"The Miracle By the Bay ... KABL"
By Don
Keyes
 As National Program
director, Don Keyes (photo, left) oversaw the programming operations
for all of the McLendon Stations from 1957 to 1966. These
legendary radio stations included KLIF, Dallas-Fort
Worth; KILT, Houston; KTSA, San Antonio; KEEL,
Shreveport; WYSL, Buffalo; KABL, San Francisco; WYNR
(later WNUS) Chicago; XTRA News, Los Angeles; WAKY
Louisville; and KADS (later KOST) Los Angeles.
In the
second chapter of his memoir, "Gordon
McLendon and Me," he explained the genesis of
McLendon's acquisition of Oakland's KROW, which was
transformed into the legendary KABL. A member of the
Texas Radio Hall of Fame, Mr. Keyes passed away in
January 2006 at the age of 74.
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Gordon McLendon |
By 1959, Gordon had set
a pattern for buying stations. It had to be in a major
market, the price had to be right and it must be either
mid-dial or low on the dial with at least 5000 watts.
Also, the market must have a viable program niche for us
to fill. KTSA, KILT, KEEL, WAKY and others pretty much
met the criteria. Then, suddenly, along came KROW at 960
on the dial with 5000 watts licensed to Oakland,
California, with a signal that covered San Francisco and
the entire Bay Area.
With my old trusty
Zenith Transoceanic portable (which weighed a ton) we
headed for the airport with packed bags. As the cab ride
to the Fairmont ticked off the fare we both fell in love
with this beautiful city by the bay. The whole area
reeked with charm. Flower stalls on Union Square, the
Tonga Maru snugging into the pier loaded with tea
and teak from Thailand. The Oakland Bay Bridge
leapfrogging across the bay. The tantalizing fragrance
of Chinese cuisine in Chinatown. Coffee shops in North
Beach. The absolutely breathtaking Cinemascope view from
Twin Peaks. Gordon wanted a radio station in this city
and I felt the same.
We repaired to our suite
and got out the yellow pads. For two days we swept the
Zenith dial back and forth making copious notes. And
frankly, we were somewhat chagrinned to find no fewer
than five Top 40 formats alive and kicking. If memory
serves me we were confronted with KFRC, KOBY, KEWB and
of course, “Carefree and Gay (?) KYA, the Voice of the
Bay.” Since our forte until this point was Top 40
programming, we concluded after some detailed monitoring
that we could put a superior Top 40 station on the air
but then the question arose: would the general public
notice the marginal difference and flock to 960 khz.?
Sadly, our combined answer was “No.”
After a few vodkas to
ease the pain of our decision, we went out to dinner at
Ernie’s.
Next day at breakfast,
feeling refreshed from a good rest, we started talking
about a station back in Dallas owned by our friendly
competitor, Lee Segall. It was a low-powered daytimer
called KIXL. The local folks called it “Kicks-ul” and it
was a Beautiful Music station which later became known
as Easy Listening.
 I don’t recall the Hooper rating
numbers in those days but KIXL was listened to in homes
all through the affluent areas of Dallas until it signed
off at sunset. Coincidentally, we used to gig Lee Segall
a little bit with a station ID we ran on KLIF which said
that we were ”the station that doesn’t run down at
sundown.”
Then
that great fertile mind kicked into gear as Gordon
mused, “Say, what if we took the basic KIXL format,
gussied it up a little bit and added the promotions for
which we’re known and just surprised the hell out of
everybody? And while we’re at it, forget the KROW call
sign and name it KABL after San Francisco’s quaint,
colorful cable cars?”
And so it was. We flew
back to Dallas and met with Lee Segall, who, with his
charming wife, Dutch, couldn’t have been more gracious.
During that evening visit in their home Lee gave us the
key to KIXL: The Music Format. It was absurdly simple
and contained only two major points. One, the music must
be familiar -- in our case, familiar to Gordon -- and
two, it was formatted into quarter-hour segments that
simply repeated every fifteen minutes. Not the songs
themselves, but the arranging.
For example, Category
One opened the segment, a rich, full instrumental such
as The Boston Pops playing “I Could Have Danced All
Night.” Category Two followed, which was a small
instrumental group such as The Three Suns with
“Tenderly.” Category Three was vocals like Robert Goulet
singing “Some Enchanted Evening,” which segued into
Category Four which Lee called “Tempo Break Up,” which
may have been the Xavier Cugat Band with “Blame It On
The Bossa Nova." I started assembling the music as
Gordon and his Dad negotiated with the seller. I also
began hiring air staff consisting of old school,
heavy-voiced announcers.
 As was our practice in
other markets we began playing a really objectionable
record for three days straight. This particular record
was “The Gila Monster” taken from one of Gordon’s
home-made horror movies, “The Giant Gila Monster,” which
has developed a cult following on obscure cable TV
channels over the years.
After three days of this
madness we broke with the new easy listening KABL format
on the beginning of the fourth day. In three months we
checked in as number one in the ratings, not because the
format was that good, although it was. The fact remained
that the biggest audience, Top 40, was splintered and
splattered all over the dial. We were number one by
default! However, we didn’t remain number one, but
throughout KABL’s history we were always in the top five
or ten and the station with its appeal to affluent San
Franciscans made tons of money.
I
wish I could claim authorship for KABL but it was really
the combined efforts of several people. Among them,
Gordon, Lee Segall, Charlie Payne, Dave McKinsey and
myself. As a creative type, a programmer, I can say that
KABL was the most aesthetically pleasing format I’d ever
been associated with. It was an artistic joy to listen
to. There are very few Easy Listening stations around
today because agencies are enamored over the 25 to 54
audience and the Easy Listening audience skews much
older. And I never have been able to find an agency
person who can tell me what a 25 year old woman has in
common with a 54 year old woman. It’s sad.
So that’s the story of
KABL — how McLendon shocked the San Francisco Top 40
operators who were already girding their loins for a
bitter struggle. I can only imagine their relief!
But there’s a sad
footnote to the KABL story. Many operators had been
following the story and when KABL, an Easy Listening
station, came out Number One, some of these operators
said “Let us do likewise.” They did, and fell flat. They
did not do their homework. They did not have five Top
40s in their markets and they did not have that
remarkable town of erudite, cultured people who formed
the nucleus of San Francisco, a city very much in love
with itself.
KABL was my favorite
station in the chain and my bags stayed packed so that
when in the coming years Gordon would say “Big Don, I
think you better run out to San Francisco,” I was on my
way to the taxi stand.
Read Bob Foster's
column about KABL's first day on the air.
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