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    Seattle Radio
    Seattle Radio
    Seattle Radio
    Ebook248 pages1 hour

    Seattle Radio

    By John F. Schneider

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    About this ebook

    Seattle’s first radio broadcast aired in 1919, and over the next 90 years, the city drew national attention for its collection of flamboyant and sometimes quirky broadcast impresarios and performers. The parade of people that passed in front of and behind the Puget Sound microphones included a big-time bootlegger and his wife, two embezzling bank managers, a political campaign manager, and a lumber mill baron’s daughter. Two local radio men started with practically nothing and built their own successful Northwest station groups. An underpaid novice Seattle radio announcer went on to become the dean of the country’s television newscasters. A 1950s disc jockey used acrobatic publicity stunts to draw an audience for his station. A guitar-strumming radio singer capitalized on his fame to build a chain of restaurants. And the founder of a Seattle “free form” FM radio station went on to build a network of community FM stations around the country, making him “The Johnny Appleseed of Community Radio.”
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateNov 11, 2013
    ISBN9781439644270
    Seattle Radio
    Author

    John F. Schneider

    In this book, radio historian John F. Schneider introduces these and many other fascinating radio people and traces the evolution of what has become today’s mature Puget Sound radio industry.

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    • 4/5
      I grew up listening to KJR and KING-FM, among other stations in Seattle, so it was neat to read about and see the history of these and other stations. I also learned for the first time that Ivar Haglund (Ivar's Fish & Chips) started out as a folk singer.

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    Seattle Radio - John F. Schneider

    www.theradiohistorian.org

    INTRODUCTION

    Although experimental radio telephone transmissions in Seattle—led by Lee de Forest, William Dubilier, and others—took place as early as 1906, the consumer radio boom did not hit Seattle until the fall of 1921. By 1922, radio was all the rage.

    Seattle’s first broadcaster was undoubtedly Vincent Kraft. He started broadcasting from the garage of his Ravenna home over his amateur station, 7XC, in 1919. He played phonograph and piano music through his 10-watt transmitter and single microphone. Other hams and early experimenters encouraged him to do more, and by March 1922, 7XC had been relicensed as KJR.

    The city’s second broadcaster was the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s station KFC, transmitting from the roof of the P-I building at Sixth and Pine Streets. Carl Haymond was the program manager, announcer, engineer, and probably also the janitor. He led performers up the steep iron stairs to the roof and held a megaphone in front of the microphone while they sang or spoke into it.

    Louis Wasmer started Seattle’s third station, KHQ, from his motorcycle shop on Thirteenth Avenue N. After increasing power, he sold his old transmitter to the Economy Market, where it went on the air as KZC. Rhodes Brothers Department Store put KDZE on the air in May 1922, and Seattle City Light’s John D. Ross put KTW on the air for the First Presbyterian Church.

    In the first two years, all of these stations, plus some latecomers, were required to share time on a single frequency—360 meters (833 kilohertz)—and listeners could only hear one station at a time. A station would broadcast for an hour and then shut down to be replaced by another station, stronger or weaker than the last one. The stations met with the local radio inspector periodically to work out an operating schedule.

    Many of these early stations had poor audio quality and suffered continuous technical difficulties, and people soon tired of listening to scratchy broadcasts of phonograph records, so in 1924 the government established a second class of station. Class B stations operated with at least 500 watts and were prohibited from playing phonograph records. They were assigned their own exclusive frequencies and could operate more hours each day. The remaining stations continued to share 360 meters. The Rhodes station—by now known as KFOA—was Seattle’s first Class B station, assigned to the 660-kilohertz frequency. KJR and KTW later upgraded to Class B status as well.

    As the decade progressed, many more stations were licensed, creating a glut. With just one channel available for most, there was no room for all to exist simultaneously. Many of these new stations were not serious efforts, only started by companies or individuals wanting to cash in on the radio boom. Many left the air within a year.

    Roy Olmstead, Seattle’s biggest bootlegger, started KFQX from his Mount Baker home in 1924. That November, federal prohibition agents raided the home, shut down the radio station, and arrested Olmstead, who was convicted and sent to McNeil Island Federal Penitentiary. KFQX was then leased to Birt Fisher, who ran it as KTCL, but in 1926 Olmstead sold it to KJR’s Vincent Kraft, who planned to take over the station when the lease expired in December. So, Fisher joined forces with the owners of the Fisher Flouring Mills Co. to open a new station, KOMO. Generously financed with a staff of 65 producing 14 hours of live programs a day, KOMO quickly became one of Seattle’s most popular stations; meanwhile, Vincent Kraft took over KTCL and turned it into KXA.

    Kraft’s primary station, KJR, had grown into Seattle’s other big radio operation by the late 1920s. Kraft built additional stations in Spokane, Portland, and San Francisco and tied them together in 1926 to create one of the first radio networks. In 1928, he sold his four stations to Adolph F. Linden and Edmund Campbell, directors of Puget Sound Savings & Loan. Soon, the money flowed freely, and KJR became among the most popular and best-financed stations in the Northwest. It had a large program staff with announcers, singers, a dance band, and a symphony orchestra. Linden expanded Kraft’s network and formed the American Broadcasting Company (unrelated to today’s ABC) to distribute his own shows and Columbia’s (CBS) East Coast programs across the Western United States.

    It was soon discovered where all of KJR’s money was coming from. Linden and Campbell had been surreptitiously borrowing from their savings and loan association to run the station and finance their Camlin Hotel. When the savings and loan filed for bankruptcy in August 1929, the money stopped abruptly. Network phone lines were shut down for nonpayment, and most of KJR’s staff and musicians departed when their paychecks stopped coming in. Linden and Campbell were charged with defrauding shareholders and depositors out of $2 million, and each was sentenced to 15 years at the Walla Walla State Penitentiary.

    In 1931, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) acquired KJR and its three sister stations. But in a 1933 cost-cutting move, NBC leased KJR to KOMO, its local affiliate, for $1 a year. The Fishers combined KOMO and KJR into a single large operation in the Skinner Building, operating them as Western Washington’s NBC Red and Blue Network affiliates. This continued until 1945, when new FCC regulations forced the Fishers to sell KJR, which they transferred to Birt Fisher. Retaining KOMO, they soon raised its power to 50 kilowatts and built a model broadcast studio center in the Denny Regrade area. In a few years, it would also be the home of KOMO-TV.

    Louis Wasmer was another major player in early Seattle radio. Wasmer, Rogan Jones, and others used Seattle as a radio nursery, starting stations in the city and then relocating them to outlying towns with no local radio service. Wasmer moved KHQ to Spokane in 1925, where it became an important broadcaster. Other radio stations departing Seattle included KVOS, moving to Bellingham in 1926, and KXRO, which moved to Aberdeen the next year. KPQ moved to Wenatchee in 1928. KGEA moved to Longview in 1928, where it became KUJ, and then it moved again to Walla Walla in 1931.

    In 1928, Wasmer teamed up with his brother-in-law Archie Taft Sr., who owned Piper and Taft Sporting Goods and had developed an interest in radio by selling crystal sets from his store. Together, they bought KFOA, changed the call sign to KOL, and moved it into the Northern Life Insurance Building. KOL became Seattle’s CBS outlet in 1930. In 1937, after losing the CBS affiliation to KIRO, Wasmer, Taft, and Carl Haymond started the Pacific Broadcasting Company, an extension of California’s Mutual-Don Lee Network. They paid the line costs to bring Mutual programs to Seattle and then resold the service to other stations. At one point, it was said that Wasmer and Taft controlled half of all Washington’s radio stations: their own stations KOL, KGY, KGA, KHQ, and KRKO and their network affiliates KXRO, KVOS, KELA, KMO, KPQ, and KIT.

    Kraft’s KXA was Seattle’s most important independent broadcaster during the 1930s and 1940s. It signed off every day at local sunset to protect a New York station on the same channel but then returned to the air each evening from 10:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. local time. As Seattle’s only late-night station, it achieved its own popularity with its Stay-Up Stan, the All-Night Record Man program.

    Moritz Thomsen of the Pacific Coast Biscuit Company, a competitor to Fisher Flouring Mills Co., felt the need to match his competitor’s radio activities, so he put KPCB on the air in 1927. But unlike the Fishers, Thomsen never invested in KPCB, and it operated without much local attention until purchased by Saul Haas in 1935. Haas changed the call letters to KIRO and used his ample political influence to get

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