Remembering the original KRLA radio on its 65th birthday

August 31, 1959 is a big day in Los Angeles: It’s the day that the original KRLA  — Radio Los Angeles — made its debut.

So let’s look back at 65 years of KRLA.

Known as KPAS when the station launched in 1942 and then KXLA in 1945, the change to KRLA and a new top 40 format came about when the station was sold by Pacific Coast Broadcasting — run until 1945 by John Franklin Burke, co-publisher of the Santa Ana Register —  to Eleven-Ten Broadcasting Corporation.

The transfer to Eleven-Ten Broadcasting is somewhat convoluted and would take up an entire column (or more) to explain fully, but suffice it to say that the station had some license problems.

Called “modern radio” at its launch, the station didn’t have regular programming at all for its first three days. Broadcasting Magazine wrote of the station’s debut, described as “three days in which it broadcast call letters, no programs, no news, no music — only continual stream of announcements.”

Then something changed: “‘Radio Eleven-Ten’ was identified as KRLA and regular programming began with ‘KRLA’s top 50’ tunes, Rocket News (chiefly one-sentence bulletins, delivered in high-pitched staccato and separated by wailing whistles) and ‘electric time’ signals.”

While that doesn’t sound like much, it did get attention. One report said that these announcements — part of which included the first contest in which a key was buried somewhere in Southern California, and designed to bring attention to the station’s new higher transmitter power  — attracted a lot of hype.

Once the format settled down, KRLA became the city’s second full-time top-40 station, competing against the formidable KFWB (980 AM), which had adopted the format one year earlier.

Top-40 radio in those early days was vastly different from what was to come later when stations such as KHJ (930 AM) would set the pace. The early 1960s were a time in which DJs often selected their own music, talked much more conversationally, and included “jingles” that were often seemingly as long as the songs played. KRLA was a little tighter than was KFWB, especially as time went on. Soon, KRLA overtook KFWB in the ratings and for a time was the number one station in town.

KRLA included many great personalities over the years, including Wink Martindale, Dick Moreland, Jimmy O’Neill, Sam Riddle, Bob Eubanks, “Emperor” Bob Hudson, Reb Foster, Dave Hull, Casey Kasem, Shadoe Stevens, B. Michell Reed, Dick Biondi, Art Laboe, Dave Diamond, Russ O’Hara, Ed Perry, Ted Quillin, Charlie O’Donnell, Gary Mack, Jimmy Rabbitt, Johnny Hayes, and The Real Don Steele, among so many others.

Eubanks and KRLA brought The Beatles to the Hollywood Bowl when Eubanks mortgaged his house to secure the funding. Kasem perfected his on-air style at KRLA prior to launching “American Top 40.” The Credibility Gap brought satire and politics to the station via station personalities, newscasters, and staffers Lew Irwin, Richard Beebe, John Gilliland, Thom Beck, and Len Chandler. The amazing voice of one of the very first female radio DJs, Sie Holliday, was heard on KRLA.

The station even produced a full-scale newspaper dedicated to music, artists and other items of interest to listeners. I am told that The KRLA Beat is one of the few such radio station newspapers to actually make a profit.

In 1969, the station started playing more album cuts and tried a progressive rock approach. This lasted a few years and was well-received. The writing was on the wall though, as FM stations took on album and progressive rock. Thus in the mid-1970s, Art Laboe and Johnny Hayes launched HitRadio 11, a combination of oldies and current music that took the city by storm, especially in East Los Angeles where the signal was strong.

All Oldies came in 1984 as new management arrived; proving once again that AM can compete when the programming is right, KRLA actually outperformed KRTH (101.1 FM) for a time in the ratings.

Eventually, a revolving door of program directors and an inconsistent sound with little promotion did in the station; an ill-fated talk format that arrived when Dick “Huggy Boy” Hugg played the last song on KRLA in late November 1998. Ratings never recovered.

I asked Mike Wagner, who programmed and was a personality on KRLA during part of the all-oldies era if he had any memories he wanted to share about the station.

“I just flashed back on the 30th anniversary (in 1989)!” he exclaimed. “ What a party it was both ON and OFF the air!

“One of the best parts for me on air was the recreation of the transition from KXLA to KRLA with the one and only Cal Worthington, a DJ at KXLA at the time. I was so excited when I picked up his tape at Worthington Dodge (or was it Worthington Ford?) off the 405 Freeway and rushed it back to the station to listen to it before broadcasting it on the air over our special 30th birthday weekend.

“Plus, we had a big reunion on air with all the old jingles and promos of KRLA’s greatest decade.

“Off air, we cruised to Catalina Island, built a stage on Descanso Beach for Dick Dale to perform, floated over the In-N-Out Burger mobile kitchen to fry up hamburgers for all attendees, and then featured The Turtles in concert in the Catalina Casino Ballroom!”

Like so many other stations of the past, KRLA has a storied history and legions of fans. During the HitRadio and all-oldies days, it was not unheard of for three generations of the same family to be fans of the music; throughout its history, the station was always tremendously creative.

Oddly, though the failed talk format was never popular, the call letters were picked up to be used on another station — for another talk format. You can find KRLA today at 870 AM, also known as The Answer.

True fans know KRLA as what it was, though — one of the trendsetting, creative music stations of our past. Happy 65th birthday to the real, original, KRLA!

Richard Wagoner is a San Pedro freelance columnist covering radio in Southern California. Email rwagoner@socalradiowaves.com