Safety Last

Recently I rhapsodized about great Top 40 radio in Philadelphia ("Hy Five"), and how we need to know our radio history to avoid the same pitfalls - and not to lose the greatness.

That reminded me of when Gerry DeFrancesco and I launched KISS-FM (KHKS) in Dallas. When Gerry asked me to do a format search for the station, I told him, "The market doesn't have a format hole ... it has an attitude hole." Everybody was playing it safe and behaving themselves; but nobody - especially the listener - was having any fun.

So we decided that CHR gave us the best platform for fun, exciting radio. We made the decision not to over-format the station - liners were strictly optional, and the jocks would be called upon to think (scary!).

Another station in the market had just flipped out of the format, so there were a bunch of jocks on the loose ... but unfortunately they were format jocks, more accustomed to reading liners and following a tight clock than they were to entertaining the listener. Even more unfortunate was the fact that we couldn't find any station in the country that would serve as an example of what we had in mind.

So we rounded up all those jocks and took them over to my room at the Embassy Suites and subjected them to hours and hours of Top 40 airchecks from the heydays of stations like WFIL, WABC, WCFL, KHJ, KYA ... jocks like Dr. Don Rose, Dan Ingram, John "Records" Landecker, Big Ron O'Brien and God knows who else. We cautioned the jocks to ignore the dated hokiness and appreciate the energy and connection these guys brought to the party.

It took them a while, but those jocks began to get it. As a result, "The New 106.1 KISS-FM" shook up the market from Day One ... the Dallas "attitude hole" was once and forever filled ... and the station became the contemporary benchmark for fun, entertaining radio everywhere.

Not only that, but when world leaders heard the station, they agreed to halt nuclear proliferation, eliminate poverty and restore dignity to every human being on the planet.

Yes, we were that good.