Ray Otis On WKMH – February 1962
Category: WKMH
WKNR CONSULTANT JOSEPH CROWNED VP FOR NBC RADIO . . . DECEMBER 28, 1963
From the MCRFB news archive: 1963
NEW NBC RADIO VICE PRESIDENT POST WILL BE TOUGH ASSIGNMENT FOR MIKE JOSEPH
NEW YORK — Broadcasters did double-takes last week upon hearing of the appointment of Mike Joseph, former program consultant, to the newly-created post of vice-president, NBC-owned radio stations.
Joseph, long-associated with what is usually called swingin’ pop-music formatted stations, will be taking over the reins of one of the nation’s richest and most unsuccessful group of radio station operations owned by the network.
At this juncture Joseph’s duties have not been spelled out. No matter what his duties, he will have his work cut out for him.
The six NBC-owned radio stations are perhaps — as a group — one of the best examples of a low audience appeal approach to broadcasting.
Bottom Of Heap
A thumbnail analysis of each station’s market position reveals the following:
WNBC, New York (50,000 watts): 10th place. One service gives it sixth position 7 a.m. to noon, and 11th, noon to 6 p.m.
WMAQ, Chicago (50,000 watts): Tied for fifth place, 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. From 6 p.m. to midnight, ninth. Another service is much kinder, rating the station third in the morning and fourth in the afternoon.
KNBR, San Francisco (50,000 watts): Tied for fifth place in the morning and seventh in the afternoon. Another service rates it sixth in the a.m. and eighth in the p.m.
WRC, Washington D. C. (5,000 watts): Eighth place out of nine stations listed.
WRC, Washington D. C. (5,000 watts): Fourth in mornings and sixth in the afternoon and evening. This outlet tops all others in the NBC chain achieving first place in the morning and third in the afternoon on one rating service.
WJAS, Pittsburgh (5,000 watts): Tied for last place morning and night; last place in afternoons.
It is highly unlikely that four of the six stations could stand on their own financially without being carried by mother flagship network NBC.
Industry observers attribute the sorrowful rating picture of the NBC-owned radio stations mainly due to the fact that they are satellites for the financially successful NBC radio network. The family stations must carry all of the network’s programming, including the full load of “Monitor” Saturdays and Sundays no matter the effect on rating. Affiliates have a choice of scheduling and percentage of net shows carried.
What little there is left for the beleaguered six stations to program on their own is dictated from the sixth floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza where the attitude had been: close down before playing rock and roll, no editorializing, no promotion, etc. The top echelon of NBC has persuaded itself that it is more in the public interest to sacrifice popularity and listeners for image. Apparently the image is fading as quickly as the listener audience in general, translating in poor ratings overall.
In sharp contrast to the NBC operation is the highly successful, aggressive, and modern, ABC-owned radio stations headed by Harold Neil. Each of the ABC stations are for the most part, operated independently with local management calling the shots as to how best serve their immediate communities. ABC places few taboos on their stations.
ABC advertising and promotion in behalf of its owned radio stations has been brilliant and outstanding. CBS has also followed a course of promoting their stations through ads in the consumer and trade press. Although there is a proliferation of other NBC advertising, promotion of its owned radio stations is a rarity.
Speculation has it that no vice-president — however talented and capable as Mike Joseph is successfully known for his brilliant approach in various radio consultations and changes he implemented during the course of this year alone — will be able to solve the dilemma of the NBC-owned radio stations without a complete change of thinking and approach by the two men who are presently calling the shots for NBC radio, Robert Kintner and Robert Sarnoff. END
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(Information and news source: Billboard; December 28, 1963)
VETERAN DJ ED MCKENZIE QUITS ON WXYZ . . . MARCH 16, 1959
From the MCRFB NEWS archive: 1959
McKENZIE BOWS OUT IN ‘FORMULA RADIO’ PROTEST
DETROIT — Veteran deejay Ed McKenzie resigned from station WXYZ here last week in protest of the station’s “formula radio” programming policy.
Rallying to his side was his long-time competitor and another Detroit veteran spinner, Robin Seymour, of WKMH, who came out strongly last week for McKenzie and against “formula radio.” Seymour stated that, “It’s a crime and a shame when one of the true deejays – one of the men who made the jockey a major factor in broadcasting – has to bow to the dictates of a program director.”
Although Seymour and McKenzie – two of Detroit’s key deejays – have vied for audience ratings for the past eleven years (they occupied the same afternoon time slot) Seymour said they remained friends – their friendship dating back to the time McKenzie gave Seymour his first radio job at WJBK here.
Seymour had asked McKenzie to appear on his WKMH show to discuss the whole formula radio situation and his reasons for leaving WXYZ. Seymour said they will explore the jockey’s need for freedom of programming and will discuss further on whether the advent of “formula radio” has anything to do with the fact that no new name deejay (other than Dick Clark) has come up from the ranks in recent years.
Seymour said his station, WKMH, is now the only major Detroit station operating on a non-formula programming policy. The outlet did adopt a non-rock and roll format last year, but Seymour said the management dropped the policy last January, and put record programming back in the deejay’s hands. As a result, the jock said WKMH’s ratings are already showing a small rating climb – the first rating increase for the station in some time.
The WXYZ “formula” (featuring the Top 40 singles was adopted by the station about a years ago, and WXYZ vice-president in charge of radio, Hal Neal, opined “Our interpretation of radio is that it is a step moving forward.”
McKenzie on the other hand expressed his opinion that this “formula” did not jibe with his interpretation of radio as “being intimate and friendly.” He stated that his ratings were dropping since the “formula” policy had gone into effect and that he would sooner “dig ditches or sell hot dogs” than go back to formula radio “because I can’t do something I don’t believe in.”
The radio station disagreed with use of McKenzie’s bird calls on the air and his “on the air” comments on office typing and the programming. The station also found themselves in disagreement with McKenzie about their new policy to boost the station on his programs, which the jockey termed “unnecessary.”
McKenzie’s 3 p.m. to 6:15 p.m. spot is being taken over by Mickey Shorr, who will have another replacement for his own Night Train program. Reportedly making between $60,000 and $80,000 a year in his 29th year with radio, McKenzie was Jack The Bellboy at WJBK before he changed to WXYZ radio in 1952. END
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(Information and news source: Billboard; March 16, 1959)
DAVID PRINGLE? NO. IT’S DAVE PRINCE . . . AUGUST 14, 1961
A MCRFB news brief:
HERE’S A PRINCE ALA PRINGLE . . . .
NEW YORK — When BMW (Billboard Music World) goofed twice in succession and switched captions on photos on disk jockeys Bill Williams (WNEW, here) and Jerry Marshall (WMGM, here) appearing in the paper’s Programming Panel feature, it was facetiously suggested that the jocks be good sports and consider exchanging names.
Michigan deejay David Pringle took us at our word and is doing just that. The jock was also a victim of a BMW goof, when his photo appeared in a panel feature identifying him as “David Prince.”
Pringle, who moved from WPAG, Ann Arbor, Mi., to WKMH, Detroit, (in the 7-11:30 p.m. time-slot), August 2, writes: Because of a goof in Billboard, I will be using the air name Dave Prince. They gave me a tag a while back in a misprint and it sounded so much better than Pringle — more adaptable to jingles, etc., that I’ve decided to use it!” END.
(Information and news source: Billboard; August 14, 1961).
WAY-BACK DETROIT RADIO PAGES: WKMH . . . AUGUST 6, 1949
From the MCRFB radio news scrapbook:
Bob Seymour of WKMH, one of three local radio jocks, opens Hit Tune Party for Detroiters
DETROIT, July 30 — The first Hit Tune Party of the season was held Sunday, July 24, at the Eastwood Gardens, Eastwood Park, by the Michigan Automatic Phonograph Owners Association (MAPOA). The event drew a crowd of between five and six thousand teenagers, one of the biggest turnouts in the history of the organization.
Gene Krupa and his orchestra played for the event, offering an afternoon of dancing. Tunes picked as “candidates” for the hit tune selection were featured. Winner was Someday, as recorded by Vaughn Monroe on Victor. The number will be the hit tune of August here, and will be placed in the No. 1 position on all juke boxes in the Detroit area. A second-number to be co-featured will be selected later, according to Roy W. Clason, MAPOA business manager.
Three disk jockeys made personal appearances and assisted in handling the program for the evening. They were Bob Seymour, WKMH, Dearborn; Doc Lemon, WJR, and Johnny Slagle, WXYZ, both of Detroit. Clason acted as master of ceremonies.
A personal appearance was made by Frankie Mullec, Continental Records artist, whose new number Tell Me A Story was also played. Plans for a Hit Tune Party for August, with another name band to be featured, are now being made, according to Clason. END.
(Information and news source: Billboard; August 6, 1949).
WKMH-AM ‘CRUISIN’ 1956′ WITH ROBIN SEYMOUR
From the MCRFB vinyl archives:
CRUISIN’ 1956 Increase Records (1970)
ORIGINAL LP COVER NOTES
By Jerry Hopkins
The CRUISIN’ history of rock and roll radio begins in 1956, one of the most exciting years in “pop” history, and to take us down this memory lane (with a beat) is Robin Seymour of WKMH, which was, when he joined it, a little-known station In Dearborn, Michigan. Robin came to the suburban Detroit station from the Armed Forces Radio Network and he brought with him a voice that mixed the warm, confidential tone of an intimate friend with the slick disc jockey rap we all know today, a blend which made him a natural for housewives and teenagers alike.
Robin never had any particular ethnic identification or allegiance but the “Bobbin’ with Robin Show” quickly found its audience, as he constructed a bright, orderly program that featured (almost exclusively) the records listed on the sales charts printed by the music press. He also was among the first of the nation’s deejays to ask his listeners what they thought about new records, and hosted some of the earliest sock hops and commercial tie-ins with local record stores. In 1953 he was named “Disc Jockey of the Year” by Billboard, the music trade magazine. The following year he was given the same title by another publication, Hit Parader.
1956: President Eisenhower underwent an operation to relieve blockage of the small intestine due to ileitis, but physicians said he would be physically fit to run for re-election. Scientists said radiation was a peril to the future of humanity, Egypt seized the Suez Canal and the United Nations established the first international police force on the Sinai Peninsula. The first trans-Atlantic telephone cable system went into effect. The Hungarians revolted. Six Marine recruits were marched into a stream at Parris Island and drowned. The Andrea Doria sank off the coast of Massachusetts. And Elvis Presley and the spread of rock and roll nearly pushed everything else in this list of news stories right out of the conversation.
This was the year Elvis recorded Heartbreak Hotel, Don’t Be Cruel, Hound Dog and perhaps half a dozen other million-selling songs . The first of these (Hotel) appeared in the number one position the end of April and that song or another by Elvis occupied the same lofty spot twenty-five of the year’s remaining thirty-six weeks.
1956 was the year “rock ‘n’ roll” became an angry epithet, blamed by psychiatrists and religious leaders (not to mention thousands of parents) for the rise in juvenile delinquency; some even said it was all a part of some Communist plot. Elvis and his pack of noisy imitators were called obscene and there were real riots at dozens of concerts. There were non-rockers on the record charts, to be sure, but it was Carl Perkins’ Blue Suede Shoes and Bill Haley’s Alligator that became a part of the New Culture, not Gogi Grant’s Wayward Wind and Morris Stoloff’s Picnic. The war babies had come to teen-age.
Most adults in ’56 thought it was a fad and that “it” would go away. Most radio listeners believed otherwise. There were a number of rock giants on the popular music charts in 1956 and many had made their abrupt and rhythmic appearances there after serving an apprenticeship in the ghetto called rhythm and blues.
That’s what 1956 was: the teen-age 1776. There’d been rumblings earlier, but this year all the lines were drawn.
— Jerry Hopkins
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4D4Lf6z0HY
Recreating one of his old radio shows from 1956 is Robin Seymour, who then was with WKMH in Dearborn, Michigan. He had come to this suburban Detroit station from Armed Forces Radio and soon his warm, confidential tone had won him teenagers and housewives alike. His BOBBIN’ WITH ROBIN show was the reason BILLBOARD named him Disc Jockey of the Year in 1953, and HIT PARADER magazine did the same in 1954. Today he’s in television and concert promotion in Detroit. For this album, Robin Seymour was the first of the seven disc jockeys in the CRUISIN’ series selected as the best living representatives of Fifties and Sixties radio from seven top American radio cities.
(Cruisin’ LP series notes by producer Ron Jacobs, for Increase Records; 1970).
And today, a Robin Seymour video message from 2010 . . . .
WKMH: A BOB GREEN MEMORY WITH ANDY WILLIAMS
Special Thanks to Bob Green for this sharing this photograph with Motor City Radio Flashbacks. (L-R) Bob Green, Frank Maruca, Andy Williams. That’s Robin Seymour seated right (glasses) glancing up at Andy Williams.
VETERAN DETROIT DEEJAY BARS ELVIS . . . SEPTEMBER 1, 1956
From the MCRFB NEWS archive: 1956
WKMH’s Robin Seymour Refused Presley Plays On Show
DETROIT — When it comes to Elvis Presley, deejays are saying plenty about him these days, but one thing they evidently can’t do is ignore him. WKMH Program Director and air personality Robin Seymour in Detroit, for instance, recently took a stand against playing Elvis Presley recordings on his show, following the singer’s controversial appearance on Milton Berle’s television program.
However, after receiving over 500 letters from teenagers who threaten to boycott his show, Seymour wrote an open letter to his erstwhile fans, which appeared on the front-page article of a Detroit newspaper, under “Teen Life.” In the article, Seymour explained that, “now that Presley was keeping his gyrations under wraps,” (as Presley demonstrated recently with an appearance the Steve Allen Show) the rock ‘n’ roll artist was persona grata on Seymour’s program once again. END
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(Information and news source: Billboard; September 1, 1956)
DETROIT HEATS UP FOUR-WAY RADIO WAR… NOVEMBER 16, 1963
From the MCRFB news archives:
FROM WKMH TO WKNR, FOUR-WAY BATTLE HEATS UP RADIO DIALS ACROSS DETROIT
DETROIT — A four-way battle is shaping up in this market with the immediate changeover in programming at WKMH.
The Dearborn-based 5,000 watter has introduced a new set of calls, WKNR, several new deejays, and a radical switch from the soft sound in music to a “30 plus 1” format. Detroit will be one of the few markets where severe competition is taking place among three or more pop music stations.
The Knorr-owned radio outlet has been under the programming consulting of Mike Joseph for many months. Soft standards have been the path for more than a year. WKMH (now WKNR) was once the major pop music outlet in the market. Today a major fight is now developing between the new WKNR, RKO radio’s 50,000 watter, CKLW, WJBK, Storer-owned “teen’s swinger” radio, and WXYZ, the ABC-owned pop-rater on the 1270 radio dial in Detroit. Recently CKLW had added Tom Clay in the afternoon-evening drive to help accentuate CKLW’s positive pop sound.
Mort Crowley, a KHJ defector, broadcasts 5 to 9 a.m., followed by the former-WKMH mainstay Robin Seymour in the 9 to 12 p.m. time slot. Jim Sanders is handling the noon to 3 p.m. shift, and Gary Stevens will be hosting the 3 to 7 p.m. segment. Bob Green will deejay from 7 to 12 a.m., while Bill Phillips will hold down the fort all night long until 5 a.m. END.
(Information and news source: Billboard; November 16, 1963).
WKMH/WKNR PRODUCTION ROOM BLOOPERS
Production Room Bloopers
Bill Phillips, Paul Cannon, Ray Otis, Bob Green
Thanks To Greg Innis