DETROIT — The rapid rise of CKLW-AM Windsor from a .8 rating to a 5.2 in six months may be perceived by competing stations as an example of the “flash in the pan” syndrome that has affected other nostalgia outlets. However, CKLW operations manager Dave Shafer insists, “We have a lot of plans to ensure it sustains itself.”
CKLW’s Dave Shafer on a Big 30 music guide from the 1970s.
Baton Broadcasting sold CKLW-AM-FM to present owner Keith Campbell in January, after the struggling AC outlet had sunk to a .8 in the Fall Arbitron book. “The police radio-band had more action,” jokes Shafer.
Campbell switch formats to Al Ham’s “Music Of Your Life,” and results were immediately apparent in the Winter book 4.0 rating. With the Spring’s book 5.2, Shafer notes, “That’s an increase of over 600% in just six months.”
Shafer attributes some of CKLW’s success to the fact that the 50,000-watt AM reaches 18 states and two provinces. and that its big band format is the first in the market “since WCAR 35 years ago.”
In addition, Shafer credits the station’s somewhat altered approach to “Music Of Your Life,” adding further, “We’ve done some things different than Al Ham,” he notes. “We’ve added more cuts; our repertoire is more varied than normal.”
Another factor contributing to CKLW’s popularity, says Shafer, is a staff of well-know top 40 deejays, among them Jim Davis, formerly of Detroit stations WXYZ, WJR and WOMC: Bob Charleson; previously with Detroit’s WWJ and WCAR; and Dave Prince, who had served on WXYZ as well as Los Angeles outlets KISS and KHJ.
Competing stations such as beautiful music WJOI and all-news WXYT have felt the effect of CKLW’s rise, but their respective program directors, says they’re not concerned. At WJOI, which went from a 9.8 fall rating to 6.1 in the spring, PD Steve VanOort says, “They’re taking some of our older audience, but this isn’t a competitive format. There’s nothing we will do or can do. We’re not going to start programming Big Band music.
“We do go after the same audience,” VanOort continues, “but easy listening, because its more contemporary, has a younger audience. Sure, we’ve been affected in the older demos, but our 25-54 numbers haven’t changed all that much.”
WXYT program director John Harper concurs. “They’ve only affected our 55-plus numbers,” he says. WXYT went from a 4.6 in the fall to a 3.4 in the spring.
“Across the country,” Harper says, “the big band format has a tradition of a meteoric rise and fall.” CKLW’s success, he says, could be considered distressing, “but its only 55-plus numbers.”
CKLW’s Shafer disagrees. “Our listeners average age, according gto our research firm, is 40-49, and I think it’s actually 44. And these people aren’t old or dead. They’re the biggest buying public out there.”
Shafer claims it usually take a year and a half to achieve this kind of growth, but notes that “people are still finding us.” We receive an average of 350 letters a day.” END.
(Information and news source: Billboard; August 10, 1985).
WXYZ 1270 Detroit Sound Survey; Week no. 15 issued July 25, 1966 under Lee Alan, Program Director; WXYZ
(WXYZ 1270 Detroit Sound Survey for July 25, this date 1966; survey courtesy the Jim Heddle Collection. For the previous weekly WXYZ July 18, 1966 survey click here).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My-RU116W5o
WXYZ Detroit Sound Survey No. 34:“Suspicions,” by The Sidekicks, this date in July 1966.
WXYZ 1270 Detroit Sound Survey; No. 14 issued July 18, 1966 under Lee Alan, Program Director; WXYZ
(WXYZ 1270 Detroit Sound Survey for July 18, this date 1966; survey courtesy the Jim Heddle Collection. For the previous weekly WXYZ July 11, 1966 survey click here).
A ’63 WXYZ FLASHBACK MOMENT: Lee Alan, photographed here with the Pixies Three, with friends Al Valenti and WXYZ’s Joel Sabastian on Detroit’s Channel 7 dance show Club 1270 in 1963. By 1963 Lee Alan was the No. 1 radio disk jockey. It was then Lee Alan commanded a phenomenal 40 per cent captive share of the night-time radio audience in Detroit on WXYZ.
A 1970 WEXL SNAPSHOT MOMENT: Robert Howe shared with Motor City Radio Flashbacks these two photographs taken in September, 1970. According to Robert, WEXL was doing a radio remote in Warren, Michigan and is seen here standing alongside with WEXL’s country deejay John Ramsey, wearing shades. In reference to the picture on the right, Robert also added, “The old WEXL remote trailer which they may have purchased from WXYZ because there is a photo on your site with an identical trailer with the WXYZ call letters across the front.”Thank you, Robert Howe, for sharing your special memories with Motor City Radio Flashbacks!
A WJLB FLASHBACK MOMENT: “Frantic” Ernie Durham, legendary Detroit R&B disk jockey was on Detroit’s WJLB-AM every evening until 9:00 p.m. Durham was one of the first “rappers,” in a literal sense, who did most of his shows in rhyme. Here, he was photographed at the famous Madison Ballroom in 1958, a block down from the Graystone in Detroit.
NEW YORK — In the history of the phonograph record business there has never been an album that has broken so many records, or set so many new ones as the Cadence LP of “The First Family,” with Vaughn Meader and friends. It has sold more than any other LP ever issued, more than 4,000,000 as of January 10., just about two months after it was first released (November, 1962).
Vaughn Meader’s ‘The First Family’ on the Cadence label; 1962-1963 (click image for more detailed larger size).
It holds all-time records for the number of LP’s sold in a day, a week and a month, and it has set new marks at RCA Custom where 2 million were pressed (in three busy weeks), and at Columbia’s custom plants, where 1 million were made. Of the 4 million shipped, Cadence billed and shipped 3,600,000, the other 500,000-plus being shipped at no charge as part of the firm’s four for 25, or 16 per cent merchandise deal.
That Cadence was able to meet the instantaneous and furious demand for the album — which ran as high as 1 million a week — within days or even hours of the orders almost from the time the record started to jet off, is a tribute to the firm’s quickly devised and ingenious production schedule Cadence undertook marketing this particular LP.
This schedule was probably the most massive ever attempted in the record business. It is also a tribute to the printing firms, the album fabricators, the pressing plants and the trucking firms, who met the intricate, rush production schedules. When it is noted that Cadence, like many other independent record labels, has no pressing facilities of its own, and that the demand for “The First Family” came at the height of the Christmas buying season, the production job accomplished becomes even more extraordinary.
Something else that cannot be overlooked is the role played in “The First Family” story by Cadence distributors, who did a back-breaking job in getting the albums to dealers. The album set all-time marks with every distributor who handled it; Alpha Distributors in New York moved 300,000 “First Family” LP’s in 16 (around-the-clock) scheduled days.
In The Beginning
Vaughn Meader displays his JFK comedy/satire LP in a press photo, 1963.
When Cadence shipped samples of its LP, “The First Family,” the week of November 5, Cadence President Archie Bleyer and sales promotion chief Bud Dollinger felt they had a pretty good album. They thought it would sell at least 100,000, and with luck double or triple that, which would be a substantial sale for a new and unknown comic named Vaughn Meader. Production manager Bob Mack had place a pressing order for about 15,000. Because Meader was due to be on the Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday, November 11 (1962), Cadence had shipped its new York distributor, Alpha, 100 copies to place in key store windows in Manhattan alone.
Monday, November 12, was a quiet day at Cadence, the firm’s last quiet day for about two months. Tuesday, November 13, Bob Booker, co-producer of the “First Family” set, brought the LP to his old friend, Stan Burns, WINS in New York. Burns listened to parts of it and then put in on the air immediately and kept playing tracks from the LP during his entire show.
The phone started ringing at Alpha Distributors from dealers wanting copies. Harry Apostelaris of Alpha Distributors called Cadence and ordered 400 sets. Pete Myers of WINS continued to play the album on the station that same day. A little later Bob and Ray on WHN played excerpts of the LP on their show. The phones kept jumping on Alpha. Apostelaris excitedly picked up the phone again and called Cadence. This time he placed an order for 20,000 copies for the LP.
Taking Off
Wednesday morning, November 14, Klavan and Finch started to expose tracks from the album over WNEW. By that afternoon almost every disk jockey in New York was “on” the LP. Alpha’s order that day totaled 20.000. He ordered another 25,000 copies from Cadence.
Thursday, November 15, the “First Family” was the talk of the town. Consumers were clamoring for copies. Alpha ordered another 25,000 for a whooping total of 70,500 in four days.
Cadence executives knew now they had a smash, though they still didn’t know how big a smash it really had become. They shipped 15,868 copies to Alpha. That order was quickly snapped up. And they stilled owed Alpha 55,000. They anticipated Alpha would order another 25,000 the next day, Alpha ordered another 50,000 instead!
Here Mack decided he couldn’t get enough pressing facilities on one coast to handle the album. He booked a flight to Los Angeles on Sunday, November 18 (the earliest reservation he could obtain), and assigned his assistant, Peter Hess, to fly to Indianapolis to set a pressing, printing and album facilities there. They were both met in the different airports by manufacturers and printers and album people. They both took with them from positives and progressive proofs of the album covers that they had ordered from their New York printers.
“I wasn’t worried about getting pressings in time,” Mack said, ” “or even the albums. It was the four-color covers that concerned me.”
Coast Opens Up
On Friday, November 17, Ralph Story on KNX in Los Angeles, started to lay the excerpts for the Meader disk. That same day a West Coast dealer called Dollinger and Bleyer in New York and demanded 200 records. When they told him they were clean, he screamed for copies without covers. They refused.
Said Dollinger: “If we did that we we would have made it possible for counterfeiters to sell “First Family” LP’s all over the U.S. without covers. We told him he would have his 200 copies Tuesday. He did.”
By January 1963, Cadence’s ‘The First Family’ album became an all-time, multi-million selling LP for the label. The LP sold over 4,000,000 copies in a record-breaking span two months after its November 1962 release.
By Monday, November 19, “First Family” records were being pressed all over the country. RCA Victor was making the albums in Rockaway, New Jersey; Indianapolis and Los Angeles. Columbia Records were pressing in Los Angeles; Bridgeport, Connecticut and in Pittman, New Jersey. Capitol was pressing the LP at its Scranton, Pennsylvania plant; Monarch at its Los Angeles plant; Sonic at Hicksville, Long Island; and All Disks in Roseville, New Jersey.
Printing of the “First Family” album covers and liners was assigned and done by Lithograph Corporation of America in Bridgeport, Burford Printing in Indianapolis and Imperial in Hollywood.
Also, albums were being manufactured by Country Box, Modern Album Company and by Globe in New York; Modern Album in Terre Haute, Indiana and Hollywood, and Rek-O-Pak and Imperial in Hollywood.
The printers, jacket manufacturers and pressing plants came through “splendidly,” according to Mack.
“They gave us unstinting cooperation. Victor had to take its Elvis Presley record of “Girls, Girls, Girls” off their presses to make “First Family” LP’s and they couldn’t turn them over to Columbia or Capitol, for we had those plants locked up, too,” he said, “but they came through.”
Columbia, with its own Christmas stuff rolling, also made room for us at Bridgeport and Pittman. They were all wonderful.”
Vaughn Meader’s ‘The First Family’ LP on Cadence (b/cover).(TIP: For a more detailed look, double-click image TWICE for an expanded spread of the album-back cover).
No Holidays
Dollinger, Mack and Hess set up an over-all production chart to check every printer, jacket manufacturer and pressing plant in New York, Los Angeles and Indianapolis, the three production areas. They were on the phone day and night for almost four weeks, including Thanksgiving Day, Saturdays and Sundays. They lined up trucks to take the finished covers and liners to the jacket manufacturers and the jackets to the pressing plants. They then allocated the completed albums to their 32 distributors.
“You should see our phone bills,” said Mack.
“Our distributors were incredible,” said Dollinger. “They would send their own trucks to the plants to pick up the finished merchandise. Our Baltimore distributor used to have a truck waiting at the Victor Rockaway plant every day, and so did our Boston distributor.”
In New York demand for albums were so great that dealers would come over in their own cars or in taxicabs and help unload the trucks arriving with “First Family” albums at the Alpha warehouse on 10th Avenue. They were billed as they shoved the albums into their cars or taxicabs before speeding away. The same scene was being enacted in Los Angeles.
By November 23, about ten days after the record had broken in New York, Cadence had billed and shipped more than 900,000 LP’s, excluding the complimentary copies. The firm had shipped more than 135,000 to Alpha in New York, and it still owed 150,000 on back-order.
Printing of the “First Family” album covers and liners was assigned and done by Lithograph Corporation of America in Bridgeport, Long Island.
All The Way
As of November 30 the firm has billed and shipped 2,100,000 records, again excluding the complimentary albums which add up to about 16 per cent over the top. As of December 7, total billed and shipped was 2,800,000; December 14, 32,000,000; December 21, 3,400,000; December 28, 3,500,000; January 5, 3,585,000; January 10, 3,600,000.
The album is still selling at a rate of about 10,000 a week. Still, shipments have been carefully watched to the extent that right now, according to Dollinger and Mack, they do not believe there are more than 10,000 albums in the field that might be returned. “Our distributors are clean,” says Dollinger, “and we think dealers are stock clean insofar this LP as well.”
Just after the album really took off, and Cadence had shipped its first million LP’s, a remarkable thing happened with the firm’s distributors. It started when the firm’s Hartford distributor, Eastern, called to place a large order. “I’m sending Archie a check for $50,000,” said Eastern chief Dick Godlewski. “If I don’t pay it now I’ll never catch up, and I know Archie needs it.” Several other distributors, almost simultaneously, did the same.
Distributors Came Through
Although Cadence is a strong, independent label, with a solid credit rating and cash in the bank, the help from distributors were welcomed because of the astronomical sums being laid out by the firm.
From then on the firm called on its distributors to send something with its orders. Distributors all came through with cash, many of them going out and getting loans on their accounts receivable.
At the height of the frantic demand, Dollinger was receiving impassioned calls from stores, racks and chains. He had one order for a direct sale of 100,000 LP’s at $2.10 each and turned it down. He told the store to see the local Cadence distributor.
“We turned down all direct sales,” said Dollinger, “since we believe in letting our distributors handle all accounts.”
Dollinger added that the “First Family” album has created an interesting development as far as dealers and distributors are concerned.
“In talking to our distributors, we have found that a number of them have got back some accounts that were being serviced by rack jobbers. It seemed that when they wanted the “First Family” they found they could get it more quickly from distributors than from the rackers. Distributors say that a number of chains have returned to them and intend to stay with them because of better service.”
Could another album ever rise to repeat the fantastic “First Family” story? Dollinger: “I don’t know whether there will ever be another that sell so many copies in such a short period of time. But we now know not only that an album can sell 4 million in a few months, but that it is also possible to produce 4 million and get them to the stores while they’re hot.” END.
— BOB ROLONTZ
Vaughn Meader pitches his ‘First Family’ LP at a NYC record store, December 1962. (Photo: LIFE Magazine; February 8, 1963)
(Information and news source, Billboard; January 26, 1963).
NEW YORK — “If there was any single thing that put over ‘The First Family,’ it was radio exposure,” said Archie Bleyer last week in a conversation of the Vaughn Meader album.
“In case anyone underestimates the power of radio I can tell them it is the most important medium of all in exposing not only singles, but albums.”
Cadence’s Archie Bleyer
“I say this because we decided to go ahead with “The First Family,” we had assurances that it would get exposed on TV. In fact, we built a lot of our exposure campaign along the lines of TV programming. We didn’t think then that radio was the right medium to expose this album. We felt that TV would enable people to see Meader and the rest of the cast and that a segment of, say, a TV variety show could be built around Meader’s press conference or another aspect of the album.
“We were all wrong,” said Bleyer. “Radio not only enabled listeners to imagine Meader as President Kennedy, but to imagine all of the other people in the cast in their respective roles. We found that the onetime shots we had on TV didn’t have nearly the impact of the radio play.
“It wasn’t only the stations who normally program albums that helped put ‘First Family’ over,” said Cadence sales chief Bud Bollinger, “but the Top 40 stations as well. We were surprised and pleased to find top 40 station which never had programmed an album before playing tracks from ‘First Family’ and this got kids as well as adults interested.”
“The sales of the album indicate something else,” said Dollinger. “For a long time Archie had said that a soft record market is a misnomer. A soft market is one in which the manufacturer don’t have the product on the market the consumer wants. Give them the records they want and they’ll buy it.
“I’ve disagreed with Archie in the past about this, but I think sales of ‘First Family’ proves him right.” END.
ADDENDUM: Vaugh Meader’s short-lived, political, comedic stand-up career effectively ended November 22, 1963. Vaughn Meader passed away in 2004 at the age of 68. For more on the life and times of Vaughn Meader, go here. — MCRFB
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0jMe-3_Dl0
(Information and news source: Billboard; January 26, 1963).
From the MRCFB news archive: 1985
