Radio

You’ve heard it before. The disc jockey gives the very distinct impression that you can call the station with your requests, and they might actually (gasp!) be played.

Most radio listeners are savvy enough to see through this scam today, but request radio actually can be traced back to the earliest days of the industry.

The first federally licensed station in St. Louis, KSD, based one of its earliest broadcasts on a request. In those days, there were few radio receivers. Only a couple dozen stations could be heard in 1921-22, and radio receiving sets were, for the most part, home made devices. But there were some amateur radio operators who took great pride in constructing larger, more-sophisticated electronic receivers. This is what led to the first all-request broadcast of KSD.

As outlined in the master’s paper of Luther Clark Secrest in 1960, the broadcast was staged on March 11, 1922, in a makeshift studio constructed in Room 301-B of the Post-Dispatch Building at 12th and Olive Streets just days after KSD was licensed. St. Louis’ Round Table Club, whose members were businessmen, had scheduled its regular meeting in the St. Louis Club Building at 3663 Lindell, some 25 blocks from the KSD studio, and the night’s entertainment was to center around listening to KSD on a special receiving set.

A representative of the group contacted KSD management, asking for “a program of entertainment” that the club members might enjoy. The ensuing broadcast even made a bit of radio history in St. Louis.

A lot of the standard content of early radio broadcasts was there. St. Louis talent was featured in the live musical presentations, including a piano solo, songs by the Peerless Mixed Quartet and Tremont Male Quartet, and tenor and soprano soloists. There were also a couple of readings and, as Secrest noted, “a portion of the broadcast was devoted to a reading of news scheduled for printing in the following day’s edition of the Post-Dispatch. Radio news in those early days, for the most part, comprised personal comments and views…KSD had an advantage, however, in that it could use the news-gathering facilities of the Post-Dispatch.” It also became the first St. Louis radio station to broadcast news, although WEW had been broadcasting weather and agricultural information.

In those days, the Post-Dispatch was an afternoon paper, and one can imagine that the publication’s management saw the new radio station as a vehicle to steer more readers away from competitive papers and toward theirs. But newspaper managers would also become leery of giving radio listeners too much news, lest the listeners decide they didn’t need to spend money for the paper when the news was free on the radio.

By all accounts, the March 11 broadcast built on the success of the previous ones. In addition to a positive response from the satisfied listeners at the Round Table Club meeting, letters and telegrams came in from as far away as Vandalia, Ill., about 60 air miles away.

Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 10/2007.)

KSD’S NEW STUDIOS, NOW OPERATING WITH HIGH FIDELITY MECHANISM, AMONG MOST ATTRACTIVE IN COUNTRY

DESIGNED TO INSURE REALISM OF RECEPTION ON RADIO SETS IN HOMES – TWO STORIES HIGH, WITH THEIR FLOORS AND CEILINGS SUSPENDED BY SPRINGS.

WALLS SOUND-PROOFED – FINEST OF CONTROL ROOM APPARATUS ENABLES ENGINEERS TO MAINTAIN QUALITY OF TRANSMISSION CONTINUALLY AT PEAK LEVEL.

PROCESS OF BROADCASTING, FROM MICROPHONE TO LISTENER’S EAR, DESCRIBED – HOW STATION IS HELD ON CHANNEL ASSIGNED BY FEDERAL COMMISSION.

REFLECTOR AERIAL ERECTED ON ROOF OF BUILDING NEAR THE POST-DISPATCH TO PREVENT RADIATIONS FROM INTERFERING WITH THISE STATIONS TO THE EAST.

(February 17, 1935, by J.L.S.)

KSD’s new studios, which have been under construction for several months on the Olive street side of the Post-Dispatch building, are now being used for broadcasting.. Architecturally, and in decorative effect, there are no more attractive studios in the country. Not even those in the New York and Chicago headquarters of the national networks are better suited accoustically for quality broadcasting. Their perfection of equipment and mechanism insures KSD transmission of programs with a fidelity to test the reproduction of any radio set likely to be available for some years. They have been designed specifically for use with the 5000 watt transmitter that has been ordered for KSD to be erected and in service some time this spring.

Entrance to the new studios is from the lobby on the ground floor of the Post-Dispatch Building through a hall decorated in ice blue with wall border in tan figures, ceiling in “off white” and furniture in dark blue. A room for artists and entertainers is decorated in the same color scheme.

The two main studios – “A” and “B” – are entered through a “sound lock,” which is a small room with heavily insulated walls and soundproof doors. One may enter it from the artists’ room or a control room, close the door, then open a door into either of the studios and be sure that no noise from outside will enter with one to mar the effect of a program that is being broadcast from the studio.

Studios Two Stories High Studio “A” is two stories high, 12 feet long and 18 feet wide. Its walls are decorated in light coral and “off white” with silver trim. Its floating floor – suspended on springs and independent of the walls – is in brown with large squares outlined in buff. At the far end is a large recess with draperies of accoustical material that may be expanded to dampen strident tones or contracted to brighten tonal effects. Wall and ceiling lights are in the modern classic style, and there are ceiling corner spot lights so the floor may be illuminated to any desired degree of brilliancy. The walls – of accoustical material backed by blanketing of rock wool and an air space – are designed to be impervious to outside noises. The ceiling, which is done in off white, is suspended by springs in the same manner as is the floor, the purpose being to bar vibrations from the street and other parts of the building.

Studio “B” – also two stories high – is 23 feet long and 15 feet wide.. Its walls are decorated in buff yellow with light cobalt blue trim, while the floor is in gray with trim of blue and terra cotta. Wall and ceiling lights are in the modified Regency style. The floor and ceiling are suspended by springs, and the walls, floor and ceiling have the same accoustical treatment as Studio “A.”

Air-Conditioning System On the mezzanine floor are an observation room with windows looking down into both studios and fitted with loud speakers, and offices for the program director and his assistants. The walls of the observation room are in pale, grayish green and the ceiling in cloudy terra cotta. The floor is covered with a heavy rust-colored carpet, and the chairs and settees are in the modern classical style with rust-colored upholstery.

Both of the new studios and the control rooms, offices and reception room connected with them are air conditioned. Thermostatic control in each room and studio makes it possible to maintain the temperature within one or two degrees. All air entering the studios and other rooms is filtered. The system supplies heat as well as ventilation in winter and properly cooled air in the warm months. The studio hitherto used for KSD’s local broadcasting is now known as “C.” It is reserved for auditions, rehearsals and special auditions. The offices connected with it are used by KSD’s sales force.

(No Byline) KSD, one of the oldest stations in the United States, after ten years of serving only as an outlet for the National Broadcasting Company, is making great strides in becoming a local station originating programs of its own.

With William H. West, as General Manager, it has undergone a complete reorganization and it originates from seven to ten features a day in addition to the fine chain programs that come through there. KSD is one of the pioneer stations in both popularity and existence and is reclaiming the position that it formerly owned. It was through KSD that a president of the United States spoke for the first time. When President Harding was here in 1923 he spoke on June 21 from the Coliseum on the subject of the “World Court.”

Operating with a minimum of overhead the station is seeking to build up its entertainment features to the highest degree and that it is succeeding is evidenced by the type of programs that are coming from there and have been for the past several months.

Gay Lee, former Director of the Farm Service Hour of KMOX is heard regularly at 11 a.m. over KSD. The Holman Sisters, a piano duo, Francis Jones, violinist, and Elmer Schwartzbeck are also regularly heard on their programs. The program department is headed by Richard Pavey from WLW as Program Director, and he is supported in program work by Chuck Bolte, Alice Vogel, Hilda Gottschak, Don Hunt and Allen Taylor.

W.F. Ludgate, who has been at the station since its beginning is head of the engineering department and is assisted by Robert Coe and C.R. Yarger. There are four salesmen in the new set-up who are Edward W. Hamlin, M.D. Corbett, Frank H. Niehaus, Jr., and Walter E. Wieler.

The announcers heard are Richard Pavey, Allan Taylor, Robert Coe and Chuck Bolte.

Sponsors of the programs heard over KSD include Pevely Dairy Company, who sponsor the “Stars of Tomorrow” broadcast each Sunday afternoon wherein child talent is discovered and given a chance to appear over the air; Minit-Rub, Standard-Tilton Milling Company; Benjamin Moore Paint Company and the Missouri-Pacific Railroad Lines which bring baseball scores to KSD listeners three times a day.

Mr. West, a former Director of Operations at KMOX, is one of the real veterans of radio at the age of twenty-nine. As long ago as 1922 when radio was in its infancy, he installed and operated a radio station at Springfield. Later he came here with the Colin B. Kennedy Radio Corporation and was influential in installing the 50,000 watt station of KMOX, one of the largest in the world.

(Originally published in Radio & Entertainment 4/29/33)

When KSD, the radio station of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, took to the airwaves in 1922, the newspaper took great pains to make sure everyone knew about this wonderful experiment.

Even though the station had been on the air sporadically for four months, the big push came in anticipation of the “grand opening” broadcast, which was scheduled Monday evening, June 26, 1922. The day before, newspaper readers were treated to a tour of the station, complete with photos of the complicated broadcasting equipment. “On the left, a view of the transmitter with side panels removed, showing power tubes, choke coils and instruments for regulating frequency and oscillations. On right, top of the input speech panel, with monitor horn coming from the ceiling. The speech input panel will amplify feeble electric waves several hundred thousand times without distortion. The monitor enables the operator to hear loudly the exact quality of the modulation before it goes into the transmitter.”

Also shown was a photo of a special brick building that had been erected on the roof of the Post building at 12th Street and Olive. It contained the “transmitting apparatus,” as well as three units of a one-ton generator, which was housed in a soundproof room. Two 80-foot towers had also been constructed atop the building. The antennas were suspended between them.

It was with suitable fanfare that the paper – in an un-bylined full-page article – promoted the new facility and the upcoming broadcast “Monday night, then, is the time set for the grand opening of the new station of KSD. What it will do, in the way of transmission, has been partly disclosed by tests already made. The full beauty and perfection of modern radio will be demonstrated for the first time…”

And the broadcast was staged to promote St. Louis as well as KSD. Following a series of bugle calls played by trumpeter John Klein of the 138th Infantry, the radio editor spoke briefly, saying, “In order that great communities, numbering hundreds of thousands and scattered over great areas, may enjoy the best music, receive important news and listen to entertaining and instructive lectures, it is necessary that someone should provide a costly and efficient broadcasting station. This the Post has done.”

“Many a boy with simple household tools can make an efficient receiving set; to send broadcast voice and music perfectly, however, is another matter. For that reason the Post-Dispatch has had constructed for it the latest and most perfect of radio apparatus, and it gladly placed it at the service of the people of the Middle West. Its only purpose is to serve an immense community in a variety of ways without charge or income of any kind.”

Listeners also heard the “Triumphal March from Aida,” performed by the Hotel Statler Orchestra. The came a speech by the president of the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce, F.W.A. Vesper. He told listeners of St. Louis’ progress in science, the arts and industry. Mayor Henry Kiel spent a good part of his speech plugging the city’s Municipal Opera. And there was more music.

Oddly, the Post’s follow-up of the big event was muted. Following a post-event write-up the following day and a two-page spread July 23 heralding letters from far-away listeners, there was very little “news” written about the station. In fact, a fire at the studios in the newspaper building was not reported in the paper for several days, even though it forced the station to limit its broadcasts. Articles about the station in the two ensuing months were nothing more than promotional pieces about the coming evening’s broadcast.

One explanation might be the policy in the early days of radio to minimize the identities of station announcers. Researchers have been unable to track specifics, but the early announcers were only identified by a series of initials (Tommy Cowan of WJZ in New Jersey was A.C.N., which stood for Announcer Cowan, Newark. Milton Cross, who also worked at WJZ, was A.J.N., using his middle initial since A.C.N. was taken.) One of the most popular announcers at KSD was Virginia Jones, who was allowed to identify herself as “Miss Jones.” There is a story, possibly apocryphal, that she did not identify herself during her first days as an announcer. A listener reportedly wrote asking for some sort of identification: “Please tell me the name of your announcer. If it’s a lady, she has a nice voice. If it’s a man, he’s a damn sissy.”

Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 9/99.)

Early fans of radio marveled at its ability to create a theater of the mind in which listeners were able to “see” the things they were hearing on the radio. The performers and sound effects people prided themselves in their ability to create this vision of unreality. As the medium matured, at least one St. Louis station used the same concept in a promotional brochure.

When KXLW signed on January 2, 1947, general manager Guy Runnion had visions of his little 1,000 watt daytime station becoming a major player in the market. He’d been a newsman on KMOX in the early ‘40s, and now he and his wife Gladys had controlling interest in their own station.

Their 28-page brochure, “Going Forward With Radio, as presented by KXLW,” promoted the image of KXLW as “your Neighborly Golden Circle Station.” It was distributed 10 months after the station’s sign-on. The brochure, representing the best work of public relations director Edgar Mothershead, showed a station filled with men and women in an exciting environment. But if you read between the lines, you see some cracks in the façade.

There’s the story of Director of Programs Blaine Cornwell. He’s shown interviewing visiting musical artists, hosting two daily disc jockey shows and hosting a morning quiz program, lots of responsibility for one man. General manager Runnion appears in photos interviewing a guest on the air, which wasn’t a common function for many station managers in those days. One of the station’s sales people, Pat Kendall, is identified as “one of the few women possessing a degree in architectural engineering,” a somewhat dubious honor for a radio time salesperson.

Spider Burks, St. Louis’ legendary jazz disc jockey, has his name spelled two different ways under two different photos, and does Reid Brooks, the station’s news announcer. One photo of Blaine Cornwell posing with a music group is printed backwards, resulting in the station call letters on the mike flag showing up backwards.

There’s a picture of a man dressed in the full regalia of an Indian chief, standing in front of a microphone with a tom-tom. The cut line reads, “Little Beaver, editor of the ‘Outdoor Magazine of the Air’, presents news and comments of interest to the sportsmen.” One can only imagine how this program must have sounded on the air.
The brochure contains two photos showing the crowded, bustling news rooms of the Associated Press in New York City, which, of course, did nothing more than provide the station with wire copy.

The biggest mystery is the “Golden Circle” referenced throughout the booklet. KXLW is called the “Golden Circle Station” and there are other notes giving the impression that a specific geographical area is the “Golden Circle,” but there is never a definition provided. The brochure’s crimson back cover has a gold circle in the middle around the words, “KXLW Serves the Golden Circle.”

In short, it must have seemed like an excellent promotional idea, but the reality portrayed in “Going Forward with Radio” probably didn’t venture far from the truth. KXLW, at its inception, was doomed to be nothing more than a second-tier St. Louis radio station.

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 10/05).

When the St. Louis Post-Dispatch began operating the city’s first commercial radio station – KSD – in 1922, it joined the nationwide bandwagon of companies and individuals putting radio stations on the air.

Other stations had also been licensed in St. Louis. WEW at St. Louis University had been broadcasting since April 1921, but it was non-commercial. WEB was under the auspices of Benson Broadcasting as an amateur station.

There are printed reports indicating that KSD conducted broadcasts before licensing. The first broadcast, according to at least two sources, occurred on March 9, 1922. At least one source indicates the station actually began broadcasting Feb. 14 of that year but was forced off the air until it got a license (#330). According to the Post report published March 11, 1922, the inaugural broadcast at 7:45 p.m. that day: “will consist of musical numbers by St. Louis talent, late news reports, elocution and brief addresses. Notable among features will be a message from Secretary of Commerce Hoover to radio stations in the Middle West, and an address by Miss Jeanette Rankin of Montana, first woman member of Congress.”

The first “official” broadcast of KSD in reported to have happened on June 26, 1922, featuring entertainment by the orchestra of the Statler Hotel, conducted by Seth Asbergh. Also in June of its inaugural year, KSD broadcast a speech by Warren Harding at the World Court held in St. Louis. The speech was also carried in New York by WEAF.

KSD was moved to its 550 kHz frequency in May of 1923, having begun broadcasting on 833 kHz with 20 watts of power. In 1927 it began a temporary sharing of its frequency with KFUO. KSD became a member of the AT&T Network in December of 1923 and was an original station on the NBC Red Network in 1926.

The station was one of six around the country to carry the first Presidential speech ever broadcast when Calvin Coolidge spoke to a joint session of Congress on Dec. 6. 1923. The audio signal was distributed over AT&T’s long distance phone lines.

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 5/97)