The Good Old Days of Radio

Every now and then I catch myself talking to the girls in the sales office about old time radio, and you can see the blank look in their faces when I speak of things like splicing blocks or back timing, cart machines, que burn on records.  Oh, man I miss those days.  Julie said I should write blog posts about those days because they find them interesting, so if we get response out of this I will.

On June 24 of this year, I will celebrate 30 years of broadcasting mediocrity.  My first paying radio gig was in Knob Noster, Mo. I made $650 per month and worked overnights playing classic country music.  It's also was the most fun I've ever had.  Who knew starving could be such a good time.

Radio in those days was a whole lot like WKRP in Cincinnati.  We were owned by 8 women who knew nothing about radio and started the station because they were rich and bored, and I love them for it.  The call letters were the worst in radio history, KLUK (which by the way is now what we know as KIX 105).  If KLUK wasn't bad enough, some marketing genius i.e. program director, who no longer is in the business nor should he be, decided that everything we did should have the letter K in it, which would be fine if we were anything but a classic country station.

Why is that a issue you ask?  Imagine this all station swag, shirts coats jackets hats etc. said this Klassic Kountry KLUK,  but they run them vertically

Klassic
Kountrry
KLUK

Yep, so not only were we from a small town playing hick music, but we looked like we were members of the Klan.  Yep, that went over well.

Hope you enjoyed my stroll down memory lane.