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How it all began
One of
the ironic twists of the Keener legend is the fact that its winning format was
born out of personal tragedy. On December 29, 1946, broadcaster Fred Knorr, along with
partners William McCoy and Harvey Hanson, launched WKMH. The new station was licensed to Dearborn,
Michigan and operated during daytime hours with 2,000 watts of power at 1540 kilocycles on the AM radio dial.
Two years later, WKHM increased to a 24 hour schedule and switched frequencies to 1310.
John Carroll was there at the beginning. He told keener13.com that the original WKMH studios were located in a furniture store. "We used to say 'in the attic of the Gagnon Furniture Company' since the original studios were in their upper floor which we rented. 'Nobody listens to that Dearborn station' was the quote in 1950 from most all the Detroit advertising agencies."
Carroll rose from account executive to sales manager, general manager and ultimately vice president of Knorr Broadcasting. "Those WERE the thrilling days of yesteryear," he said. Broadcasting continues to run in The family. His son manages Carroll Broadcasting's portfolio of four stations covering eastern Michigan.
Another person who was an early WKMH employee was Robin Seymour. Robin came aboard after a stint with Armed Forces Radio and can claim the distinction of playing some of the first rock and roll on the Detroit airwaves. He told author David Carson that he debuted the Crows "Gee" in 1954. "The music mix was so weird back then. You would have Patti Page and then I would throw in the Crows and next you might hear Mantovani."*
By the early 1960s, WKMH sounded like dozens of other full-service radio stations, boasting a playlist that included Basie and Brubeck and a news and information focus that was rooted in its alliance with the Mutual Broadcasting System. Coverage of the Detroit area was passable during the day, but when nighttime operation was instituted, certain sections of the metro area could not receive the highly directional signal.
Paul Cannon, who worked at the station from 1961 to 1970, remembers that "The night time pattern was much like an inverted tear drop. Because the transmitter was and still is near I-94 & Telegraph the eastern portion of the Detroit Metro area was not covered. We had a great signal in the west side of the metro area."
Some listeners had their own idea of why the station couldn't be heard on the East Side. One young man called the station and said that he wished he could hear WKNR better in Roseville, but he understood why he could not. He said that ".. because your station is so popular a lot of the radio signal is being used up by all the listeners."
Fred Knorr was an early president of the fledgling Michigan Association of Broadcasters (1955) and also owned WKHM in Jackson as well as stations in Flint, Bay City and Battle Creek. In 1956, he and fellow broadcaster John Fetzer bought the Detroit Tigers and their Briggs Stadium home for a then-record 5.5 million dollars. Knorr served as Tiger president for two years.
Knorr's programming philosophy was at odds with the top 40 format and going in that direction was uncomfortable at first, in spite of the obvious enhancement to the bottom line. And as WKMH entered the 1960s its sounded like many of the other non-descript full-service radio stations of the day.
In 1960, Fred Knorr died unexpectedly after a freak accident at his Florida home. Nellie continued oversight of the station with Walter Patterson as General Manager. Frank Maruca was named Program Director in 1961. The core of the senior management team of what would become WKNR was now in place.
Gary Stevens was a successful announcer in St. Louis when he received an
offer to work at WKMH. In an interview for Art Vuolo's 1971 documentary, The
History of Detroit Radio, he remembered that within the industry, WKMH was
considered a loser, a run-down facility in a beat-up building. He arrived in
October of 1963 to find that the stories were true. He thought he had made a
mistake. His plan: to work through the winter and leave in the Spring.
Meanwhile, in Geneva New York, Bob Green received a package from a friend in Boston. The announcer and production wizard at WGVA opened the box to find a tape featuring the WKMH jingle package. Bob was impressed with what he heard and dashed off an air check and note to Frank Maruca saying he was planning to vacation in Detroit the following week. Could he visit WKMH during the trip? Maruca, who had been hired only a week before, called Bob to invite him to stop in. "I almost went nuts," Bob said. "I had NO trip planned, I was BSing. I 'got sick' at WGVA, got in my car and headed for Detroit. Got the gig."
By the end of 1962, Bob shared Gary Stevens' assessment. The business was floundering. He accepted an offer from WQAM and left Detroit for Miami. Although he hated the Florida heat, Bob was drawn to the opportunity of working for Top 40 pioneer Todd Storz. After buying WQAM for $850,000, Storz turned the station into a market leader with a national reputation. Bob worked in the same market with the likes of Jerry Goodwin, Ted Clark and Rock Robins, a young New Yorker born with the name Bob Bernstein who would gain Keener fame as Scott Regen. Bob Green enjoyed the energy at WQAM, a station at the top of its game, but by the middle of 1963 he heard that changes were in the wind for WKMH.
In 1963, Detroit had three top-40 stations, CKLW, WJBK and WXYZ. Each had its share of excellent announcers, but broadcasted a wide array of music and suffered from what Green called "a lack of consistency and definition."
With Fred Knorr
gone from the scene, Nellie began to consider the possibility that WKMH might be
more competitive if it played more rock and roll. She brought in programmer Mike
Joseph to tighten up the station sound.
Joseph earned his programmers stripes at WTAC in Flint and gained fame in 1960 when he launched the Top 40 format that started WABC on its road to the dominance of the New York radio market. His magic formula: personality, promotion and a tight play list, was something that contemporary programmers Gordon McLendon and Chuck Blore were parallel processing in other markets and the results were staggering. In a time when network radio was dying and television was earning the big audience shares, Top 40 stations had become the dominant players on the radio dial.
It was something the WKMH staff had been advocating for some time. According to Bob Green, "By 1962 we all knew what had to be done to make WKMH more competitive in the market, especially our program director, Frank Maruca. But management wasn't about to listen. It's like the old 'out of town expert' routine. And spending big bucks to have Mike Joseph tell you essentially the same things seemed to make sense somehow. Not to be unkind or take it away from Mike, but it really wasn't brain surgery. Get rid of mutual, play a tight top 40..or in this case, top 30, go with personality, contests etc etc."
The notion
of a "total station sound" was something that Bob Green had
experienced first hand in Miami. It was a concept that was
lacking at the other Detroit popular music stations. He returned to WKMH to help
launch the newly minted WKNR, joining Gary Stevens, Mort Crowley, Jim Sanders,
Bill Phillips, Paul Cannon and WKMH hold-over Robin Seymour as the core of the
original Keener cast.
Gary Stevens said that the team didn't buy into everything Mike Joseph had proposed and soon made a few changes. Bob Green agrees. "We simply kept the obvious universal truths inherent in any top 40 of the era, and got rid of the superfluous and silly features Mike had set in place. This was done about 3 days after we started."
Program Director Frank Maruca is rightly credited as one of the architects of Keener's success. A master of sales promotion, Maruca engineered WKNR's launch plan. He committed $130,000 to promote the new station, including a thirteen day teaser campaign prior to launch, a series of full page newspaper ads, high school book covers, 500 hand made "Spooktacular" announcements mailed to ad agencies and clients, 2.5 million matchbooks and 50,000 Keener bumper stickers.
The late Mort Crowley was Keener's first morning man. "We were hooked up in a
battle with three other radio stations that were playing the same kind of
music.. plus the rhythm and blues stations.. in perhaps one of the wildest
markets.. I've ever been in," he said. "It was up-and-at-em and get out of bed
in the morning and go for that red meat everyday."
Crowley remembered that the market was, "..highly competitive, highly spirited, tensions of course were very high. But personal drive and personal ambition were very high, too. There was a lot of esprit de corps at the radio station and that's why they went so far with the people they had."
Bob Green recounted Keener's sling-shot climb from nowhere to the top. "Within 30 days we went from a 3/10 of a percent rating to 6%. Within 2 months we were at 14% and within three months we were solid number 1."5
Aircheck: Dave Prince on WKMH - April, 1962
NEXT:The Glory Years
*Robin Seymour was interviewed in David Carson's outstanding book
"Rockin' Down the Dial, The Detroit Sound of Radio."
1-5 The History of Detroit Radio - Produced by Art Vuolo Jr. -
©1971 All rights reserved. Used by permission.
