This site is a fun exploration into one particular rock and roll radio station in Los Angeles. Why This one rock and roll radio station influenced the entire radio broadcasting industry.
On May 5, 1965, a rock and roll music format called Boss Radio was launched on KHJ because the owners needed to reverse the AM station’s money-losing ways.
You can tell right away by the three call letters that KHJ was an old station. Started in 1922 before the FCC switched to requiring AM radio stations to have four call letters instead of just three, KHJ genuinely was one of the oldest AM stations in Los Angeles.
But, you have to think that the KHJ owners at some point must have asked themselves: Does a station need to sound old-fashioned because it’s old?
Prior to the 1960s, KHJ did not play rock and roll music. But, in Los Angeles and elsewhere, the AM stations of the day that did play rock and roll often sounded as though they were programmed by the person who happened to be on the air at the time. Some stations chose to use playlists of the 40 most popular songs. Others placed no such limits on the number of songs played. Typically, the person on the air not only could pick the music they played, but they also enjoyed the freedom to talk as much as they wanted. Fully one third of the hour could be taken up by commercials on those stations. Music jingles on those stations often ran as long as one full minute and were embellished with lyrics that promoted the station, it’s city, the person on the air, the weather, and what not.
The Boss Radio format offered a modern sound as an alternative on KHJ: Only the top-selling 30 rock and roll hits made it on the air. The format allowed on-air talent only to talk over the musical introduction of the songs (prior to when the vocal starts). The musical jingles lasted only a few seconds and got quickly to the point before transitioning immediately back to another hit song. Instead of 18 minutes of commercials in any given hour, KHJ cut that down to around 12 minutes maximum literally making room for much more music.
This emphasis on a tight playlist of 30 hits, less announcer talk, fewer commercials, and short jingles that led back to more hit songs may not seem revolutionary now, but it certainly was in 1965. Or something similar. Boss Radio turned KHJ from a money loser to the number one station in Los Angeles in only a few months. The Boss Radio format then quickly spread to other California cities and eventually across the United States and into Canada.
Are there secrets behind these business successes in the radio broadcasting industry?
Yes! First and foremost, the rock and roll music of that time created a pop culture sensation that implicitly invited a buy-in from the listeners.
Rock and roll music was never meant to be enjoyed passively. Quite the opposite is true. Rock and roll always has been designed to attract the active participation of its listeners.
The “secret” behind the rapid success of Boss Radio is clear: Rock and roll music was only about a decade old. So, it was fresh and new. Rock and roll music in the 1960s brought its listeners together into a literal community that embraced its freshness, its influence, and its various messages about life. A radio documentary called “The History of Rock and Roll” was conceived by Bill Drake and produced and directed by Ron Jacobs for broadcast on KHJ in 1969. The documentary was updated over the years to keep pace with the fast-growing rock and roll music industry. The significance of rock and roll was explained simply and directly in the 1980 edition of “The History of Rock and Roll” like this:
Unlike any music that came before, rock and roll has had a profound impact upon nearly every aspect of our lives, our feelings, and our opinions. It reflects our deepest beliefs and concerns--from styles and hair and fashion; to language; to political and religious attitudes; to social and personal morals. Rock and roll has discussed and influenced it all. |
Posted by Woody Goulart. Filed under: Business •