The Dawn of Radio Advertising and High-Flying Tales of the Memphis Belle
Feb 25, 2024
Randy
As the radio waves of yesteryear crackled with fresh energy, imagine the thrill of the first-ever real estate promotion breaking through the static. That's the world we step back into, with tales spun from a life dedicated to the symbiotic dance between broadcasting and advertising. With the warmth of a seasoned host, I recount how early ads on stations like WEAF not only turned the dial up on sales but also cemented long-standing partnerships that would one day fill a room at my own retirement bash. It's a revelatory journey correcting common myths, like KDKA's often misattributed first commercial, and celebrating American Express among the pioneers who recognized radio's golden opportunity.
Strap in tight as we also take flight with the heroic Robert Morgan, original pilot of the Memphis Belle, and relive the awe of soaring in the legendary B-17's replica. Hear the engines roar and feel the weight of history in the tales of bravery and camaraderie shared high above the earth. Meanwhile, back on terra firma, we'll regale you with the unexpected chuckles of radio promotion bloopers—think turkeys dropping from the sky—and the unforgettable wizardry of on-air games that could turn any radio listener into a rapt participant. It's a heartfelt nod to the mirth and mishaps of bringing the magic of radio into every home and the legacy of advertisers who made it all possible.
As the radio waves of yesteryear crackled with fresh energy, imagine the thrill of the first-ever real estate promotion breaking through the static. That's the world we step back into, with tales spun from a life dedicated to the symbiotic dance between broadcasting and advertising. With the warmth of a seasoned host, I recount how early ads on stations like WEAF not only turned the dial up on sales but also cemented long-standing partnerships that would one day fill a room at my own retirement bash. It's a revelatory journey correcting common myths, like KDKA's often misattributed first commercial, and celebrating American Express among the pioneers who recognized radio's golden opportunity.
Strap in tight as we also take flight with the heroic Robert Morgan, original pilot of the Memphis Belle, and relive the awe of soaring in the legendary B-17's replica. Hear the engines roar and feel the weight of history in the tales of bravery and camaraderie shared high above the earth. Meanwhile, back on terra firma, we'll regale you with the unexpected chuckles of radio promotion bloopers—think turkeys dropping from the sky—and the unforgettable wizardry of on-air games that could turn any radio listener into a rapt participant. It's a heartfelt nod to the mirth and mishaps of bringing the magic of radio into every home and the legacy of advertisers who made it all possible.
Speaker 1:
Hello everyone and welcome to another Hot Mic with Houston and Hogan. I'm the Houston part.
Speaker 2:
And I'm Dave Hogan. And hello, randy Howdy, how are you Better and snuff and not nearly as dusty. I never did know quite what that meant, but my grandmother would always say that my grandma Trampham how are you? Granny Better and snuff and not nearly as dusty.
Speaker 1:
A friend of mine, larry Keith, forwarded me a jingle, an old YouTube video of Lester Flatt If your snuff's too strong, it's wrong. Get to bros. Get to bros. He'll keep you smiling all day long.
Speaker 2:
Get to bros, get to bros you have a good memory and those singing radio commercials were. That was a big thing for a while. But let's talk a little bit about commercials. You and I have done thousands of them, maybe even tens of thousands of them, yes, between you and me, down through the years, and I think I can probably probably attribute what success that I had in broadcasting, which was not a great deal of success, but I never did have to stand in a food line. I was able to make a reasonably good living in broadcasting. But what success I had I think I can attribute to recognizing right from the good go very early in my broadcast career how important advertising was, how important commercials were.
Speaker 2:
And I found and I'm sure you've run into this too in broadcasting that some disc jockeys didn't lack commercials.
Speaker 2:
Commercials were an intrusion on their whatever they were doing playing music or whatever and I learned right off the bat that commercials paid the bills. So I developed very early on an interest in doing the very best I could for the advertiser and as you know, I ad-lib most of the advertising that I did on my shows. Many times the sales person would go out and sell a restaurant or I got a lot of free meals that way too. But the sales rep for the radio station would go out and sell advertising, then come back in and say, dave, I want you to go to so-and-so auto place or restaurant or whatever the business was. Get to know the people. And I'd do that. I'd go get to know the people and I'm proud to say that when I retired from my broadcasting career and they had a little get together for me, majority of the people there were people who had been my advertisers on my show. That was when I was working for WJCW in Johnson City. What an honor.
Speaker 2:
What a tribute, and that really made me feel good.
Speaker 2:
But, advertising is important and I, just as met her curiosity, searched for the very first radio commercial. Now in the early 1920s is when radio was getting started. Back then most of the radio was what we call, I guess, ham radio operators. But then the first commercial radio station went on the air in Pittsburgh, kdka. So you would think that the first radio commercial would have been on the first commercial radio station. And I was a little confused when I read that the first radio commercial was actually on a station in New York, w-e-a-f in New York. In the first advertiser was a 15 minute real estate ad offering apartments for sale in Jackson Heights in Queens. And then I got to thinking well, if KDKA was the first commercial radio station going on the air in 1920 and the first commercial was in August of 1922 on another radio station, I could not quite understand, do you?
Speaker 1:
know, I don't.
Speaker 2:
I do, I found out.
Speaker 1:
Tell us.
Speaker 2:
OK, the first radio station commercial radio station, as I said, it was KDKA in Pittsburgh. It was owned by Westinghouse, the federal. I don't know, I don't think they called it the Federal Communications Commission until later, but the government entity that began to supervise broadcasting radio granted them the first commercial license. It was Westinghouse. Westinghouse was a manufacturer of radios. They had a number of different locations Springfield, Massachusetts, Pittsburgh and several other cities. They got this radio station For broadcasting in-house to their manufacturing facility.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, Wow, I didn't know that they didn't run commercials. So when you the word commercial as it relates to KDKA was actually talking about the government licensing the first Company, the first franchise, yeah, yeah, but you know private, private company, so it was to Westinghouse, yeah.
Speaker 1:
Westinghouse, who have multiple locations, multiple manufacturing facilities and their manufacturing radios.
Speaker 2:
AM radios at that time.
Speaker 2:
And they were dead set against running commercials Really. And then it got to the point where it became more and more. The radio manufacturing business became very competitive. Other companies like RCA, crosley and other companies started making radios and so Westinghouse started struggling, having a hard time Competing, yeah, competing. And then in less than two, little less than two years after KDKA went on the air, w E A F in New York, as I said, ran the first radio commercial, and I believe it was American Express Company that ran the second radio commercial.
Speaker 1:
Wow.
Speaker 2:
So radio advertising started to take off and in about a three month period W E A F in New York, which is now a sports station on that frequency, w F A N the fan.
Speaker 1:
Oh, 80. Maybe I'm not sure.
Speaker 2:
I'm not sure either, but somewhere one of those low frequencies.
Speaker 1:
Right right.
Speaker 2:
So the competitiveness of broadcasting started showing up in the, in the picture, and radio stations started scrambling as to how they could make this profitable. And in about three months W, e, a, f took in $550. Now, $550 in 1922 was a heap side of money.
Speaker 1:
By selling advertising.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, by selling advertising, you know, and so advertising began to take off at these other radio stations and people saw hey, they got a radio station, they're making money. And so radio stations started springing up and the Federal Communications Commission, the government, started authorizing stations to go in the air all across, all across the country. But the Westinghouse station, kdk a. They started running public programs, like I think they were the first to broadcast election results and they broadcast music concerts at an inhouse band. But they didn't carry commercials Until later on.
Speaker 2:
They fought it right up till about 1925 I believe, before they started running commercials on their radio station and newspapers newspapers, were, a, saw radio as a big competitor for advertising dollars and for Breaking news, which newspapers couldn't do right. So the, the, the newspapers, went to the wire services. Like Associated press it was one of them. I don't know if United Press was in the picture at that time or not, but there were several wire services that provided news to the newspapers. So the newspapers went to these wire services and worked out a deal with them that they would not allow radio stations to use their news from the wire services until it was printed in the newspaper. The newspaper got first dibs on printing news stories.
Speaker 2:
And what did radio stations do, they started forming their own news organizations. Okay, and To get around that? So they started hiring news people, a journalist, and so that's a little history of early radio and radio commercials. Now, you and I, as I said a few minutes ago, we've done Thousands of radio commercials down through the years and I was wondering, maybe you know, I don't, I don't why radio commercials Became known as spots.
Speaker 1:
Spots. I got eight spots this half hour. I got eight live spots this half hour.
Speaker 2:
I don't know why it's hey, randy's restaurant bought five spots this week, yeah, so Got a spot load. It's heavy this week Somehow yeah that term came to define Usually 30 or 60 second spots commercials.
Speaker 2:
Yeah sometimes 10 seconds even, but most often 30 and 60 second commercials, and this is the most common form of radio advertising. The first, as I mentioned a few minutes ago, the first radio advertising was a 15 minute real estate ad and also sponsoring programs, a Form of advertising where the sponsor would buy 15 minutes or 30 minutes or even an hour and sponsored that segment on the radio. And I can recall a few of those and a lot of religious programs, right, right.
Speaker 2:
With 30 minute programs or 15 minute programs where a minister or a church would buy time on the radio station. I read where KDKA there was. I think it was an Episcopal church broadcast a Sunday service from like 1925 until 1962. Wow, that same broadcast ran on KDKA in Pittsburgh. So programs are a common form of advertising. Let's talk a little bit about on location broadcast, commonly called remotes in the business, and that's where we go out and broadcast on location and we both had experiences there.
Speaker 1:
Oh, you can bet I spent many, many hours in a radio station van, in some parking lot somewhere, trying to convince people to come down here and buy this car, buy this house, buy this six pack of Pepsi for 99 cents or whatever.
Speaker 1:
We sold everything in the world. I've often been chided about my ability in sales, but you know, when you put it in the terms that you've already put it in this morning about how important sales is to the radio career, you, if you're doing your job in that vein of thinking you're always selling something. You are trying to motivate people, the people who are listening to this radio station right now. You're trying to motivate them to go somewhere and buy something. And the old adage is, as nothing happens till a salesman sells something, and if you can sell your listeners into buying, or just a portion of your listeners, you know, if there's a thousand people listening to you this afternoon, 99% of the stores that you're advertising for couldn't stand a thousand people in their store at one time. You're just wanting to motivate a tenth of them to go try this product.
Speaker 2:
Farmer Rush. You remember him.
Speaker 1:
Russell, often Hauser, I believe. Off house, Off house. Yes, Farmer Rush, a great radio personality here.
Speaker 2:
Well known in the Asheville area for many years and I worked with him on WSKY and he would say something like I had rather have a thousand listeners and be able to convince 20 of those listeners to do what I say than to have 5,000 listeners and be able to convince nobody.
Speaker 1:
He used spot on man. Yeah, spot on, Because those 20 that you motivate to go in that store will say something to the owner and he'll realize that his advertising dollars are being well spent on that radio station.
Speaker 2:
The most remotes I guess that I've ever done for one particular segment of business was auto dealers Me too, probably auto dealers and those were fairly easy remotes to do, because usually there was a certain amount of traffic that an auto dealer always has Built in traffic. But a difficult remote and I've had a few of those and I'm sure you have too is to go out and broadcast for a business that's kind of secluded and not a business that has a normal amount of traffic anyway. Those are the tough ones. And you would go on the air and there'd be nobody around in your job and you've got the owner of the business standing there.
Speaker 1:
Who has just spent a lot of money.
Speaker 2:
You're smiling, randy, you're smiling. You've been there, done that. I'm starting to sweat. You see that brown.
Speaker 1:
You see that on my brown right there.
Speaker 2:
I've got Dave Hogan or I've got Randy Houston in my store and I've decorated and I've got free cake for everybody and I've got free soft drinks for everybody, and there's nobody there when you start and that owner is expecting you to fill his store with people. Now you talk about pressure.
Speaker 1:
It's immense I mean it's strong when you're in those situations that we've both been there a million times.
Speaker 2:
And, of course, usually you have some giveaways.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
You're giving away tickets to some concert, or you're giving away hats or your t-shirts.
Speaker 1:
T-shirts or whatever, giving away something.
Speaker 2:
And you always had these people A few of them, maybe half a dozen that would come to your remote, no matter where you were if you were giving things away. So you're standing there and it's a three hour remote and you have broadcast for an hour and you had nobody show up. Now these people that would show up every remote usually aggravated you. You know they hung around. You hated to see them coming. But now, if you stand in that store for an hour and nobody's been there, you start looking around for those people.
Speaker 1:
Where are they? Where are they?
Speaker 2:
They're not here yet. Come on down.
Speaker 1:
One of Randy's tricks in that situation was always to start talking about the residuals that you're gonna get off of this remote broadcast. There'll be people coming in two weeks from now talking about this remote broadcast that we're dying on the vine here.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, a radio advertising, or any kind of advertising for that matter, is a challenge and as a particularly in today's marketplace, but always emphasized to my advertisers and would be advertisers the importance of consistency. Don't buy just a few spots, a few commercials. I've often said I had rather you instead of spending $1,000 this week. I had rather you spread that out. I can do better for you and I've had sponsors, small advertisers, randy, that have stayed on my show consistently with running only maybe two commercials a week, and I'd run into people I hear you talking about old so-and-so every day, because if they hear you over a long period of time consistently talking about them a few times a week, they get it to make an impression frequency, reach and frequency.
Speaker 1:
What you know is big advertising agencies talk to about what's your stations reach and frequency? Okay, there, the frequency part of that is is real it is. I've never been a big fan of those remote broadcasts because that's three hours on a Friday afternoon from three to six boom shot done over with and all your money and your advertising budget for two months has been locked up in them. Three people that showed up wanting a piece of pizza they work in certain instances.
Speaker 2:
In certain instances and then, in addition to remotes at business places, there are other types of remotes broadcasting a sporting event, broadcasting a concert county fair yeah broadcasting from the uh mountain state fair or the Appalachian fair in Johnson City, right and uh. What kind of promotions. I thought turkeys could fly, didn't you? Now that's a tv commercial that wkrp in Cincinnati wkrp in Cincinnati.
Speaker 2:
Oh uh the big guy they threw live turkeys out of a helicopter yeah, the big guy and those turkeys couldn't fly. Of course, bodies too heavy they can't flap their wings. These are not, these are domestic turkeys. I'm sure that they threw out of the helicopter and the big guy comes in and I swore I thought turkeys could fly and I've often wondered if, if, whoever the writer was of that script for wkrp in Cincinnati, the tv show didn't get that idea from Kaz Walker. Kaz Walker used to toss chickens off of his supermarket down into the crowd. Live chickens, live chickens.
Speaker 2:
For those of you who don't know, kaz Walker was a, an owner of a chain of grocery stores back in the day. In fact he got uh Dolly Park and he had, he did some live television when television came into existence in the 19, uh late 40s and 50s, kaz Walker had a show and he uh Dolly Park. That's the first show, tv show that she appeared on, because Kaz Walker was in Knoxville, that was his home, and Dolly was from Severeville, uh nearby or near Severeville. But yeah, he had all kind of promotions for his grocery stores, for his supermarkets, and one of them was I think he did around christmas time was to throw live chickens. Of course that the, the elevation was not like a helicopter. No, you know, it's like a one-story building and he'd hire somebody to go up there.
Speaker 1:
He was, and I'm sure they were doing a radio remote there, oh yeah yeah, you forwarded me a video of Dolly singing at like age 12 at a uh Kaz Walker grocery store grand opening remote. That was televised on WBIRTV in Knoxville and WIVK in Knoxville. Was there uh, one of their personalities was doing this live remote broadcast. Kaz Walker was a character. He would have greased pig contests at the grand opening of the stores uh Clima, greased telephone pole uh and win a hundred dollars.
Speaker 2:
You know he was a promoter, he was a pt barnum of uh, grocery store and he was funny to listen to not intentionally funny, he was just naturally funny and the people listening to this podcast. If you want to and you know we all go down rabbit holes on the internet yeah, just google Kaz Walker, that's C A S, w, a L K E R. Google Kaz Walker and you'll find some of the funniest. You will, you really?
Speaker 2:
will yeah yeah, he would. He would say things on the radio back then that that I doubt you get away with now on the on tv, rather you. Some of the things you found on internet are his tv hilarious oh, hilarious absolutely hilarious.
Speaker 1:
And I, you know, dave, over the years, and radio, uh, actually, I I say this now that, uh, I've reached the ripe old age of three score and ten. I say this around the radio station that I still work at ain't riding no more elephants, ain't riding no more donkeys in the song in a donkey softball game. I've been there. Ain't sitting on no dunk dunking booth with uh germ infested water anymore.
Speaker 2:
I'm not doing any of that stuff but if you do change your mind and decide to ride an elephant again, don't wear shorts the one and only time I did.
Speaker 1:
It was cold as G whiz. There was ice and snow everywhere and uh, herman. I've never forgotten Herman's name. That was 40 years ago, but I still have a vivid memory of riding Herman and uh, I mentioned, don't wear shorts.
Speaker 2:
You know it's not visible. You don't think of a a? An elephant having a kind of rough wire brush, wire like riding a wire brush, yeah, that's a good analogy.
Speaker 1:
And I did that, the uh donkey softball game. I did one of those in black mountain, uh, and that donkey made an ass out of me. He would as we say, out in the country he'd just bow up on you and wouldn't move.
Speaker 1:
I can't remember. I have had a desire and fulfilled it a lot to ride aircraft Any chance that I ever got. You know the red Baron is coming through Asheville and it's an old biplane that was the model, the logo for red Baron, pizza Open cockpit by wing Stearman. Helicopters of all kinds, antique aircraft, military aircraft, hot air balloons really understand the addiction of hot air ballooning. It's so peaceful.
Speaker 2:
We had a hot air balloon, sponsored by Pepsi, at one of the radio stations in the building where I work and learned a lot about a few things with that hot air balloon, and number one is we got a lot of complaints from farmers because did you know that a cow cannot look straight up? True, a cow cannot look up, and so a hot air balloon, you know, makes that sound.
Speaker 1:
Burning the gas.
Speaker 2:
And those cattle could not see what was happening and they would hear the sound of the hot air balloon and they would panic.
Speaker 1:
Run.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and so we got a lot of complaints from farmers, particularly. And then you never knew where the hot air balloon would eventually land, and most people didn't mind a hot air balloon landing in their front yard, but some people did.
Speaker 1:
Get out the shotgun.
Speaker 2:
And you couldn't just take off right away. You've got a hot air balloon to attend to in that fellow's front yard.
Speaker 1:
It was with Bill Norwood that a mutual Mr Bill. You, a mutual friend of mine and yours and a friend of anyone who grew up in Western North Carolina in the 50s and 60s on what a great guy on WLOS TV Channel 13, who later went into hot air ballooning, and both times that I went up with him was absolutely a blast. We were in the city taking off over Tunnel Road and I-240 and it was. He was such a great pilot and we had such a good time together.
Speaker 2:
The last helicopter I rode was with the TVA, tennessee Valley Authority, and their public relations guy called me and they had had a lot of controversy over the spraying of the power lines, the vegetation growing up around power lines, and I think they were looking for some you know positive publicity. So he called me one day and he said we're going to be in the area this is in now the east Tennessee, northeast Tennessee area and we'd like to take you with us and show you some of the the power lines that we have to make sure that vegetation is not interfering with. And so that was an interesting, fun ride, as that helicopter would dip down real low and you wonder, is he gonna hit those, those power lines? And then you like that. It was quite an experience.
Speaker 1:
I got to fly on the Memphis Bell. This was a. This was a recreation. It was a B17 flying B17 name the Memphis Bell. It was the one that was actually used in the movie the Memphis Bell. And of course, you and I later became such great friends with with Robert Morgan, the real pilot of the real in Memphis Bell. But I got to fly in a replica of that. I got to crawl down under the cockpit and go out in the front bubble, the front gunman gunship Port, and I, just you, just you, take a flight like that and in a machine like that that had, for 750 horsepower, pratt and Whitney engines on it, just rumbling, and it could take off in such a short space and it was so tight those. There were five gun ports on that machine and and it was really an experience, we got to talk, we got to start.
Speaker 2:
I didn't fly in the Memphis Bell replica like you did, but during one of our broadcast with Robert Morgan, out at the yes Asheville Regional Airport, I climbed up into the body of the cockpit of the Memphis Bell. Yeah, and they had the funny duddy there too.
Speaker 1:
Can you imagine being there?
Speaker 2:
and people shooting at you other airplane. Yeah, man, I'm one of those my fighter pilots.
Speaker 1:
So so much admiration. We're. We're out of time, we talk too long, we'll be back in and next time we're going to talk about some of the fun radio games we've played on the air, different radio stations. Thank you, dave.