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The days of free-wheeling rock radio in St. Louis are history, but many of those who participated enjoy looking back and remembering. Peter Skye recently took time to reminisce.

Things started out innocently enough. Skye came to St. Louis from the New York area to study Applied Mathematics at Washington University. On an impulse visit to campus radio station KFRH he and his roommate student John Gilbert decided it might be fun to be disc jockeys. The carrier current station could only be heard around the campus, but that didn’t matter. Station manager Phil Steinberg, himself a student, put them on the air. The pair was bitten by the radio bug.

“Things were really loose in those days,” Skye says. “We hopped around and stopped in and saw all the local stations. They’d all let us come in and watch. Nick Charles was the all-night guy at KXOK. John and I used to go over there and bug him. The studio at the time was in an old house. Big studio as far as radio goes.

“Dave Scott was the program director out at KIRL in St. Charles. It was a Top 40 station with three towers with a banana-type signal pattern that got them into St. Louis. I visited it once and was fascinated by his cart machine system. When one tape cartridge finished playing it would automatically trip-start the next one.”

Fast forward to a cinder block shack in Crestwood. A guy named Ron Elz is making some changes at a radio station called KSHE, and Gilbert and Skye are disc jockeys on a big time commercial FM station. John Gilbert has become John Roberts, and the atmosphere of the station and chemistry with the listeners are the stuff dreams are made of. “Elz instinctively knew all about demographics and the business side of radio, and that’s what helped make KSHE a success as the market’s “underground” radio station from the beginning. He personally took both KSHE and KADI-FM to rock. When Elz changed KADI to Top 40, he had me generate the playlists by computer. I wrote the computer programs to do this while I was still a student and got a full class credit at Washington University for the effort. Boy, did the announcers complain. They hated having to follow the lists,” Skye says.

There had been some sort of disagreement at KSHE that caused Elz to leave for KADI. He suggested to management that John Roberts be named his successor as program director. Ron Lipe was there, variously known as “Ron Brothers” and “Prince Knight.” So was Bob Skaggs, whose air name was “Jack Davis.” In Skye’s words, “The program director had his hands full.”

At KADI-FM, owner Richard Miller offered Skye an airshift, which Skye accepted. “This is Peter Skye, your curly headed kid in the third row, on the KADI Original Oldies Show!” He served as chief engineer and did morning drive Tuesday through Friday. Sam Kaiser did the morning show on Mondays so Skye could sleep in after the late Sunday oldies show. “Rich Dalton, with whom I worked at KADI, was an extraordinary person. He cared more about the audience than any other jock I’ve worked with. That is his secret: His caring comes through on his show and everyone senses it.”

Programming the oldies show was a challenge. The station’s music library wasn’t varied enough to support a show like his, but a solution came in the form of another announcer at the station, Joe Edwards. Skye remembers: “Joe supplied all the records for the oldies show. I still have the book he published based on the Billboard charts. Joe was the nicest guy I ever worked with. I hold him in the highest regard.”

“On Sunday, September 23, 1973, one of the news teletype machines in the KADI building on Bomparte caught fire (a bad bearing in the motor according to the fire marshal) which lit the varnished wall paneling which then came up the stairs. John Killian, who had been ‘Johnny K.’ on KXOK, was on the air at the time. The whole building burned – a six-alarm fire. I owned and drove the KADI Car, my fastback yellow Mustang with KADI plastered all over it, and was up in North County dropping off my date when I heard the station go off the air. I hit the flashers and came in at 90 miles per hour. Fire trucks everywhere.”

“A policeman stopped me at the driveway entrance and I rolled down the window and yelled ‘I’m the chief engineer’ and he waved me through. I went into the building with the first firefighters because, without windows and with lots of rooms, they weren’t sure what they would find. Two firemen were on the roof and it gave way, dumping them into the building. They were brought out and an ambulance came full-tilt-boogie across the open field in reverse (the driveway was full of fire trucks) and the driver didn’t notice the guy wires supporting the big 385’ antenna. He hit one and the back of the ambulance rode up the wire until the wheels were off the ground. Several guys had to push it off. Wow, that tower shook!”

Skye was also a jock on KSLQ working for program director Gary Bridges in 1974. “It was funny getting calls from girls who had listened to me at KADI and KSHE wondering what I was doing at Top 40 KSLQ! Mike ‘The Red Baron’ Jeffries was a jock at the Q back then. He was probably the most energetic announcer I’ve ever worked with. His upbeat style was truly infectious.” The job was short-lived, with Peter Skye heading west to try his hand at a different side of the business. He can now be found in Hollywood, where, among other jobs, he worked for 14 years helping Casey Kasem produce “American Top 40.”

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 5/02)

E.B. was #1 with St. Louis teenagers even before rock and roll hit the local airwaves.
He began his ten-year-plus stint on local radio in 1951. It was a time when network radio programming was breathing its last gasps and disc jockeys had taken the place of the cancelled programs. Popular music of the day was performed by the likes of Eddie Fisher, Patti Page, Frankie Laine, Jo Stafford, Rosemary Clooney, Mario Lanza, and Les Paul and Mary Ford.

And all the kids knew E.B., Ed Bonner. They heard him on KXOK from 1951 to 1958 and WIL from 1958 to 1962, but his work involved a lot more than his airshifts. It seemed as though he spent every spare minute with his listeners, doing up to four personal appearances per week.

After graduating high school in California, Bonner became a fireman. His first radio job came in Idaho Falls, ID, but wanderlust soon took hold and he went to a baseball tryout, ending up as a shortstop on a Chicago Cubs’ farm team. Pro baseball didn’t pan out, but another radio gig cemented his future. Bonner became a disc jockey in Lynchburg, VA. The broadcast career was interrupted again by a 27 month Navy obligation, after which he found himself in St. Louis. He was 28.

His daily shows were broadcast from the KXOK studios in the Star-Times Building downtown at 12th and Delmar, and there was always an open invitation to teen listeners to come down and watch him work. His first show on the station was “St. Louis Ballroom.” Later he was heard from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 to noon on Saturday. One of his fans, Wayne Brasler, is now a professor at the University of Chicago. “In the early ‘50s,” Brasler remembers, “Ed got a teenaged sidekick on his Saturday morning shows, Maureen Arthur of University City, who went on to being part of Ernie Kovac’s cast and then on to TV and film acting in Hollywood.”
The early 1950s were also a time of unrest in the nation. Men were being drafted and sent off to war in Korea, rumors of communists among us led to nationally broadcast witch-hunt hearings in Washington, and the nation’s Negroes were beginning a movement toward equality and against discrimination.

In Prom Magazine, reporter Mary Lou Matthews quoted an unnamed civic official who said “Ed Bonner has probably done more to make St. Louis Teenagers prejudice-free, responsible citizens than any other person in show business.” His personal appearance roster included the Catholic Youth Organization, Cancer Fund, National Conference of Christians and Jews, Red Cross and the campaign for the Y.M.H.A. He was remembered as a sharp dresser with a great voice whose appearance at a public event would guarantee the event’s success.

E.B.’s influence was felt by the record industry too. Al Chotin was a record distributor who was quoted by Post-Dispatch gossip columnist Jerry Berger remembering Bonner. Chotin said Bonner, whose nickname was “Monkey,” was the top disc jockey in St. Louis, and when it came to promoting records, “If you didn’t offer Ed the artist first, forget it. He wanted total exclusivity.” At Christmas, Bonner was always showered with gifts from local record stores, but it wasn’t payola. It was their way of recognizing his contribution to their business.

Bonner held down a slot on KXOK until 1958, when he moved his allegiance to WIL, which had studios in the “lower level” of the Coronado Hotel on Lindell across from the St. Louis University campus. Neither E.B. nor KXOK management would comment on the change in employment. He was given the noon to 4 p.m. shift. His short-lived replacement on KXOK was Buddy MacGregor. It seems E.B.’s listeners moved up the dial to 1430 with him. The 1959 Hooper radio survey showed him topping every other disc jockey in town, including WIL’s Dick Clayton and Jack Carney.

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 3/03)

A look back through the pages of old newspapers yields some interesting radio “history,” some of which isn’t all that old but still seems worlds away from the present.

The radio listings for St. Louis in 1959 show the programs of two FM stations and 13 AM stations, and there were some call letters which will escape the memory of many people today. KADY is listed at 1460 kHz, and WAMV is at 1490. The names of a few announcers will bring back memories, though. Dick Clayton, Ed Bonner, Jack Carney, Bob Osborne and Reed Farrell were all disc jockeys on WIL, Gil Newsome was the morning man at KWK, followed by Gene Davis and King Richard; KXOK had Jack Elliott, “Gentleman Jim” Bradley, Ken Reed, Buddy MacGregor, Peter Martin and “Art Rice At Night;” KSD featured Bill Crable in the morning, John Roedel news, Ed Wilson and Russ David’s “Playhouse Party,” with Bob Hille providing news in the evenings; and the KMOX lineup consisted of Grant Williams (later known as Grant Horton), Rex Davis news, Bruce Hayward and Jack Buck.

The FM stations listed in 1959 were KSLH and KCFM. By 1964, the radio program listings included KMOX-FM, WIL-FM, KSTL-FM, KFUO-FM, KADI-FM, WAMV-FM, KCFM and KSHE, Other 1964 call letters which may be unfamiliar to today’s listeners are WBBY (590 kHz), KXLW (1320) and WAMV (1490).

Radio soap operas were still popular in the late 1950s. KMOX had an afternoon lineup that included “The Romance of Helen Trent,” “Whispering Streets,” “Ma Perkins,” and “Young Doctor Malone.” WEW’s listeners could hear a morning exercise class at 9 a.m., followed by religious shows, the “Voice of China” at 9:45 and “The Breakfast Club” at 10:05.

As the decade of the 1960s opened, local radio seemed to shift into a different gear, placing heavier emphasis on disc jockeys and less emphasis on pre-produced or network material. Afternoon drive time was highly competitive with the likes of KSD’s Ed Wilson, Bruce Hayward on KMOX, Buddy MacGregor on KXOK, WIL’s Jack Carney, King Richard on KWK and Spider Burks on KSTL. And while music dominated radio programming, announcers during the midday segments made sure to address the listeners on a one-to-one basis, often addressing “mom,” especially during live reads of advertisements.

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 9/97)

by Kerry Manderbach

“This is Doctor Jockenstein…operating on your mind. Here on W-W-W-W-ESL, East St. Louis!” Who is Dr. Jockenstein? And how did he get his degree in DJ-ology? For the answers read on…

ockenstein was born Roderick G. King, and was brought up with his siblings in East St. Louis, IL. His mother had a stereo and would buy 45’s which Rod loved to listen to. Growing up, Rod attended Rock Junior High School where one of his teachers was Mrs. Brooks, mother of KATZ personality Donny Brooks.

Attending East St. Louis High School, Rod got his first taste of the radio business in the late Sixties while doing an internship at KATZ-AM in St. Louis. Listening to Donny Brooks on KATZ, Rod approached him and offered to be his “gopher,” telling him that “Your mom was my teacher.” He started lugging the equipment Brooks used at his personal appearances and soon was helping Brooks out at the radio station. As Rod described it, “…Actually I did an internship (back in those days they called it a ‘gopher’) at KATZ in 1968, then the word ‘gopher’ became internship. So I would hang around the radio station and go for coffee—anything they wanted me to do.”

After graduating from high school, he attended Southern Illinois University at Carbondale on a law enforcement scholarship through the East St. Louis community relations department. However, he had been bitten by the DJ bug and began spinning records for campus sororities and frat house parties. After 2 years at SIU-C, he decided his classes were “obsolete” and left school to plot his entry into the broadcasting business.

Back at home, Rod began throwing parties in his basement, calling them “Bluelight Basement Parties,” while spinning records in his new persona as “Touché The DJ—The Jock That Never Stops.” The parties were always popular, drawing large crowds. It was about this time that “Super Soul 1490” WESL-AM radio program director “Gentleman” Jim Gates noticed a drop-off in attendance of the parties he was throwing. “I remember I used to give parties and it was almost empty,” says Gates. “I found out Jock was giving a party at the same time and it would be packed out, I mean jammed. He knew everybody. He could entertain. So I figured if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. So I hired him.”

Joining established WESL DJs like Charles Edward Smith and Curtis Soul, King as ‘Touché’ started perfecting his on-air persona over the next year. “He had no formal training,” says Bernie Hayes, a legendary St. Louis radio figure and close friend who worked with King on occasion. “He learned the business from Jim Gates and Donny Brooks. I met him when Gates and Brooks came over to KWK, and Rod was lugging records around for them.” At WESL he tried to reach the audience with his unique style of banter, and playing the hits of the day by artists like The O’Jays, Earth Wind & Fire, The Dramatics, and The Stylistics.

While playing this traditional “soul” radio station fare along with early disco hits by Donna Summer, Tavares and KC and the Sunshine Band, King was also spinning more and more of an R&B style known as “funk”, which was slowly but surely replacing “soul music”. Younger listeners were gravitating to a grittier sound than their older brothers and sisters, preferring the likes of the Ohio Players, the Fatback Band, and Kool & The Gang.

Correspondingly, King put an emphasis on this style of music, and later remembered “Gates used to say ‘what IS that you’re playing?’” Many of the funk cuts King was spinning were produced by a group known as Parliament-Funkadelic.

Riding herd over this conglomeration of musicians was future Rock and Roll Hall of Famer George Clinton. Clinton, also known as “Dr. Funkenstein”, brought Parliament to St. Louis on their “Mothership Connection” tour in 1976. Gene Robinson, a local performer known as the King of the Hollywood Blues, was acquainted with both Clinton and King and arranged a meeting between them. King ended up emceeing the St. Louis Parliament show, and the party afterwards. King later recalled, “I was working the gig and just like the album cover, I was dressed up like a doctor, trying to be the George Clinton Jr. All 20 of those guys came by and we just partied. At the end of the gig George said ‘Wait a minute, if I’m Dr. Funkenstein, you’ve got to be Dr. Jockenstein, the Mad Doctor of music behind the turntable.’” “He’s just like one of the band members,” Clinton said in a later interview. “He was totally into the group when we first started coming out that way, with ‘Chocolate City’ and ‘Up for the Down Stroke’. He was a big fan when he first started coming onto the radio. I remember him selling flashlights at the ‘Flashlight’ tour.”

With his new identity in place, Dr. Jockenstein started to pick up a wider fan base. He developed a new tagline: “This is Dr. Jockenstein…operating on your mind”. Soon, he took hold of an idea from the past…High School Roll Call. Bernie Hayes and DJ Jake Jordan had their own versions of shows called ‘Roll Call’. “I started ‘Roll Call’ at KATZ in 1966” says Hayes. “I would have the kids call in. Jake Jordan came in to KWK in 1969-1970; he also had a thing called ‘Roll Call’. When Jock became a disc jockey he then started what was called ‘Roll Call’ and it caught on pretty good.” “Jim Gates….put me on morning drive”. King said. “Going to work one day I was trying to think of something that would get the kids up to go to school…Then I got to saying, ‘Okay, it’s Roll Call time. Call in and say your name, your zodiac sign, and what school you attend.” Jock led his callers through the drill asking the questions in rhyme, and then let them loose with their own home-made raps. Thus, Dr. Jockenstein and his teenage callers were perhaps among the first ‘rappers’ on commercial radio.

The callers had to have something to rhyme to, so playing in the background of ‘Roll Call’ was what teenagers of the time called ‘skating music’. This was essentially an instrumental version of a contemporary hit, usually on the flip side of the record. These were radio station promotional copies, distributed by the record companies for DJs to play while doing a local ad. With no lyrics, the DJs could talk about the product they were selling and listeners may associate the product with one of their favorite songs. DJs also used these records in the part-time jobs they usually held, many times spinning records at the local skating rink. Jockenstein used the instrumental versions of hits like Chic’s “Good Times” for the ‘Roll Call’ show. ‘Good Times’ was also used as the backing track on the first commercial rap record, “Rapper’s Delight”. He also used other contemporary hits like Change’s “Lover’s Holiday”. “The ratings were great!” King recalled. “I had letters from Southwestern Bell to change the time I was doing the ‘Roll Call’ show, because I was tying up the switchboard, believe it or not.”
A typical ‘Roll Call’ segment would start off:

Here we go on the ra-di-o, I’m the DJ jock in ster-e-o. We’re gonna have a good time, On the Roll Call line’ (Freeman). On the go—on the radio! WESL!

Then Jockenstein would ask his callers:
Hey, what’s your name? What’s your sign? Give me that Number 1 school? Your favorite teacher with the Golden Rule? Your favorite station in the nation?

Or a variation:

Enie-meenie-minie-mo, let’s jam on the radio! Are you ready—like Freddy—to rock real steady? Said what’s your name? What’s your sign? Greatest school in the nation? Your favorite teacher with the education? Rock with it—what’s the greatest station in the nation?

By this time, King’s original 1 hour show had turned into an entire 4 hour program. He stayed at WESL until 1979, and then got an offer to be the program director of competing KATZ-AM / WZEN-FM. “They wanted Gates,” said King. “Gates asked at the time for some astronomical figure. And they said ‘Well, we’ll just take Jock’ and they brought me over and made me Program Director.” King became a Renaissance man during that period. “I think I wore every hat…Program Director, Music Director, Assistant General Manager, garbage man…(laughs)…Operations Manager, I did it all.” He also got a chance to work with Jim Gates again when the two of them did a morning program in 1992 on KATZ-FM, which had succeeded WZEN. “We had so many listeners I got scared” Gates recalled. A few years later, he was also heard on KNJZ (Z-100) with a blues-oriented program.

But FCC de-regulation was soon to cut a swath thru the radio industry, the St. Louis market included. “As I reflect on it now,” King lamented, “that was the end of community radio as far as the urban area or the Black neighborhoods were concerned, because…it was all corporate business.” After changing hands several times, the stations were bought by Clear Channel Communications and King was removed from his managerial duties and put on the air at KMJM-FM (Majic 104.9) part-time. “They kept him as a disc jockey, but not in an administrative capacity.” recalls Bernie Hayes “He got his training on the job for his administrative duties. And his disc jockey duties, as you know, where from the street.” Says King, “I went from full time different management positions to part time radio.” As voice-tracking became popular in radio King saw the changes and challenges ahead. “The way I look at it now, I grew up on personality radio, that’s how I was trained. And through the days of KATZ and WESL we still had that going where you felt [you were] a part of your audience because you were in the community.” “We’re in a situation now,” he continued, “where through the computer we can do our show a day ahead of time and be at home listening to it. To me it’s a scary situation. There’s no community effort being put out by the radio station, through the radio station, there’s no connection with your audience.”

Rod King had been spinning records for his “Jammin’ Oldies” show on Saturdays at Majic for about two years when, in early 2002, something went wrong. “Jock became ill, we were aware, when Deneen Busby and others at Majic said he was having all kinds of headaches,” Bernie Hayes recalls. “And a few times he got lost going to and from the job. And those are some serious indicators.” King was checked into DePaul Health Center in Bridgeton, MO where he lapsed into a coma. Thousands of fans contacted KMJM to inquire about his health, and several fundraisers were held to help out with medical expenses. In April of 2002, King’s old friend George Clinton gave a benefit concert at Pop’s nightclub, featuring blown up pictures of Jockenstein and a ‘Roll Call’ performance. The benefit was sponsored by WFUN-FM (Q-95.5), a competitor to Clear Channel’s 103.3 The Beat. “It’s not about the war [with The Beat] with this” says Q-95’s Craig Blac. “We know he’s an icon.” Other benefits were sponsored by Majic 104.9 at The Ambassador featuring local DJs along with Millie Jackson and Kenny Lattimore. “Jock is a legend in St. Louis, and he means a lot to me” says King’s Majic co-worker Deneen Busby. “He’s the one who put me on radio.” A benefit was also held at The Pageant featuring Ali, Doug E. Fresh, and Slick Rick.

Over the years, Rod King met Bobby Bland, BB King, Tyrone Davis, Al Green, Aretha Franklin, Smokey Robinson and The Temptations. He also toured for two months with Marvin Gaye, and went on tour with Parliament-Funkadelic, emceeing for them at Madison Square Garden. King received several awards, including 1997 DJ of the Year by Black Radio Exclusive Magazine, R&B Radio Personality of 1995, The Black Achievement Award from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, AM Personality of the Year two times, and one of the 100 Golden Voices twice by Gallery Magazine.

It was just like those stories you hear the old timers tell: He was a 15-year-old kid who was so fascinated with the radio business that he just hung around the station until somebody decided to hire him. His name: Dick Castanie.

When Dick was 15 in the late 1950s, he started spending all his free time at the KCFM studios in the old Boatmen’s Bank Building downtown. The station had no openings for announcers, but chief engineer Ed Goodberlet recommended that Dick be hired on a part-time basis to do some engineering work like meter reading. “I got paid $19 a week for about 35 hours,” he says. The station’s format consisted of instrumental music tapes. The “studio” from which the broadcasts originated was a room at the top of the building next to the elevator shaft, which made it impossible to talk on the radio when the elevator motors started up.

Castanie says that was no problem. Back then the KCFM broadcasts were based on music, not personality. When listeners heard a voice, it was seldom, if ever, live. The drop-ins were recorded at KCFM’s other building at 532 De Baliviere (where station owner Harry Eidelman owned and operated a hi-fi shop) and brought downtown to be broadcast. All the music was on huge reels of recording tape which were played on the big machines in that small room at the top of Boatmen’s Bank. Castanie says there was an emergency microphone there to be used in case of emergency.

Eidelman had bought the KCFM frequency from KXOK for $1.00 after KXOK-FM had shut down. In an effort to keep breathing life into KXOK-FM, the station’s owner, the St. Louis Star-Times had tried something called “transit radio.” The city’s streetcar and bus system had been outfitted with FM receivers tuned to the station’s frequency. But lawsuits shut down transit radio in other cities, and in 1954, Harry Eidelman became the proud owner of the frequency. KMOX gave Eidelman a used Western Electric control board from its old Mart Building studios. “I remember Harry bought all the radio receivers used in the streetcars,” says Castanie. “We converted them for use in automobiles and sold them over the air for $19.95 apiece.”

A couple years later, Castanie got a chance to jump stations when a friend let him sit in and watch a show. While Dick Kent was on the air on KWK, the 17-year-old Castanie sat in an adjacent room next to the turntable operator behind the glass. These operators were leftovers from the days when radio stations had employed live musicians. Their union, the American Federation of Musicians, negotiated a deal with station that would allow members to continue employment as “platter spinners.” Castanie was hired at KWK in 1959 as vacation relief for the turntable people, but he had to join the musicians’ union. His dad loaned him the dues, and Dick was soon elevated to a full-time slot. The KWK studios were in the old Star-Times Building, occupying the space recently vacated by KXOK, which had moved to its Radio Park studios on North Kingshighway.

“I worked with Buddy Moreno and King Richard, and for a short time with Gil Newsome before he went to KSD. Gene Davis was the program director and I worked with him when he was the midday announcer in 1961,” says Castanie.

That union situation hit an interesting juncture while he was working at KWK. Radio stations were limiting their playlists, so they dubbed most of the popular songs onto tape cartridges. This meant the turntable operators were no longer playing records, and they weren’t supposed to handle the tapes. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers argued their members should be playing the carts since they were the audio engineers, and the announcers’ union, AFTRA, argued their members should be playing the carts since the little plastic contraptions were part of program content. The entire argument centered on who would push the button to start the tape cartridge.

Castanie has other vivid memories of his work at KWK: “I was there during the ‘treasure hunt’ fiasco, and we had to go to work through the back of the building because the crowd up front were very upset about being scammed.” KWK was later found guilty of hiding the “treasure” in Tower Grove Park the day before it was found by a listener, even though clues to its whereabouts had been broadcast for several days. The Federal Communications Commission eventually found the station guilty of conducting a fraudulent contest and revoked KWK’s license to broadcast, shutting down the operation.

When Ed Ceries signed on with a new FM station in St. Louis in 1961, Castanie went to work for him. The station, known as KSHE, featured female announcers playing classical music and was located in the basement of Ceries’ home in Crestwood. Castanie says his work with the new station didn’t last long: “I was let go because they couldn’t afford to pay me.”

Dick Castanie is still employed as an engineer in television, and the many years have given him a different perspective, especially when it comes to why he was hired at his KCFM job. “Years later my uncle, who managed the building, said that Harry [Eidelman] hired me hoping that if he couldn’t pay the rent there my uncle wouldn’t evict him.”

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 11/01)

FM radio in St. Louis got off to a false start, just as it did in much of the country. When World War II ended, the federal government opened up the FM spectrum and many AM station owners applied for frequencies to simulcast their AM programming.

In St. Louis during the 1940s, KWK-FM, KFUO-FM, KXLW-FM, WIL-FM, KSLH-FM, KSD-FM, KXOK-FM and WEW-FM all went on the air. WTMV-FM was also broadcasting in the market from East St. Louis. It was a time for experimenting. Two of the stations – KFUO-FM and KSLH-FM – were non-commercial. The others ran into problems as the decade wound down.

WEW-FM pulled its plug as 1950 arrived, with a spokesman saying the new medium had not been accepted by the public. KSD-FM ceased operation in November of 1949 because of what was called a “business decision.” WIL-FM shut down the same month for what owner Lester Benson called “obvious reasons.” KWK-FM owner Robert T. Convey said, “Public acceptance of the medium has not been widespread” when he shut down in April of 1950. In short, there wasn’t any money in FM broadcasting in the 1940s and early 1950s.

Initially it appeared KXOK-FM could survive because of the streetcars. In St. Louis, the radio station owned by the St. Louis Star-Times was heard by people who rode on the streetcar lines as part of an experiment that was being carried out around the country. But even the so-called “transit radio” concept wasn’t enough to save the radio station, and it ceased operations in 1953.

It wasn’t until the 1960s that FM radio in St. Louis began its rise to market dominance, and the road was a slow one, even for the more successful stations.

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 7/98)