Radio Project Memoir

University of Illinois at Springfield

Norris L Brookens Library

Archives/Special Collections

Radio Project Memoir

R118. Radio Project Memoir Interview and memoir 5 tapes, 367 mins., 2 vols., 104 pp.

Narrators discuss the history of radio, especially its development in Springfield: advertising, station managers, Springfield stations, and other Illinois and Midwestern stations.

Interviews by William Ortman, 1973 OPEN: see individual names for legal release See individual collateral files

Archives/Special Collections LIB 144 University of Illinois at Springfield One University Plaza, MS BRK 140 Springfield IL 62703-5407

Al Germond (26 pages) James Palmer (26 pages) Dan Rion (18 pages) Kenneth E. Spengler (10 pages) William Wheeler (24 pages)

Volume I

These interviews are a part of a special project on the history of radio, especially its development in Springfield, Illinois. People interviewed include radio announcers, program directors, and station managers. The interviewer was William Ortman.

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Oral History Office, Sangamon State University, Springfield, Illinois 62708. Preface

This manuscript is the product of tape recorded interviews conducted by William Ortman for the Oral History Office on February 7, 1973. Rosalyn Bone transcribed the tapes and Linda Jett edited the transcript.

Al Germond talks about the early beginnings of radio nationally, the use of Springfield radio and the current status of the media.

Readers of the oral history memoir should bear in mind that it is a transcript of the spoken w:>rd, and that the intervie\\'er, narrator ~ editor sought to preserve the informal , conversational style that is inherent in such historical sources. SangaJIDn State U:rl.versity is t responsible for the factual accuracy of the memoir, nor for views essed therein; these are for the reader to judge.

The manuscript may be read, quoted and cited freely. It may not be reproduced in 'Whole or in part by any means, electronic or mechanical, without pe1lllission in writing fran the Oral History Office, Sangamon State University, Springfield, Illinois, 62708. A1 Germond, February 7, 1973, Springfield, Illinois.

William Ortman, Intervi~r.

A: TAX waf~ started up as a radio station with those original call letters, ironically enough. Its first broadcast was on November 12, 1923.

Q: 'Ihis is TAX?

A: 'Ihis is TAX. And that was in Streator, Illinois. The station was OWled and operated by the Williams Hardware Canpany which was the l~gest hardware store in that city at that time. Very little is really knfi about the early days of TAX. I'm just getting, nCM, into sare newsp per research based on sane of the Streator newspapers that I've been go· through in the State Historical Society. The start of this particul station in Streator was very similar to the start of many, many stat~ons in the lhited States. 1he first radio station went on the air on a regular basis in this country in the SUIIIIIer of 1920. '!here are ~ stations that basically claim to share this honor. 'Ihe first is VMJ, l'ilich was in Detroit and owned by 'Ihe Detriot News, vilich still is the daily newspaper there. The second station was KDKA, which was set up in East Pittsburgh, Permsylvania. by the vestinghouse Ccmpany. 'Ihere is a b~ argtlllEilt and a big debate as to who was the first on the air, but we 11 just give them both credit, so we don't go through this argunant. Q: This was 1920?

A: [In] 1920. 'Ihe SUIIIIIer and fall of 1920. Now these ~ stations 1Ere canparatively large in size. They operated with a p~r of 500 watt , l'ilich 'litiS considered extranely po\\erful in those days. And, as such they enjoyed fairly wide coverage and listenership. Now, there 'WB.S second breed of radio stations that was IlllCh lower in power and, c restricted to a DDJCh smaller area. Now these \\'ere stations that l.\er up by city goverrments, praninent marrufacturing finDs, private cit radio amateurs, investors, and people of that sort. wrAX was one of these stations. It wnt on the air primarily to advertise the CJiiiller of the station, WilliaoB Hardware Caupany, and to pramte the sale of r . io receivers, mich this hardware store happened to sell as a side line. 'Ihe early progrmmi.ng consisted of one hour, nine to ten o'clock, on M:mday and Thursday evenings. In other wrds, this station was "on" for a grand total of tw hours per '!Neek.

Q: Ch M:mday and Thursday?

A: Ch M:>nday and Thursday evenings. '1he ~r of this station was t\Ellty watts. And surprisingly enough, after its first ~ek of oper it received reception reports--reports fran listeners as far east as Al Germond 2

Jersey and as far sout:h\est as Texas, ~ich just \Ent to show what aenty watts , in the old days, w:>Ul.d do.

Q: New Jersey and Texas.

A: As with all of the early radio stations, all progranrning was live, and, in this case, was supplied by local talent fran the Streator area. A characteristic of all early radio stations was a large roan, not UQ].ike the size of the average type living roan. In one corner might be h~ed some of the transmitting equiJIIleilt. In another corner, a piano, a lot of heavy drapes for acoustic shielding, and a microphone. The microphore ~d be used by both the piano artist and the staff announcer. Other mre refined stations had organs and other musical instru:nents. But the use of recordings on the radio did not cane along until sanewhat later, When disc recording and playbaCk equipment was perfected. You \Ere talking about three letter calls. Early broadcasting was regulated by the Depart::ment of Ccm:nerce. And the Depart:rnent of Cannerce had what they called their radio bulletins, which they published once a month. It was samthi.ng that the goverrmmt printing office churned out. And it: was, basically, a registration and a registry of all radio stations then on the air: ship radio stations, police radio stations, and cannercial, and amateur stations. And the first call letters in radio toere generally three prefix calls: WWJ, WHB, WEW, KWK. I've trentioned stations that are, in fact, still in operation: v.GN, WLS. Later on--l.Ell no--later on, but maybe 1923--of course KDKA has set the precedent for the four letter call, but they also started issuing four letter calls to other stations: WIAX, wrAB in Q.lincy. 'There are numerous calls of this sort: KMJX. But the three letter call is now not in use. Its use is, in fact, forbidden by a directive of the FCC, [Federal Ccmm.mications Cao:nission] that, unless for historical purposes, you seek to use this call--in other wrds, if you own a radio station that at one t:in:e had a three letter call. lhere' s no other way you can get one. So all calls are now on a four letter basis.

Also, about this time, it was decided that all radio stations operati.pg \ESt of the Mississippi River w:ruld have the K prefix--and again ther~ are exceptions to this, and all stations east of the Mississippi Rivet ~d have theW prefix. And of course, we have KYW in Philadelp~·a,' KDKA in Pittsburgh, KQV in Pittsburgh, WBAP in Fort W:lrth, Texas, in Kansas City, Missouri. These are exceptions to the rule of who is, know, east or west of the Mississippi River. Vbile we're talking abol!t call letters, I n:entioned KCMO, Kansas City, Missouri--~ the lo¢ation of it. Call letters have maant certain things. WLS in

'1he TAX in WI'AX, returning to our subject here, according to several accounts I have heard, and I have no confirmation of this, but the TA¥. maant tacks, maaning that the hardware store that owned the station sild carpet tacks, nails, and things like that. Actual!y, there's no \ola.Y f knowing until "i.E get a hold of a primary source up there as a member . f the station. ' Al Germond 3

Ckay. As I po:inted out :in the history of V.CBS--wrAX :in 1928, started sharing time with WCBS in Springfield, 1210 [spot on the AM dial]. !his was after both stations had officially been licensed by the federal radio ccmnission, and they ~re regular stations. Also, about this t:ine, Wl'AX was authorized to operate with a ~r of 100 watts, ~ch was an increase :in its original p~r of tva1ty watts, ~ch at that time, v.nuld have meant a substantial increase in its operation.

Q: Wtat year W!lB this?

A: I belive it was 1928. If it 1 s not 1928, it is for certain in 1930 when the station nnved to Springfield.

Q: 'lhis 'NB.S only a twenty-five watt station now, wasn 1 t it?

A: NOW" wait. 1his letter fran the lawyer in washington says that the Federal Radio Coomission granted a change of frequency for the station on

Q: And then they w:mt to 100 later?

A: And then they ~t to 100 watts in 1930. Also in 1930, the original licensee and owner of the station, Williams Hardware Coopany, apparently lost interest in the operation, and it 'NaB sold to several Springfield businessmen and, subsequentially, moved dawn here. Chce in Springfield, that statial was established on the top floor of the Abraham Lincoln Hotel. The antenna was on top of the building--OX> t~rs with a wire stretched in bet~, and the studios ~re on the top level, the thirteenth floor I believe it was. '1he first broadcasting in Springfield occurred in

Q: After they moved down, they ~re still sharing the frequency?

A: They ~e still ccmpelled to share the frequency with WCBS. In 1934, WI'AX remained at 1210. It was t-X;BS that moved to 1420. I ' I Q: Remained at 1210?

A: wrAX ra:nained at 1210 on the dial. 'Ihe switch fran 1210 to 1240 r·"11 occur in 1941, and I '11 explain that shortly.

Q: Vl!BS. Yet at this time . . .

j I I Al Ge1lll0nd 4

A: To 1420. It was a IIlltual agrea.nent that was probably initiated by WCVS, because the t:i.m:! sharing was definitely a detrinental thing. Now, it was at saue time in the 1930s, and I have no positive date on this, but wrAX m:>Ved fran the Abraham Lincoln Hotel at Fourth and Capitol, or Fifth and Capitol , over to the Reisch Building, M'l.ich is just south of the Myers Building. It's about a nine or ten-story building and bas very narrow frontage on the street. '1he towers -were mwed to the top of the Reisch Building, and the studios and offices ~re placed in the basement. 1m. entryway was through a staircase in the alley between the Myers Building and the Reisch Building. P~r remained at 100 watts. Also--the date is not certa:in, though I believe it was about 1940, between 1940 and 1943, and I ~d say it ~d be 100re like 1943--wrAX beca~De an affiliate of the CBS radio network, Colunbia Broadcasting System, and as such, was authorized to bring in the CBS news prograrrs that existed at that t:inle. This was probably a IOOVe that again [was] brought about by a canpetitive thing, since WCBS had affiliated with the NBC Blue Net~rk and was getting national programning in. WI'AX knew that it was advantageous to bring in the CBS net~rk, mich, at that time, had a very strong reputation in the news field and still does.

Let me go back to the day and write this down. It's a fairly important day in the history of American broadcasting. March 29, 1941--and this was ~n the Havana Agreement, as in Cuba, becanes operative in broadcasting. This 'WaS a great big IOOVing day, so to speak, on the radio dial, as far as frequencies 'Were concerned. '!he broadcast band was extended in size. The original AM broadcast band extended from 550 to 1500 on the dial. Ho~ver, starting this magic day in late March, 1941, the broadcast band was extended to range from 540 to 1600, the addition of some extra frequencies. And on that date, most of the radio stations in the country made minor changes in their operating frequency. For example, stations at 790 JIDVed to 810. A station at 940 moved to 970. A station at 1210 moved to 1240. And a station at 1420 moved to 1450. And on this day, Saturday, M:lrch 29, 1941, wrAX m::wed to its present frequency of 1240, and WCBS, now WCVS, moved to its present frequency, 1450.

Q: Fran WJ.ere'l

A: Fran 1420. That made it possible for 100re stations [to broadcast) on the air. It was also a North Amarican agreerrent, in its scope, in thltt frequency changes ~re also made in M:mico, Canada, and Cuba. This is what has been called in later years NARBA, the North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement. Of course, unfortunately, since 1961, Cuba has largely flaunted this agreeiiEilt, and they have chosen their o~ frequencies and operating conditions. But this agreement, NARBA set up. It further defined the allocation of frequencies and allocated certain clear chamnels to only the United States and certain other clear channels only to ~co and Canada. For instance 720, ~ich is the frequency~ operates on, was allocated as an American clear channel. 900 on the dial was allocated to Mexico as a ~can clear charmel. And another example, 940 was allocated to Canada as a Canadian clear channel , meaning that stationa in other countries, like in the case of 940--a station in this country a 940--if it operated at night, had to afford protection, meaning it to limit its coverage toward that station in Canada. Well, I know What you're driving at. You get into a very interesting point as to my stations w::ruld exist as clear channels. For instance, lby would a s Al Genoond 5 like KMOX., mich is not the oldest radio station in St. lDuis--there were several stations that went on the air before KMOX--but Wn.y is RM:>X the only clear channel in St. Louis, and tlru.s has the greatest coverage?

Q: Is that politics?

A: It really is not politics as Il1.lch as it is what you might say an aggressiveness on the part of the m.nership at the time. For instance, in the 1920s and the 1930s, men radio was in its fonnative stages, m:>ney and influence probably did play a great advantage on \'tho got \

Clear chatmel stations, by and large, are in your major markets, but you will find, in certain cases, you will find powerful stations in small towns. For instance Schenectady, New York is a town of 80, 000 people in the northeastern section of New York state, yet it has a 50, 000 watt clear channel station. There are other cities of major size that do not have a 50,000 watt clear channel station. For instance, Kansas City, Missouri does not have a station that covers the COlttltry at length. It's just a political thing, and a thing that was necessitated by a statigns econanics. 1946 and 1947 marked very important develop:IWmtal years ~r WI'AX. In 1946, the station was purchased by Oliver J. Keller. Oliver Keller was hom in Lancaster COlttlty, Pennsylvania, and rose very quiQkly in the newspaper publishing field to becane the general manager of tlie Pittsburgh~ Gazette, the DDst praninent newspaper in W!Stem Pennsylvania.

Q: This was the Post Gazette?

A: The Post Gazette. liowever, following the close of World War II, Oliver Keller sought to get ou.t of Pittsburgh, mich, at that time, ~ a very unpleasant place to live, I might add. And because he had alwa)liS been a student of Lincoln lore, he decided to invest in the radio station that he owned for many years in Springfield, Wl'AX.

Q: You say he had m.ned it?

A: He decided to invest in the station in 1946. So he m:wed out with his family in 1946, and assl.ll.md control of WIAX. Shortly thereafter, he eubarked on a major improvement program mich saw ~ ma.jor developnents. The first was FM--construction of an FM station--and the second was ~ studio and transmitter facilities for his AM station. The FM station canE first, hand in hand with the construction of a building to hous ' it. The present w:rAX studio transmitter building and taer \Ere first c tructed at the site they are on n.cw for the FM station. 'lhe AM station sta ckrwntown for a number of mnths. Finally, in 1948, the AM station A1 Germond 6 out of its downtown quarters out to the building Where the FM station had operated for the previous eight or nine months. At that time, the t:ime the AM station m::wed out, the J,X>Wer was raised to 250 watts and ther~ was a treliEll.dous increase in the coverage of the station. 'Ihe dmntown facilities were, at best, marginal. Now 1948 was \'~hen FM \\ent on. wrAX-FM took to the air in April 1948. It was operated and progrann&i separately, but this produced no profits.

Now, I probably ought to go into a brief discourse on the history of FM radio. And I don't know ....tlether you 'ifmlt to jot this down in notes or not. It gets pretty lengthy. All right. I don't want to get too teclmical here, but there are t:w:> basic types in systa:ns of broadcasting. 'Ihere is FM, frequency nxx.iulation, and AM, amplitude mxlulation. AM was the first to be applied because it's the simpler of the two to generate and set up. And the first radio stations in this country \\ere all AM radio statia:ls. 'Ihe first radio stations to transmit voice--now here \ole get into another semantic difference--because the first radio camn.m.ication was done with code, similia.r to Morse Code, and you were not able to transmit definite spoken intelligence or nrusic with code obviously, but it becBIIE possible about 1905 to start sending mJSic, voice, notes·, that sort of thing cwer the radio. This was all done by the AM broadcasting syste:n.

Che of the inherent faults with all AM broadcasting is that it is quite sensitive to static, noise, and distortion. 'Ihus, in the early days of broadcasting--in the 1920s and the 1930s, there "tject to static. In 1933, he successfully tested and deroonstrated FM transnlssion. In November 1935, a group of engineers meeting in New York heard a breathtaking derronstration of FM broadcasting.

Q: W"lat year did he develop this? In 1935?

A: In 1933 he made his first successful tests of it, but it wasn't 1.f1til 1935 that he really had it all polished up and ready to show to the i public. Fran then on, the race was on. At this time, radio broadcaS!ting-• and I mean the neO«>rks, the station owners, the equipnent rna.nufac~rs, the receiver makers, and the public--were just getting used to the i~ of broadcasting in the sense that it existed then--where they could b.ly cheap receivers, and stations were on during the day, and they "t

By the start of Pearl Harbor, the FCC had set aside frequencies for public FM broadcasting and sana forty FM stations lNere in operation. Several hundred thousand FM receivers lNere in the hands of the general public. The :inmadiate advantages of FM broadcasting \tolere high fidelity reception. In other w:>rds, full frequency response, low noise, and no static. And yoo. might add a fourth thing, freedan fran fading. AM radio is very lii.lCh. subject to fading and interference.

Tw:> develop:lEilts entered to hold back the growth of FM broadcasting. The first was World war II. 'Ihe war Production Board stated after 1942, radio receivers could not be manufactured for public consumption, and this squelched any atta:npt to get a wider audience for FM programs. 'lhe second was television. And here we get into a very canplicated patent and loyalty situation that developed bebeen the Radio Corporation of America and Mr. Armstrong, the developer of FM radio. Stmnarizing this, RCA was reluctant to admit Armstrong's developnent of FM and 'ilila.S very interested in prcm>ting its OWl developiEil.t, which was television. So, as a result of this snub, FM suffered a great deal. .However, at the close of W:>rld War II, when the receiver and transmitter production was again resumed, there was great developnent in all of radio broadcasting. For instance, the number of applications for AM stations skyrocketed very quickly.

End of Side Che, Tape One

A: It may not be particularly chronological. '!his, as I say, started out in 1922 as a portable station. I believe one of the places that it came rut of was Rhode Island. '!hat's one of the stories I've heard. Q: Where it was a portable station?

A: Yes, meaning that the guy could IOOVe it around. '!his was a fairly CCliiOOn practice in old t:ine radio. In fact, frequency and location changes were very cannon. 'Ihe station I used to TNOrk for in Missourit1 started out in BristCJN', Oklaham and then was sold to a college in Co unbia, Missouri and was moved--lock, stock and barrel--in about a six week period.

OCBS started out--and I have no proof of this--but CBS probably meant Gapital Broadcasting Station. Very often call letters were choosen to denote scxoething, the initials of the CMler, the manager, [or] scxrething to do with the license group. WCBS, later, was choosen by the Colu:nbia Broadcasting System for their flagship station in New York. lE' 11 get into a point, a very interesting point, regarding the call change frcm t-K;BS to ~, mich occurred in 1946. CBS, I have no knowledge of ~ere it started in tern:s of frequency and p~r and anything to do with authorized schedule. 'lhe first record I knCJN' of this station in Springfield canes in 1926 when it set up shop, and again I know nothing about what it -was doing :in terms of progranming, but it ..es probably the typical pattei of a radio station in the 1920s--a limited schedule, sharing t:ine with o her stations because of limited frequency allocations. Time sharing was very CC111DX1 thing in radio and is still found in a couple of instance mere there 'iliiB.B only one frequency available for one tO'IIC, and three ~ A1 Germond 8 four stations desired to operate. They "WJuld split up the \lEeks or the day into segmants, and one would sign on for a couple of hours, and then leave the air, and then the other would cane on, and go back and forth. Did you want samthing?

Q: You're doing all right. I just wanted to double-check on sanethillg.

A: Okay. OJe of the big highlights in the period of radio carre in 1927 and 1928 with the passage of the Dill \-bite Radio Act. Actually that legislation was passed in the fall of 1927, but it didn't actually take effect ootil 1928. All through the early 1920s, the big controversy with radio was -where to put all the stations. 'Ihere ~re sanething like 800 stations that were operating by 1927, and only about 100 frequencies to fit than in, and interference was rampant. It 'WB.B a real problem. There 'Oilere several radio conferences held in the early and mid 1920s, '\ohich attempted to resolve this problem, but they were basically rather sha£t• term solutions. The Dill Wl.ite Radio Act of 1927 created the Federal Radio Ca:o:ni.ssion, FRC, which is the predecessor to the present regulatory body, a quasi-judicial body called the FCC. Much of this was brought about through the efforts and diligence of the then Secretary of Cai~Qarce, Herbert Hoover, '\oho, of course, was elected president" in 1928. But Hoover 'WaS a real champion of radio broadcasting and got himself involved in attempts to regulate it and to get order out of all the noise and interference that, then, rrarked the radio broadcasting scene.

Q: Wlat w:lS his title at this time?

A: He 'WaS the Secretary of Cam:erce in the Coolidge administration. Actually, Hoover's efforts behind radio go back as far as 1921. 'Ihe first radio conference \'IBS held in that year, and he was the chairman m:>re or less of it, and this brought together the interests of radio manufacturers and receiver ow:1ers, station omers, people like that, fiDd they discussed the problems of radio. I'm diverging a little bit he'Qa, but this is very valuable radio history that would help you out a goa:i deal.

The provisions of the Dill White Act took place, basically, in early 1928 with the nanination of the coomissioners of the Federal Radio Coomission. There were people that were choosen, one of them--his name slips me. At the time, he 'liiBS a very praninent publisher in the radio field. He published several magazines that dealt with broadcasting. And they set up a n:echanisn for granting licenses, assigning stations to certain frequencies, and, in general, regulating broadcasting. The first thing they did was to send out a call to all of the stations that were then on the air and request that they all make application for a license to operate. These applications were processed, and frequencies were assigned to certain stations. A nunber of stations were forced off the air through this action, because they could not justify their existence. They were m:>stly small stations with miniscule power. 'Ihe owners of these stations had not sh.mc nuch interest in operating, or maybe they were on three or four hours a week, and they just didn't fit into the overall picture of broadcasting that the goverrment saw. So, a number of these stationB! were forced off the air. They just could not justify their position pr reason for being in operation with the government, so the goverrment 1 refused to grant them a license. A nunber of the stations in the cot:fl,try Al Genoond 9 were forced to change frequency at that t:ime. '!he reason being that on their old frequencies and assigrments, they ~re causing interference. In 1928, v.hen this occurred, the FCC took and just looking at the stations in this state, in Illinois--took tv.u stations that were a lumdred miles apart and asked than to share a COOIJX)n frequency. And those tv.u stations happened to be WCBS, mich 'iNaS located in Springfield at the time, and WIAX, mich was located in Streator. And they were both assigned the frequency 1210 kilohertz or kilocycles on the dial. Q: 1210?

A: 1210. Now, even though they were a lrundred miles apart, the FCC said they could not operate simultaneously on the sama frequency, so they w::ruld have to divide up the day in what's called a time sharing schedule. At this time, the FCC also evolved the--this is a slight divergence--FRC, rather, also developed three basic radio assi.grmmts: the clear channel, the regional channel, and the local channel. '!he clear channel--to start off with first--the clear channel is a station IIJJCh like KMOX or WGN mich operates to the maxjm_m of authorized p~r, 50,000 watts on a frequency that is cleared or free of other interference stations at night. Because of radio's nature of being able to travel greater distances at night than in the day time, these stations were audible in many states. 'lhe regional channel was a station that was kept to a p~r of 5, 000 watts--one-tenth the clear channel power--and covered large regional areas like 50, 60, 70 miles in radius. '!he local channel was one of six frequencies that was set up by the FCC, and one of those happened to be 1210. These stations operated with a p~r of either 100 or 250 watts. 'Iheir radius 'iNaS usually between five and ten miles. I mean that it v.uuld cover only a city. It v.uuld not reach out into the surrounding ca.mtryside very far.

Q: Five to ten miles?

A: Five to ten miles. '!hat's right.

Q: Going back just a m:m:mt on the regional, you say you thought that the .•• or how far was it?

A: Regional is between fifty and seventy-five. Sanevt1at less at night. But again, there are a lot of variables here, so that's oote to the discussion anyway, really. Now, up until approximately 1934, and I don't have an exact record of the date, but sare of the research that I have done indicates that it w:ruld be sane time in 1934, both W::BS and wrAX shared this cCJimln frequency, 1210 on the dial. About 1934, WCBS petitioned the FCC. Now legislation finally became operative in 1934. Under Roosevelt's New Deal there 'iNaS a general streamlining of the quasi-judicial bodies. Yes?

Q: In 1933 the FCC was created?

A: vell, it was created in 1933, but it actually didn't becare oper tiona! until 1934. 'Ihe FCC succeeded the FRC, and the scope of the FCC was considerably broader. 'Ihe FRC concerned mainly radio, the FCC was b oadened to include telephone, telegraph, and other fonns of cCIIIDJ[lication li amateur radio, for instance, W:lich had been under a different branch of the goverrmmt. Anything v.hich had to do with coommications was br t A1 Germond 10 under the auspices of the FCC. So in 1934, VK::BS applied for, and was granted, permission to operate at 1420 on the dial.

Q: [In] 1934?

A: [In] 1934.

Q: W::BS?

A: WCBS.

Q: \ol:BS. At this point, yes. Granted permission for v.hat?

A: For 1420 on the dial, thus ending the sharing arrangen:ent at 1210, and that meant that both ~BS and wrAX could operate on a full time basis on their respective frequencies. (pause)

Cbe of the highlights in the history of any radio station, and I will cover it first with WCBS, ~d be the addition of a radio broadcasting network. And a little background here is, perhaps, in order. Radio netl«>rking was not really a new thing. It really developed concurrent with the developm:m.t of radio. 'Ihe first netwrking occurred in 1922, when a station in ~dford Hillside, Massachusetts, and another static:p in New York, New York City, ~re connected together by AT&T lamp lines :tpr a joint broadcast. An address by President Hoover was carried by sevenal stations in the east, sinrultaneously representing another successful attempt at radio networking. And the speech by W::>Od.row Wilson, just a COJPle of IIDnths before his death in 1923, was covered by radio--several stations that -were connected together, including one in washington, D.C., New York, and I believe a third one -was in vest Springfield, Ma.ssaclrusetts. But the idea of a radio network as a formal, regular, full time operation did not evolve until 1926. In that year, the National Broadcasting Canpany, NBC, was fonred as a subsidiary of RCA, Radio Corporation of America. In 1926, RCA had purchased for the price of one million d;lars a radio station in New York, WEAF, mich had been started by the tel hone Canpany, AT&T. And with the purchase of WEAF in the fall of 1926, set up the first regular radio net\

Q: Did you say NBC?

A: NBC. 'Ihe National Broadcasting Ccmpany. NBC started offering regular net'NOrk prograoming in the evening to affiliates as far west as Kansas City, Missouri, and including places like Schenectady, New York; Boston, Massachusetts; Pittsburgh; Chicago; Wishington, D.C.; Cleveland, Ohio; and several different places like that. 'Ihis "Na.S the first year that regular sponsored radio netlNOrk programs originated, too. You had the Everready Hour, the Atwater Kent Hour, the Clee Clo Club Eskimos. Different programs that ware bought on a national basis, by the sponsors, for presentation on the net'iNOrks. But t'iNO years later, 1928, NBC fonred a second net\int here. At that time, the radio broadcast canpanies -were .permitted to ow:t two radio stations in the sarre city. This was outla-wed in 1944 by the FCC in their Duopoly, D-U-Q-P-D-L-Y Al Germond 11

Regulation. But I am confusing you, and I don't nean to. WJZ was set up as the flB§ship station of a second net"WJrk, and in that year the terriB "Red" and Blue" Ne~rk evolved. There's an interesting story behind Wl.y they ~re called the Red and the Blue Net\llOrk. 1he Blue Netw:::>rk was the WJZ Netvturk, and allegedly the wires that came into the telephone switching office in New York to handle that net"WJrk ~re color coded blue. 1he WEAF Netvturk, mich was the first of the two--the granddaddy of the t'WJ--was called the Red Net\llOrk. Allegedly, again--this may be just a nice story--the WEAF Network was the Red Network. In that case, the wires in the telephone switching office ~re coded red. 'Ihe Red Network was always the stronger of the two networks. It always had the better programs, the bigger stations. It had mre p~r in terms of total 'Wattage men you took all the affiliates together and totaled up what their power and coverage 'lftBS.

Returning to our little story of WCBS, and I don't know the year that this occurred--! believe it was 1940 but I'm not absolutely sure--WCBS becane an affiliate of the Blue Network, and, as such, could start offering Springfield netw:::>rk programs that caiiE fran such places as New York, s Angeles. You can check with their managEmmt on that. I'm pretty sure they can set that date down exactly.

Now, jumping ahead just a little bit, the Blue Network was sold in 1944 to satisfy a government consent decree--the breaking up of an alleged m:mopoly that NBC had. It was sold to a candy maker named Edward J. Noble. I tieltion candy maker because the CBS netw:::>rk had an interesting start in that it was started by a 27-year old fellow, me was the heir to a cigar fortune that had been made up. Noble renamed the net"WJrk the American Broadcasting System, ABS, or the American Broadcasting Network, ABN. It was called both. To give you the insight on this ABC story, all this stuff meshes together, eventually. In 1949, ABC or ABS or ABN, whichever you wish to call it, nerged with ParamJUilt Theatres, the first of the many conglanerate n:ergers involved there.

Q: With Who?

A: With Paramount Theatres. And this strengthened his position treuendously. This net"WC>rk is now called the American Broadcasting Canpany and operates as both a television and a radio network. ABC. Now, I keep jumping around here. In Jarruary of 1968, the ABC radio netw:>rk was split into four divisions.

Q: [In] 1968? A: January of 1968. 'Ihe ABC Network became four separate networks, they are: the Infonmtion Netw:>rk, the Enterta:Lrtrent Netw:>rk, Cont rary Network, and the FM Netw:>rk. And three of the four netw:>rks are repr sented here in Springfield on different stations. WFMB is an affiliate of t Information Netw:>rk. w:NS is an affiliate of the Contemporary Networ • And WV&f is an affiliate of the FM Netw:>rk. There are four separate newscasts that are transmitted by this network every hour, and the s tion has the option of picking up the one that suits it. 1he FM newscasts ccma down at fifteen past the hour. Contemporary is at 54:30 just be ore the top of the hour. Information cOOEs dom at the top of the hour. And the fourth ne~rk' mich is not represented here in tor.«l., the Enter innent A1 Gennond 12

Network is fed by the network at thirty minutes past the hour. And those newscasts are each five minutes long. Now, as far as CVS is concerned, I have no canplete details on their locations. They tere located downtown, fran their inception here in t01itn in 1926 until sooe tilre in the 1930s. I'm not exactly sure. 'Ihere is one story I have heard that says that their transmitter was later located in the 2200 block of South Sixth Street.

Q: Ckay. You want to go back on this?

A: Okay. Sooetilre in the 1930s they IOOVed their transmitter dovn to South Sixth Street, the 2200 block of South Sixth Street. And in 1946, they tmVed their transmitter to the present sight, Which is 3055 South Fourth Street, and they put up the present t~r that they own, and they've operated there, contirruously, ever since. Also in 1946, WCVS set up an FM station, mich broadcast at 102.9 on the dial. The station was licensed to the p~r of 50 kilowatts or 50,000 watts, and was operated as a separate entity. In other w:>rds, it had separate programning. Separate music prograuming. At that t:iire, they played, what was called in the industry, transcriptions, mich v.ere large sixteen-inch records that had fifteen minutes of nusic on a side on them. They tere licensed only for broadcast. lb-wever, WNS never made nxmey with their FM station as did m::>st FM stations at the tilre lose m:ney. They operated their ,FM until the mid-fifties. I believe they slrut it down about 1954. And iat that time, they tere duplicating their programning. 'lhey had long since given up the notion of operating on a separate basis because of high inhibitive cost. So they operated AM and FM as a simultaneous operation, and expected to, and never did, gain revenue off of the FM. FM was strictly a bonus-type operation. Now WCBS becane WCVS in 1946, and the interesting part about this story is that it wasn't at their request. It was at the request of the CBS Netw:>rk in New York.

Q: [In] 1946?

A: [In] 1946. And you can confirm the exact day on that. 'lhe CBS Network in New York had OTIZled station WABC starting in 1928, and that was their flagship chief station.

Q: WA.BC?

A: W!\BC. lb~ver, with the sale of the NBC Blue Network in 1944 to Edward Noble, this change fran Blue Netw:>rk to ABS, or ABN as it was called, created a great deal of confusion. And so CBS, Colunbia Broadcasting System, was interested :in eliminating all of this confusion and getting the call letters for their station in New York changed to sanething that was mre identifiable with their corporate narre. So they negotiated with ~BS in Springfield, Illinois to change their call letters fran WCBS to WCVS, and I understand this involved a substantial paynent of m:ney in this settlement, and I don't have the figure. 'Ihey had the call letters that they wanted in New York out here in Springfield. So, they had to buy off those call letters. 'Ihey gave the people, the owners of thi~ station here--to get the call letters changed. So WCBS is now the lagship station of CBS netw:>rk in New York, and WCVS is the station here in Springfield.

' Al Ge:noond 13

'lb.e progranming of \\t:BS, and later WCVS, was primarily geared at an adult audience throughout the tvtenties, thirties, forties, and the first half of the fifties. '!his consisted of network programs fran ABC mich TNefe either soap operas, draDBs, news programs, or variety shows at night. Plus, certain local programs that TNere produced--occasional uusic shows, news broadcast and things like that. With the advent of television in the fifties, the progranming of radio und.en.Jent sane very drastic changes, and the :important listening periods of radio shifted fran the evening.. -mich had been the daninant time pre-'IV--to the oorning and the daytime. By 1950, oost people spent their evenings with television and their daytimes with radio. So, VVlS found itself in sort of a losing position here in tom. 'lhey ~re not cornering major segments of the audience, and it was difficult to sell the station because they didn't have great nunbers of persons listening in. So, sane t~ in the period bet:T.Een 1955 and 1958, and again I have no exact dates on this, a prograrmdng change was instituted at CVS. It TNent fran the adult progranming to the 'teen-age, young adult progrcmning that they indulge in now. And, they pulled this off of the usual stunt that was pulled off the radio stations at that time. A big publicity stunt. I.Dcked the disc jockey in the studio for 24 hours and have h:im play only one record at a tinE. Or have h:im play one record ccntinuously for a 24 hour period. And this is basically how CVS was inaugurated. The fellow was locked up in the studio--it was one of the disc jockeys--and he \\laS incarcerated in there for a day, or couple of days. People could not call in or reach him. It was a publicity stunt to get people's attention to the station.

Q: And he did play mre than cne record?

A: No. He just played one record over and over and over again.

Q: And be talked?

A: And he talked. Right. '1he idea caught en like wildfire. \VIS, very shortly thereafter occupied the dcminant ratings position in Spring£~· ld. 'lb.is was not urrusual in broadcasting, and still is not urrusua1 , be · e rock stations--rock and roll radio stations--in m:>st markets have the IWSt 11.$teners--the greatest IlUIIber of ears tuned in. However, we '!NO ked into a problem or situation we could call daoographics--What type of person tunes in to a station, such as this: incane level, age groups, background, social econanic considerations. 'lhe people, by and large, ~ listen to a rock and roll station have ll1.1Ch more education background, financial incane, and things like that. People who listen to a mre adult oriented type of station. That, basically, is the story behind WCVS. They're currently operating. 'lb.ey're a successful station that has cornm:ed a substantial runber of listeners here in t

stations at that tiDE were quite caupetitive wor~ for the adult programning. Programni.ng and, broadcasting really didn t becooe seguentized or specialized until tf advent of television and then, out of necessity. Radio stations, up o that tinE, ~re just progr

afternoon there ~d be maybe two hours of children's programning, and Saturday tmrning was traditionally turned over on the radio to childr~n' s prograuming, too; nuch as Saturday tmming on television is now that ,. • .

End of Side Two, Tape Cbe

Q: • • • Al Genoond.' s recollections of radio history in Springfield.

A: \e were getting to this FM thing, and I don't know whether the tape had expired W:1en I was making my statement there, but following the close of W:>rld War II, there was trenendous growth in all of the fields of broadcasting. 'lhe mmber of AM stations roughly tripled in a five year period. The nunber of FM stations increased fran forty to a grand total of eleven lumdred authorized stations by 1949. And, of course, television took off and went through a trying growth period. Television--there were sanething like sixty stations on the air in 1948, and at that time the FCC froze all future developnent in television. 'lhi.s is really not that important in this discussion. 'lhere l>.lere no new grants of television licenses until late 1952 When the television allocations were unfrozen. 'lhe reason for that was interference problems--growing pains--so they froze it for four years and made many changes including the setup of the UHF broadcasting band: channels 14 through 83.

FM, following \\brld war II, was heralded as the new form of broadcasting, and, on this bandwagon, climbed two of the local stations in Springfield. I've already IlEiltioned WCBS (later WCVS) which set up its ow:t FM station broadcasting at 102.9. And in 1948, wrAX-FM took to the air--April of that year--broadcasting on its present frequency 103.7. The station was operated as a separate entity, but it did not make mney, and so after several years, wrAX-FM progranming was just a duplication of AM mich was a very ccmoon practice at this particular time. They did do sc:ue sports broadcasting. 'Ihey carried cardinal baseball games in the S\.llllller of 1948, 1949, and also 1950. 'Ihey did a consid~able schedule of local sports. And, they were able to derive sc:ue reverru.e fran the sale of sports programs so that it wasn't a canplete loss. Che of the reasons that sports was broadcasted on FM was that AM:, at this time, W'iB still under the shackles of the networks. You see, getting back in to the very complicated history of broadcasting, netw:>rks--up until approximately ten years ago, there was a feature in networ~ contracts-• in other words, the station w:ruld affiliate with a network for the purpose of distributing the network's programs in the area. In return for a certain aoount of tmney, the network w:ruld pay the local station for carrying and clearing, as they said, these programs. And there was a clause in this--in all of these agreerrents called option t:ima, which basically DEant that anytime the netw:>rk wanted the local station to carry its netwrk' s programs, it could.

In other words, the nett«>rk could order or canpel the local stations to carry whatever the network chose to feed. If the netw:>rk wanted to srd out nineteen hours daily of 8wahili rrusic, the local stations were ob igated to do this. So that the net\\Orks--or the broadcasting chains, as the were called in the terminology of those tines--pretty 1ID..1Ch owned the

c______....______'__ __ ------Al Germond 15

local station. local broadcasting was really rather restricted. In other \\Ords, the netvoork w.:ruld be on fran like nine o'clock in the lllQrning until noon, and then fran one o'clock until five o'clock in the afteinoon, and then from 6:30 until 10:30 at night. The other t:iues, the local. station \\OU!d take CJiler and play its own records--new programs and things like that. Obviously, with an arranga:nent of this sort, the local st;ation coold not program its own sports and special interest programs. For instance, if you wanted to run a Cardinal baseball gama on Saturday afternoon and the network, by its option time clause, had restricted. that, you couldn't run your local baseball gan:e.

I:Jm.ever, you could on your FM station because this was setup as a separate entity and was not under the lock of this option time thing that I mentioned. So that 1 s one of the reasons Yhy sports grew rather rapidly on FM. Also, FM had traditionally had a nuch wider coverage. AM reception was restricted to twenty or thirty miles. FM reception very often \'GS usable out to fifty or sixty miles and still is. Now wrAX reta:ined its FM station through ~t you might call the low p::>int of FM broadcasting. FM stations, the authorization stations on the air, reached a peak in 1949 of app1;oximately a thousand stations that were on the air. In 1955, this Ill.lllber had dropped back to around five lumdred and sixty. The reason -was these FM stations started up, and they were falling :into a ccm:oon pattem of unprofitability ~ Many of the o~rs and managers of these stations just slult them down. This was the case with VK!\18-FM Which was slult down in the mid-fifties. It just -wasn 1 t contributing to the overall financial system of the station, and the owners of it decided to feather the thing and sell the equifllEilt. Approximately half of the FM stations that were on the air in 1949 ~re not on the air by 1955.

Q: Did you say SCIIE of this was unadvoidable hazard, or was it just plain stupidity, or too lD.lch canpetition? . I' A: Well, it was caused by several things. The first major reason was television. Television bad caught the fancy of the public. And, by 1956, with television stations established in nnst areas of the country, mre and m:>re people ..ere spending nnre and nnre time with television. However, the second problem was a technical problem that had to do with FM--the nature of FM broadcasting. The equipnent required to transmit and receive FM signals is, by its nature, mre nnre canplicated and tll.lCh m:>re intricate than the AM equipnent. Part of it was in the transmission ends. In other voords, the early FM stations did not--they got out -well , but to pick them up fran any distance you required an anterma. So, you were by necessity, strapped to the house. In other llllOrds, FM in the car had not yet becooe practical. There ~re no FM portables. There ~~e the FM radios that were sold in those days--were primarily big plug-in units that went in houses, either in console form or in table m:>dels. But FM was not m:>bile. It wasn't, I DEan--portable radios had existed in radio since the last thirties--AM portable radios. But, FM portable radios really dido 't CCIIE into their OWl until about 1963.

Now, the second problem was in the design. Now, we've already ruled out in the fifties the manufacturing and sale of portable FM radios and ar FM radio, but one of the problems 'WB.S that the only sets that were 1 ft, and it ~ the h.aiE sets--the table mxlels and the consoles--m:>st of them \Ere of such inferior quality that they encouraged people not to Al Germond 16 ' into them. In other w::>rds, a man w:ruld go out and spend a hundred dollars on a FM radio and, you knew, this tvas considered a lot of mmey in tb:>se days. People \Ere m:lld..ng sixty, seventy dollars a \Eek as an average. A m:m would go out and buy a FM radio, and it WJUld prove very unreliable. 'lhey -vntld drift. They w::>Uld fade. 'Ihey didn't have a great range unless you connected than to an antenna. And, in a lot of areas with a more limited rrumber of stations, there was nothing really around to justify an interest in having an FM radio. ~11, it was like car~ a boxcar on your back without getting the thing out. 'Ihe thing is, FM proved to be a real financial drain on the AM stations, so a lot of them just feathered them. Shut them down.

Nrk done on the transmitter. In other lrl:>rds, his rea$ming was, you know, as long as \E have the equipnent here, the antenna, the transmitter and all the other stuff, ~might as ~11 just run it for the benefit of people mo might wish to listen to it. Keller was a very public service oriented person. He believed that radio should serve the public, and he wasn't interested in deriving great amounts of profit fran it, so he kind of reasoned that running his FM station, concurrently with his AM stations was kind of a service to the public. People who desired to hear the progranming with no static and in superior fidelity. So, he just operated the FM station, did not keep separate books on it and really didn't consider it a drain on his pockets at all.

Ckay. Basically [there ~re] few changes in the progranming on TAX. TAX operated along its present lines, or has operated along its present lines, actually up until 1972 when there \Ere sane major changes made with the FM station. I don't kn

Okay. The history of WMAY is kind of an interesting one. 'Ihe station -was started in fall of 1950 at 970 on the dial. And ~ can jl.lllp back a couple of years to about 1947 and briefly to the history of WI'AX. NQw radio frequencies are sanething that are pretty much engineered. There are a 1:rundred and seven AM frequencies around. And, as I made mmtion of before, there are these regional, clear, and local chamel assignments. If a person tvants to put a radio station on in a tCMD. or a city, he consults with an engineer, who is familiar with the principles of radio engineering and frequency allocations and things like that, and asks :him what is possible to be done in a certain towt. \ben Mr. Keller t TAX :in 1946, he ccmnissioned a survey of all the frequencies here in town to see if it w:1s possible to uake any improvemmt over the frequency that he was on now. In other w::>rds, if he could go to a frequency that d allow h:im to run maybe five thousand watts instead of t~ hundred Al Germond 17

fifty, or maybe even a clear channel type of thing. Sane time in the late forties, a report was issued that indicated to Keller that no m:rre frequencies were available on the AM dial in the Springfield area. So Keller obviously ass\ll'lEd that he had one of the t\\0 AM stations in Springfield, the other being wcvs.

Well, in the late forties there were several people Who were 'iAOrking in St. I.ouis radio, and I don't have their nares. This is one area that I'm not too well up on. There were several people Who were \\Orking in St. Louis radio, primarily for KMJX, l\hich is the big station dom there. And they became interested, as did a lot of people in radio, at this "boan t:WE." I've got to point out that between 1945, 1946, and 1950, was this tremendous boan time in radio. A lot of new stations got on the air.

Now the station that he set up had What we would best describe as a . rather canplex engineering sch.eue and trying to make this simple and I putting it in layman's terms, there were basically three types of AM : stations in tenns of coverage and directionality and operating hours end things like that. The first type of station was just licensed to ope:rate full-time. In other 'W:>rds, both in the daytime and at night. The second type of station is allowed to operate only in the daytime. Now one of the probletDS with AM broadcasting traditionally has been that at night because the sun goes c:1oNn and causes the atmosphere to get excited, night radio signals tend to bounce arotmd and reflect a lot. 'Ihus, you can get a station on a clear channel--in St. louis, IM)X--that, after ~ on good equipient, can be picked up throughout the entire continental United States. You can pick up KMJX in any of the 48 states at night. So you have your daytime stations that they've got to cut off at sunset because if they didn't, the interference that they 'WOuld cause would be so tremendous.

And you have a third breed of station. And the third breed of station applies to both the daytime only stations and the day and night stations, and that's What is called the directional station. In the 1930s radio engineers found out that by erecting their towers--in other li.Urds, the mast--that are either self-supported or are set up and, then guided im.to position--they found out that by erecting towers in a certain pattern and sending in certain voltages and currents to those towers, they could set up a directional pattern. In other li.Urds, the station could set up with tli.U tCNers, for instance, and cam up with W:Jat the engineers call a figure eight pattern. Figure eight neaning that if you were to plot the coverage of that station, in other 'W:>rds, When the signal caDE in the best, you would COOE up with a figure eight. In tw::> directions the signal W3.S very great, and in t\\0 other directions the signal was not so great. '1he engineers call the areas of greatest signal penatration the lobes, and the areas of least signal penatration the nulls, N-U-L-L-S.

These engineers down in St. louis ~o VJere working with the management of \MAY determined that it was possible to put in a directional station :ln the Springfield area. And, specifically, this station employed a ftte eight pattern. They located the station northeast of tom and found t they could shoot out the max:iml..m strength of the signal toward the s ~st Al Germond 18 or over the populated areas of the town at the same time restricting the signal strength :in other directions where it might prove offensive to other stations three, four, five hundred miles away. '!his is contrasted to the other t~ AM stations, WCVS and wrAX, which operate on a non-directional basis. In other w:>rds, they've got one tower and the strength of the signal is equal :in all directions around that tO\IEr. You go thirty miles to the south and it's the same as it WJUld be thirty miles to the north. It was only with this very canplicated directional array, or directional transmitting pattern, that Springfield was able to get this third station.

And so, in O:tober of 1950, WMA.Y ~t on the air with their studios and transmitters out in Spaulding, Illinois, which is a little town north of Riverton, northeast of toWl. And they had their business offices--in other words, their sales offices and managanent and bookkeeping continuity--all located dow:1town in the Myers Building. This involved a sort of courier service. Several t:imes a day people bad to drive out to the transmitter and studio site with new copy and tapes and instructions and things like that. \

'lliere' s a very old time tradition in broadcasting that is largely ext:inct naw, and it's called time brokeraging. It is largely regulated out of existence by rules the FCC has set dawn. In the old days a radio station could sell portions of its broadcast day, or subcontract v.uuld be another word, to a person mo they had an agreement with, who then in turn ~t out and sold the tinE on his ovn. For :instance, let's say WMAY sold their hour for a thousand dollars. \ell, the person mo \\aS doing the tine brokeraging WJUld go out and sell the t:i.tm--the total, the aggr~ate aroow1t of time--for two thousand dollars, and he'd get to keep half af it. He'd have to pay a thousand dollars to the radio station, but he'd get to keep a thousand dollars of his own, and it ~ld not be nearly as high a figure as that. It'd be, oh, fifteen dollars an hour type of thing that the station w:>uld sell the time to him for, and then he :in turn doubled the price.

Cal Shrun, who ran this country music program early in the trvrning, did just that. He w:ruld buy the t:i.tre fran the managemant of MAY, and then he would go out and sell it and negotiate all the contracts, write the~y, and handle everything. Because of sCIIE very bad experiences with thi , the FCC largely has eliminated this. MAY has a vestige of this in form of the wayne Cody thing Where wayne Cody probably makes about 3 Al Genoond 19

percent camli.ssion on mat he sells. I don't know mat the exact percentage is. At one time he was ~rldng on about 50 percent, but that's been cut back considerably. And the FCC now is very strict in its requira:oen~ that all contracts for time be properly draT.t~D. up and registered. It ed to be that verbal agreenents -w::ruld prevail. But . . • MAY made the . mark in this area with the so called t:i.DE program. The Cal Shrum Pr~am at one t:b:IE had such a following and such support that he ~s able to take sare of the profits fran it and built a very nice house out on the lake and put his c:rwn private broadcasting studio in there mich ~s cormected by telephone line with the main studios of MAY . . . so that all he needed to do in the mrning was wake up at 4:55, walk into his own private studio and conduct his progran fran hOOE for the t~ or three b::rurs that it was on the air. This is a highly unusual arrangement in Springfield that just doesn't occur any m:>re, but at that time, with the money that was being derived fran this thing • . • sane people say that at certain times Cal Shnm 'WaS perhaps making upwards of $30, 000 a year off of his time brokerage.

'lhis type of program perhaps lent itself to the charge of l'D..lckstering. There was a great deal of dally-boo that ~t around this sort of thj,pg '! and perhaps a certain amount of fraudulent or untrue advertising. It tended to be a progran that had great appeal with the rural audience. For instance, in Auburn, Pawnee, great Illlllbers of people would listen to prograiiB of this sort, lllihereas the mre sophisticated Springfield aud:i ence probably looked down their nose at this type of affair. M..tsic, incidentally, was primarily country music--"Was the old, hillbilly, bluegrass type af thing that was popular in the fifties.

~yin the fifties, and I don't have the exact year, built and occupied a building that is now on Stevenson Drive that was called Linn Street at that time. The building is now OWled and occupied by the VFW, Veterans of Foreign wars, and was occupied by MAY up until apprOJtima.tely four years ago Wen they liOVed into their present building at 525 vest Jefferson. They're leasing quarters in vest Jefferson which is an office buildiqg.

Q: Now, the old place is now the What club?

A: Now, the Veterans of Foreign War Building. It's tight next to Friendly

In 1963 the original CM'lers of WMAY sold the station, and I believe the figure as eight hundred thousand dollars which was a very high price for a station property at that time. It was an overpriced station. They sold the station for this fee to the Stewart Broadcasting Canpany headquartered in Lincoln, Nebraska. I'm not that knowledgeable about the Stewart Broadcasting Canpany, but in the late fifties a businessman up there named Stewart, who started investing in radio stations--he .bought KSfll, in Salina, Kansas and several other stations in the Mi.chest. '!hey ~refs' primarily small market stations. In other words, they were in tQTN11s t had only that one station in them. In 1963 they bought MAY and late lived to regret the price they paid for the station. '1he figure thal I I Al Genoond 20 they paid for it 'i.\la.S SOOle'ittat high considering W:lat other stations :i..n cauparably size toWlS ware selling for at the tine. A fairer price 1 probably would have been be~en five and six hundred thousand dollai's.

IImediately there was a great number of changes. People ~e fired, and there ~re persormel changes. Th.is seemed to be, fran ~t I've heard, to have been a characteristic at the Stewart stations. There are two enployees at wrAX who w::>rked at KSAL, Salina, Kansas, and men it was sold to the Stewartwinterest in the late fifties, early sixties, they \'Vent thrrugh. the same thing. In other words, there was a general house cleaning which is not altogether an unc

MAY is primarily--it considers itself an adult station in its progr~. The programrl.ng is basically dovn fran the hOOE office. That is the jcase on all the Stewart stations. In other words, the recording selectioqs of the m.JSic--the play list--are all chosen, are made up in the hcma office and sent out to the local station. 'nlere is only a m:xlerate arnotm.t of local autonany involved in the operation of these stations. And they are operated en a strictly for profit basis.

Public service, of course--as would any radio station be interested in with its license, of course--is an important thing, and it is perhaps overdone at this particular station. But there can be no doubt about it that the station is operated mainly as a m:>ney machine--as one could also say about 'WCVS. Because, to digress a little bit, WCVS is ow:ted by another out of town group. In fact, I believe they covered the story when WCVS 1NB.S sold, and I don't know the year but it was in the si.xt:i£s. CVS was sold by its original ovners and is now rnr.ned by the Atlantic Broadcasting Canpany liihich is a Wishington, D.C. based chair operatiM\~ has never had any FM activity in this market. Not to say that they are oot interested in it, but they have never--they haven't so far expressed interest in operating at the facilities here. 'WCVS has had an interest in operating FM facilities, and that will be covered in oore detail in the description of WVEM.

WFMB went on the air in 1965. I don't know the exact m:>nth. It's Olohed by several local busi.nesSIIEil. Che of the gentla:nen is involved with lthe TV station. The others have interest in certain businesses here. FMB is locally omed.

End of Side

A: They [lm!B] had their first studios and transmitters in the l'l.rsJ National Bank Building. And, as an econany DX>Ve, they located the ~le Al Genoond 21

thing on the building itself. Che of the :important points to ranember as far as FM broadcasting is concerned is the higher the antenna the better. An FM antenna is not the mast as you see it on the building. It is actually a group of elemmts that are located on that mast. The eleqmt themselves are canparatively sma.ll. So that it was advantageous, in the case of FMB, to put their antenna on top of one of the bank buildings here in town to get that necessary height, and it was also an econany m:we. 'Ihey could get this done at a pretty low cost.

'Ihey l.Ent on the air with a general m.JSic format. Adult type of IllJS:iiC in that year. And, like nr>st FM stations that have indulged in that sort of rwsic, it did not prove to be really successful. I suppose the true take-off point as far as FMB is concerned occurred in late 1969 or early 1970. Because I was not living here at the time, I CBIU10t pinpoint the exact date. The station changed its foi'IIIlt, in other v.JOrds, its progranming type, its m.tsic, fran this so-called middle-of-the-road adult nusic to cotmtry llllSic. Now, with the advent of the cotmtry nusic, they found a prograoming niche that no other station had occupied in Springfield. They \\ere able to garner a uediun sized audience and offer sooething to advertisers, and thus their reverrue profits would increase.

Probably the only other statement that I could make about FMB ~d be that in the 8\JDIIEr of 1972, primarily because of alterations being ua:ie to the First National Bank Building, they \\ere forced to UDVe up the street to the roof of the Myers Building. Along with this they made certain technical changes. 'Ihey doubled their transmitting pe>YEr fran ten thousand to t\.'enty thousand watts, installed a new anterma, a new transmitter and all new studio equipiEilt. 'lbey are, as far as \.'e can detennine, a successful station that operates with very low overhead and is serving betleen 15 and 20 percent of the public that is regularly devoted to listening to coontry IIDJSic. Because country nusic is probably of mre interest to cotmtry or rural listeners than it is to the people in the core of the city, FMB probably has an even greater strength in the surrounding areas to Springfield. 'lhis is, incidentally, a stereo station. It has operated stereophonically since its inception, meaing that it',:; up there with all the other FM stations in having this toodem type of trsmi.ssion.

WVF.M was started in 1965 by Danny Menghini, the CMler of Springfield . Television Incorporated, a television repair shop near the corner of · Ninth and South Grand. Initially, the studios, offices, and transmitter lere located at the WCVS transmitter site, 3055 South Fourth Street. 'Ihe FM antenna was IOOUnt:ed on the top of the \\CVS tO\.'er W:dch puts it appt:"oximately four hundred and twenty feet above the ground ldlich is very advantageous. And the studios vere located in a sma.ll shack on the OCVS property. nus station has been affiliated with the now defunct Sffir)gfield Sun throogh family ties, and I don't know the exact ties, but J.t J.s a family relationship that has existed.

VEM, with fifty thousand watts, is a pmlerful station. It ccwers a gx-eat deal of territory. And its IWSic foi'IIIlt has always been a so-called middle-of-the-road adult easy listening nusic. About 1968 or 1969, VVJS raised the rent on the antenna sharing that they ...ere allowing WVEM. 1 In other words, VEM was paying CVS a certain m::mthly fee for the privil~e of having their antema IOOUnted on the side of liJCVS mast. 'Ibis was : viewed at the time as an attempt to get WVEM to sell out to WCVS. VE11 was then, as probably now, not a tremmdously profitable station. l- 1 I I Al Genoond 22

Q: W:lich ilile CVS or VEM?

A: NJ, VEM. However, VEM refused to go along with this obvious trick--you could call it that--and so they IOOVed their entire transmitter, studio and antenna facility downtOlllll to the ~ri.nafield Sun Building ·at Third and Jefferson Streets. 'Ihey put up t ir OWl thl:ee'bundred foot :rrast and IID\Ted all the studio and transmission equitmmt down there, too, thus staying away fran the clutches of WCVS which had been eyeing the profit. As far as bringing you up to date on VEM, their present prograoming is pretty nuch the san:e as their progrcmning was 'lftten they went on the air eight years ago. So, as far as that is concerned, very little mre te> contribute in that regard.

Our final station is WDBR which ~nt on the air January 14, 1972 with rock and roll progrcmning. \-ben I IOOVed to Springfield in 1970, it was still primarily on AM market. In other words, you had your big three AM stations that ~re taking IIDst of your billing. let's say there was about one million five l:rundred thousand dollars involved in radio station buildings. 'nle three stations maybe split it each a third or saiEthirlg like that. There wasn't that m.1ch in that particular year, but I'm j~t using that as an average figure. However, FMB in 1971 ~t over with their cotmtry tiBJSic format. So their audience percentage ~nt fran a 3 percent up to 15. \ell, that's taking away fran saiEthing up here in your big three. Scma of the TAX people ceased to listen and so on and so forth. '!ben, you have VEM and TAX-FM becaning mre and mre popular as more and oore people go out and buy FM radios. So, let's say you've only got 70 percent of your people listening to AM stations, and by 1970 30 percent are dialing :in FM stations.

All right, TAX-FM began stereo broadcasting in April 1965 with separate broadcasting, too. I IIEBil roughly 90 percent. 'Ihey WJU!d still duplicat~ the news fran AM and then certain things like that. So, about that time · they started selling FM separately. Not for a lot of m::ney. I UEan trey were going out and selling these spots for a dollar, dollar and a half. '!hey ware going out and selling than. So were these tWJ other FM stations. 'lhey were going out and selling stuff aggressively, too. So this percentage that FM had was increasing, both in the percentage of dollars sold in, the caJIIlli1ity and the percentage of audience.

Now, fortunately DBR, or TAX-FM, had a very popular format, and I can only attest to this because I was responsible for making the tapes that started in 1970. 'Ihey went to a new generatio of tapes starting in the fall of 1970. And I prcxluced all these tapes myself, a personal record collection. And the popularity of this W!1S quite gratifying. A lot of people \«.rul.d phone in and cament on it. In fact, these tapes are still being put on AM in the form of ''n:usic unlimited" vhich is heard every night on AM and also on ~ekends. liaNever, the increase in business was not very great. In other words, let's say TAX was billing three thousand dollars a 10011th and with new prograrming--I UEan, new tapes. Maybe tb.is ~t up slightly. But people still could not be sold on the idea of TAX-FM. lhey naturally asS\llll'!d, well, TAX-AM is supporting TAX-FM, and it was still kind of considered the AM-FM thing. I know that there \ere a lot of people--le had a duplication period. In other v.JOrds, TAX-FM and AM Al Germond 23 had the same progranmi.ng fran five o'clock until 8: 10 in the toorning. I know a lot of people ~d set their FM clock radios to TAX-FM, wake up at seven o'clock. They ~d hear the news and the information that was being s:im..tlcast fran AM on their FM receiver. All that they wanted up until 8:10. 'lhen the FM mJSic would start in, and they'd carry that the rest of the day and the evening. This created SOOE problems when the survey was taken because radio surveys are taken in this tow:1 every year, and management uses this to determine progranming and vtlat they are going to do with it. So unfortunately, ~ llere not registering enough of the FM people on the FM ledger side. In other words, people 'WOUld say, ''Well, I listen to TAX," but they would not differentiate be~en AM and FM. So FM w;ruld CCIIE in with maybe 7 percent of the audience mere AM was going in with 33 percent of the audience. And the managenent--this vru; kind of self pity. Oh, it was like running two ccmpeting radio stations. AM was taking FM away, and vice versa.

So the management of the station fought with this, and I still am not a 100 percent--personally, I'm not 100 percent ccmfortable with the prq;rarrming the way it is now. 'Ihey took away my favorite music. I have nothing locally that I can listen to. I personally, when I climb into my car, have to listen to stations fifteen lum.dred miles away to hear this type of nusic. &.lt fran a financial standpoint, managanent made the very correct decision. 'Ihey lEI'lt after the obvious profit and llDiley center in this town which was rock and roll. And CVS had let rock and roll slip. In other "WJrds, they had progranmed their station to the IIRSs audience. They had sold to the hilt on a camercial basis, and they had ruined it. In other words, people could not tune in CVS for music that IlllCh. 'Ihey ~d be banbarded with a continuous stream of pranotions and contests and giveaways, plus eighteen, oenty minutes each hour of cannercial massages. Now, you take each hour, and you autana.tically subtract eighteen minutes for cannercials and then slice away another ten minutes for chatter and talk and stuff like that. let's say you're left with thirty, thirty-five mirrutes of music. Your public w:ruld tolerate this because there was nothing else available in the market for that sort of thing. &.lt, if something better was offered that had less chatter, less promotion, feller COOJIErcials, they ~d probably go and flock over to that area.

So in the sUIIIIEr of 1970 the managaieOt decided--the su:mer of 1971 rather--correction, the su:mer of 1971--the ma.nagemant of TAX-FM decided to gp about a complete change in the operation and format of the station. And so in January of 1971, WI'AX-FM became WDBR. The programning \

End of Side ~, Tape '1W Preface

'Ibis manuscript is the product of a tape-recorded interview conducted by William Ortman for the Oral History Office on M:irch 2, 1973. Rosalyn Bone transcribed the tape and Francis Staggs edited the transcript.

James Palmer was bom in :&tfaula, Ckla.haoa, on February 23, 192 7. He received his schooling in St. Louis and Colunbia, Missouri, and v.x>rked as a boxcar-unloader and barber before securing his first job in radio with KSIM in Saxton, Missouri. Eventually he becane the station's program director. His pranotion of sports broadcasting led to positions as a play-by-play nan for KNCN in M:>berly, Missouri, and WPEO in Peoria, Illinois. In 1959 he becane program director for WCVS in Springfield, Illinois. _ -- ... _....

Mr. Pal.Der' s breadth of experience is reflected in his observations of these and more specific aspects of his radio career suCh as technical difficulties, keeping in contact with listeners and critiquing radio delivery.

Readers of the oral history rreooir should bear in mind that it is a transcript of the spoken ~d, and that the intervi~r, narrator and editor sougpt to preserve the informal , conversational style that is inherent in such historical sources. Sangaroon State University is not responsible for the factual accuracy of the rreooir, nor for views expressed therein; these are for the reader to judge.

'lbe manuscript may be read, quoted and cited freely. It may not be reproduced in whole or in part by any 'lli!BilB, electronic or IIEchanical, without pelllli.ssion in writing frcm the Oral History Office, Sangamon State University, Springfield, Illinois, 62708. Table of Contents

:E:al:' 1y life ...... " 1 Birth and background--Schooling--Unloading boxcars-• Barbering--W:mted to do the ''Heigho Silver" Early radio expertence • • . • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • . • 4 First job at KSIM--Pushed basketball in Puxico-• W:>rkipg with Jerald Shepard at KNCN--WPEO in Peoria-• Pretend it's your last day--How he got to Springfield

PaliiE!r at WCVS • • • • • .. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 8 Nuts about everything--Roger Neuhoff--An idea convention.:..• Technical difficulties--Humorous moments--Duties--Good people hard to came by--Listeners--ShoCk value--The sexiest music in the world--Complaints--Demographics-• Kennedy's assassination--Planning the day--Competition Janes Palrrer, March 2, 1973, Springfield, Illinois.

William Orb:nan, Intervie~r.

Q: Jim, mere "~Nere you born? Did you came fran this area originally or are you from another part of the United States? A: Yes, I'm fran Litlruania. No. (laughter) No. I was born at a place called Eufaula, Oklahoma. It's a little bit south of Chickasha.

Q: Ckay. How do you spell .fufaula?

A: E-U-F-A-U-1-A. 'Ihey've built quite a lake dOWl there, I understanl, now. 1 have not been back there in about a lumdred and fifty years. But as a matter of fact [I] do plan a vacation and I hope to s'I'Neep by there and see . • . I was born m.ere an Episcopal Church \VaS erected later. I don't knCM 'Whether that's any sign of anything or not. Q: I see. You're trying to tell us something then. (laughter) Okay. Wlat year ~re you born, Jim?

A: A long time ago. I was born February 23, 1927. Q: February 23, 1927.

A: Right.

A: I think it \VaS about 1936, 1937, or 1938. In those days, I didn't really pay too 1II.1ch attention to the years. I think it was about 1937.

Q: I see. W1s there a reason, a different reason in rooving or just want to get a little bit different atmosphere or something?

A: t-ell, I didn't have a great deal to say about it. Of course, I was in school and young and located, but I think it had to do with Dad. And Dad ~nt to St. Louis for a better occupational opportunity. '!hen ~ stayed in St. louis there for quite a nunber of years. Da.d recently retired, and did indeed, in spite of the fact that he loved St. lDuis, found that a rrumber of relatives and old friends had rroved to Oklahana. Janes Palmer 2

'lhere is a hanestead exemption law down there ~ich one does not pay taxes on property and it makes for economical living. And he's IDnder,ing ~y people go to Florida.

So v.e IOOVed to St. l.Duis and I went to M::mroe Grade School there and then to a strange school in St. Louis that no one ever heard of. Cotebrilliante, wich was equivalent to a junior high school. And then after that fumy stuff at Roosevelt High, and after that Missouri University, then I guess at that time, -was the beer-drinking capital of the IDrld. I don't hear much about it anyroore. (laughs)

Q: \here's this? In St. Louis?

A: No, that's in Columbia, Missouri.

Q: '!his is in Columbia. Ckay.

A: And it brought to mind a great thing about schools . 'lhere was a great expansion program on there at Missouri University at the tine anp they had ~oden buildings that they've built with all the proper fire 1 escapes and everything like that. And it probably cost a couple of thousand dollars to build those houses, I suppose, and v.e had excellent: teachers or professors. I learned one thing. I learned just as 1II.lCh in that wooden building as I did in the great big brick building over by Jesse Hall. And I r,.under soo:etines nC1N if men v.e build schools, 'We Ire toore concerned with alunni neetings later in life or being able to care back to school or just the education. (laughs) I 'm a great one for modest buildings for school.

Q: I see.

A: C-Q-T-E-B-R-I-L-L-I-A-N-T-E.

Q: C-Q-T-E-B-R-I-L-L-1-A-N-T?

A: E.

Q: nroe, the junior high school v.e just spelled and the Roosevelt High School. You ..ent on to Missouri University, that's right? A: Right. Yes.

Q: Ckay. We talked about sane of the early jobs that you did. W:ruld you like to go back over that and repeat it for us?

A: Ch, my first job \¥aS a dandy. I really like it a lot. It -was unloading boxcars. It was for Smith-Davis Mmufacturing Canpany and if you go over the viaduct on ilioto off Grand in St. Louis, ~y, it's down in that maze there or it was. As a matter of fact, several years ago, I drove over this viaduct and took a :J?eek, and it was still in business so v.e didn't drive about. Enjoyed r,.urking .•• (phone rings) but it was a lot of fun James PalliEr 3 and I enjoyed it. I only w:>rked there for the SLJIIl1'er, but it was the first job that I ever had where I got m:mey, you know, all the time. And we unloaded boxcars and this may not sotmd like a lot of fun but it was for us. You can't imagine the camaraderie unloading boxcars.

And being young I found out one thing, if you got through unloading a boxcar ahead of time you got to rest or loaf until they brought the next boxcar over. So innediately I thought of ways and neans there, anQ. the thing is you can't see the forest for the trees very often. These fellows worked there full time and it was their living and everything, and they Y~~ere accustooed to doing it. They ~re not dumb. It's just that, you know, sanebody said, "Do it that way," and they did. So I said, "Why don • t we, you know, three of us go at one t:i.ma instead of twJ and Y~~e can carry so Ull.Ch m:>re and so on," and we un1oaded a lot of stuff and then Y~~e stole one of these rollers, you know, you put up against a boxcar and you can roll it. It has rollers on it and you can, I don't even know the names of them, and you can send steel sheets down, just zap them dOWl in a hurry.

We were getting a lot of stuff done and the first job was a successful job and as Dllch as they put m= on a machine, which I didn • t care for at all because all the camaraderie was gone, you know, and there you are. Fortunately, school tirre can:e around again, and I was able to go back to my junior year. That was my first job and it was only a ~r job, but as I say, I got nnney. And we were not the wealthiest people in the world nor the poorest by any DEans, but I realized that sanewhere in the future, we were going to have to--I was going to have to make a living. ~netary things , you know, like buying a house, getting married or sanething like that, so I didn't really know what I wanted to do at that point. I kind of wanted to go into radio but seeing a rrumber of people around, you know, like the old soap operas. If a guy coughed or anything like that, wy, he feared for his job. '!hey were going to write him out of the thing. That 'toiOUldn 't have bothered rre because I wanted to be an announcer, anyway, and just you knCM, announce the intro and the close of the show. fut I needed sc:mathing, I needed an insurance policy so to speak. So I talked with a number of people including one guy named Jim, vho was a barber. He said even in the depression days, in his practice there were always want ads in the newspaper for barbers and so that was it. I figured, well, you knCM, anything that goes that well, I'll do that.

So, I went to a ~lar barber college at night Wl.ile I was going to school for six m:mths and graduated, served eighteen m:::mths apprenticeship in a barber shop after school and so on, and became a full-fledged barber. And then took the master barber's examination. I passed that and was indeed in business, so to speak. And it's funny because I'm not too good with my hands, but I could cut a good head of hair. You know you can learn that stuff.

Q: You w:>rked for quite a mile in that trade or part-time or full-tiDe?

A: Oh, yes. Off and on. I guess I worked about five, six years at that sort of thing. And even at school , took the tools along and you could pick up spare nx>ney there. And I think the barbers at Columbia charged about fifty or seventy-five cents. I charged a quarter more because James PaliiEr 4

everybody thought the barbers .,-,.,ere kind of funky, you know. W:>uldn' t cut their hair. Even then there lllBB a hair thing and the barbers 'WOUld not cut the hair the way the boys wanted it. So, I worked a pretty good trade out of PneUll'Dnia Gulch, ~ch is an altogether different story out at the University of Missouri, mere ~ had the housing and all. But that WiB really my first job.

I had an early interest in radio, Bill. Listening to the adventure stories on radio; "'lhe Lone Ranger, 'lbe Green Hornet." '!hey say that IOOSt radio armouncers are flusterated actors; you know, want to be in the tiDVi.es or on stage. And I'm really different. I always wanted to be the announcer. I wanted to be the guy that said, "A speed of light with a cloud of dust and a hearty Heigho Silver. 'lhe Lone Ranger rides again, you know. Or mo lumts the biggest an even the G-man cannot reach the Green Hornet," you know, and, ''Ride with Brent Reefe [Britt Reid] and his faithful Ph.illippin.e canpanion, Kato," and so on. And the armouncer always had the interesting part here the actors on the show only said things like, "All right, Tonto. \e' 11 go over here and tNe' 11 see if Butch Cavidis and the gang are armmd," and Tonto 'WOUld say, "Ug, Kem:> Sabay" and then the announcer would cane in with mJSic and the backgr

I liked a fellow named Rush Hughs, luld be super tr~." So I was into that. I really liked the idea of that and did, indeed, want to go one of btu ways. And so that's the reason I went to school. My first radio job was a place in Saxton, Missouri. It was the only radio station there and it was called KSIM. And I'm taking--well, I guess you wuld say lessons on the side fran one of the fellows I thought was one of the greatest announcers armmd.

[He was] a fellow named Jbn :Ehillips, who at that tine v.x>rked at KXOX ~d made fourteen dollars a camerical for announcing, for reading a sixty: second camErcial in football games. And he had about seven a gBIIE. ~ thought, ''Man, that's stealing." (laughter) At any rate, ti:n'ough him there was this Harry Young, Sr. who was the manager of KSIM m Saxton, . Missouri, and they needed saneone. '!hey tNent for young help and cheap · help. At this time, I'm w::>rking at the dmntown YMCA and going to school at night in St. lDuis--another project I was on. I was interested in draftin& a little, too--and I think I was making about a hundred and balty-five a week, ~ich is pretty good nxmey way back then.

Q: Drafting or radio ~rk? James Paluer 5

A: No, this was in barbering. Q: You ..-ere barbering?

A: Yes. See, I was on the appointment basis then at the downtown Y and no one could understand why I wanted to work for $38.50 a week at a radio station. I got eighty cents an hour to start to work there. , The first bit in the station was a live newscast on a Sunday afternoon and they judged you on the basis. I passed the test and had the job and started to w:>rk. And if this sort of thing that you're doing goes around to young people who inspire to get on radio, I'd say one of the best thi.t:lgs to do is go to a small radio station where they have you do everything. And I did everything. You ripped your own news wire. You rewrote your oWJ. news copy. And after we got recorders that we could record coomercials on, we did our own production w:>rk changing the coomercials around. We filed our own records, got familiar with just about every aspect of uusic and those days you had every record filed by card. And for example rhytlm and blues records or soul, now:, were then classified as race records.

Ray

Sunday live gospel groups and church groups came in and the opportunity cao:e up, for example, Saxton, Missouri had a football team. It was undefeated in fifty-~ consecutive games. It goes without saying, it was a hotbed for football. I went over to a basketball game and noticed that the station was not carrying it and it was a regional tournament. I couldn't understand it. So I went in and asked the manager the next day. I said, "I don't want to be forward, but how cane we're not carrying the games?" And he said, "Well, there's no demand for it. And besides that Frank doesn't do basketball games." And I said--Frank Miller was the play by play mm, an old lineman. You can always tell a lineman in play by play, because he always tells who made the tackle but very seldan gives you the guy that has the ball, you know.

And that's another thing with the lina:nan versus the back argunent that goes on. But anyway, I suggested that saneone be sent out to do it. I said, "I bet you can sell it," you know. And that's the magic w:>rd in a number of radio stations. And he said, ''Well, could you do it?" And I said, "Oh, I've done a million gc:u:res . " And he said, "Where?" I said, "In the stand." You know, I used to watch the St. Louis Billicans and everything like that. I'm the guy in the stand with a progrCIIJ. cupped around my liDUth saying, '"lhere' s a pass over to M:iGalley . . • junp shot, and so." And he said, "Oh, I don't think that's enough experience or anything." So, anyway, Mr. Young finally retired and Dick Witkins, the program director, became the manager, and I became the progrCIIJ. director. J~s Pa.lner 6

I still got this thing about the basketball and so the next season c~ along and over in MJrehouse, Missouri. 'lliere 'te.S a--it 'te.S a little team and it mfortunately ncrw has been consolidate with the Saxton school system and all of those boys and girls. But they had--as every small town bas fran t:ime to time--a bunch of tall boys and their first six gBIIEs they scored one hundred points or rrore.

And there was another little town called Puxico that six of their eight: gaiies had scored a hundred points a gaiie. I thought, '~ll, I think I'll go over and see this g~. And then I'll, you know, type it up and it'll be a news story. Couldn't get into the building I Called the manager of our radio station, and said, ''You want to see sanething?" And he says, ''W'lere are you?" And I said, "I'm in M:>rehouse, Missouri." Four miles away. And he said, ''Well, Yihat have you got in mind?" I said, ''You wmt to sell stuff, don't you?" He said, "Yeah?" I said, "You "WBnt to sell stuff that people are interested in?" He said, ''Yes." I said, "Cane over here. I'm at the M:>rehouse High School and I cai~E to see the g~ and I carmot get into the building." He came over and took a look and he said, ''Man, this is scnething. All of these people cai~E to see a basketball ~?" And I said, ''Yes." So he imrediately lent to a place called 'Ihe Midway FUrniture Store (laughs) and brought the manager of that over Bnd had him look at it and they had a tournament the next and 1Ne carried it. The furniture people ware handing out handbills on the fourth block corners going in there and we "~Nere broadcasting the toumanent and it really started saiEthing there. After that 1Ne becaiiE a tw::> sport station. So at any rate, as I said, if you are young, you .know, and you really 'WBnt to get a wall-rounded thing and try, then try a small station because there is opportunity if X?u'll push properly. You can not be known as a pushy person, you know, 'Let's have my way here," but if you can point out--in other words, to gain sanething you very often have to give sanething.

I wanted to do basketball and I pointed out how they could mike sare mney. They took a tremendous chance by letting tiE broadcast. But all those days, sitting in the stand, you know, saying, "There's M:Carthy with a one-handed hook shot," paid off because I wasn't the least bit afraid. So that was my first radio job. In that job, with the small station and the sporadic programning, the potpourri one quarter hour and three quarter time, and it's polka time. And at ~ o'clock in the afternoon 1Ala had a classical mJSic station. 'lhat' s mere I felt glad for all the schooling because then you could pronounce the rtaJies of the · canposers. The only thing is if you could do it then they didn't want to let you off that shift. (laughs)

Q: You ware stuck with it.

A: You lAlare stuck with it but fortunately saneone IOOVed on and I got the m:rrning shift. And I T,\Urked the mrnings in radio stations for years and years and years. And now there's a saying, "If you get up every 100Tiling at five o'clock for so many years then you've got an autanatic ala.nn clock built in." I coold still sleep all day. 'lhat doesn't have a thing. So that was my first radio job and I stayed there about five years. James Palmer 7

Q: Vbere did you go fran there, Jim?

A: \ell, I lltleilt to a place called, at the time, KNCN in lliberly, Missouri. That was through the sports thing. The mmager, Jerald Shepard, who was to say a great rn.mber of things to influence ma in my radio career, was driving thr-ough and beard ma do a football game. He'd lost his play-by-play man--a real fantastic man naned lfugh Frazil to ~his, Tennessee --and he needed a man. [He] came up and offered ma a proposition I could not turn down. Ole "Was rooney and the other was even though I had this great desire :in progranmi.ng to go and be a play by play man. \e traveled everywhere. W:! ~re aliiDst like a professional team, driving cars fran one state to the next and it was a great experience. I did discover at that time that it doesn't make any difference what city or town you're in, one mtel roan looks just like another. I'm not tD.1Ch on traveling due to the fact that I did have to drive and I had to drive a nunber of places in snow and ice that I really didn't ~t to go.

Q: How many years then ~re you with KNCN before you ~nt on? A: Tl«> years and four IIDUths.

Q: Kept track of every one of those nights.

A: ([email protected]) It was interesting. This Jerald Shepard is a fellCM who is quite deceiving, does not make tD.1Ch of a grandiose appearance. But I think if you'll just check around you'll find that a great number of people quote him on things he says. I didn't realize he was that fantastic \rked for him. All I knew is that I like him and I thought he was extraaely smart.

And he said a I11.mlber of things to encourage IIE. Not that I was d.orNn, be just said, "I think if you aim your career in the direction of so and so and so and so that things are, you knCM, it will be very good." And he really thought that I could do a great nunber of things l.Vell. And he told ma about it and fran him I thought, "Well, gosh, that's good. I'll go out and be better on the air taoorrcw."

A: Well, I ~nt to WPEO in Peoria. Here's the thing about if you do get into radio you should try to sound your very best everyday. Pretend it's your last day on earth or sooething. You really, even with flu or an~hing you really should give it your all. If you're there, do a good job. I've never really gotten over the idea that I could get into radio. It) other w:>rds, I'm still pleased and proud and happy that I am in radio.· And each day is a special day, you know, and therefore, you should be your best every day that you're on the air if you possibly can.

I)J:ring this time, I was doing play by play and I had a little bitty show--well, I had a half hour of IWSic fran 1:00 p.m. until 1:30 p.m. in addition to reading sana news and things like that. And saxe people passed through fran Kansas City vho had been with the store's organization, ~ich is renomed for its rock stations ; KXOK, WHY and a number of others. They~ discovered What they called the sleeping giant of Peoria, Illinois, James Palmer 8 and they ~re going to go up there and start a rock station and capt:l.n::e the llm'ket. Wlich they did for two years against all cC~Jers and scmathing in my show attracted them and they asked me to go with them. And I dili. It was great insigpt in to the radio there. I "WOrked for a IIB1l narred Greenwood li1o "tNa.S so talented for handling people and he was really 'tl.1a C¥Jer. \bm he called, in his telephone COllServations ~re tape-reco-qied and played back for the staff; mich is a great way of :Informing the staff and also of letting everyone know What you're going to do. l-e ~re all off and running there. Tremendous operation I'd say, probably one of the DDSt talented people I've ever l«lrked with.

I worked with a fellow named Harry Harrison mo is now with WABC in New York City. And another fell eM quite talented--Harry was the quick fast quipping IIIUl--named Tan 1llm llilo has "WOrked in Denver and I think now KQEO in Albuquerque, New Mexico. And that lilole thing everybody that was there was considered an ace. And '\e ~re all going to be program directors of our om station as the CaJl>&lY expanded. It was the Dandy Broadcasting Corporation. To tmke a long story short, one of the partners--and they 1illlere spread rather thin financially in that they had just purchased KI..EO in Wichita and· before that KQ!D in Albuquerque, KDEO in San Diego, and; then WPEO in Peoria--one of the co-ow:ters died.

He was a lawyer, and his wife had no knowledge of anything like that. All she said TNas, "I want my husband's assets in cash." 'Ihey had to sell a IniDber of stations; one of them "tNa.S WPEO and the men at the station was sold. I was no longer under contract and \tiBD dcnon the street in Peoria asked if I "WOUld attend lunch with than. And I did. A nunber of things 'Were thr-

So that was Peoria. A fellow named 0 'Connor l«Jrked there at VMBD and he told DB of SanE! plans that he had for a radio station in Springfield, Illinois. It was based in an old house. As a matter of fact, it's two doors over here on South Fourth Street fran our present building. I took a look at the building and I said, "Yeah," and they ~re not m:mber one. 'Ihey wanted to be number one and they lacked things that I said. 'Ihe ideas for programring and 'We all got together and became rrumber one and have been for a great Ill.lllber of years.

'lhat' s tJu., I got to Springfield and here, man. I just an nuts about the city, about the station, the operation. 1he manager has been the sane guy all the time, Ken Spengler, an exceptional man. It takes quite an exceptional man to stay here under three ow:terships and be the manager. In other words, it's just not done. tbbody can be that good. And he has done an awful lot for this radio station. He's done an awful lot for me. I'd say 'that he and Jerald Shepard are just the t:lNO finest nen that I've ever h.ail.the privilege of "WOrking for. James Palmer 9

Q: Jim, talking about the three ownerships, was this in the second OWlership ~ you CBDE here or the first?

A: It was the second ownership.

Q: Second. NON, mo's the third or present day OWler?

A: It's a gentleman named Roger Neuhoff and the organization is called Eastern Broadcasting. N-E-U-H-~F-F.

Q: N-E-U • • •

A: H-o-F-F. Here's another altogether different individual. Here's a man Who has a lot of nxmey, but he wants to do his own thing and that is he loves radio. He wants his radio stations to be successful operations and also a great part of the camunity. I could talk about him. He sort of looks like an Fnglisbnan in ruffle suit with a pipe. The fellow ltlo walks off, he forgets his pipe and all that, but quite an astute man. I wish sa:oehc:M or other you could talk to him and get his ideas about radio because he is fantastic. He's what's known as an absentee o~r. But he's the only owner that I know of mo knows our format and can CarE in and listen several mirrutes and say, "'Ihe man is off format." Really spectacular.

Q: How many ~ars has he owned this station?

A: Ch, my. Now, here you've got ne again on things that I'm not real gocxl at.

Q: I.ast ten year?

A: ~, it's a . . . I think it's four, five, six . six or seven years n

Q: Ckay. And it's Eastern Broadcasting Corporation? A: Yes.

Q: Or canpany?

A: Corporation. Yes.

Q: Ckay. How many other stations does he own that you're familiar with?

A: Two others. WBG1 in Terre Haute and WHUT in Anderson, Indiana.

Q: VHUT?

A: Yes. WHUT.

Q: He's basically a roore eastern individual than • • • ,

A: Yes. \ell, he lives in Washington. He started the Eastern BroadJsting thing--he lK1ed a station in Ho~ll, Virginia, and also owned a statton in,

' J~s Palmer 10

let's see .•. Danville, Virginia, and that's along the Eastern Coast. O:le thUlg that surprised him as long as you're thinking about radio in general terms was that one station in Danville, Virginia--that he owned-- the city population 'WaS thirty thousand, there -were 5:00 a.m. radio stations there. He couldn't get over the fact that in Springfield, Illinois, city of ninety to a lrundred thousand population that there were 3:00a.m. radio stations and that was it. He said, "I just don't understand." And he thinks that's heaven. (laughs)

Q: Is there any reason for this? Is this an overcrowded area that we're speaking of with all of these other stations in it?

A: Yes. It's an overcrowded area. I have been to Danville, Virginia--not as part of the Eastern plan. As a natter of fact, Eastern did not CMl this at the time. '!here was an idea convention. It's a group that I'm one of thirteen original members in this thing and that's ~re you interchange ideas. lha.t' s your only membership cost. You mJSt contribute ideas to the group and -we had a. big session in Danville, Virginia. Che of the sharpest people, E'ddie Algood, was the host for WB'IM--radio station there--and what lNe did ms had semi-formal IIeetings ~re we got up and tEnt through a great deal of business. And the big business was at Ili3ht '!ihen people sat around and talked informally about prOODtions and things like this.

As a matter of fact, blo guys, a fellow named Bill walker fran \nl and Eddie Algood fran WB'IM lfllere faster than machine guns. And at that t:im!, portable tape recorders "Were not as plentiful as they are now, so you had to write darn fast. t-e sat around and drank a lot by the swimn:i.ng pool. It was sort of an agitation thing on my part W1ere I w:>uld say, ''Well, have you. ever run a contest on so-and-so?" And it :i.ImEdiately would spark one or the other and the one it didn't spark WJUld crnra back with an idea.

I' 11 tell you \tlat I did. I cane back with eight typewritten single-spaced pages fran that trip with ideas. It was that kind of thing. And I was going to say, all the sales people and all the people that worked at the radio stations, the various stations in Danville, Virginia, where there -were five :in the city population of thirty thousand and looked quite prosperous, and had quite a lot of business and wore nice suits and everything. The general thing seans to be that they've got a great county area and their coverage is good in that particular area.

Q: let's skip up one point frcm point eleven to ten. Vbat about sane of the technical difficulties you've had in the past either here at CBS or ~re else.

A: tell, those are not really furmy things. They're sort of in the CCllliDil everyday category where a record is spiming on the turntable ani the needle·. is touching and everything is beautiful. And all at once there is no sound going on reroote broadcasts and for?etting part of the equipDEllt • • • tell, we've had things, too. I didn t think of anyth~ interesting. · James Pal'ID'i!r 11

Now, presently in our present location here, that lru.ge tov.Jer out in the field there, you knew, it should give us a lot of coverage and it does. As a matter of fact, sane of the technical difficulties are things like broken wires underneath and digging them up and having them put back together by engineering firms. And once that -was done, the signal was nice and· strong and then all at once our signal \

Q: Vllat do you do in a case like this W:lere you 1 re plugging in the net'Wt>rk Dffi¥8 and it doesn't care through or sarething like this. Do you place records?

A: \ell, today it cane about pretty abruptly because there is about a: mi.rrute silence prior to, going in there. Soo:etimes they play nusic up to thirty seconds and then there's silence for twenty seconds and then a ten second tone and then they go into· it. And the tone seeDEd low but the silence wa.s silent. You knCM, silence is lCM or high, it's just there and on one of the net'Wt>rking it 1i.BS like the sotmd 1i.BS SDDthered. So the only thing you can do there is say, ''Ladies and gentlenEn, please stand by we're having troubles sooeWI.ere along the line with the ABC radio network." And find a record and put it on and continue IIDnitoring them.

Q: It canE through and you picked them back up.

A: N:>. It did not cane through and we \

And very often we will hear on the first feed through, you knOW' like, Paul Harvey News, there -was a cut off in Denver today, you know. So it will be fed through in its entirety in the next so and so, and so and $0. Listen for it at such and such a t:ime. Or they will delay it for a half hour past the regular broadcast t:ime. So technical troubles are not funny things to talk about. \e had another thing cCXJE up here just a short time back. Th.e newsroan 'WOuld not go on the air. It had successfully gone on the air all day long. And then suddenly for no rhyne or reason at all, at 4: 25 in the afternoon it just -wouldn't go on. So the first thing you do is panic (laughter) and call the chief engineer and say the newsroan will not go on the air. 'Iben innediately, everybody knows a little BaJEthing, you knew, fran 'WOrking around radio, all the covers are James Palmer 12 up and everybody's looking at tubes in the control rocm and everybody's looking at the tubes in the news roan. Finally I found a patch cord that \

A: Yes. Yes. 'Ihousand-dollar tape machine behind you going along t:htre with a minister on the air getting to the mst important part of the sermon and perhaps a WJ.eel will fail to fall down into its proper spot and he will sound like Mickey M:ruse. With Howard Cosell, it's not a bad thing, but with a ¢nister, it's devastating to have the equip;oont fail.

Q: Okay. do you have any ln..m:mous m:m:mts by and large that you'd ~t to put on the tape that . . .

A: (laughs) No. It's fumy When you . . . it's kind of like asking a cai£dian to be funny. I can't think of anything funny right now. Pro})ably as everybody is prone to do, ten minutes after you're gone I will say, "Oh, I should have said so and so."

Q: Ckay. Wlat are your duties out here, Jim? Have you had the same job function since you caoe here? I think you said, 1959?

A: Yes. Yes, the job is primarily the same thing. The activity has broadened a bit. There's a little bit IIX>re to the job, now, than ~n I came. W:len I first cane, I went in to quite a discourse about I know a rrumber of people who are called program directors who post the work schedule each v.eek. And that's not exactly ~t I have in mind and they fortunately did not have that in mind either. 'lhey wanted a program director; saneone who would take charge of programning, handle the announcing staff and in general praoote things, WJrk contests, examine the air and so on and so forth and be responsible. Wlat it is in essence is; you're responsible for every sound that goes on the air. If it's a good sOl.Uld, fine. If things start happening bad, you are just as responsible for that as you are the bad things. CAle problem, in a number of stations that I've ooted other people canplaining about is that people don't listen to their mc radio station.

Recently, a fellow in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, wrote ue a letter and said he'd been hospitalized for tliD weeks. (He] read everything that he wanted to read so he listened to his radio station and he said, "I was amazed at llila.t I heard." And he took back a couple of notebooks full of things that they were going to have to do. Particularly in a small tCMn, sooe small toms, you can get the best radio training in the WJrld and other small towns they just need bodies to put on the air.

Q: Are you saying he W9.S here in Springfield and listened to your station? Janes Palmer 13

A: No. He was listening to his own station in cape Girardeau, Missouri, but I happened to be acquainted with him and he was in this idea bank, too.

Q: Find all his mistakes?

A: Yes', and he found out all the things that ~re wrong with his radio station. Well, that's the sort of thing that should be happening. People should listen to their own radio stations. In a small cCIIIIIJility, one should not expect to belong to the Rotarty Club and the Lion's Club, and go cut and attend neetings, and put the salesmen on the street and hire scma kid off the street to cooe in and just, you know, hack it all day long. In other words , the important thing you're selling is the smmd. It doesn't make any difference me you've got working for you. If he's no good, if he's rotten, then you've got a rotten sound. Good people are hard to ccma by as in every business. Scmat:ines you have to take a chance on a younger type person and for work for development. I think, probably in addition in progrcmning and being responsible for the prograDS, the sound and everything that goes on, I'm prouder about l«>rking for developnent BJIOng people and radio announcers than anything else and vilat you do is critique people a lot. You buy a timer and hook it up to your tape recorder and catch people at tvx> and three in the lOOming and men you catch a hitch in the swing, then you chat with the people about it. W1en you notice sooething they're doing well, then you tty and aim them in this general direction. A nunber of people have developed--at this radio station--and gone on to fine things.

There's a fellow named Mike Hurvey, mo now is at KMBZ in Kansas City, Missouri. He is the man in Kansas City as wally Fhillips might be known to

Rich Hu.tchinson was a young man me walked in off the street and said, ''How can I get into radio?" [He] displayed enough reading ability and talent and projection at that very m.:m:mt mo worked with him and tried to get him going. Jim Colonny got experience here and is now at WBBM-PM in Chicago. Jim Ringo had had only FM experience when he cane here and developed into a talent that ~t to Wichita, Kansas, and could have in deed gone to a number of other places. He decided he'd rather be rich than be a disc jockey and he has now gone :into business for himself. Dave ~gutt \IBS another fellow me developed here although he had part-t:ima work :in· Evansville, Indiana. Jam:s Paluer 14

So you can see, there is a tre:nendous feeling of pride Wt.en saneone like this really takes off and becams srld or at least that locale knows and you say, "I helped him, ' you know. and for example right IlOW' in listening every day ••. Che thing I think, I think I am a very good instructor in this area because I know my business. Lord, if I don't after this period of time, you know, it's shut the door, Katie. So I'd say those are prouder m:ments lNt>rking with people and the proudest thing is "When you've really been trying to get sambody to do something and it at last catches on.

For example now, 'i.E have one armouncer now who has a little hitch in his delivery. He applied for a job here Wt.en he -worked at Galesburg, Illinois, and he just didn't have any projection at all. So I made several suggestions on projection. He tried them. He was flabbergasted that anybody ~d take the tim! out. So it TNaS the first tinE he had ever critiqued in radio. So he wrote a letter and then called and said, "If I sent you another tape, w:ruld you critique it?" And I said, "Sure." So in about four v.Eeks, he sent another tape and I critiqued the tape and sent it back. lhen our sister station WBG1 in Terre Haute needed a mm and I suggested him. And he indeed got the job. 'nlen 'i.E had an opening for 1a IIDming man here and he applied for the job And I didn't feel that he was heavy enough for the DX>rning show, but did indeed want him and that if he wanted to lNt>rk here badly enough to cane over and be our all-night mm. And he cane and with the idea for projection. He did tend to over project and go into a little bit of a windup or a whirl. And he had ..

Fnd of Side One, Tape Che

A: So he had virtually no instruction, no direction, no way to go and he could only try to record hinself and listen and this is very hard to do. You do need saneone else's opinion. So the first ~ did was work with cutting: dof.in on the overall projection and try for the mre normal voice. '!hen after he worked on a couple of other things in vbich his normal voice ~--through aJ;ld he did. In other lNt>rds, W:tat 'i.E ~re looking for 'WaS a ttue voice pattern or a true voice print. Q:

A: Yes. So ~ could find his natural ranger and he can indeed IlOW' pro~ect without all of the windup and everything like that sotmding like, "It s Christmas time at Block and Cool," you kncJw, vhich does not ring true at times, but that sort of thing. So that's the good thing.

And then too another thing is Wl.en you discover sanething in a talent, an individual, and you can say to then, "I think now, that you ought to," you know, ''progress along on those lines. You know that area and you're in to it. And I think you-ought to stop buying the ~one-liners fran Robert Orvin and indeed go with your awn sense of huroor. ' I don't really know that you asked for all of this. You asked DE for the time and I told you how to make a watch. (laughter)