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The largest part of this sense of responsibility comes from the fact that, after all the years had gone by, there were very few people who chose to write about their experiences in radio with the Drake-Chenault team. By default, the Web site you’re reading now stands as the one, central location where you can read historical recollections from the essential group of radio professionals responsible for Boss Radio, who have never before--or since--been interviewed together for one publication. You’re Fired! I met Bill Drake and Gene Chenault in Hollywood in 1973 under very tense circumstances. I had been working for a year at K100 as production manager. The station owners were unhappy with the ratings of K100, so they selected Drake and Chenault to take over management and programming of the station. It is very normal for new owners of a station to come and say those two most dreaded words, immortalized by Donald Trump, “You’re fired!” The logic of this is very simple: If the staff at a station has not brought about the level of ratings and accompanying financial success that the station owners want, the business decision is to get a replacement staff. When Drake and Chenault came in, everyone at K100 was fired except for the bookkeeper and me. Apparently, our knowledge and expertise were considered essential to the Drake-Chenault operation at K100. She knew all the financial information and I knew how to operate all the broadcasting equipment. I learned that my knowledge and expertise were necessary at K100 under the new management since the on-air staff--notably, Robert W. Morgan and The Real Don Steele--had primarily worked for years in a union shop environment where they were prohibited by union regulations from operating the broadcasting equipment. Because they had many years of actual hands-on radio experience prior to working in Hollywood at 93/KHJ, Morgan and Steele quickly learned how to operate the then state-of-the-art broadcasting equipment at K100. Of course, that brought about the inevitable day when Bill Watson, who headed day-to-day programming and production, said to me, “You’re Fired!” I was treated with courtesy and respect in my termination, even though to the Drake-Chenault people, I was “an outsider.” Gene Chenault personally made sure that I got two weeks severence pay. And nobody said an unkind word to me. I report all this here to dispell a prevailing myth that the Drake-Chenault people were ruthless and heavy-handed. I never saw any of that at K100. The worst that can be said about the Drake-Chenault team at K100 is that they could not recapture the magic that was Boss Radio in the 1960’s, even though they tried very hard to do so. Life After Death I was devastated when I was axed from K100. Who wouldn’t be? I had been working on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood for Drake-Chenault! And, because I very much respected the legendary Bill Watson, it was almost an honor to be fired by him (at least in retrospect.) A few words about Bill Watson: He had gained favorable attention because of competing against Drake and Chenault in another market. Bill Watson, who had programmed KCBQ in San Diego, was, at best, terse. His role as national program director for Drake-Chenault radio proved pivotal to the company’s success. Watson was my immediate supervisor at K100 when the Drake-Chenault team took the helm at the station. I never could figure out how he could communicate so effectively using so few words. He could manage a very gruff expression on his face, but he was always fair and level-headed towards me. Bill Watson gave a rare quote to a reporter in 1970 in which he explained why Drake-Chenault radio programming worked: “If [the format is] good and working right, then they [the listeners] know they’re listening to particular format, and they just keep listening.” That phrase, “...they just keep listening...” should have been the official, trademarked motto of Drake-Chenault’s national radio consultancy. I did not know this at the time, but being fired from this Drake-Chenault radio operation in Hollywood was the best thing that could have happened in my life. |
The famous hyphenated company name owned by Bill Drake and Gene Chenault (pictured from the 1960s) is, if nothing else, an echo of a radio brand name that will reverberate forever through the history of rock and roll radio. As a writer, I have felt a sense of responsibility to radio programming history to tell the story of the Drake-Chenault programming company correctly, without bias, without kissing up, and without glossing over anything.
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