More on KFI, KECA, KEHE, and KABC (go gargle with razor blades)
If you look at my Texas rest stop picture of the KFI and KECA logo (see previous posts [1] [2]), you'll find references to the NBC Red Network and the NBC Blue Network. I found some more information on all of this at a description of the former Morgan, Walls, and Clements Building in Los Angeles.
Built: 1936
Demolished 2003
Formerly: KFI/KECA building
Formerly: KEHE building
Designed by: Stiles O. Clements of Morgan, Walls and Clements
Stories: 1
Type: Office building
Location: 133-141 North Vermont Avenue [Los Angeles, California 90004]....
This building, known as the The Morgan, Walls and Clements building, was built as the studios and offices of KEHE radio (780 AM). Its call letters derive from the fact that it was owned by the Hearst newspaper company, and was the radio voice of the Evening Herald Express. In 1939 Earl C. Anthony, the owner of KFI radio (640 AM) bought KEHE, took it off the air and moved his existing station, KECA (1430 formerly KPLA) onto the 780 frequency. KECA was named after its owner's initials. Several years later Anthony then moved the two stations from their building on South Hope Street into the old KEHE building on North Vermont. KFI carried NBC's Red Network, and KECA carried the Blue Network. By 1944 the federal government decided that competition was a good thing, and prohibited ownership of multiple radio stations in the same market (a practice it encourages these days). Anthony had to sell KECA to NBC Blue, and the station moved out of its original home. NBC Blue eventually became ABC. Today KECA exists as KABC (790 AM)....
More on the demolition of the building (and the ensuing controversy) here.
A technical history of KFI transmitter facilities can be found here. And here's some excerpts from a more detailed history:
It was anything but history, however, that moved Earle C. Anthony to construct KFI in 1922....With his father, he developed a car dealership and invented the "filling station," opening the first two in California. His symbol was the Chevron, which he sold to Standard Oil a few years later. He even influenced the building of the Golden Gate Bridge and started what would be the Greyhound Corp.
However, the reason we are talking about Earle C. Anthony today is yet another innovation that he grabbed hold of: radio. An article in The Saturday Evening Post sparked his interest in a potential way to communicate between his dealerships as well as an interesting hobby. He built a transmitter literally on a breadboard on his kitchen table, and began broadcasting on April 16, 1922.
True to his entrepenurial background, Anthony immediately saw the value of the radio station was more than for internal communication; it could be of value in bringing in new customers to his car business. Arranging with the LA Herald and Examiner newspapers for news reporting, regular programs began to go out everyday. And lest you wonder who was responsible for it all, the station ID at the top of the hour would be "This is KFI, the Radio Central Superstation of Earle C. Anthony, Incorporated, California Packard Distributors."...
Over the years, in order to maintain its place as a "Clear Channel" and a showpiece facility, KFI kept increasing power until in 1931 it became the first in Southern California to be run a full 50,000 watts.
Billed as the "country's most powerful station" (based on the combination 50 kW at 640 kHz), KFI certainly proved to have a long "reach." Heard throughout the west, KFI was at least as important a station as any of the Clears in the East and Midwest. NBC tried several times to purchase KFI, but Anthony was steadfast in refusing any offers. He told NBC "I wouldn't sell my wife. Why would I sell KFI?"...
Even when the Packard dealership began to wane in the 1950s, Earle C. Anthony took comfort in his KFI. "Every morning before I get up, I kiss a microphone" he told his chief engineer.
I was not privileged to have been able to spend time with any of the gentlemen who built the station. Earle C. Anthony died in 1961. When I arrived in 1970, the station was being sold and the chief engineers were going into retirement. Today, I can only recognize and sigh over the loss of opportunity that is now gone....
Here are some excerpts from KABC's history:
KABC first went on the air on April 14, 1925 as KVFV. On November 15, 1929 the station was sold to Earl C. Anthony, a local car dealer looking for a new medium to bring him customers. He changed the call letters to reflect his initials, KECA. ABC bought the station in 1944, adopting the station's present name....
By 1960, Bernard G. "Ben" Hoberman arrived as station manager when KABC's programming was a mixture of old-style network programs and music to which Southern Californians reacted with massive disinterest.But he had a revolutionary solution to KABC's lack-luster ratings: create an all-talk format. Talk programs are as old as radio: news broadcasts, sports programs and commentary are all forms of talk radio. But the idea of an all-talk format, featuring discussion and conversation-and without music-had never been done....
The talk of the time, however, was extremely tame by today's standards. Religion and politics were considered "taboo". But the sixties did herald a loud, brash, extraordinarily provocative and controversial host who first went on-air in 1963. His collision-course style of talk radio would become KABC's signature for the turbulent Decade of Change. His name was Joe Pyne. Pyne exploded the conventions of radio at the time, and launched the modern talk format. His favorite insult, "Go gargle with razor blades," was the kind of in-your-face attitude the fast-growing young metropolis loved to hear.
Comments