~Los Angeles Radio People, Template

Glad you had the blurb about David Courtney. He was my favorite P.A. announcer growing up. I remember his distnictive inflection when announcing Gary Discarcina (SS) for the Angels. I've probably butchered the spelling. In any event, if I hadn't checked your site, I would have missed that.

"I just discovered your LARadio website. I learned a lot and will be periodically on it for years to come, reflecting, reminiscing, grateful for the wealth of information you’ve put into your site.

I’m one of the tiny forgotten pieces of the vast LA radio puzzle. I was an engineer at KHOF/TV from 1971-72, then afternoon announcer during the golden years of KHOF/fm, Los Angeles, 99.5, from 1972-75. Paul Crouch, was my boss much of the time. He then left to buy Channel 40 and to create the Trinity Broadcasting Network, the largest Christian TV network in the world. I was appointed program director my final year at KHOF, replacing Gary McCarty, and won a contract to buy the fm station. When I failed to raise the down payment of $750,000, Dr. Gene Scott took things over, and I was the first man fired. He eventually lost the license and the frequency eventually became KKLA.

Returning to engineering, I helped finish constructing and tuning up the then new 5 tower, 50 kW, KGBS, 1020 AM transmitter site. This allowed Storer to operate at night, before getting into trouble with the FCC and eventually selling out to a Mexican group.

Adventist World Radio hired me in mid 1976 as world manager. I was based at Lisbon, Portugal, where AWR leased time on a 250 kW shortwave transmitter directed towards Eastern Europe, especially the Soviet Union. During that period, I fostered and built 'La Voce della Speranza,' the Adventist Church’s first O & O radio stations in Europe. These were strong fm stations at Florence, Italy, and the first 1 megawatt fm station at Rome.

Speaking the French language, in 1981, just as private radio opened to France under President Francois Mitterand, I quit my job in Portugal, moved to France and built a dozen small local fm stations before opening RADIO 74 in 1982 along the boarder with Geneva, Switzerland. This was the first ever English speaking radio station in France. I settled in and continue to manage operations 30 years later. We’ve grown into a regional network of 7 fm stations and broadcast on the 'Hot Bird' satellite, with listeners in 75 countries. Ten years ago I started an American fm religious network, RADIO 74 INTERNATIONALE-AMERICAS. We are the only private station in France broadcasting to North America. We transmit through Galaxy 19 to some 50 local fm affiliate stations which rebroadcast our programming. During the past 2 years I’ve installed 16 new NCE stations for our American network, from Nassau, Bahamas to Nome, Alaska. The latest is a 100 kW FM, KTWJ, on 90.9 near Bismarck, ND.

I noticed Paul Drew in your listing. Is this the same man who in the late 60s worked as a programming consultant for RKO-General? If so, in 1967 I worked under his direction as a young journalist at CKLW, Windsor (Detroit).

"Hi, Don. Just wanted to fill you in on my recent move from Honolulu in June. My wife and I are now living in Sacramento, where I've transplanted my
communications consultancy and where we intend to stay. For anybody who asks why I would leave 'paradise' after 39 years, my standard answer is, 'Hawaii is a great place to visit, but Sacramento is a better place to live' for a lot of reasons!

I had breakfast with a transportation executive this morning who perked up when I mentioned I had worked at KFWB decades ago. He asked if I knew Art Schreiber, WB's general manager back then, and of course, I did. My breakfast partner took over Art's position of ceo in the company Art had joined after leaving the station.

Have a great holiday season." - Doug Carlson, 'at the editor's desk' at KFWB 1970-71 (including during AFTRA's '71 strike!) http://DougCarlsonCommunications.com 916.335.2299

"Good morning,

Jim Fox of the LA Kings retired during the 1989-90 season. I worked at the Forum that season.

He joined Bob Miller in the broadcast booth for the 1990-1991 season, not in 1989 as listed.

Thanks." - Christian Collins, Carson, mediachristian43@att.net

At the start of his morning KMPC show he would always play the song The End Of A Love Affair. It was a very up, jazzy version. Sounded like a live recording. It sounded like Tony Bennett but I could be wrong.

"Unfortunately, I’m afraid that Sam Benson's paid obituary is not entirely correct.

Newcomb and I had the pleasure of sitting with Sam at last year’s annual SPERVAC convention dinner. Sam told me he had worked early on at KVEC, San Luis Obispo.

He told me he worked for Christina M. Jacobson, the woman who put the station on the air in 1937. Ms. Jacobson was the long-time owner of an appliance business in San Luis Obispo, Valley Electric Company, hence the call letters, K Valley Electric Company. In May, 1953, she put on the air SLO’s first tv station, KVEC/TV (now KSBY), Channel 6.

Sam may well have worked at KFI. Newcomb may remember Sam talking about working at KFI, but I don’t. I was real interested in his days at KVEC.

KVEC was a Don Lee Mutual affiliate, but, unlike KHJ, KFRC, KGB, and some others, Don Lee did not own KVEC. Ms. Jacobson, and later Ms. Jacobson and Les Hacker, owned KVEC and KVEC-TV (they also owned KVEC-FM, which I believe they put on the air in about 1948, and mailed the license back to the FCC prior to May, 1953, when they put KVEC-TV on the air). I do not think Earle C. Anthony had anything to do with KVEC, other than, because KFI was such a powerhouse, some program originated by KFI may have aired over KVEC at some time. I believe someone writing the obituary mixed up their car dealers, ECA and Don Lee, and didn’t understand that KVEC was only a Mutual affiliate, not an O & O station. In other words, in fact, Sam worked at KVEC, owned by Ms. Jacobson, but which was an affiliate of a radio network owned by car dealer Don Lee, not Earle C. Anthony. That’s my best guess.

My recollection is that in the early days, Sam was on the air full time. As his career developed, he did less air work, and assumed more management duties.

I am so pleased Newcomb and I got the opportunity to visit with Sam last year. We missed the chance to visit with Norman Corwin when he died about ten days before his scheduled appearance at last year’s convention.

Jerry, you have a better memory than I. Until you forwarded it, I had completely forgotten about Lou’s Garage!" - Stan Kelton

"I am looking for an number of djs that were BIG in the 60's and 70's in LA. for a documentary I am working on. I was hoping you might be of some help:

Sam Riddle

Charlie Tuna

Rick Dees

Gary Owens

Just to name a few.

Thank you for your time and consideration."

Sincerely,

W.C. (Bill) Chamberlain
Dragon Castle Entertainment
209.694.5852

"I was web surfing just now and in looking up B. Mitchell Reed I ran across your LARadio site. Reading the bit on BMR I saw the next entry was for Donn Reed.

If you read that entry you'll see the bit about Airwatch helicopters and how they "attracted a business partner." Well, that partner was my father, Riley Jackson. (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0413979/) He had been a radio announcer for WIND in Chicago when he was young and then for Armed Forces Radio during the war. Then he went into advertising. If you grew up in L.A. then you'll remember the ads "All us cows do our best for Jerseymaid." That was dad. Ditto the "You like it, it likes you" slogan for 7-up. (I remember cases and cases of 7-up in our garage.)

To this day I've never forgiven Gene Autry for "stealing my helicopters." (I was 12 at the time.) Weekend rides over L.A. in the KABC Bell 47 (remember the tv show Whirlybirds?) were something very cool for a geeky 12 year old.

At some point along in there a second chopper was needed so they bought the wreck of Arthur Godfrey's helicopter. It was at Bell's headquarters in Forth Worth, Texas so we drove down there in the family station wagon, stuffed the wreck into a large u-haul trailer (the tail was broken off), and towed it back to the Glendale airport which was Airwatch's HQ. It was rebuilt from the ground up to make a backup chopper (which I believe morphed into the primary chopper since it was a better, smoother model and had an enclosed fuselage which looked more professional when painted with the station's call letters.

As for Donn Reed, as the bio says, after the wreck that took him out of the air, he started doing "Nightwatch" from a big KMPC station wagon. Occasionally my dad and I would ride along with him. It was very
interesting - we saw some weird stuff.

About that Airwatch wreck that took Reed out of flying - I knew about it before my father did as I had just come home from school, turned on the tv to KTLA, and there it was. So I called dad to let him know.

Nice site, by the way.

Dave Diamond is teaching in Spearfish, South Dakota? Hmm. Heck, I'm surprised that there's a UNIVERSITY in Spearfish, South Dakota! I've been there..."

- Brian Jackson, tempmail03@greymatters.net (11/16)

Some links about both Donn Reed and Airwatch:

http://www.rfcafe.com/references/popular-electronics/operation-radio-airwatch-july-1959-popular-electronics.htm
http://www.digitaldeliftp.com/DigitalDeliToo/dd2jb-Night-Watch.html

Send mail to db@thevine.net with questions or comments about this website. Copyright © 1997-2012 Last modified: December 24, 2012

Send mail to db@thevine.net with questions or comments about this website.
Copyright © 1997-2012
Last modified: December 24, 2012