“The Boss is Back!” Dick Whittington’s 1st Show as 93 KHJ Returns | April 4, 1983
93 KHJ returns as an Oldies station after a two year run playing Country music! Dispite the on air promo which mimics KHJ’s original Boss Radio launch in 1965, the first Dick Whittington show is so bad as to be an embarassment to the original Boss Radio morning show with Robert W. Morgan. We know virtually nothing about Dick Whittington’s career but the impression made on this aircheck is one of a man completely unfamiliar with the control room at KHJ, and who makes constant apologies about the lack of technical prowess on the air in this representation of the first two hours of the KHJ morning show.
The formatics are in place, however, and one can easily understand where KHJ was going with this in 1983. The bright spots on this recording are the original KHJ Johnny Mann Jingles, and the news department (although the first newscast features AP Network news instead of the local news team).
Despite the technical glitches, this really is an historical recording. It’s the beginning of a new era at KHJ. There would be one more after this attempt: Car Radio, which would last until 1986, and a call letter change. That story, we’ll present at another time. Listen for important news items - Columbian earthquake relief, Economic Recovery (doesn’t THAT hit home!), Space Shuttle delays liftoff, and the anniversary of MLK’s assassination.
(3 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)
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How long did he last at KHJ? What gets me is he’s apologizing for the station dropping the Country format and keeps bringing it up. He also seems oblivious to KHJ’s boss radio past. Other than that, the music sounds great. It’s funny how several of those songs are less than 10 years old on this aircheck.
I couldn’t believe my ears listening to this when I posted it. I can simply not believe that this is how KHJ attempted to launch an Oldies format… or ANY format for that matter. Was there no talent coaching done before this went on the air? No quick history lesson done before allowing Whittington to crack the mic?
This was the essential problem with KHJ though, they dumped top 40 before it needed to be dumped, and when Country didn’t work, they simply decided to do something cheap, and this aircheck proves that this was a half-hearted effort at Oldies, since they obviously were clueless as to what else to do with KHJ. There was obviously little or NO prep, or thought as to what this might sound like to fans of Robert W. Morgan, The Real Don Steele (who, by the way, were both still around at this time), and that launching this way might turn off more potential listeners than it might attract.
And we wonder why stations launch jockless in today’s radio world… it would have undoubtedly sounded better than this.
Hilarious, Sweet Dick was a radio legend in L.A.
Look if you’re expecting the Boss sound circa 1965 that wasn’t going to work in 1983 LA. Dick was a master of satire and wacky bits. Great, entertaining air-check.
I thought I’d add something, with all due respect none of you really understand that
Dick was a well known LA morning personality
with a sardonic flavor & a knack for self
deprecating humor. Sorry you guys don’t get it, no he didn’t do slap-stick or bad-boy humor, Dick was more of a thinking man’s DJ.
This station was trying
to reinvent itself in 1983, and Whittington
was well known to the adult demographics
that KHJ was attempting to appeal to. The
radio geek, jingle heritage stuff was not going to put many points on the board.
This was not meant as a personal insult to Mr. Whittington, I’m sure that he was quite good, IN HIS ELEMENT. I am saying that this incarnation of KHJ got off to a lame start, sounded terrible, was executed poorly, and likely sounded quite amateurish to listeners who remembered top 40 KHJ from only three years earlier.
While much of the audience may have changed, radio basics remained (and still remain) pretty much the same. You can’t sound like a high school kid or a retiree and maintain any kind of serious adult audience, no matter what the music played is. This aircheck, recorded on this first day as KHJ launched Oldies, sounded absolutely horrible, and I’d say that even if I were only a listener and had never spent one day in radio.
I blame management for making a half hearted effort at launching a new format, not necessarilly Dick Whittington. When you launch a new format, you put your absolute best talent on, you launch with the most powerful, strongest testing songs, and you image properly. When stations changed formats even in 1983, this was absolutely important. First impressions can last for a very long time.
It doesn’t matter whether they used jingles or not, or what kind of format they’d chosen… you don’t have the first show sound like the announcer just woke up from a nap and has no idea which buttons to push. That this was the attitude at RKO General speaks volumes about this company’s business policies at that time.
Kevin B wrote…
{This station was trying
to reinvent itself in 1983, and Whittington
was well known to the adult demographics
that KHJ was attempting to appeal to. The
radio geek, jingle heritage stuff was not going to put many points on the board.}
West replies…
Actually, if you listen to the aircheck, KHJ started with almost the exact same verbiage as they did in ‘65… and used the old Johnny Mann jingles. That KHJ was trying to reinvent itself is obvious, but not in the direction you think. They tried to re-create the original format at KHJ and radio geek, jingle heritage stuff was EXACTLY what they were tying to do. Of course it was meant to be an adult format!
You don’t launch a recreation of a format that was fast paced, tight and entertaining with a jock doing one liners by having a jock sound like it’s a standards station. Sheesh!
Take Dick W out of the picture for a minute. The station wasn’t based on a solid concept. I’ve launched or re-launched a number of stations and the first item is to find a life-group that is under-served. KRLA & KRTH were very successful as Oldie stations during this time. The Boss is Back was too soon and without any focus.
The real opportunity would have been to organically build a new stationality to the station. Dick was a well known and strong personality in the 35+ demographic. The Boss is Back was cool for insiders and radio people-but not for the audience. It would be 7 years later when Bill Drake did it right. Focusing KRTH and hiring Robert W Morgan, Real Don Steele, and for a time Humble Harve. This wasn’t the right time for such a format.
What is missing in the discussion is the passing of the literate & funny personality. LA had Lohman & Barkley, Perry Allen, Whittington, San Francisco had Don Sherwood, & Chicago had Wally Phillips and later the great Bob Collins. Times change, but the human element remains critical. Today it’s morning boot camp and the jerk, the twerp, and the sweetheart formula of morning radio. Another reason radio is on the back shelf of the consumer’s mind.
I can wholeheartedly agree with you here. Radio has really dissed the idea of the true ‘entertainer’ today. The human element is almost a foreign term in radio these days. Current programmers would shout that statement down, saying that listeners want the ‘Hollywood fluff’ type morning shows, and mainly music without too much announcer talk the rest of the day.
I really don’t like most morning shows and their fake laugh tracks, the ‘jerks’ (great way to put it) who seem to think that discussing the previous night’s ‘Survivor’ or ‘American Idol’, or whatever airhead Hollywood type’s love life is is what listeners want. No, there’s real news to be discussed, there’s real information people want, and people crave a good sense of humor. The days of people, GREAT talent like Dr. Don Rose, Harry Harrison, the late Lohman & Barkley, etc., are long gone and its really too bad.
You are correct in your assessement of KRTH’s evolution as an Oldies station. They DID do that format right, and as for KHJ’s Oldies format… Oldies was a viable format in 1983, but the format really didn’t come into its own nationwide until the mid to late 80s, and by that time, most AM stations were either doing talk or standards… so perhaps you’re right about the time not being quite right for KHJ to do it.
Had KHJ not try to recreate the original format and simply become a personality oriented, AC-type Oldies station, it might have fared better. But in 1983, who really knew what to do with a floundering AM station? Perhaps RKO could have stuck with Country a while longer?
Truth is, it’s likely that 930 AM, with it’s limited signal and a music audience that had pretty much migrated to FM by 1983, probably wouldn’t have suceeded with any music format after the flip from Country, and they should have gone talk… it would have likely lasted longer than 1986.
That all said, I was in L.A. for a time in 1985 and really enjoyed the “Car Radio” concept. I remember listening to Dave Sebastian and thinking that the music mix, the AM stereo recurrent hits and frequent traffic & weather reports was a really great, fast paced format. Too bad that there wasn’t an audience left to enjoy it.
Sweet Dick was way ahead of his time. He should have been doing talk radio…or a morning show on FM with music as the filler. His morning show on KHJ was great, a combination of topical stuff with imaginative bits (like soliciting callers to improvise a soap opera, live) and great story telling. He had some good people around him–Mark Denis on traffic, Jeff Hillary doing news, and Boy George Acevedo as his producer. Just the wrong time, wrong station.