Cruisin’ the 60’s
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TOP 40 RADIO
In my opinion
there were two things
that kept radio alive after Television came along.
The first, was Rock and Roll and
the second was the invention of the Transistor Radio.
                                             
This little device
allowed us to do something that we couldn’t do before
and that was to take our music with us,
we could take it to the beach, to school and could
even listen in when we weren’t supposed to,
with that marvelous little ear plug.
      The best example of the "Drake" formula happened in Los Angeles in 1965, Bill Drake
along with Gene Chenault applied this format to KHJ. Ron Jacobs was hired as program
director and the talents of Robert W Morgan and The Real Don Steele were brought in.
  On May 3 1965 in a hurried manuever to counter KFWB they launched
their version of "Boss Radio", and the rest is history. " KHJ Boss Angeles"
would become one of the most successful stations in North America and
the formula would be used successfully at numerous other stations.
         The next major change to top 40 radio has come to be known as the "Drake" formula.
This formula was meant to deliver more music and less clutter, the songs were programmed
at 4 minute intervals, preceeded with the DJ intro and station jingle.  The jingles themselves
were rapid fire shortened versions, commercials were cut back, the news was moved to 20
minutes before and after the hour ( reffered to as 20/20 news), allowing for longer continuous
music play time.
History isn't quite clear on the beginnings of Top 40 Radio,
 but one of the most accepted stories is that back in about 1954, Todd Storz and one of his
engineers were in a bar across from KOWH, and they noticed that the same few songs were
being played repeatedly on the jukebox.  Storz took this idea of a "trimmed playlist" back to
his station and put it into effect , doing away with other types of music programs, he went
strictly with pop tunes, it was a huge success, KOWH soared to the #1 spot in Omaha.  This
format of "formula radio" was used by Storz at all his stations and was picked up by other
stations across the   nation and became known as "Top 40".
  
    
              
     
There were still many great talents working within
the confines  of this format, but when you only have less than 20
seconds, it's not the same.
Fortunately the "Drake" format was not used at all stations,
many great stations maintained their ratings without it,
WABC N.Y. is one good example.
                                  
My teenage years are some of my fondest memories
   and many of those memories were spent listening to early Rock & Roll on a radio very
similar to the one pictured here. It wasn't only the music that stayed with me, but also the
sound of
those raucous on air personalities, the disc jockeys, those whistle
blowing,
bell ringing, howling sounds of guys with names like "Moondog",
"Wolfman", "Woo Woo" and "Weird Beard".