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For a short period of time KWK reared back and became the “Soul of the City.” The idea was great, but the deck was stacked against its success.

The station had been forced off the air by the Federal Communications Commission in 1966, following a fraudulent contest. An interim owner, Karin Broadcasting, ran the station for awhile, programming middle-of-the-road music. In 1969, the F.C.C. decided the ownership question, and broadcast veterans Bernie Hayes (Music Director and Operations Manager) and Albert “Scoop Sanders” Gay (program director) were brought in to program the station under the new ownership – Hayes from KATZ where he had been hired a year earlier, and Sanders from KXLW. They assembled a superb staff and the station introduced the new format the first week of August.

It had not been an easy road to that sign on. Eight groups had competed for the permanent license. After a protracted legal battle, a compromise was reached giving Victory Broadcasting 75 percent ownership and Archway Broadcasting 25 percent. Clifton Gates was the lead man for Victory. Joseph Vatterott headed Archway. The new company was known as Vic-Way Broadcasting.

When the new format hit the air, KWK’s listeners were quick to protest. They didn’t care about the behind-the-scenes ownership machinations. All they cared about was the loss of their format and disc jockeys. The employees of Karin Broadcasting also rebelled. They protested to the F.C.C. that Karin was still the station’s rightful owner.

The resultant chaos brought huge financial losses (about $1,000 per day), and the new owners were unprepared to cover them On August 15, listeners heard an announcement that the station was shutting down for a few weeks so facilities could be built for a studio and transmitter. Ten days later, the station was back on the air. Previous employees of Karin Broadcasting had been fired. A couple of those former employees stormed the station’s studios on a mid-September night. The resultant lawsuit seeking a restraining order alleged two Karin people attempted forcibly to remove Vic-Way workers from the studio.

By the end of 1969, things were looking up for Vic-Way. The Ford Foundation announced it was loaning the company $500,000, to be matched by loans from local banks. This, Gates said, would provide the capital to build needed facilities. KWK also announced it was providing free ad time to Negro businesses. Meanwhile, staffers Al Waples, Don St. John, Bill Bailey and Al “Scoop Sanders” Gay set out to win over the market’s teen audience.

The first surveys following the format change found KWK sweeping past its competition, KATZ and KXLW, grabbing a huge segment of the Black audience and many white listeners as well. New names appeared on the station’s roster, including Jim Gates, Tom Joyner, Bill Moore, Jake Jordon, Sonny Joe White, Tony “Slinky Slim” Stitum, Donn Johnson, and Mark Gordon. Black recording artists like James Brown, the Temptations, Stevie Wonder and Billy Eckstein stopped by the station for interviews when they were in the area. But in spite of all the programming success, the combined ownership setup was not working.

The bed of roses came to an end in May of 1972 when the station’s disc jockeys and newsman walked off the job. They said they were protesting several moves by a new management team, including the removal of Bernie Hayes from his operations manager position. After the strike, Hayes and Sanders were hired at KTVI-TV. Then came a lawsuit from the radio station’s landlord over $18,000 back rent. In December of 1973, KWK was declared bankrupt in federal proceedings.

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 09/2007)

Since the earliest days of the radio business there have been conflicts between management and talent. In St. Louis, one of those conflicts led to an appearance in police court.

The year was 1929 and the police court appearance took place October 2, just a couple weeks before the stock market crashed. The economy wasn’t on anyone’s mind, but one employee of radio station KWK was not happy with the amount of money he was being paid.

Olin Gibson was making $50 per week to serve as an announcer and pianist at the station. And like virtually everyone who’s ever been a radio announcer, Gibson took a side job to supplement his income. As the police later reported, Gibson was playing piano for patrons of Coffee Dan’s Barn, a nightclub at the corner of DeBaliviere and Pershing at 2:00 a.m. when a patron ordered him to stop playing. The patron was his boss – the owner of KWK – Thomas Patrick Convey.

This posed a bit of a problem for Olin Gibson, because he was making almost twice as much money at the nightclub as he was making at KWK. When Convey told him to choose between the radio job and the nightclub, Gibson quickly decided he’d rather continue playing the piano at The Barn and turned his attention once again to the keyboard.

Witnesses told police that Convey then began razzing a patron of the establishment, Joe Reichmann, who was a musician and announcer on rival station KMOX. Even in the late hour, others in the club were reportedly offended by Convey’s behavior and “objectionable language.” Many people complained to the club manager and at 4:15 Convey was presented with his hat and coat and escorted to the exit by three members of the establishment’s management, while the piano music played by his former employee provided an ironic soundtrack.

When Police Court No. 1 convened the following day, Judge Harry P. Rosecan seemed ready for what was about to transpire. Lester Newman, business manager of The Barn, and Convey had charged each other with disturbing the peace.

Gibson, the piano player, was called to the stand. “Thomas Patrick made me so mad interrupting my piece I wanted to kick hell out of him,” he testified.

When Convey was sworn in, he gave his full name, Thomas Patrick Convey, to which the judge added, “Now broadcasting.”

Convey told the court he’d gone to The Barn with the sole purpose of forcing the piano player to make a choice, because Gibson couldn’t work at two jobs and do both well. He also admitted to tossing a few verbal jabs at Reichmann, which he described as “kidding back and forth,” but he claimed the language used was not offensive.

While still under oath, the radio station owner was asked if he’d been drinking prior to his visit to The Barn.

“Well, I wouldn’t consider it drinking,” he testified. “I had a bad cold and was taking spiritus frumenti prescribed by my doctor. I think it was in a pint bottle, but I don’t know because I’m not used to carrying bottles.”

Judge Rosecan dismissed all charges against both men and told the courtroom, “This will be broadcast as a draw.”

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 09/08)

In a blaze of justifiable glory the corporate name of KWK was changed last week to Thomas Patrick, Inc., honoring Thomas Patrick Convey, founder and principal builder of the station through whose ceaseless efforts KWK has risen from humble beginnings to nationwide importance.

In a surprise program by his own associates the announcement went out over the air to KWK listeners, and Mr. Convey acknowledged the distinction in one of his characteristic, friendly speeches in which he pledged continued efforts on his part to bring to KWK listeners the best in radio features, keeping abreast with all that is new in radio, both artistically and technically, not only for the benefit of KWK and its well-wishers, but for St. Louis as well.

Radio and Entertainment joins with the great host of Thomas Patrick radio fans in extending felicitations to KWK and the man through whose efforts the station and St. Louis have become important links in the great NBC national network. More power to you, Mr. Convey!

(Originally published in Radio and Entertainment 11/21/1931).

By Harry F. Wild

To the average American there are two things which make hot weather bearable – namely baseball and beer, a combination as truly American as any tradition handed down since ‘76. And for that reason the radio program of the Columbia Brewing Company must be considered a strategic bit of sales.

It is the baseball motif that makes the Columbia program an unusual one. The program, known as “The Man-in-the-Stands Broadcast” was heard for the first time on April 14, when the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs opened the 1936 National League Baseball season at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis. The program, scheduled daily, is broadcast direct from Sportsman’s Park. It consists of impromptu interviews with baseball fans in the stands, prior to the game, and makes for a chatty, interesting type of broadcast. Radio Station KWK, National Broadcasting Company outlet in St. Louis, is handling the broadcast.
“Alpen Brau,” the Columbia Brewing Company’s brand of bottled beer, is featured on the commercial side of the broadcast.

The program goes on the air daily at 2:45 o’clock – fifteen minutes before the game begins. The fact that KWK is broadcasting all weekday games of the two St. Louis major league teams assures the “Man-in-the-Stands Broadcast” an unusually good ‘spot.” For already the rabid baseball fans – and all St. Louisans take their baseball seriously – are discovering that the “Man-in-the-Stands” is the kind of program that makes those last few minutes before game time slip by like magic.
There was a time, too, when anything built around the baseball motif was generally considered for “men only.” That isn’t the case today, for women have become devout followers of baseball, thanks to radio broadcasting, “ladies’ days,” and other promotional efforts.

For that reason the Columbia Brewing Company’s radio program is the type that arouses the interest of the feminine radio audience. For that reason the concern can get over its sales message to the housewife.
But, by and large, the success of radio advertising depends almost entirely upon the program backing up the advertising. That is why the advertising of the Columbia Brewing Company is getting results. By utilizing the baseball motif – a sport which appeals to everyone – the company has produced a type of radio program that has the same wide appeal.

(Originally published in Brewers’ Journal May 1936).

The first radio country club in America is now being developed within the city limits of Kirkwood – on the grounds of the transmitter plant of KWK. When completed early this summer it will have bridle paths, swimming pool, tennis courts, handball courts and even a trapshooting field.

Thomas Patrick Convey, president of Thomas Patrick Incorporated, owners of KWK, conceived the idea of a retreat for staff members last summer. One hot night he and Clarence Cosby, KWK director, were at the transmitter plant, which is located on the Manchester road, near Lindbergh boulevard. It was a moonlit night and Convey was impressed by the scenic value of the site. It was then that he decided to build a sleeping porch addition to the plant where he could spend sultry nights.

The sleeping porch soon became a reality and since then ten rooms have been added. Now it is the summer home of the KWK staff, and landscape architects are at work beautifying the grounds. More than 3,500 shrubs and trees have been planted and when summer comes, it will be a haven for tired continuity writers, announcers, singers and other KWK attaches.

The plant is open to the public and hundreds of visitors pass through it each week. The studios of station KWK are at the Hotel Chase and [are] where the programs originate, but without the transmitter plant KWK would not be able to reach out into the distance with its programs.

(Originally published in Radio and Entertainment 4/9/32).

When the St. Louis Globe-Democrat finally got on the bandwagon of newspaper ownership of radio stations, it did so in a big way. KWGD-FM was given a state-of-the-art facility of its own at 12th and Cole, down the street from the newspaper offices.

KWGD Studios architect rendering

The building, which now houses Sinclair Broadcasting’s St. Louis operations, cost $1.6 million to build in 1948, and the new station went on the air in December of that year. The newspaper admitted that it spent so much on the building because it also planned to set up a television station there.

The newspaper’s owners had actually applied for the frequency in 1941, but U.S. participation in World War II brought about a freeze on all new broadcast licenses. By the time it signed on December 19, 1948, at 92.9 mHz, KWGD-FM was beamed through its 10 kilowatt transmitter to the area’s nearly 100,000 FM receivers.

The paper touted the possibilities of FM, which was springing to life in the period following the war: “Listeners…will be assured of a new experience in radio enjoyment, free from the annoyance of interference by electric razors or vacuum cleaners, atmospheric static, and competing programs which set up a stream of ‘cross talk’ on standard broadcasting dials.”

Globe-Democrat staff writer Bob Goddard was given the task of writing the full-page introductory piece about the station. He described the building, writing, “The layout and décor are well calculated to put the prospective advertiser in a warm and receptive frame of mind from the moment he steps through the entrance door on Cole Street.”

There were four radio studios on the street level, two of which were nearly 1,400 square feet so they could handle studio audiences of up to 50 people. The studios were described as “floating,” That is, the walls and floors were constructed on “cushioned members, which creates acoustic isolation for the highest fidelity sound reproduction.”

The KWGD-FM newsroom was located just off the lobby, and passers-by were invited to stop and watch through the large exterior plate glass windows as the news staff worked. Although the newspaper dubbed the facility “Radio City,” a portion of the second floor was set aside to house television transmitting equipment and studios.

The fanfare was short-lived, though. FM radio stations in St. Louis, which at that time did little more than simulcast the programs of their co-owned AM counterparts, failed at a rapid rate. In a six month period, KSD-FM, KXLW-FM, WIL-FM, and WEW-FM went dark.

KWGD was acquired in 1949 by Thomas Patrick, Inc., which owned KWK, and KWK-FM began using the facility and transmitting equipment. The station was now located at 98.1 mHz, but in less than a year after the acquisition, the plug was pulled. In April of 1950, KWK-FM became the fifth FM station in six months to fail in St. Louis.

(Reprinted with permission of the St.Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 12/98.)