Broadcasting. Why?

The other day, someone asked me why I had gone into broadcasting and spent most of my career there.  There are two reasons:  NBC Radio’s extraordinary weekend-long program “Monitor” — and KNBR Radio in San Francisco.

Soon after I started listening to “Monitor” in 1963 on KMJ Radio in Fresno, I discovered KNBR (an NBC Radio owned-and-operated station — or O-and-O, as it’s known in the industry) in San Francisco also carried it. I was thrilled to be able to hear “Monitor” on two stations, so I started listening seriously.

I fell in love with KNBR, and during the summers, I’d listen throughout the day. I was hooked by its gigantic “big-city” sound.  And I got the idea that I loved broadcasting and wanted to somehow make a living in it. I dreamed of working for KNBR.  It was the epitome of big-time radio.  For one thing, it still had staff announcers whose only job was to come on near the bottom and top of each hour and say, “This is NBC for Western America — KNBR, San Francisco.” Station ID announcers were a relic of the past by then.  But not at KNBR.  My goodness, indeed.

By the time I hit college in ’68, I was really into broadcasting fantasyland. Yes, I got a job as a DJ on our campus radio station, and I was bad. I quickly discovered that after I gave the time and temp, I had nothing to say about the music. I slowly started thinking that maybe broadcast news might be an avenue into the broadcasting world.

And in those years, at Fresno State, everyone in radio-TV journalism who wanted to go into broadcasting — wanted it to be in radio. (We thought TV was nothing.) And all of us knew about KNBR, because even though it was 180 miles away from us, its 50,000 bangers at 680 on the dial boomed into Fresno, day and night. We all knew it was major-league radio, and we all thought the guys up there made big-time money. And, yes, all of us knew about “Monitor.” We listened.

So one day in the spring of ’69, I went along with three college buddies — Steve, Ray and Greg — to San Francisco to see KNBR. Unannounced, of course. We were that naive.

We drove into SF to the Fox Plaza Building, where KNBR occupied the 7th floor. Not part of it. All of it. We got off the elevator, and the first thing we saw was the giant NBC peacock on the wall in front of us. Oh, my.

We went into the front office and told the receptionist, proudly, that we had come all the way from Fresno to see the station and wondered if we could get a tour.

Instead of tossing our rears out the door, she called someone — a nice man whom I cannot remember well — and he graciously gave us a tour and answered all our questions.

What an experience. We were 19 or 20 years old, and this owned-and-operated station was the biggest radio outlet we would ever be in. For starters, it had numerous studios. We saw the DJ (it might have been Dave Niles or Ed Brady or Mike Cleary) — the 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. guy — sitting in this giant studio. His engineer was in the adjoining studio, with glass between them. All the DJ had to do was be brilliant on-air. He touched nothing. Not a record. Not an on-air mic switch. Not a cart-tape commercial. The engineer did all of it. All the DJ had was a cough button. We were mightily impressed.

We kept walking and saw studio after studio. One was for local commercial and program production. One was for the local newscasters. One was dedicated to network (meaning “Monitor”) production. One was for the network newscasters (after all, KNBR originated late-night NBC Radio News on the Hour for the nation when the network newsroom in New York City shut down for the night). There were several separate announce booths. A separate music-auditioning booth. A newsroom for both the local and network people (who were the same people, of course).

It was amazingly gigantic and incredibly impressive. I mean, holy cow! What we all would have given to have gotten a job there at any stage of our lives.

We never did, of course. NBC sold KNBR in 1988, and the new owners gutted everything the network had built up. It became a sports-talk operation. Years later, I met Dean Mell. Yes, “the” Dean Mell who had done “NBC Monitor News on the Hour” and “Monitor” interviews. He had been the first Fresno broadcaster to make it “big time” back in the ’60’s.  He had gone from anchoring KMJ-TV’s newscasts to becoming a radio news anchor for KNBR and NBC. Yep. He went from TV to radio. All of us at Fresno State knew that. He was at KNBR a few years until NBC Radio called him to NYC.

In 2000 or so, I had drinks with Dean at the Piccadilly Inn bar on Shaw Avenue in Fresno. He was there to visit relatives. Sharon and I had moved back — from San Francisco, ironically — to raise the kids in Fresno. It was at that bar that Dean told me about his absolute love of being at KNBR and at “Monitor,” later. At KNBR, Dean did a couple of late-night newscasts for the radio network each weekday night.  He said it took eight people to do those five-minute News on the Hours. A producer. A writer. A tape editor. A director. A KNBR staff announcer to introduce “NBC Radio News on the Hour, brought to you by….Now, here is Dean Mell.” A technical director. An audio person. And Dean.

Count ’em. Eight. I was enthralled. Incredulous. Envious.

He said he made $100,000 a year at KNBR to do those network newscasts and a few local newscasts earlier in the day. $100,000 in 1965 or so. That, my friend, was really serious money. The equivalent of just less than $900,000 today.

And the thing was — EVERYONE on-air at KNBR made that money. Every DJ. Every news guy. That was the beginning of the end of network radio O-and-O’s, because they could not survive, paying that kind of loot.

But they did, then.

And when Dean got to NYC, he made even more.

I never made it to KNBR, except for that one time as a college student. And Steve, Ray and Greg never made it, either. In fact, I was the only one who pursued broadcasting for a career. You see, I never got over “Monitor.” And KNBR.

And that is why I went into broadcasting.  Oh, and there was one other factor — a great — yes, great — Fresno State broadcasting and news production teacher. His name was Bill Monson.  Maybe I’ll tell his story someday.