Chapter 5. Portability, Immediacy and Spontaneity

It seems odd today but concerns that television would kill the radio industry were very real in mid-20th century America.  Radio guided us through the Great Depression as well as a world war and was seen as almost a family member in most homes.  Television had been talked about since the dawn of radio, but development was delayed by world events. However, it was making gains as a symbol of post war prosperity and stacks of televisions in the windows of local appliance stores were sure to draw a crowd of curious passersby.  It represented a drastic change in home life as the screen dominated any room it was located and set viewing times were quickly becoming a part of the daily routine.  They may have been “whistling past the graveyard”, but radio executives were adamant their medium would remain the most prominent form of mass communication.  News in early 1951 gave them additional ammunition.

In northeast Ohio, television sales plummeted in the first two months of the year.^[1]  You could argue the holiday buying season was over, but a TV was a major investment at that time often with a steep commitment to payments like a stove, washing machine or car and not an impulse buy. Plus, some dealers demanded a 25% down payment.   It was estimated that there were a little over 470,000 sets in the greater Cleveland area due, in part to a surge the year before that one dealer described as nine months of business done in three.  But rumors began circulating about higher prices, additional federal taxes and even scarcity of new sets that resulted in a sharp decline in sales and even overstocks.  Obviously, sales would eventually start to pick up, but it gave radio ad people a little breathing room to draw battle plans against the continuing challenge of TV.

An advantage for radio was portability but also the immediacy and spontaneity of its personalities.  Bill Gordon came to Cleveland from Memphis, and his WHK show was an immediate hit.^[2]  Groucho Marx would have said Gordon was “vaccinated with a phonograph needle” and he broke just about every rule of radio at the time.  He didn’t care about time clocks, missed commercials, talked over records and the audience loved it.  Sensing they were sitting on a gold mine, WHK syndicated a part of Gordon’s daily show to stations in Fremont and Toledo in an experiment to see if his appeal carried over to other towns.  If it worked, more stations would soon be added.  It should also be noted that Gordon’s manic delivery could be a challenge for his support staff, and no one knew that better than his engineer, James Egan.  Gordon was unpredictable and would signal Egan for sound effects, to play records, and keep the show running smoothly despite the host’s often bizarre nature.  He did this five hours a day, six days a week, and was hesitant to jump on board after first meeting Gordon.  It may have been a lighthearted exaggeration, but WHK brass claimed they interviewed several engineers to man the controls testing them for “nerves and endurance” and Egan got the job despite his protests.

Meanwhile, another local station that could easily be heard across much of the Midwest faced a push to have the FCC revoke its license.  The commission’s chief counsel spearheaded the case against WGAR’s parent company claiming its stations were politically biased.^[3]  Hearings were held that argued the company’s owner had issues with the federal government that went all the way back to the New Deal and the stations put a definite slant on its coverage of Washington affairs.  Columnist Phillip Porter came to the stations’ defense arguing that WGAR aired the City Club Forum every week that stressed fair and unbiased discussion of important issues of the day.  It also drew sizable ratings, and Porter scoffed at charges that WGAR would air anti-government propaganda stating, “an outfit like that is too smart to be run for the sake of whooping up some absentee owner’s political prejudices”.  He warned about the threat of federal bureaucrats acting as if they were a law unto themselves and said the FCC would be stepping away from its original design to regulate the airwaves, so stations didn’t interfere with other signals if it practiced what he termed censorship.  The charges were eventually dismissed. The station would face media scrutiny later that year when it mistakenly claimed Cleveland Mayor Thomas Burke snubbed them by turning down an appearance for a Red Cross blood drive.  After sorting out the facts, news director Charles Day apologized on behalf of the station; Burke accepted their response and called it a “closed incident”.

WHK marked a major milestone in its history that March with a ribbon cutting welcoming the public to its newly completed “Radio Cleveland” center.^[4]  It boasted four times the space of its former studios in the Terminal Tower with its renovated theater now referred to as “Studio One”.  The occasion was marked with a special broadcast with station management predicting it would spark renovations at nearby buildings as well, making the region one of the most attractive in the city.  The auditorium stage was also put to good use with speeches by Mayor Burke, and a variety show hosted by Bill Gordon featuring the Ames Brothers among other top acts.  The celebration continued with a salute by the Guy Lombardo Orchestra on the Mutual Network and the finale with a remote broadcast from the WHK stage by the Chicago Theater of the Air.  An important point.  It also had 2000 square feet of studios set aside for television.

We mentioned the continuing concern over TV’s growing popularity, and some in the radio business were convinced the two mediums could co-exist if only to ensure their survival.  By mid-year, now settled into its new broadcast complex, WHK was pushing ahead with its plans to expand into television and filed a first of its kind application for a color TV permit specifically for a UHF station Channel 19.^[5]  (This was surprising on a number of levels because TVs were still an expensive novelty for many and no one had a color TV, let alone access to ultra-high frequency stations.  H. K. Carpenter explained the move stating the “crystal set era of television is over.  Now the industry moves into the field of improved reproduction made possible by color.”  He obviously over simplified that explanation.  In the early days of radio hobbyists could build a receiver with an oatmeal box, and TV was obviously a different story. Carpenter could have simply stated that his station would be ready to move when color TV and UHF were available.  But other radio stations knew what he meant and weren’t about to go down without a fight.

The FCC had previously determined that Cleveland would get only one more commercial station, and WHK was previously joined by WGAR, WJW and WERE in applying for a VHF (very high frequency) license.  All actually united in a formal protest saying northeast Ohio deserved more than what the FCC was allotting, and that would be determined in hearings.  However, WHK management saw their opportunities hopefully becoming reality in as little as a year and crossed their fingers the license would be issued.  When the FCC finally allotted the licenses a few months later, Cleveland was allowed three UHF outlets.  Along with Channel 19, Channel 25 was specifically intended for educational non-profit use, and Channel 65 was also opened for bids with WGAR and WERE setting their sights on the latter and WJW ready to battle WHK over 19.^[6]  The competing stations would soon find it was a far more complex arrangement than they anticipated.  Meanwhile, WGAR was expanding its radio base and won approval for an FM outlet putting it on the same playing field as other simulcasting stations.

Cleveland’s most popular stations were feeling the effects of TV as many of the programs that were mainstays of radio were now simulcasting on television or even just switching to the small screen.  Plus, young people in the postwar era weren’t content staying at home and car radios became an attractive alternative.  If they stayed at home, small portable radios were an option for many bedrooms.  Noting a loss of audience and ad revenue if alternative programming wasn’t pursued, the role of the disc jockey became more important as well as entertainment distinctly different from traditional radio.  A lot has been written about WJW’s Alan Freed and his rise to prominence, far too much to summarize here, but it should be noted that his show centering on so-called “race records’ could be seen as a forbidden fruit to a generation eager for change.  When he sponsored a concert at the Cleveland Arena in March 1952 aimed at promoting himself as “King of the Moondoggers” it sparked a riot from overcrowding and drew front page headlines for his station.^[7]  The disc jockey was now seen as more of a leader than an entertainer and helped forge an important new path in radio’s survival.

The other stations had major names as well with Phil McLean and Bill Randle on WERE, “Smoochie” Gordon still holding strong at WHK and “Walking Talking Bill Hawkins” manning the mic at WDOK among other noted names of the day.  Freed and Randle had redefined the term disc jockey with their unique patter and ear for new music, but there was still troubling news for the radio industry.  As feared, TV was taking ad revenue with some referring to radio as “the bargain counter of the broadcasting industry”.  It started at the network level with CBS and NBC cutting sponsor rates up to 30% to stay afloat.  Keep in mind that some of that ad revenue made its way to local stations, with CBS affiliate WGAR concerned enough that it was rumored they might split from the network.  Stations reached out for any opportunity for ad revenue, and remotes with their personalities were an easy way to bring in money.  Well, easy in theory.  Case in point? Bill Gordon.  When he did a remote it put his engineer back in the studio at a distinct disadvantage because he couldn’t read Gordon’s signals and he had to guess what he was doing.  Plus, the old saying “anything can happen…and will” rang true on one occasion that Gordon said left him shaken.

It was a Saturday morning remote at a supermarket in Euclid, Ohio, with Gordon’s usual high-speed patter.  Suddenly, he noticed some chatter in his headphones and, not sure what was happening, decided to talk over it.^[8]  Listening closely to the chatter he realized it was two teenage girls having a lengthy conversation, and they didn’t realize the phone lines had somehow crossed, and they were bring heard across the state.  Gordon tried to drown it out with his own comments and even had the music turned up with no success. In fact, the girls would ask every couple of minutes where the music was coming from but just kept up their conversation.  Just one of the hazards of live radio.

Nineteen fifty-three was shaping up to be the year for WGAR, even though it faced stiff competition from other stations and their personalities.  The station had strength in the mornings with Bill Mayer, but each day part was a battle and the competition was heavy.  Despite the push for young listeners, the station brought in an old timer for an early evening segment.  Fred Ripley had a long history in radio going back to his role as a singer on WHK thirty years before, as well as time at WTAM and WERE, and newspaper work as a radio critic.  He was also on site when WGAR signed on in 1930, and his new role would have him doing a nightly “Man About Town” series for the station.^[9]  In truth, Ripley was being tried out in a relatively safe time slot with the big guns at other stations later in the evening.  If he was put up against Bill Randle or Phil McLean it could have been likened to a kamikaze mission.  About Bill Mayer.  It wouldn’t be a reach to say radio was in his blood line.  His “Mayer of the Morning” show was one of Cleveland’s top programs, but he had a younger brother who also wanted a job in the industry.  Joe Mayer auditioned several times at WEOL-AM before finally getting a job, and that came after some coaching from his brother. He’d go on to a long and successful career at a number of other stations in years to come.

Another rising star at WGAR was a Western Reserve University student who moonlighted as a reporter at the station.  In April 1953, a plane crashed into San Francisco Bay and the reporter got a call from a couple visiting Cleveland whose daughter was a stewardess for that airline.  The reporter found out she had survived and the couple, staying at the Hotel Statler, was just an elevator ride away from the WGAR studios. The reporter put their story on the air and the next day walked into his classroom where he was confronted by Professor Warren Guthrie, who also did news on WXEL-TV.^[10]  Guthrie jokingly confronted his student about his scoop, oh and the student’s name.  It was Jack Perkins who would go on to a long career on network television news.  These were busy months for WGAR, and it may have led to the stations’ decision that June to withdraw from the bid to get the TV Channel 65.  Station president John Patt announced the move saying, “Our decision to do this has been reached only after careful consideration of the matter and is due to the long delays which are involved in getting action on television applications in markets already having some television service”. Would WGAR make a possible TV bid in the future?  Patt left that door opened but for the time being the matter was put to rest giving WERE an uncontested bid for the UHF channel.

By year’s end, WGAR had changed hands and was now owned by People’s Broadcasting Corp., which made it clear that radio was still the dominant force in broadcasting.  While admitting the company was still looking at TV as an option, Vice-president Herbert Evans also pointed out that the average home had three or four radios to every television it owned.  The numbers seemed on the side of radio, and that included rush hours motorists.  The station showed the results of a survey that indicated 90% of the more than half million cars in Cuyahoga County alone had radios.

In the early months of 1954, WGAR welcomed back a returning hero that February with the arrival of Paul Wilcox, who left the station three years before to fly long range bombers in the Korean conflict.^[11]  He’s been shot down just a mile from safety and held as a POW, was listed as MIA and after being held for several months in solitary confinement was returned in a prisoner swap.

It seemed like WGAR couldn’t stay out of the news, though sometimes it wasn’t in the most complimentary sense.  Newsman Jack Dooley found that out the hard way getting front page headlines when he accidentally shot himself in the shoulder while cleaning his .38 caliber revolver.  It happened in an upstairs bedroom at his home, and he was treated at Lakewood Hospital.  Fortunately, his wife and two young children weren’t near him when the gun misfired.^[12]  Another front-page news item demanded worldwide attention and that was the trial of Dr. Sam Sheppard who was accused of brutally slaying his wife, Marilyn, in their suburban home.  He maintained his innocence, but the powerful Cleveland Press may have biased the public as well as the jury with its scathing editorials about the case and Sheppard was found guilty.  Dorothy Kilgallen was among the celebrity news people who traveled to Cleveland for the trial, but local media paid heavy attention to the case as well.^[13]  There were reports that Cleveland and Akron stations paid out in excess of $45,000 to cover the trial with WDOK-AM alone spending $14,000.

Radio engineers can face a lot of different challenges, though it can often lead to innovations that change the way we hear the medium.   Organist Ronnie Bohne was set to play a pair of recitals on WGAR but was concerned about the way it might be heard with the limitations of the AM band.  Enter Clare Taylor and Windsor Atwater, whose technical expertise led them to design an echo chamber that made Bohne sound as if he was playing in a symphony hall.   Added to that was a slight delay on playback that gave the instrument the sound of a cathedral organ, a move that chief engineer Lloyd Wingard called, “the finest sound in AM broadcasting” that would be used in similar live broadcasts for years to come.^[14]  They weren’t alone in developing new techniques. While WGAR’s FM signal had far better quality, as did the other FM outlets around town, WHK’s tech people experimented with a stereo AM signal going back to the 1930s, until FM made it impractical.  WGAR-FM was useful in presenting more high-brow entertainment, but it still had a fraction of the audience on the AM side.   That could be why there were no complaints when pianist Henry Pildner opened up at his co-workers during a live performance.  Noticing he was doing his show without candelabra, a couple of staff members fashioned a makeshift candleholder and walked it into the studio with a staff announcer pretending he was playing a violin with a coat hanger.  Pildner was not amused, stopped playing and gave them a dressing down live on the air for disturbing his program.  It should be pointed out that Pildner was known for his sense of humor often doing a Professor Irwin Corey type comedy routine, but he didn’t feel it was the time or place for the impromptu tribute to Liberace.^[15]

The rock and roll era was well underway and WERE was riding a wave with Bill Randle’s dominance, but that wasn’t its only programming.   Like television, many radio stations offered a wide variety of programs and fought for the audience they perceived to be the strongest at that hour.  In the “Ozzie and Harriet” fifties, some programmers directed shows for the “home maker” and WERE’s Louise Winslow was given the job to host “Brunch Time”, a live audience participation show from the Halle Brothers department store Tea Room.^[16]  The important thing to remember about WERE was that one of its principal owners, Ray Miller, had deep connections with the Democratic Party, and during its run one of the featured guests was an up-and-coming senator from Massachusetts named John F. Kennedy.  The Halle’s store was a busy place with WTAM’s Wayne Mack promoting its extensive record department on both the WTAM-AM and FM outlets.^[17]  This was also a time when downtown shopping and nightlife were thriving, so it made sense to take the various shows to the people.  Now a bit about Randle.

His track record was already being written in stone and a nod from him usually meant brisk record sales, but… Bill Randle made it clear.  He gets the news release first.  Period.  He let you know that you didn’t have to bring them to him first, but he had the same option to ignore them.  Word got around and the other stations were livid! Some speculated that the snubs made other disk jockeys feel comparatively unimportant.  Bill Gordon led the charge stating Randle wasn’t even the best DJ in the city, a claim which was not supported by ratings, and to be perfectly frank, the distributors probably knew Gordon would not present their records properly.   Randle was described as a “musical Univac”.  He could predict how high a record could chart, but other jocks said if the practice continued, they wouldn’t play the records Randle got first which would have been a foolhardy move.  It got to the point where even Variety tracked him down for comment and Randle offered them one word.  “Childish”.^[18]  Oh and the hits kept a coming!  Days after the trade report, Randle had an exclusive in studio visit from Eddie Fisher who was in the news for his split with actress Debbie Reynolds. You have to pick your battles!  If that wasn’t enough to gall his competitors, Randle also accepted a radio job in New York City…but planned to keep his WERE show as well.  As Bruce Springsteen would write years later, “You’ve got to learn to live with what you can’t rise above”.  Sage advice for Cleveland’s frustrated fraternity of radio entertainers.

There were plenty of other jocks in Cleveland radio, and they all pretty much knew each other and the stations where they worked so it was news when someone jumped ship.  “The Big Chief” Norman Wain was a mainstay at WDOK when out of nowhere he turned in his resignation in October 1955 for a gig at rival WJW…but not for long.  He was only at WJW for two weeks when he decided to go back to WDOK!  Needless to say, this didn’t sit well with WJW’s general manager Jack Kelly who announced his departure with a short memo to the staff: “Norman Wain is no longer associated with WJW”.  When contacted by the papers Kelly would only say he was too upset to comment. Wain returned to WDOK as its program director and had compliments for his time at the other station, brief as it was, saying: “I’m the villain of this piece. They treated me very well at WJW, but making the switch – for me at least – was mistake, my future is here at WDOK”.  (18) Wain would find out the station would eventually make him a legend in a completely unforeseen way.

If there was one thing you could say about Bill Gordon, he was never at a loss for words.  In fact, it greatly irked his program director, record distributors and WHK’s news director when he would interrupt or talk-over records and even newscasts.  To add to their misery, Gordon had a TV installed in his studio so he could deliver a running commentary on shows that were on the same time as his.  Arguing the point was useless.  He could wear you down with words. It was also a very risky venture because there was new concern that TV was eroding radio’s base.  Columnist George Condon didn’t blame people for abandoning radio for TV.  He said radio abandoned the people!^[19]  Condon said radio didn’t offer enough competition amongst them and TV, and when the audience started deserting for the flickering screen radio didn’t try to fight it.  It just gave up and directed itself to a new audience, the teenagers.  Their new weapon in the media war was more music (unless you were WHK’s Bill Gordon making his program director tear out his hair).  It was a template that would stay for decades to come.