Johnny Hayes rips Doug Cox about KRLA
tedalvy@aoldotcom
September 1970. Doug Cox fired the entire KPPC airstaff on October
24, 1971 just as the ratings showed KPPC as Number One in Los Angeles
Radio (ages 18 to 34 demographic). Doug Cox then drove KPPC to a no
show on the next book. Here is some insight into his evil pedigree
(much like the even more evil Hound at KMET FM):
LARadio dot com (website is now FREE)
December 31, 2009 Response to KRLA Memory
“You re-ran the following from Doug Cox:
‘As a fresh new program Director at KRLA in Pasadena, I knew that Lp’s
[33 1/3] as we called them, were where the superior music was. I
convinced our management to allow me to program in selected cuts,
between the top 30, on weekends only! I called it ‘Long Play Weekend.’
The dj’s and the audience loved it. Six months later the same
management, playing detective, discovered that the tracks that I had
chosen were being made into singles and were becoming hits. Their view
was, that I had to be taking money to play this music. When they came
to me I asked if it had ever crossed their mind, that with the help of
Johnny Hayes, we were good enough to be picking the future hits and
that it was a windfall to the station? The answer was no! I was told
that the station just ‘loved’ me but that I was to return to
programming top 30 singles only.
I had invited what I believed to be the best in the business to join
me at KRLA and I had promised them, little money [scale] but uncommon
freedom in AM broadcasting. I could not let my friends and dj’s down.
I resigned.
Following the next ratings period, the sales manager, Hal Mathews,
invited me to lunch at the Tap Room restaurant at the old Pasadena
Sheraton Hotel to inform me that I had been right and the station had
been wrong. The ratings, thanks to my on-air staff, had taken such a
jump that Robert W. Morgan, from KHJ, called to congratulate me.
Footnote: Hal Mathews, a man who I much admired, was in the landing
party that hit the beach in Dunkirk. A hand grenade exploded under him
and nearly destroyed his legs. I figure if he was grumpy every now and
then he had earned it! I still miss KRLA and radio.’
----------------------
The time frame was the late 1960’s and it consists of comments from
Doug Cox. I’m not making a federal case of this, and I’m not even
angry, but not one word of what Doug says about the scene at KRLA in
the timeframe that was discussed concerning his accomplishments was
the truth. It didn’t happen that way. I would hope that after 40 years
Doug Cox’s life had brought enough gratification that his rewriting of
history, so to speak, was unnecessary.
The TRUTH is best not discussed here because frankly no one cares, but
it was I who waged a campaign lasting years trying to get management
to allow skillfully selected lp cuts played in regular rotation.
Management was almost never receptive, as is to be expected, but
especially since the station and its format were literally run from
the shadows by the station’s news director Cecil Tuck. Cecil knew not
one record from another, but that didn’t stop him. Cecil thought his
clever contests and the concept creation of Hudson’s Commandos was
enough, but it was not, and KHJ rolled over us like they always had
since back in May 1965.
Yes I struggled to get lp cuts played, as did Humble Harve over at
KHJ, but it was ‘Big Daddy’ Tom Donahue, first at KMPX-San Francisco
and later at KPPC-Pasadena and KMET that broke the music scene wide
open and was an inspiration to both Harve and myself. Donahue had the
vision and got the job done and it was he who ultimately got the
deserved credit.
And to Doug I would say . . . you created nothing back then and your
exaggerations of the past are especially meaningless now. Let it go,
Doug, and Happy New Year!”
– Johnny Hayes, Hollywood
-end-
tedalvy@aoldotcom
March 1967 - The first broadcast of a four-hour radio documentary on
the American Indian, written and produced by Peter, David and Phil A.,
followed by a weekend Colloquium, followed by the first LOVE-IN,
organized by Radio Free Oz, which moved to KRLA-AM [Los Angeles] the
same day (March 26th).
marquard...@gmail.com
> The National Science Network hired Doug Cox as GM for KPPC FM in
> September 1970. Doug Cox fired the entire KPPC airstaff on October
> 24, 1971 just as the ratings showed KPPC as Number One in Los Angeles
> Radio (ages 18 to 34 demographic). Doug Cox then drove KPPC to a no
> show on the next book. Here is some insight into his evil pedigree
> (much like the even more evil Hound at KMET FM):
>
>
> LARadio dot com (website is now FREE)
>
>
> December 31, 2009 Response to KRLA Memory
>