Category: Ray Otis

A USA RADIO MUSEUM PRESENTATION: KXOK, RAY OTIS, BACK ON THE RADIO! NOVEMBER 1964

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KXOK was a prominent radio station in St. Louis in the early-1960s. KXOK was known for its Top 40 format and was especially popular among teens and young adults. The station featured many well-known radio personalities, including Ray Otis.

Ray Otis, who arrived from WKMH in Dearborn, MI., became the station’s program director in 1962 at just 24. Otis recalls how KXOK came to be a magical place. He joined a station that had been initially launched by manager Bud Connell, and his mission was to guide it through its next phase. “There was magic at KXOK like no other place I’ve seen,” Otis says. “Everything just fell together. The synergy was incredible.” The station’s home was a small grove of trees at 1600 North Kings Highway, which it affectionately named “Radio Park.”

When this aircheck was recorded, Ray Otis was heard weekdays on KXOK in St. Louis from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.

According to the stlmediahistory.org website, KXOK was owned by Todd Storz, part of his network of AM stations known for their rock and roll formats. Thanks to station veteran Dick Ulett, we list an array of names that defined KXOK:

Mort Crowley, Danny Dark, Ron Riley, Peter Martin, Robert R. Lynn, Bob Shea, David D. Rogers, Dan Allison, Johnny Rabbitt, Don “Stinkey” Shafer, Richard Ward Fatherly, Nick Charles, Bruno J. Grunion, William A. Hopkins, Big Ears Bernard, Steven B. Stevens, Bobby Shannon, Delcia Corlew, Chickenman, News at 55, Radio Park, and the station’s slogan, “The station with the happy difference.”

The station’s building sat across from the old Parkmoor, housed in a converted old house with the studios added on. The house’s front room served as the reception area, and the rest was used for storage. Out front, facing Kingshighway, stood the green 3-foot-tall letters “KXOK,” a remnant from its previous location at the Star-Times Building downtown.

Ray Otis was at KXOK from 1962 to 1970, when he left for New York’s WNEW. Later in 1970, Otis returned back to Detroit for WCAR.

USARM Note: Most of the above information was provided by the St. Louis Media History website.

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NEW! A special THANK YOU to Mark Yurko, of Langhorne, PA., for this KXOK aircheck contribution for our USA Radio Museum repository. Featured here, we’ve archived this 1964 WXOK audio memory into our aircheck collection.

AUDIO REMASTERED! This audio recording was digitally enhanced by USA Radio Museum.

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A 1961 DETROIT ‘KMH RADIO NEWSPAPER FLASHBACK!

DetroitFreePressDetroit_Free_Press_Fri__Nov_3__1961_WKMH_Kingston_Trio_Ad_(mcrfb)

Friday, November 3, 1961

A DETROIT RADIO BACK-PAGE AD

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A NEW FEATURE ON MOTOR CITY RADIO FLASHBACKS!

DETROIT FREE PRESS: WKMH RADIO 1310 WKMH ‘Presents The Kingston Trio’

(Above WKMH ad courtesy freep.com archive; copyright 2016 newspapers.com).

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MCINTYRE STEERS WCAR TO TOP 40 . . . AUGUST 14, 1971

Motor City Radio Flashbacks logoFrom the MCRFB news archive: 1971

STATION FORMAT RUMORED 2 YEARS IN WAIT; PD MAKE CHANGE IMMEDIATE

 

 

 

 

DETROIT — Exactly as rumor stated, WCAR here has switched to a rock format. The oddity about the format change and the rumor, however,  is that the rumor dates back at least two years . . . . dates back in fact, to the day that Ken Draper signed a contract to consult the ultra-powered station. It had been a middle-of-the-road station since Draper took it under his wing; before that, it was more or less of a mishmash in programming.

The original intention according to program director Neil McIntyre, was to stick to an MOR format. The factors that precipitated the program change, in spite of previous intentions, was the failure of WKNR to make it in the market with a rock format. And, too, CKLW, a long-time powerhouse, was no longer connected with program consultant Bill Drake and, in fact, was being forced by government regulation, to program a large portion of Canadian product in its programming. Perhaps the key factor was the absence of Drake.

WCAR 1090AMWCAR, with 50,000-watts during the day and 10,000-watts at night, is playing between 40 to 60 records; “never less than 40,” says McIntyre, plus a feature album a week. More that that, the station is the station is keying on album cuts and, for example, played six cuts of the new Blood, Sweat and Tears album.

“We’re playing album cuts as if they were singles,” McIntyre reiterated. He listed “Surrender” by Diana Ross from her new album, and, “Hello Groceries” by Chase from their LP. There were five LP cuts on the playlist last week. “Even if the cuts are not released as singles, we’ll stay with them a couple of weeks longer just for the sake of adding variety to the format,” McIntyre said.

All records are pre-selected by McIntyre and John Wellman, who works in the office of programming affiliated with the consulting firm operated by Ken Draper, Chuck Blore and John Rook. These are picked either Thursday or Friday and the new playlist is added to the air in afternoon drive time without fanfare. However, there is no set policy of adding new records (seven new singles were added last week) and new product will be put on the air immediately, if warranted. “We put ‘I Woke Up In Love This Morning’ by the Patridge Family on the air Saturday. By Wednesday it was the top requested tune of all the new records.”

WCAR has six direct request lines into the studio and the air personality “had better answer it,” McIntyre said. In the old format, the air personalities used to just rap with listeners; in the rock format, they take requests.

Air personalities pull their own music for their show within the limitations of the format. WCAR personalities include Ray Otis 6-10 a.m.; Dave Prince 10 a.m.-2 p.m.; Dan O’Shea 2-6 p.m.; Ed Busch 6-10 p.m.; Scott Regen 10 p.m.-2 a.m.; Warren Pierce 2-6 a.m. — the same staff almost as when WCAR was an MOR station (Regen joined the staff several weeks back).

Clay Proves Pull

The target audience of WCAR is the 15-35 age group. “Mostly, we’re an alternative to listeners. In want of good programming, many were going to the FM stations; now, we’ll be there.” The station will be a personality station and will be actively trying to break new records. “We have been playing the Tom Clay record (“What The World Needs Now Is Love”) for weeks, even when we were an MOR station. Prince mentioned on the air for anyone not able to find the record in their record store to call Motown Records. Al Valenti called us and pleaded for us to give listeners the name of a record store that had stock; he’d been bombarded with phone calls for the record. So, we know we’re already having an impact in the market. The leading Top 40 station in town puts on a couple of records a week. But as a challenger, we can set our own rules about new records.”

WCAR will soon be “beefing-up” its jingles package.

There will be some six-record sweep; the records will be segued. All records will be post-announced. McIntyre, a 14-year veteran in the radio business having worked in Cleveland, Pittsburgh, New York and previously program director at  WOWO, Fort Wayne, Indiana, before landing at WCAR as program director, exclaimed “it’s nice to see people so excited about a radio station — from the girl at the switchboard to the news director, John Webster, a hell of a guy.” END

(Information and news source: Billboard; August 14, 1971).

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