What year was the First Broadcasting/Bill Drake alliance?
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First Broadcasting/Bill Drake Rock & Rolldies?
- Thread starter chuckmcmillan
- Start date
That was November, and it was dead by February, three months later:
Yeah, that worked well. No, not really...
The February piece is astonishing to read----these guys really didn't have a firm grasp on costs, had a million dollars a year dedicated to programming staff salaries, and had been running the format on the satellite on spec, without a single paying client---as a live demo.Yeah, that worked well. No, not really...
Gosh, when was it, back in the 80's? There were two Northwest radio natives; Pat O'Day and Ivan Braiker (Ivan was more of a radio investor), who managed to get a bunch of investor dollars to start a national radio network similar to Jones/Westwood One called Braiker Radio. They leased a large business park complex in Bellevue, East suburb of Seattle, hired a whole bunch of talent from the Northwest and all over the country, built some nice studios, and stuck a portable uplink in the parking lot. Pat was a bit of a programming/promotions guru in the 60's, so they depended on Pat to bring his unique touch to the various formats. Their target affiliate count was something like 1,000 stations signing up in the first year. As I recall, that number of affiliates was closer to ten. The sales department couldn't get squat national, and since they relied on Pat and a couple of music directors to develop the playlists, there was no music research involved. (ie; cost savings) Before a year expired debt well exceeded cashflow, and balloon payments were on the horizon. Like your example; Braiker never spent a dime on satellite time, so PanAmSat eventually considered them in default, and they were ordered off the bird. The entire staff was laid off, and they locked the doors.
The few remaining affiliates were rightfully pissed, and lawsuits a plenty ensued. Property leases defaulted, and I ended up buying a lot of basically new studio gear and furniture from the landlord for pennies on the dollar.
A lot of guys who worked the bigs in the "glory days" really believed if you spent money, the money would follow. I'm not surprised Bill Drake thought that way (his RKO deal would make your eyes water), but in both the First Broadcasting/Drake and Braiker cases, there should have been some folks involved with their feet on the ground.
Bill Drake was one of those essential sales guys who knew how to play to his customers. Those customers were station owners and PDs. Once they found out Drake was selling something that listeners didn't want, or burned out fast, the bottom fell out equally fast.
Fast forward to today; and how many different dot-com or social media sites have been tried and rapidly failed? Other than maybe the CIA's angel investment arm for the right site, good luck trying to find private equity that would invest in social media startups anymore. Now the cutest girl at the dance is AI.
My first thought when I saw this was Rick Sklar's ill-fated SuperRadio idea from 1983. WABC had just flipped to talk, and some great DJs were still under contract. ABC Radio had just made a deal with SatCom (RCA) to distribute their networks on satellite rather than phone lines. So Sklar put together an airstaff with Dan Ingram, Ron Lundy, and more. They had everything ready to go, but couldn't get any major market affiliates. By that time, all of the ABC FM stations were already doing rock currents, and the AMs were spoken for. No affiliates meant no advertisers. The idea died, and Sklar left ABC. A few years later, ABC bought Satellite Music Networks.
The timing always has a lot to do with these things. This idea was in 1997. The year before, the FCC redid the Communications Act, allowing radio companies to own more stations. All the investment money went to buying stations. Plus this was on the tail end of the oldies boom. During the 90s, there was still interest in oldies as a format, and there was a lot of syndication already in place for those stations. I think ABC/SMN had multiple oldies formats available to stations. Seems to me Peter Noone (Herman's Hermits) was doing a syndicated show. In a few years, oldies would give way to classic hits, because the audience was topping out.
But that also brings up the question: Who the hell was First Broadcasting Networks? I never heard of them. The article says Premiere passed on the idea. But any concept like this needed an existing infrastructure to make it happen. Otherwise it would be way too expensive. That's what happened. You never move forward with a programming idea if it doesn't have sponsorship.
The timing always has a lot to do with these things. This idea was in 1997. The year before, the FCC redid the Communications Act, allowing radio companies to own more stations. All the investment money went to buying stations. Plus this was on the tail end of the oldies boom. During the 90s, there was still interest in oldies as a format, and there was a lot of syndication already in place for those stations. I think ABC/SMN had multiple oldies formats available to stations. Seems to me Peter Noone (Herman's Hermits) was doing a syndicated show. In a few years, oldies would give way to classic hits, because the audience was topping out.
But that also brings up the question: Who the hell was First Broadcasting Networks? I never heard of them. The article says Premiere passed on the idea. But any concept like this needed an existing infrastructure to make it happen. Otherwise it would be way too expensive. That's what happened. You never move forward with a programming idea if it doesn't have sponsorship.
Another big problem with SuperRadio was it was an old-school AM Top 40 (though it was to be in stereo and could be used on FM) in an FM CHR world---largely a carbon copy of WABC, which hadn't won in the ratings for years.
In fact what happened to most of the former WABC talent is they joined the classic hits station WCBS-FM, going in that direction, rather than attempting to stay in Top 40/CHR.
Yes, but they had Ingram and Lundy.
And got Harry Harrison and maybe Cousin Bruce at one point. Ingram had a syndicated show from CBS Radio too.
Sorry. I meant SUPERRADIO had Ingram and Lundy—-as well as a very old-school (by 1982 standards) WABC-style sound.
I was trying to figure out who was this "First Broadcasting Networks." I never heard of them. I did an R&R search, and only came up with a few references, including a job listing for promotions director from September 1997:
The first sentence is "well funded." So that says to me it was in the development stage. There are no references after this other than the one announcing the end of the Bill Drake idea. But something tells me the end of the Drake idea was also the end of the company.
The first sentence is "well funded." So that says to me it was in the development stage. There are no references after this other than the one announcing the end of the Bill Drake idea. But something tells me the end of the Drake idea was also the end of the company.
Yeah. Sounds like they were spending a lot of money before they could make their first dime, which never happened—-and I’m sure Drake was involved because he was guaranteed significant dollars up front.
Thanks for the URL.
Just a note to say I'm appreciative of this thread. Interesting reading about these failed attempts (with some big names involved) for sure.
After this attempt at providing programming failed, First Broadcasting lived on as a company that did FM station move-ins. They did a bunch of those move-ins here in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and specialized in the sort of complex deals that might involve moving as many as ten other stations in order to allow for a single major market move-in. But they did move-ins in multiple markets -- one that got a lot of attention here at the time was KMCQ 104.5 in Covington, WA (Seattle/Tacoma market). I suspect that they lost a bunch of money on that particular move-in, and it seems that effort was their swan song in the move-in business.
They subsequently moved from the location mentioned in the text you quoted (which was in downtown Dallas) to what I presume were less expensive digs at Northwest Highway and Douglas in North Dallas. My suspicion at this point in time is that they are no longer an actively operating company.
I did have some first-hand interaction with these people. In 2005, they were looking to hire electrical engineers so I contacted them and actually did interview with them. But there was no follow-up for a long time, and by the time I heard from them again a year or so later, I had returned to a previous employer. Frankly, while the technical expertise involved in some of the move-ins was impressive, in other respects they did not impress me as being well managed.
I had heard that Lundy and Ingram would have split middays, but both drive times were to handled locally (preferably through the Superradio Directory of Recommended Talent). I don't remember hearing who might have been slated to fill nights and overnights. Larry Lujack and Dick Purtan were set for weekend slots (Lujack claimed he went to a press conference seem to recall the format was going to be Adult Contemporary. They likely didn't have major markets signed, but I'm aware of a few stations that signed on, one being WRMZ, Columbus OH.