Drake ruined radio. We're better off without him. 71? He was just a kid when he ruined radio.

Superfluous commas in Fark headlines make baby Jesus cry.

Drake hired "boss jocks" with a distinctive style, who ruled the Los Angeles radio ratings. The DJs included "the Real" Don Steele, Robert W. Morgan, Charlie Van Dyke and others.

I remember Charlie Tuna and Humble Harve on that station before they moved to FM. Come to think of it, FM killed KHJ.

radioman_: Drake ruined radio. We're better off without him.

He sure did and we sure are! Two hour separation on a forty song playlist sucks azz!

He's so good and so famous I'm saying "who?"

Ah, sweet, sweet memories of the Big 8 CKLW.

/miss me some 20/20 news with Byron MacGregor

http://www.myspace.com/williamddrake

the only bill drake that matters.

How did his equation work in radio?

Insolent: How did his equation work in radio?

I found this on the NYRMB, credit goes to Jack Kratoville, a jock at WLTW/NY. He explains it more succinctly than I ever could.

The music system used at KHJ and the other stations consulted by Drake showcased the Boss 30 hit-list of current new songs. 30 hits -- not the 40 introduced by Storz. Although play-lists got shorter the term Top 40 stuck as the generic name. There were 40 slots in the early Wurlitzer jukeboxes.

Of the 16 currents and oldies squeezed into every hour, 10 were Boss 30 currents and six were oldies. The jocks had three-hour air-shifts and the menu of 30 songs to choose from. They picked titles from the hit-list at random -- crossing them off as they were aired. When a jock finished his three-hour shift, all of the Boss 30 songs were crossed off -- since even in LA, where few truths are eternal -- 10 x 3 = 30. The six oldies varied the mix and were interspersed among the currents at specific times to balance tempos and styles. A chimpanzee couldn't screw it up. The next jock started the next cycle with a clean list of 30 and the next random selection.

(Veteran programmers are right in saying that the Drake idea of providing a short menu to pick from sounded better than today's computer generated music. Then the jock ran the music. Now the computer runs the jock.)

The lowest ranked Boss 30 songs were newly added Hitbounds. KHJ Hitbounds got the same exposure as the other currents. Some (e.g., WABC, New York) believed that pushing #28, #29 and #30 as often as #1 was a weakness -- that new material should be introduced at a slower rotation to prove itself through telephone requests and at least a full week's retail sales' data before entering the three-hour orbit.

Probably not so for that station -- in that market -- at that time. Consequently untested Hitbounds, at the bottom of the Boss 30, would come up every three-hours like the rest of the songs -- building KHJ's cool reputation for promoting the careers of itinerant groups, The English Invasion, club singers and West Coast garage bands. KHJ exposure in America's pop music capitol highballed dozens of previously unknown new artists to international super-stardom.

None of the innovations that Drake and associates like Jacobs and Drew dreamed up would have occurred without his partner Gene Chenault, a Fresno businessman. He had hired Drake as program director for his own station there. Drake quickly turned it around. He then partnered with Drake to consult a San Diego station owned by an important local General Tire dealer. RKO Radio, a division of the General Tire Corporation, closely watched the overnight smash that ensued in San Diego. RKO Radio owned a foundering Big Band outlet in LA -- KHJ. Chenault sold RKO on changing format. And he convinced it that reducing the spot load by a third, while raising the rates in step with ratings growth, was essential to win big in LA. KHJ's spectacular achievement there preceded successes in San Francisco (KFRC), Detroit (CKLW) and Boston (WRKO) that soon followed.

The music system used at KHJ and the other stations consulted by Drake showcased the Boss 30 hit-list of current new songs. 30 hits -- not the 40 introduced by Storz. Although play-lists got shorter the term Top 40 stuck as the generic name. There were 40 slots in the early Wurlitzer jukeboxes.

Of the 16 currents and oldies squeezed into every hour, 10 were Boss 30 currents and six were oldies. The jocks had three-hour air-shifts and the menu of 30 songs to choose from. They picked titles from the hit-list at random -- crossing them off as they were aired. When a jock finished his three-hour shift, all of the Boss 30 songs were crossed off -- since even in LA, where few truths are eternal -- 10 x 3 = 30. The six oldies varied the mix and were interspersed among the currents at specific times to balance tempos and styles. A chimpanzee couldn't screw it up. The next jock started the next cycle with a clean list of 30 and the next random selection.

(Veteran programmers are right in saying that the Drake idea of providing a short menu to pick from sounded better than today's computer generated music. Then the jock ran the music. Now the computer runs the jock.)

The lowest ranked Boss 30 songs were newly added Hitbounds. KHJ Hitbounds got the same exposure as the other currents. Some (e.g., WABC, New York) believed that pushing #28, #29 and #30 as often as #1 was a weakness -- that new material should be introduced at a slower rotation to prove itself through telephone requests and at least a full week's retail sales' data before entering the three-hour orbit.

Probably not so for that station -- in that market -- at that time. Consequently untested Hitbounds, at the bottom of the Boss 30, would come up every three-hours like the rest of the songs -- building KHJ's cool reputation for promoting the careers of itinerant groups, The English Invasion, club singers and West Coast garage bands. KHJ exposure in America's pop music capitol highballed dozens of previously unknown new artists to international super-stardom.

None of the innovations that Drake and associates like Jacobs and Drew dreamed up would have occurred without his partner Gene Chenault, a Fresno businessman. He had hired Drake as program director for his own station there. Drake quickly turned it around. He then partnered with Drake to consult a San Diego station owned by an important local General Tire dealer. RKO Radio, a division of the General Tire Corporation, closely watched the overnight smash that ensued in San Diego. RKO Radio owned a foundering Big Band outlet in LA -- KHJ. Chenault sold RKO on changing format. And he convinced it that reducing the spot load by a third, while raising the rates in step with ratings growth, was essential to win big in LA. KHJ's spectacular achievement there preceded successes in San Francisco (KFRC), Detroit (CKLW) and Boston (WRKO) that soon followed.

93 KHJ was the Boss of LA Radio from 1965 until the mid 70's. FM radio did kill KHJ as much as anything. KIIS FM Los Angeles and and Z100 New York still use variations on his ideas today and still have relatively big ratings in today's fractured media sphere.

In the ever expanding metro LA area, 5000 watt KHJ just couldn't cover the entire Southland geographic area like the FM stations with their powerful transmitters high atop Mt Wilson. Once manufacturers built FM radios that didn't drift off frequency and lose the station, most AM stations just couldn't compete with the clear static free stereo sound of FM, except for the big 50,000 watt clear channel blow torches. Even that couldn't stop the decline of the likes of top 40 music stations like WABC, WLS or CKLW. By 1980 FM had captured half of the radio audience. AM went into decline except for the big power News Talkers like KFI/LA, WGN/Chicago and WABC/NY. The smaller powered AM stations eventually picked up on cheap syndicated programming (Limbaugh/Hannity etc) and appealing to an aging demogrpahic who grew up on the medium and were use to its limitations (audio quality) and strengths (long distance reception).

tina delgado is alive,,,alive

i hate the drake