Boss Radio
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Boss Radio was the name chosen to promote two new radio programming formats which were both launched in May, 1965 on both KHJ-AM broadcasting from Los Angeles and on Swinging Radio England broadcasting from the motor vessel Laissez Faire anchored three and a half miles off the Frinton-on-Sea, Essex coast of England in international waters. Although the name of the format was the same, its application on both stations was quite different and while the KHJ version actually came on the air that month, the SRE version which was born in May of that year would take several months more to actually hit the airwaves.
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Boss Radio in two versions
KHJ, Los Angeles
Radio station KHJ broadcast at 930 on the AM dial. The station was owned by RKO, a legendary U.S. corporation that has produced movies, television and radio programming over its own stations. In May, 1965 KHJ was under performing in the local ratings and because it was a commercial radio station, it was losing potential revenue for its owners.
Two California radio programming pioneers, Bill Drake and Gene Chenault, who had been successful in radio programming in San Francisco and Fresno were hired to remake KHJ into a financial success by switching the radio format to rock and roll music. The unsuccessful programming on KHJ, one of the original radio stations in Los Angeles, consisted of block segments of drama, mystery, soap opera, news, and music, both live and recorded.
Block programming gave way to top 40 formula radio during the 1950s. Drake and Chenault took this formula one stage further and gave it a brand name called Boss Radio, since the word boss had come to mean something hip, new, exciting and the top of its class. Within a few months the Boss Radio format of KHJ had taken the once failing station to the top of the Los Angeles market. See also the profiles of boss jock The Real Don Steele and Robert W. Morgan who helped to put Boss Radio on the air in Los Angeles.
Swinging Radio England
Swinging Radio England or SRE was the home of the boss jocks and much more music. It began life as just as KHJ retuned to its new boss format and arrived off the coast of England towards the summer of 1966. SRE was not so much a format as a hybrid of formats. It was totally unlike any other radio station that had previously been heard in Europe. While the PAMS jingles were the resung version of those heard on WABC in New York City, the high-power bannerline news presentation had been lifted from WFUN in Miami, Florida and the DJs were using the heavy echo and the forced approach of stations such as KBOX in Dallas, Texas.
The US boss jocks who came over with the ship trained the few English air personnel how to develop this same style of presentation. Everything was "over the top" when it came to the 50,000 watts transmissions of SRE. While some loved it, others tuned to the more relaxed top 40 formats of its competitors such as Wonderful Radio London and Radio Caroline South.
Swinging Radio England shared the ship from which it broadcast with another 50kW station named Britain Radio, a beautiful music format station which called itself the Hallmark of Quality. These two 50kW stations attempted to broadcast at full power by using caged antennas slung from a central broadcasting mast, which caused constant headaches for the radio engineers. Because of the difficulty in getting the two stations to stay on the air a lot of early investment money was squandered. Other problems also arose when the British government announced that it would introduce legislation to close all of the offshore stations down.
Because of technical difficulties, the slow start and the impending legislation, SRE was forced to sign off the air during November, 1966 in a cloud of adverse publicity surrounding its London based advertising sale arm which went out of business in a hailstorm of debt. However, when anyone who is old enough to remember boss radio in Europe, they recall the arrival of the boss jocks on SRE.
References
- Mass Media Moments in the United Kingdom, the USSR and the USA, by Gilder, Eric. - "Lucian Blaga" University of Sibiu Press, Romania. 2003 ISBN 973-651-596-6
External links
- Boss Radio on KHJ (http://www.bossradioforever.com) as explained by Woody Goulart.
- Boss Radio on SRE (http://www.northernstar.no/sre.htm) as explained by Svenn Martinson in Norway