTimes: His critics revile him. His fans adore him.
At a time when Mr. Trump’s tirades on Twitter and beyond are changing global political discourse, Mr. Fillion and his fellow shock jocks are drawing legions of listeners in this picturesque political capital, propagating a cocktail of anti-immigrant, anti-environment and anti-feminist views.
The talk radio genre has proved particularly popular in Quebec City, where fringe anti-immigrant groups like La Meute, or Wolf Pack, stoke fears that immigrants, and Muslims in particular, are incompatible with Canadian values. Being the seat of provincial power also makes the city an ideal target for talk radio hosts who delight in lampooning the political class.
Accused of being sexist, racist and generally outrageous, Fillion, an admirer of Mr. Ford, counters that he’s none of those things but, rather, a libertarian who is not afraid to speak his mind. Fascinated by American politics and popular culture after living in Miami as a young man, he says, he was inspired by the way Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern adroitly provoked and attracted attention on talk radio.
“I was doing my thing 20 years before Trump arrived,” he said in an interview at his cramped Quebec City studio, where televisions on the wall are set to CNN and Fox News. He nevertheless credited Mr. Trump for exposing the media’s “false neutrality.”
CHOI 98.1 FM (81 Kw) Red=Local Coverage Area
Just in case his offensiveness crosses a line, CHOI Radio X, which broadcasts his frenetic show, employs a 40-second delay when he is broadcasting. (It has never used it, he boasts.) In a city of about 530,000 people, his noon show gets an average of 23,600 listeners, making him No. 1 in his slot.
Gretchen Carlson, a former Miss America who now serves as chairwoman of the organization's board of directors, on Sunday responded to claims by current Miss America Cara Mund that she has been bullied, manipulated and silenced by the pageant's current leadership, including Carlson and CEO Regina Hopper.
In a letter sent Friday to former Miss Americas, Mund said she decided to speak out despite the risk of punishment, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
"Let me be blunt: I strongly believe that my voice is not heard nor wanted by our current leadership; nor do they have any interest in knowing who I am and how my experiences relate to positioning the organization for the future," Mund wrote. "Our chair and CEO have systematically silenced me, reduced me, marginalized me, and essentially erased me in my role as Miss America in subtle and not-so-subtle ways on a daily basis. After a while, the patterns have clearly emerged, and the sheer accumulation of the disrespect, passive-aggressive behavior, belittlement, and outright exclusion has taken a serious toll."
Cara Mund
In a series of tweets and a lengthy statement posted to her Twitter account Sunday, many of which were addressed directly to Mund, Carlson said she was "surprised and saddened" about Mund's accusations. Noting that the current Miss America didn't reach out to her directly via phone before making her claims public, Carlson said she has had contact with Mund only via email, which has been the latter's preference.
"Cara, let me be clear: We, as an organization, are very proud of you and all you have accomplished. You are smart, caring and ambitious," Carlson wrote. "As a Brown graduate, you aspire to go to law school and one day run for Governor in your home state of North Dakota. You embody the mission of Miss America."
Netflix has canceled The Break With Michelle Wolf and The Joel McHale Show with Joel McHale; neither of the talk shows will make it to a second season. Their brief runs are the latest example of Netflix’s struggle to deliver a show in this format that can draw eyes and maintain regular viewership.
Joel McHale
According to The Verge, The company ended Chelsea Handler’s weekly talk show — its first real foray into the genre — last October after two seasons. Chelsea initially aired three nights each week before moving to a once-weekly schedule.
Each of The Break with Michelle Wolf’s 10 episodes debuted weekly. The show began streaming in May, not long after Wolf’s controversial and profile-raising performance as host of the 2018 White House Correspondents Dinner. Wolf has served as a contributor and writer on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah and Late Night with Seth Meyers.
She was recently nominated for an Emmy for her HBO special Nice Lady.
Jerry Klein, a music promoter, activist and writer who in the 1990s became Charlotte’s unabashed liberal voice on radio, died Friday after a lengthy battle with cancer.
For three years he was Charlotte’s lonely radio liberal, hosting his own show on WBT 1110 AM, where he bashed conservatives like Rush Limbaugh and the “reactionary boobs” who followed him. When he was fired in 1997, management said his outspoken liberalism had scared off advertisers and listeners.
“What it boils down to is that Charlotte is just not ready for Jerry,” a station official said at the time.
Klein, who once ran a music store called New World Records, was a promoter who brought concerts to town when there were still few of them. He did the same at the Stella center.
An outspoken liberal, he segued to radio, first with three minutes in the mornings on WBT and later with his own late-night show.
After leaving WBT, Klein moved to Washington, D.C., to reconnect with a high school sweetheart. They married shortly after. There he worked for N/T WMAL 620 AM, where he later said he was known as the “pet liberal.” He left the job in 2009.
Two years later he was was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, then non-alcohol-related fatty acid cirrhosis of the liver. A short time later he found his wife, Lois, dead in their home.
Klein returned to Charlotte in 2013.
“I’ll always remember him for his music before I’ll remember him for his politics,” said WBT host John Hancock. “Jerry and I were exact opposites on religion. We were exact opposites on politics. But we were good friends. We found common ground in music.”
➦In 1907...actor Alan Reed was born Herbert Theodore Bergman in New York City. He was a strong, burly presence on film and TV but he would be better remembered for his equally strong, distinctive voice.
His work involved featured roles on Abie’s Irish Rose; as the “Allen’s Alley” resident poet Falstaff Openshaw on Fred Allen‘s NBC Radio show, as Officer Clancey on the NBC Radio show Duffy’s Tavern; as Shrevey the driver on several years of The Shadow; as Chester Riley’s boss on NBC Radio’s The Life of Riley, and as Italian immigrant Pasquale in Life with Luigi on CBS Radio.
He is perhaps best remembered as the voice of Fred Flinstone in the ABC-TV cartoon series.
He sufered a fatal heart attack June 14 1977 at age 69.
Andre Baruch
➦In 1908...veteran golden-voiced announcer Andre Baruch was born in France. He tried to begin his career as a pianist for NBC Radio but got into the wrong line of applicants; he was in the announcers’ line and was hired on the spot.
Over an almost 60 year career he announced for such OTR programs as The American Album of Familiar Music, The Fred Waring Show, The Kate Smith Show, The Shadow, Your Hit Parade and The United States Steel Hour.
Fulfilling a 20-year dream, in 1954 he was named to the Brooklyn Dodgers broadcast team, for whom he worked for two years on WMGM radio and WOR-TV.
He died Sept. 15 1991 at age 83.
1920 Front-Page Ad for 8MK Radio
➦In 1920...In Michigan, the Detroit News founded radio station 8MK, operating at first using an amateur license until granted a limited commercial license in October 1921. In March 1922, the call-letters were changed to WWJ, which they have remained ever since.
➦In 1925...WJR-AM in Detroit began radio transmissions. It actually as WCX on May 4, 1922, owned by the Detroit Free Press newspaper, operating at 580 kHz. It shared this frequency with WWJ, another station owned by The Detroit News.
In 1925, the Jewett Radio & Phonograph Company of Pontiac, Michigan purchased WCX. Sometime thereafter the station became known as WCX/WJR. Also by 1925, WWJ was at 850 kHz, and both stations were broadcasting with 5000 watts of power.
Today the station is owned by Cumulus Media and airs news/talk.
➦In 1959...A Motorola 6 plus 2 transistor radio was advertised for $29.95. Six transistors and 2 diodes. "Hour after hour of top flight listening on a single inexpensive battery. Built-inantenna, Built-in easel for convenience. Slips into purse or pocket." ➦In 1960...19-year-old Marv Alpert, a journalism major at Syracuse University was working at WMGM 1050 AM radio in New York during the summer in the record library and news department.
➦In 1960...Mel Allen, often called the voice of the Yankees, will do the play-by-play of the New York Giants football team over CBS Radio.
➦In 1963...WCPO in Cincinnati goes “All Hootenanny” - all folk music ...
➦In 1963...It was announced that all-night talk show host Long John Nebel - heard on WOR 710 AM in New York would also be heard on WNAC 680 AM in Boston, also owned by RKO-General.
➦In 1963...NYC Deejay Stan Z. Burns at 1010 WINS, New York has the magic touch. After playing “That Sunday, That Summer” off of Nat King Cole’s latest album with tremendous response, Capitol Records announced it will release it as a single.
Rick Sklar
➦In 1963...Many in the industry are stunned by the promotion of Rick Sklar, director of community services at 77 WABC Radio in New York, to Program Director, replacing Sam Holman. The announcement was made by newly-appointed vice-president and general manager Walter Schwartz. “Sam Holman, who has done so much to bring WABC to its present enviable position in the market, willcontinue to be a front-line piece of talent for us (Holman is also a DJ).
With the responsibilities of running a major radio station in the nation’s first market, it is necessary that we have a man in charge of the program department who would not be faced with the dual responsibility of an air show. Sklar has an excellent track record (he was formerly with 1010 WINS and WMGM 1050 AM) and will be given complete authority on all matters involving programming.” Sklar says: “There will be changes and innovations forth coming in conjunction with our fall campaign.
➦In 1963...the CBS radio network established a new dimension in network broadcasting. Net Alert systems were just installed in more than 200 stations of the CBS radio network. This will now allow newsrooms in New York or Los Angles to notify local or other network programs of an important news story.
➦In 1967...With FM radio making some ratings noise in New York, it was announced that a new kind of transmitting antenna was available to improve FM reception. WABC 95.5 FM & WCBS 101.1 FM in New York, began transmitting in September with a circularly polarized antenna from the Empire State Building.
FM transmissions are either horizontal or vertical or both, which means your radio antenna must be positioned the same way. Circularly polarized transmitting antennas means you will be able to set your FM antenna anywayyou want and reception should be good on any plane.
➦In 1967....The New York Times published a report about a noise reduction technology for tape recording that had been developed by technicians R. and D.W. Dolby. Checkmate Records was the first label to use the new Dolby process in its recordings.
➦In 1976...Gordon Lightfoot released his soon-to-be hit single, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, from his album Summertime Dream, about an ore carrier which sank on Lake Superior. It would reach #2 on the Billboard Hot 100.
➦In 1997...Talk show host Bob Grant sued his former radio station – Talkradio 77 WABC New York which he says, tried to blacklist him after he made controversial remarks about deceased commerce secretary Ron Brown.
➦In 2009...keyboard player and guitarist Larry Knechtel, who was a studio musician on such classic recordings as Bridge Over Troubled Water, Mother And Child Reunion, Swayin' To The Music, Rockin' Pneumonia-Boogie Woogie Flu, Mac Arthur Park, Stoned Soul Picnic, Good Vibrations, Up Up And Away, Wouldn't It Be Nice, Monday Monday, Dream A Little Dream Of Me, Christmas-Baby Please Come Home, Eve Of Destruction, Summer Breeze, Dance With The Guitar Man, Taking The Long Way)/guitarist (Stoney End, The Guitar Man, Light My Fire, Mr. Tambourine Man, Surf City and who was a member of the 1970′s group Bread, suffered a fatal heart attack at age 69.
➦In 2015…Retired broadcast meteorologist Harry Volkman, who reported the weather on four different Chicago television stations over the course of four decades, died of a respiratory ailment at 89.
Martin & Lewis 1949
➦In 2017...Comedian Jerry Lewis died of heart-related issues at age 91. At first he was partnered with Dean Martin, with whom he starred in NBC radio (1949-1953) & early TV series. Nicknamed the “King of Comedy” he is best known by recent generations for annually hosting a Labor Day telethon raising funds to fight Mscular Dystrophy.
