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KHJ existed in Los Angeles before there was an RKO. KHJ was the second radio station on the air in Los Angeles and was called “The Times Radiophone” because of being owned by the Los Angeles Times. The station went on the air April 13, 1922. The entire station was housed on a 10’ X 12’ room atop the original Los Angeles Times building. Newspapers traditionally regarded radio as competition, unless, of course, they owned the radio stations. Since KHJ was owned by the powerful Los Angeles Times, the station benefitted from the newspaper’s considerable promotional reach. Don Lee, a successful Cadillac dealer, bought the station from the newspaper and ultimately KHJ and the entire network (operated by Lee’s son Thomas after his father died) was merged into RKO General. In the early part of the 20th century when radio was new, the Federal Communications Commission licensed radio stations with only three call letters—unlike today where four call letters are the rule. In those days it was also common to select call letters that stood for something specific. The three call letters were for “Kindness, Happiness and Joy.” As the early KHJ signed-off each night, the announcer would recite this poem: May kindness, happiness and joy In these gloriously politically-correct days of the new century, imagine a station signing off a station with a poem like that. And unlike today when stations broadcast 24 hours a day, in the earliest days of radio, KHJ and all stations of the day, had to sign off for three minutes out of every 15 so that any “distress” calls might be heard. Another major difference in those days before the invention of tape recorders was that radio, out of necessity, had to be comprised of live broadcasts. It was possible to make one-of-a-kind recordings on phonograph disks of actual radio broadcasts. But until audio tape was invented, recorded broadcasts were cumbersome and suffered from pops and cracks inherent to phonograph recordings of that era. In the 1960s, KHJ was on the AM radio frequency at 930 on the dial. Popular music of the day on AM radio was the standard then. Popular music on FM radio became the standard in the 1970s. Young people today may not even know about AM radio because popular music hits are on FM, on television, and on the Internet. KHJ employed many famous entertainers whose careers began at the station.Eddie Canter, and, George Burns and Gracie Allen are notable examples. The legendary Pat Weaver (father of Segourney Weaver, president of NBC, and creator of The Today Show and The Tonight Show) was an announcer at KHJ in 1934. During the big band era, KHJ had its own 50-piece orchestra.In 1931, Bing Crosby made nightly trips to KHJ where he sang over the air for 15 minutes six nights per week. In the mid-1940’s, Steve Allen (the original host of The Tonight Show) led the morning team with his show called, “Smile Time.” Even in the mid-1960s, Steve Allen still had a morning show on KHJ. But, by 1965, that type of live celebrity programming on radio was considered “old fashioned” in Los Angeles, especially in comparison to the rock and roll radio programming available on stations such as KFWB and KRLA. RKO General management knew that unless the programming on KHJ was updated to something more appealing to the widest possible audience, KHJ’s financial performance would likely get worse. The Drake-Chenault programming on KHJ continued from the business success of Boss Radio in 1965 until 1973 when RKO ended its relationship with the programming team. However, the KHJ call letters lived on until the end of January 1986. At that point, RKO made the decision to change KHJ to KRTH-AM (since their FM station was KRTH-FM). The KRTH-AM call letters lasted through the Smokin’ Oldies format after which RKO sold both stations to Beasley, which in turn sold the AM station to Liberman Broadcasting, operators of Spanish language stations KWIZ in Santa Ana, and KBUA and KBUE known collectively as “Que Buena”. They turned the former KHJ into KKHJ, which became known as “La Ranchera,” but in so doing, the original call letters KHJ had to be given up. When the Libermans purchased the station, the closest call letters they could obtain from the FCC was KKHJ. KHJJ was already in use by a station in the San Joaquin Valley calling itself KHJ. But, one problem was that KKHJ could not mention its call letters on the air in Spanish. The reason may not be apparent to those who only speak English. In Spanish, the letter “K” is not pronounced “kay” as it is in English. The letter “K” is prounounced as “kah” in Spanish. If you say “kay-kay” in English, that doesn’t mean anything. But, when you say “kah-kah” in Spanish, it means (you must have already figured out where this is going) waste matter eliminated from the bowels. That kind of station imagery would have trouble being a financial success. As a result, dating back to its inception, the station call letters were only given in English (“kay-kay-aitch-jay”) and referred to on the air in Spanish as “La Ranchera.” In a drive spearheaded by KKHJ Program Director Alfredo Rodriguez and Chief Engineer Jerry Lewine, the station collected letters from listeners and community leaders explaining the problem the station faced. They forwarded those letters to and spoke with staff at the FCC with the request that they make an exception to their policies and permit the station to drop one of the “K’s” and return to the call letters that the station had for over 65 years--KHJ. Under the circumstances, the FCC made a rare exception to the rules and granted the request. As a result, the classic call letters KHJ once again returned to Los Angeles effective on March 15, 2000. |
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