Originally published on December 21, 2007
Bill Drake

Boom! That’s the sound of the ’60s/’70s programming legend taking another station to the top of the ratings

Bill Drake is one of contemporary radio’s true programming legends. Many programming basics used today can be credited to him. He worked his magic at such legendary stations as WAKE/Atlanta, KYA/San Francisco and KGB/San Diego and, of course, the RKO Radio chain in the late ’60s and early ’70s, where his partnership with Gene Chenault created one of the largest sales and programming consulting companies ever. Inducted into the California and Georgia Radio Halls of Fame, today Drake is retired and living in “Boss Angeles.”

Getting into radio: In high school, Bainbridge station WMGR in Donalsonville, Ga., wanted to do a teen-time disc jockey program with a guy and a girl. They offered it to a friend of mine and he didn’t want to do it, so I said I would. One hour a week we played records and talked; the main thing was so the station could count the time as public service. Then they hired me for a part-time job, then I became full-time and went on from there.

Founding of Drake-Chenault: When KYA was sold, Gene [Chenault] contacted me and offered a two-station deal: Stockton and Fresno. It was more than I was making in San Francisco, plus it came with a mighty fine apartment and a Cadillac convertible. He was getting beaten pretty badly. I came in and before long we had a 52 share from 6 a.m. to midnight. We then went to look at KGB. Actually, Chenault wanted to buy it, but Willett Brown didn’t want to sell—though he did want to know why we wanted it because he wasn’t doing anything with it. He made us a deal and the station went from 14th to first in about three months.

Willet was on the board of General Tire, which owned RKO General. He had gone to school with Tom O’Neil, chairman of the board of General Tire, and he told him what had happened with his ratings. Tom flew out to L.A. to talk to us because they had all these radio stations that were hemorrhaging money and doing nothing. He agreed there wouldn’t be any corporate interference and hired us. KHJ Boss Radio was No. 1 in L.A. in a matter of months. Then we began work on KFRC [San Francisco] and the rest of the chain followed.

Liner Notes
Profile:
Bill Drake
Title:
Programming legend, founder of Drake-Chenault
Favorite radio format:
“If it ain’t hits, I don’t want to hear it.”
Favorite TV show:
“I watch football games and movies. I can’t stand sitcoms
Favorite song:
“Unchained Melody” by Roy Hamilton. “It was the first one I ever played on the radio.”
Favorite book:
“The Godfather” by Mario Puzo
Favorite movie:
“Gone With the Wind”
Favorite restaurant:
“I liked the old Martoni’s on Cahuenga in Hollywood. It was a big hangout.”
Beverage of choice:
Jim Beam Black and 7-Up
Hobbies:
“I read a lot and I like to go out and buy too much stuff.”
E-mail address:
drakeradio
@sbcglobal.net

Describe the Drake format: Hits with less talk, fewer commercials. We would only run two commercials in any given slot and there were 10 outside of newscasts, but it was a two-unit maximum. It could be a 60 and a 10 or two 30s, but it could not be a 60 and a 30 or two 30s and a 10. We built in more music sweeps. Everybody else was choking the goose laying the golden egg, jamming in as many commercials as they could. When our slots were sold that was it.

Why you were so successful: I guess we were doing something right. It was the whole package, the idea of the forward momentum, the a cappella jingle to faster pace, the cleaner sound, what I called “jock logos”: “Robert W. Morgan, 93 KHJ, boom!” I think people liked that. And we didn’t play a lot of stiff records. Disc jockeys weren’t allowed to talk too much. I always said if you’re going to say nothing anyway, say it in as few words as possible. We would drill them and train them. We customized it by market. We didn’t play the same music lists. Detroit was very black, San Francisco was another thing and L.A. another. Actually the best test market we ever found was Fresno. For some reason, if it made it in Fresno, it would make it just about anywhere, and that wasn’t necessarily true of other markets.

In addition to RKO, your company worked with many other stations: We had about 350 stations and six syndicated formats. I knew FM was going to be the thing and I kept telling Tom O’Neil, “Don’t get too happy because pretty quick we’re going to need to move all of this to FM.” The FCC was going to make us flip the programming of the AM and FM simulcasts so everyone had to have programming, and RKO had FM stations in all of these markets, too, and no programming. That’s when we went into syndication. Initially we put the programming on all the RKO FMs.

Selling your interest in the company in the ’80s: I went back South. I had worked day and night for years and said, “I’m just going to enjoy it now.” I went to Florida and bought myself a penthouse on the beach. I don’t fish and I don’t play golf, and I came back to L.A. about six or seven years later. I listened to K-Earth and at that time CBS had KODJ—now programming Jack. They were both trying to do KHJ from the ’60s and bungling it pretty badly. George Beasley owned it at the time so I called him and said, “I know what you’re trying to do, I’m bored, and K-Earth ain’t making it.” And he said, “What do you want?” I told him and he said, “Well, do it!” I went to Johnny Mann again and had the jingles recut. I hired Robert W. Morgan, the Real Don Steele and Johnny Hayes. It was basically like reliving KHJ.

State of radio: Competition is such that today people are excited about a 3 share. There are so many wasted signals. Our policy was, we didn’t go into a market without the intent of being No. 1, period, boom! No niche this or that. And we made it 90% of the time.

What we can learn from yesterday’s successes: Whoever puts the best on the radio wins. Obviously today you’ve got iPods, satellite and all kinds of goodies. There are some good programmers, but some lousy-sounding stations—and some of them have incredible signals. There doesn’t seem to be that fever anymore. I know when we were doing it we were like a brotherhood. We went in to win and did whatever it took. We were totally, absolutely dedicated. It doesn’t come across on many radio stations now. A lot of people just don’t know what they’re doing. Of course, that’s always been true, thank you, Jesus.

Career highlight: Every time you go into a market and do your stuff and it goes No. 1. That’s always a rush.

Advice for broadcasters: I’d sure like to see something a little more innovative and maybe a different concept. Or maybe somebody doing basics well. There’s a lot that can be done.