39 years ago today, KGW published Issue #1 of their Top 30 chart, marking their return to "Top 40" music. A format they had previously abandoned after Red Robinson's draft notice in 1960.

A childhood friend and fellow radio fanatic has posted a copy of that chart today in his Today in History column at http://www.radiowest.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?p=12774558#12774558

Here are 18 more KGW music surveys from 1970-1977.
http://www.las-solanas.com/arsa/surveys.php?vqry=kgw&srt1=tsc_psv+DESC

Many old KISN music surveys from 1966-1975 too.
http://www.las-solanas.com/arsa/surveys.php?vqry=kisn&srt1=tsc_psv+DESC

WOW! That brings back some memories. If you recall, we changed the format at KGW in September of 1969, so the obvious question is: "what took you so long to put out a chart?"
I can answer that question.

We wanted to make it as difficult as possible for our competition to know what we were playing and how we were choosing music. The record promoters who were headquartered in Seattle at the rack jobber's location, but traveled to Portland to push their songs were still aligned with KISN, and would take any little piece of information they could discover about our programming over there. We knew this to be true because we tested it a couple of times. I didn't blame them, as it was CYA because they didn't know who was going to win.

I didn't want to give KISN anything, figuring if they really wanted to know what we were doing, let them spend hours listening to the station. That was OK with me, because we were playing great numbers of songs back to back while they were stopping many times an hour to handle their large commercial load.

I thought a chart would give them some insight into our thinking and our research. I finally relented and caved in to pressure from the promoters after it occurred to me that we could do a chart, but it didn't have to reflect in it's numbers what we were playing. And I wanted to see how much we were influencing what the record stores were stocking. So we did one reflecting......well, you read the disclaimer. Notice it says nothing about what we were "playing," just what we were "thinking." And, it was close enough to what was going on popularity-wise in the market so I felt like we weren't misleading anyone.

On this chart you will notice we listed some songs that were labeled "teeny-bopper" music. Subsiquent research gave us some insight into the audience that would cause us to drop and/or not add some highly popular teen records because of who they appealed to.

Our research showed that the teen's music tastes were split into two groups. 12-14 and 15-17. The research showed that we were better off catering to the older of the two, even though it would cost us some teen ratings, because the older group had more in common with the 18-34s, and that was the initial primary target. So, if you can find Arbitron ratings to look at from that era, you will find that KGW was 2nd or 3rd in teens, but extremely strong above that demo.

Audience research is a powerful tool. There was a lot of it being done very quietly in the early 70s and much was learned. Unfortunately something happened in the late 80s that had the effect of a neutron bomb in Radio programming. The programming continued but the people doing it discounted, forgot about, or never heard of everything that came before. One thing is for sure. Programmers have lost control of the programming, and that has a lot to do with the state of Radio today.

Wow what great surveys! I live not far from where the White Front store was. Its now Home Depot. Some of the titles on the surveys I didn't recognize, which makes me wonder if they were played at all.

Hal: As always, another great story. Thanks for sharing.

Ah, yes....I remember September 1969....I was let go from the airstaff of KGW in August 1969.

OK, stop the turnip truck! I go through the Portland listings until I come upon KEX, expecting something from the 50s and lo and behold, it says they were Top 40 in 1976! According to the printed chart, they were playing "Slow Ride" and "Bohemian Rhapsody", among others. How in the world did I miss this?

It was Eric Norberg, KEX P.D. at the time that moved the format to Top 40. KEX was Rockin'!

There are a lot of Oregon station survey's. Put these calls into search:

KASH "All American Radio".
KAST.
K-BOY "Boss 73"
KEED.
K-GALaxy / DJ's were the "K-GALlantmen".
KGAR "Boss 1550".
KRDR "Radio 1-2-3".
KRKT "Boss Jocks".
KROW.
KSWB "Radio 93".
KUGN "Musicradio".
KYMN "Kim".

February 1967 / 16 KASH DJ's were:

Gary Todd, 6-10am.
Elmer Gary, 10-3pm.
Richard W. Robbin, 2-7pm.
J.J. Mitchell, 7-12am (aka Robin Mitchell).
William "King" Williams, 12-6am.

what was the 62 format just prior to the return to top 40 music format mentioned above??All Bubblegum maybe??

John Hume? Is that you?

I looked at one of the KISN charts and noticed they had misspelled "Monkees". Apparently, it wasn't a misprint because they did the same thing in another spot. The funny thing about this KEX debacle is I remember my pre-teen cousins listening to the "Top 9 at 9" and thinking how it was unusual that they would want to listen to a station aimed at adults. How long did KEX stay on that format? I have to say that this is just amazing to me, not unlike discovering an extra finger on my left hand! "KGW Radio 62" was an uptempo MOR format, similar to today's AC, aimed at young adults. Having said that, if someone who wasn't around at that time, were to hear an aircheck, they might say it sounded more like Sunny 1550!

Yes, Murdock, it is I.

KGW for most of the 60s was adult MOR, with Fenwick talk show in the evening.

Before the switch to Top 40, my dad was a devoted KGW guy (obviously a very small club), so I heard a lot of Ray Horn, RH Peck, and immediatley pre-switch, Dan Foley and Fenwick. I also heard a lot of Monitor, NBC's long-form weekend show. The Monitor Beacon is now my ring tone. Of course, once the format switch, KGW was MY station. Dad switched to KYXI. These days, alone in the car, he just yells at Lars. Something about getting off his lawn.

John Hume: What shift did you do on KGW? When did you begin?

"The Monitor Beacon is now my ring tone."

Monitor Beacon Sound:

http://www.monitorbeacon.net/sounds/beacon.rm

"How was The Beacon created? It was a combination of high-frequency tones dialed by an operator to activate remote telephone equipment in completing long-distance calls. The phone company had recorded the sound and sent it to NBC, which re-recorded it at higher and lower frequencies, put it through several filters and mixed it with a microsecond lag. Then network engineers superimposed an oscillator sending the Morse Code letter "M" for "Monitor."

It was hard to create The Beacon -- and impossible to forget, once you heard it."

From: http://www.monitorbeacon.net/index.html

Craig,

After graduating from the University of Washington, I took a job in September 1963 with the Portland Public Schools as the radio producer for KPBS out of Benson High. To supplement my income later in the year I began working on-air on weekends at KGW until I took my 6 months National Guard training in 1965. Upon return in early 1966 I worked evenings at KGW until end of August 1969. My shift consisted of a couple of hours of DJ'ing prior to the Fenwick talk show which (if my 40 years ago recollections are correct)ran from 9 p.m.-midnight and then another hour of DJing from midnight to 1a.m. (I produced and answered the phones for Fenwick as well. Over those years I also vacation subbed for everyone on all shifts. Among the big names when I started were Wes Lynch and Ray Horn....and toward the end people such as Don Wright and Fred Gooding.

And proving that once a teacher, always a teacher - John also was extremely patient with a group of high school kids from Benson's KBPS during his tenure as the night jock on KGW.

When one of us KBPS'ers asked if we could "hang around and watch you do your show" he graciously said yes. After that the KBPS kids would come and hang out as often as he'd let us.

We so appreciated the gesture that a "John Humes Fan Club" was formed. One of our number designed a graphic logo and we printed up fan club sweatshirts.

I was one of those kids - would have been a freshman or sophomore then. I remember John's on air style as witty and hip and his teaching style as extremely engaging.

In the summer of 1970 I got a job at KGW. Running the taped shows overnight on weekends and request line shifts during the week. Hal Widsten was the PD who hired me and as he was showing me the operation I'm not sure he knew how many hours I had already spent in the KGW control room and production room learning the ropes from John Humes.

Murdock,

Thanks for the kind words. You or one of the others from the "fan club" wrote similar sentiments deep in a Fenwick topic from a few years back that I happened on accidently once when looking up some stuff on Fenwick and I can't tell you how great it made me feel after all these years--to realize that someone remembered me for mentoring some 40 years ago.

Oh...and those John Humes Fan Club tee-shirts. The boys had presented me with one and my daughter, Lisa, occasionally would wear it for years until it finally wore out. Later, she worked in national sales for KEX.

Ahhh yes. Ray Horn and Wes Lynch. I remember when they ran Monitor on Saturday, they would quit at 5:30PM and Wes Lynch was on for 30 mins. Wow!!!

Does anyone remember the "Lucky Lager Dance Time"? With the big Lucky Lager sign in Vancouver as you got off the Interstate Bridge.

There used to be big radio studios occupying the whole 3rd floor (I believe) of the Oregonian building on Broadway. I only went there after they had all vacated and the floor was empty of anything but the studios had the "airlock" entrance door where you went through one set and then another. It was easy to walk all around there at the time.

Hey Jimbo,

Those 30 minute DJ slots at odd times were fun. When I had them like the last half hour before signoff at KGW (at like 12:30 a.m.) I use to regularly break format and play lots of weird music I couldn't get away with if the bosses were listening earlier in the day.

We would sign off every night at 1 a.m. The only night we didn't was the shift I was working the night Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. If I remember right, that happened between 12:30 and 1 a.m. and I had to make a quick decision to simulcast the NBC TV news coverage and stay on the air all night. Stayed there until the morning man came in a 5 or 6 a.m.

Mr Murdock...your experience with John was a lot like mine with Joe Cooper. When I worked request line the shift would end at midnight. I would hang around in the control room and watch Joe on the air. Eventually he let me be his board op and he went into the studio between the control room and the production room. When I finally got a chance to do the same overnight weekend shift you did Hal Widsten showed me how to run the board and the rest of the equipment. I didn't tell him until just a couple of years ago that I had been running the board for about a year before he put me on the air!

John:

When you began at KGW in early 1966, can you remember how the DJ line-up looked?

You mentioned Wes Lynch & Ray Horn. What shifts did they work?

Do you remember anyone else?

John: Also, Don Wright began on KGW on October 14, 1968. There was an ad in The Oregonian announcing this. Did he begin as Don Wright? Then did he change to Don Ross? And if so, when did this happen and why? Hal said he changed to Don Wright at the format change.

For your records "Fenwick" began on KGW 9-midnight on June 21, 1965.

If you were Fenwick's show producer, then you remember on the night he would tape this weekend TV show for KGW-TV, he would invite the audience to stay if they wished to watch his radio show. I was a big Fenwick fan for years and talked my father into taking me. I was in 7th grade at the time (1968) but was hooked on talk radio early on from my grandfather and it was this influence with DXing that gave me the radio bug. Anyway chances are you were the one I remember in the next room through the glass running the controls. To this day it's still one of the highlights for me, seeing "The Magic of Radio", up close for the first time.

As far as I remember Don was always Don Wright on KGW. He and Fred Gooding were brought in from Cinncinnati or Cleveland or someplace like that where they had been #1 in the timeslots in hopes that they could transfer some of that magic to KGW. If memory serves me, after the format change in 1969 it took a while for KGW to reach #1 at which point both Wright and Gooding were let go.

To be honest I can't remember any of the other airstaff. I remember that in my time there I outlasted 2 complete changes of airstaff around me before it was my turn to be fired.

I do remember Bill Deiz as a young newsman just learning the ropes.

Some things I remember about the Fenwick show. For the time, he was somewhat unorthodox as far as religion goes and would put forth some very interesting discussions in that area that still color some of my thinking today. He did not want to put God in too much of a box, saying it didn't much matter what term you used, whether it be "Ultimate Reality" or "Ford V-8" I tried to use that "Ford V-8" analogy with my very religious sister once and she gave me the strangest look.

I always felt the best skill I ever picked up from producing the Fenwick Show was the sixth sense you develop as a call screener as to callers who might end up being nutcases and want to spew filth or in some other way disrupt the show. Even if they never did anything outright in the screening process for you to keep them from going on the air, I found I had developed an acute enough sense that I would hang very close to the dump button. I was always amazed at how often that sense turned out to be right. I'm sure that is a skill that most who screen calls gain, but to me it was always fascinating to realize what I could discern from just a tone in someone's voice or a slight hesitation.

Oh...and Wes Lynch was morning drive. Ray Horn was afternoons....part of his time as mid-day and then as afternoon drive.He also did a latenight weekend show that I think focused on jazz which was dubbed "The Horn Blows at Midnight." My memory is a bit hazy about all of this.

Don Wright wasn't let go - he was lured "across the street" by KISN. At which time PD Mike Phillips brought Bruce Murdock back from Spokane to do mornings. A few years later Bruce transferred to KING in Seattle and Mike put Craig Walker into AM Drive.

John, please say Hi to Lisa for me. A delightful woman.

Former deejay spins discs as jazz resurrected on radio

An article by John Wendeborn in "The Oregonian," 13 October 1974. He writes about Ray Horn's new program on KQIV and "The Horn Blows at Midnight" on KGW. It also has some more Portland radio history.

That makes at least 4 stations where Ray Horn was instrumental(no pun intended)in bringing Jazz to the airwaves. There was also the full time Jazz format on KKUL as well as several hours on the weekend at KKEY.

Wasn't Ray Horn also on KLIQ at one time?
I worked with a girl in the mid 70's that was or had been married to him at one time. She still had the same last name (it had three more characters before the 'Horn') and I know she married someone else later. I don't know which marriage it was for either one.

Wes Lynch also worked the afternoon shift on Saturdays at one time. He spent most of it just working the board while Monitor was on. Then they left Monitor at 5:30PM and he played records for 30 mins to the end of the shift. That was when they were in the old studios across from KEX before the move to 1501 Jefferson.

KQ4: Thanks for posting the article. I had forgotten you had that. I've made notes from it. I'm now compiling the KGW history information posted on pdxradio recently, on my word pad for storage. This has all been great stuff to document.

Jimbo: I can't confirm Ray Horn was on KLIQ but I would bet he was. On August 12, 1974 KLIQ switched from a Talk Radio format to Big Bands, afternoons & evenings. "The Sound of The 40's". Ray was probably on KLIQ for 2 months before moving to KQIV.

Craig, back on January 18, we had a discussion about KEX as Top 40. I looked back at the link and it appears that the reason I don't remember it is because it never happened! That's a sales chart, not one for the station. KEX Playlist titles are capitalized and "Love Rollercoaster", "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Slow Ride" are not. The only titles capitalized are AC titles. You have to click on the yellow chart to the right.

That's probably true. None the less, KEX under Eric Norberg did start playing a lot of Top 40 songs. So many, I remember my dad (a longtime devoted KEX listener) complaining to me while we were listening in his truck. His favorites by Tony Orlando & Dawn were long gone. When Eric left KEX and I noticed the music was softened down again.