Radio Articles

Radio station KFVE was in existence in St. Louis less than three years before its identity was changed, but it was a turbulent three years.

Originally licensed to the Film Corporation of America at 6800 Delmar in University City, KFVE went on the air in the summer of 1925. Its transmitter was housed in the Egyptian Building. In October of that year, noted composer Irving Berlin sued the station for copyright infringement, alleging that KFVE had broadcast his music without permission.

News of the station and its history is difficult to find. Many of the newspapers in the 1920s had financial interest in local stations and tended to give publicity only to “their” station. We do know that technical wonder boy Lester Arthur “Eddie” Benson built KFVE’s transmitter, one of three he constructed for stations signing on in St. Louis. Benson soon purchased the station from F.C.A.
In November of 1926 it was recorded that Santa Claus appeared on the station, speaking to boys and girls on behalf of Nugent’s Department Store.

The year 1927 brought on insurmountable problems for the station. Studios were moved from 1111 Olive, the offices of the Baldwin Piano Company, to the Missouri Hotel at 11th and Locust. Two weeks after the move, Benson cut back on broadcast hours. Although he initially said the cut was for the benefit of those people “living in the immediate vicinity of the antenna in University City,” the real reason later was reported as giving him time to decide on the future of the station. On March 3 the station suddenly went off the air, and newspaper reports indicated KFVE “would not be on the air until further notice.” Within two weeks, KFVE was purchased by Thomas Patrick Convey, the man credited with putting KMOX on the air in 1925.

Convey immediately announced another move. The studios and transmitter were relocated to the Chase Hotel, with the aerial strung on the building’s roof near the “Solarian.” The studios occupied a large portion of the north side of the ninth floor. Shortly after the purchase, Convey was told by the Federal Radio Commission that he would have to reduce the station’s power from 5,000 watts to 1,000 watts.

But while Convey got the station’s name and frequency, he apparently was outsmarted by Benson. It seems Benson also owned radio station WIL, and by June of 1927, WIL had hired everyone on KFVE’s old staff. In fact, WIL’s studios occupied the arcade level of the Missouri Hotel.

On November 25, 1927, Convey changed his station’s call letters to KWK. He was quoted in the local papers: “We received many letters wrongly addressed, indicating the fact that our call letters were not easily understood.”

(Reprinted with permission of the St.Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 10/2001)

This station, which had a short, checkered history, was first licensed at 1400 Kc., 250 watts in April (or May 3), 1925 (conflicting reports). KFWF was owned by St. Louis Truth Center, Inc., at 4030 Lindell.

The frequency in 1927 was 1400 Kc.

On May 28, 1928, the station was told by the Federal Radio Commission that it would lose its license under the new radio reorganization plan. Then on November 11 of that year, the FRC announced another reorganization that moved KFWF to 1200 Kc at 100 watts, shared with WMAY and WIL.

WMAY was ordered off the air after its license renewal was rejected April 10, 1931.

On July 16, 1931, the FRC recommended that the license of KFWF be denied. Examiner Elmer Pratt testified the station was being used “primarily for dissemination of the views of certain religious teachers.” He said the broadcasts of Reverends C.H. and Emil Hartman resulted in the “devotion of public facilities to private use and, in view of the limited facilities available for broadcasting purposes, is contrary to a sound application of the standard of public interest , convenience and necessity.” The two ministers were not available to respond to his comments.

The FRC recessed without taking action on the recommendations. The station continued to operate in a frequency sharing situation with WIL. In January of 1932, they petitioned the FRC for permission to move the studios and transmitter into downtown St. Louis from the Lindell location. Authorization was granted with a time limit of April 30, 1932. (There is no indication that the move ever took place.) The commission also ordered a continuation of the frequency sharing, which gave WIL the majority of broadcast time. KFWF was on about 11 hours a week.

The appellate efforts of KFWF continued. On April 17, 1932, they petitioned for equal sharing of the frequency, while WIL sought banishment of KFWF from the frequency. WIL submitted evidence that KFWF used the station to solicit contributions under the guise of religion. WIL’s lawyer cited the 1928 notes of the FRC which stated that the KFWF operation “smacked of fraud.”

At the end of the 1932 hearings, Examiner Pratt recommended that KFWF be removed from the airwaves, giving WIL sole use of the frequency, stating “The programs and services of KFWF are of such a nature as to indicate that this station is used principally as the mouthpiece of Emil C. Hartmann in the dissemination of his personal religious views, and this, in view of the other facts and circumstances in this case leads to the conclusion that this station is devoted primarily to a private, as distinguished from a public, service.”

On April 14, 1933, the FRC officially ordered KFWF to leave the air. Elmer Pratt of the FRC wrote that although the Truth Center purported to be a religious group, there were only three members of the Center, and they were siblings. Reverend Hartmann was unable to give any accounting of what happened to the monetary donations gleaned from listeners, but it was noted that large sums were collected. In the station’s early years, at least $45,000 came to it, which was used to pay for the property at 4030 Lindell. That property would go to family members upon dissolution of the Center.

The Hartmanns appealed the order to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, but the injunction they sought was denied. The station was ordered off the air for the final time in May of 1933.

The two stations were called the Kaydee Twins, and they were heard in the St. Louis area until 1965 when financial problems and a strong labor union shut them down.

Station KADY went on the air April 3, 1958, licensed to St. Charles at 1460 Kc. The corporation’s president and general manager, Harlan Moseley, Jr., who was a former advertising executive with Young & Rubicam, announced in a press release that the station had received permission from the F.C.C. to start program tests on that date, and it was decided to air programming from 5:30 a.m. until sundown. The transmitter and studios were about three miles north of St. Charles on Highway 94 at Route B in Boschertown.

Within a couple months of sign-on, KADY’s ownership changed hands and the corporation’s treasurer, William Cady, took control by purchasing Moseley’s shares. He started planning the expansion of the company to include an FM operation, and KADI-FM signed on December 11, 1959, at 96.5 Mhz. Cady was also a former ad man, and he hit the streets in October with an advertising rate card for both stations two months before the FM station was even on the air. His creativity shown in the card’s editorial content:

“With the many conflicting claims made today by competing radio stations, one thing stands out – it’s not the numbers in an audience, but rather the purchasing power those numbers represent, that counts.

“More than 50 percent of the mail received at KADY-KADI carries postmarks from St. Louis County postal zones or municipalities, where the average income is over $7,000; where almost 20 percent of the families own two or more cars, where almost 72 percent own one car; where almost 75 percent have had some high school education or more; and where the population has increased by 40.5 percent since 1950.”

KADI-FM had its transmitter in the city of St. Louis’ entertainment district at Grand and Olive atop the Continental Building. Unlike its AM counterpart, KADI was not required to sign off at sundown, and its program day ran from 5:30 a.m. to midnight.

The AM signal was simulcast during the hours it was on the air. At 5:30 a.m., listeners of both stations heard the news and duck report. Another duck report was aired at 4:15 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Most of the rest of the FM programming consisted of the sort of musical shows normally associated with early FM radio: “Stereo Album Time,” “KADI Matinee,” “Melody Lingers On,” Candlelight and Silver,” “Lamplighter’s Serenade,” “Starlight Symphony,” and “For Dreamers Only.” News was broadcast hourly on both stations.

In late 1962, the stations were sold again to another broadcaster, Rodney Erickson, who owned interest in a station in Syracuse, N.Y. He resigned his job as president of a television distribution company to devote all of his time to his radio stations.

Aubrey Williams took the job as manager of the local stations, but it appears, in retrospect, that Williams and Erickson were in over their heads. Employees of both stations sent a telegram to the F.C.C. on February 14, 1964, saying they would shut down the stations unless management paid all past-due and current wages in full. They made good on their threat the next day, and it was several days before management could get back on the air using temporary employees.

Williams told newspaper reporters the stations were two weeks in arrears on wages but negotiations were taking place to bring workers back.

KADI-FM remained off the air though, due to “technical difficulties.” There are conflicting reports in area newspapers and F.C.C. files regarding the life of KADI-FM after the shutdown, but according to F.C.C. files, authorization was granted to the owners to keep the station off the air through January 1966.

But on January 21, 1965, members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers who worked at KADY walked out because they had not been paid in over a month. Owner Rodney Erickson ordered interim manager Homer Griffith to shut down the station so “financial reorganization” could take place.

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 10/03)

It was a relatively short and uneventful life for KGRV. The station came to life from the ashes of KACO, which was destroyed by fire. Operations of KACO were officially suspended by the FCC on January 5, 1970. The station returned to the air March 16 of that year with new call letters.

The 107.7 frequency had not been used to its fullest extent by the old owner, Apollo Broadcasting. They were on the air 36 hours a week, which resulted in a fine of $1,000 levied by the FCC. Music had been straight line middle-of-the-road, but in its KGRV identity, the music was termed “contemporary middle-of-the-road.”

Broadcast hours were 6:00 AM to midnight, and management boasted that 18-20 songs were played each hour. It was “music for groovy adults,” and there was even a female announcer who called herself Kay Groove. Studios were at 1215 Cole and the transmitter was at 532 DeBaliviere.

On November 25, 1970, Apollo finally found a buyer for the property, Kansas City-based Intermedia, which paid $250,000 for the station. On July 3, 1973, Amaturo Group paid $4.677,500 for KGRV and two other Missouri stations. The call letters KGRV were changed to KKSS effective January 1, 1974.

In 1955, downtown St. Louis was teeming with activity, and the Arcade Building was filled with business tenants, including a new one that began operating on January 3 of that year. St. Louis Broadcasting signed on with KATZ on that date, and its studios and offices were on the southwest corner of the second floor. At least one first-hand account notes that the frequency, 1600 kHz, was obtained after it was relinquished by the St. Louis Police Department.

Station manager William Garrett moved to St. Louis from Cape Girardeau, where he had worked in the radio business for the previous 11 years. He reported to Bernice Schwartz, the owner of St. Louis Broadcasting Co. She lived in Chicago.

There was little fanfare in the mainstream press when KATZ went on the air. Daily newspapers printed versions of the official press release: “Aimed at Negro listeners, KATZ will employ Negroes as announcers and as entertainers.” Sales manager Robert Hetherington, who came over from WIL , was quoted as saying the station would specialize in “spirituals, rhythm and the blues.”

By all accounts, Mrs. Schwartz’s operation was a minor success. She sold KATZ two years later for $110,000. The buyer was a national chain, Rollins Broadcasting, based in Wilmington, Delaware. Wayne Rollins’ company specialized in broadcast properties aimed at the Black community. It was at this time that the KATZ Educational Assistance Fund was established. Made up of educators and social workers from the Black community, the fund raised money and allocated grants to grade and high school students. Subsequent owner Laclede Radio, Inc., continued the effort.

That ownership transfer came in 1960. Just three years after it had bought KATZ, Rollins sold the station for $600,000. During its short ownership, Rollins had increased the station’s power from 1,000 watts to 5,000 watts.

Laclede held the station until 1986, and the years were rocky. The Arcade Building fell into severe disrepair, forcing the owners to relocate to the Missouri State Bank Building. Lawsuits were traded with other Black-formatted stations in St. Louis over charges of misleading listeners. The local Black Nationalist Movement set up pickets charging all the stations with “directly exploiting black people.” The group demanded three hours of airtime a week devoted to black nationalism programs free from white censorship.

In 1986, Inter Urban Broadcasting of St. Louis purchased KATZ and its sister FM station, finally bringing them under the ownership umbrella of a local minority-owned company. The stations were purchased by San Diego-based Noble Broadcasting in 1992 and then by Jacor Communications, Inc. in October of 1998. Clear Channel Communications bought out Jacor in 1999.

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 05/99)

It seemed like it happened overnight. Sleepy, somewhat stodgy KMOX-FM suddenly came alive and set the market on its ear.

For years, KMOX-FM had been nothing more than a mellow music format originating in a huge automation system on the seventh floor at One Memorial Drive. The machinery was so voluminous it took up a whole room.
Jocks were told to do whatever they could to sound live, but the tape playback equipment would often malfunction, meaning listeners would hear announcers introducing songs, to be followed by a completely different set of records the announcer hadn’t even mentioned.

Ed Scarborough had been a disc jockey here in St. Louis for Pulitzer’s KSD, but when he moved a few blocks east to the CBS studios at One Memorial Drive, things quickly changed. CBS corporate had designated some of its FM stations for major format changes: WCAU-FM in Philadelphia, WBBM-FM in Chicago, and KMOX-FM. Scarborough’s job was to create the HitRadio format and make it a success in St. Louis.

Ed began the formatic transition in August of 1981. KMOX-FM went from the automated mellow format to a more contemporary, live sound. Scarborough remembers the transition time, “You might have heard John Cougar Mellencamp followed by the Mamas and Papas.”

An average listener may not have noticed all the tweaking that went on with the music playlist, but Scarborough worked long and hard to establish which new songs to play and which would not fit the format. He was quoted in an interview in Radio & Records as saying, “The most important factor is that the record sounds like KHTR or it doesn’t get on the air.”

He even credits station manager Tim Dorsey with giving him complete leeway to do whatever was necessary to succeed. The initial air staff of Kevin McCarthy, Bob Scott, Casey Van Allen, Craig Roberts, Scarborough and weekender Mike Jeffries eased the listeners out of the mellow sound and into the high-energy Hit Radio format, which placed emphasis on current music but was aimed at an adult audience rather than teens. Later Scarborough replaced himself on the air with John Frost, and Young Bobby Day was also added.

“I didn’t want the listener to hear a bunch of screaming kids on the stations,” Scarborough says. “I can’t say enough good things about those jocks.”

The transition was completed by December. All the older hits had been removed from the playlist and the call letters were changed to KHTR. In a move that is virtually unheard of today, local staffers had a say in the new logo design and selection of on-air jingles.

It was a standard joke around the building that the format didn’t sit particularly well with Robert Hyland, whose office was four floors below the KHTR studios. Hyland honestly didn’t understand it, but he had complete faith in Scarborough’s ability to make it work. This allowed Hyland to continue to focus his attention exclusively on KMOX, which at that time was showing an average quarter hour market share in the twenties. Combine that with KHTR’s highest Arbitron share of 10.6, and the two CBS stations in St. Louis had a combined average quarter-hour audience share over 30.

Hyland didn’t have to understand KHTR to appreciate its success.

Listen to KHTR, in 1984

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 02/06)