August 31, 1959 is a big day in Los Angeles: On this day the original KRLA – Radio Los Angeles – celebrated its debut.
Let us look back on 65 years of KRLA.
When it launched in 1942, the station was called KPAS and in 1945, KXLA. The change to KRLA and a new Top 40 format came when the station was sold by Pacific Coast Broadcasting – operated until 1945 by John Franklin Burke, co-publisher of the Santa Ana Register – to the Eleven-Ten Broadcasting Corporation.
The transfer to Eleven-Ten Broadcasting is a bit convoluted and would take an entire column (or more) to fully explain, but suffice it to say that the station had some licensing issues.
Billed as “modern radio” when it was launched, the station had no regular programming at all for its first three days. Broadcasting Magazine described the station’s launch as “three days of broadcasting call signs, no programs, no news, no music – just a continuous stream of announcements.”
Then something changed: “‘Radio Eleven-Ten’ was identified as KRLA and regular programming began with ‘KRLA’ Top 50 hits, Rocket News (mainly one-line bulletins delivered in high staccato and separated by wailing whistles) and ‘Electric Time’ signals.”
While that may not sound like much, it still attracted attention. One report said that these announcements – which included the first contest to bury a key somewhere in Southern California to draw attention to the station’s new, higher-power transmission – generated a lot of excitement.
Once the format was established, KRLA became the city’s second full-time Top 40 station, competing with the impressive KFWB (980 AM), which had adopted the format a year earlier.
Top 40 radio in those early days was quite different from what was to come later, when stations like KHJ (930 AM) set the tone. In the early 1960s, DJs often chose their own music, spoke in a much more colloquial way and included “jingles” that often seemed as long as the songs being played. KRLA was a bit tighter than KFWB, especially as time went on. Soon KRLA overtook KFWB in the ratings and for a time was the number one station in town.
KRLA has included many great people over the years including Wink Martindale, Dick Moreland, Jimmy O’Neill, Sam Riddle, Bob Eubanks, “Emperor” Bob Hudson, Reb Foster, Dave Hull, Casey Kasem, Shadoe Stevens, B. Michell Reed, Dick Biondi, Art Laboe, Dave Diamond, Russ O’Hara, Ed Perry, Ted Quillin, Charlie O’Donnell, Gary Mack, Jimmy Rabbitt, Johnny Hayes and The Real Don Steele, to name a few.
Eubanks and KRLA brought the Beatles to the Hollywood Bowl when Eubanks mortgaged his house to finance it. Kasem perfected his on-air style at KRLA before launching “American Top 40.” The Credibility Gap brought satire and politics to the station through station personalities, news anchors and contributors Lew Irwin, Richard Beebe, John Gilliland, Thom Beck and Len Chandler. The amazing voice of one of the very first female radio DJs, Sie Holliday, was heard on KRLA.
The station even produced a comprehensive newspaper devoted exclusively to music, artists and other topics of interest to listeners. I heard that The KRLA Beat is one of the few radio newspapers of its kind that actually makes a profit.
In 1969, the station began playing more album cuts and tried a progressive rock approach. That lasted a few years and was well received. However, the end was in sight as FM stations played album and progressive rock. So in the mid-1970s, Art Laboe and Johnny Hayes started HitRadio 11, a combination of oldies and current music that took the city by storm, especially in East Los Angeles where the signal was strong.
With the inauguration of a new management team, the series “All Oldies” was introduced in 1984. KRLA proved once again that AM can be competitive with the right programming, and at times even surpassed KRTH (101.1 FM) in the ratings.
Ultimately, the station was destroyed by a constant turnover of program directors, inconsistent sound and little advertising; an ill-fated talk format emerged when Dick “Huggy Boy” Hugg played the last song on KRLA in late November 1998. The ratings never recovered.
I asked Mike Wagner, who served as a host and personality at KRLA during part of the oldies era, if he had any memories of the station he’d like to share with us.
“I was just thinking back to the 30th anniversary (1989)!” he exclaimed. “What a party that was both ON and OFF the air!”
“One of the best moments on air for me was recreating the transition from KXLA to KRLA with the one and only Cal Worthington, then DJ at KXLA. I was so excited when I picked up his tape at Worthington Dodge (or was it Worthington Ford?) on the 405 Freeway and rushed it to the station to listen to it before airing it on the radio for our special 30th anniversary weekend.
“We also had a big on-air reunion with all the old jingles and promos from KRLA’s most successful decade.
“Off the air, we went to Catalina Island, set up a stage at Descanso Beach for Dick Dale to perform, hovered over In-N-Out Burger’s mobile kitchen to cook hamburgers for everyone in attendance, and then presented a Turtles concert in the ballroom of the Catalina Casino!”
Like so many other stations of the past, KRLA has a storied history and legions of fans. In the days of hit radio and oldies, it was not uncommon for three generations of the same family to be fans of that music; throughout its history, the station has always been incredibly creative.
Although the failed talk format was never popular, the call letters were oddly picked up for use at another station – for a different talk format. You can find KRLA today at 870 AM, also known as The Answer.
But real fans know KRLA for what it was – one of the trendsetting, creative music stations of our past. Happy 65th birthday to the real, original KRLA!
Richard Wagoner is a freelance columnist from San Pedro who covers radio in Southern California. Email: [email protected]
