APRIL 1932 -KMO Gets Full Time: REVERSING Examiner Ralph L. Walker, the Radio Commission. Mar, 25 granted KMO, Tacoma, Wash., full time operation, authorizing a change in frequency from 860 to 1300 kc. The station had been assigned limited time on 860 kc, sharing channel with 500 watts. With the change its power will be decreased to 250 watts.
SEPTEMBER 1934 -Northwest Regional Net Set for Early Opening: PLANS for a new regional network to be known as the Pacific Northwest Network were announced in a statement by J. Elroy McCaw, of Seattle, and Robert S. McCaw, of Seattle and its temporary address is given as the Savings & Loan Bldg., Aberdeen, Wash., and the starting date of the hookup was given as between Sept. 15 and Oct. 1 for a group including KPCB, Seattle; KVOS, Bellingham, and KXL, Portland. All are 100 watters except KMO/Tacoma, which has 250 watts. Other stations are in Olympia, Yakima, Walla Walla, Everett, Wenatchee, Spokane, in Washington, and Salem and Eugene, in Oregon. Seven hours a day of sustaining programs via A. T. & T. wires will be provided, it was announced.
JULY 1936 -KVI and KOL Increased: TWO STATIONS in the Seattle-Tacoma area—KVI and KOL—were a authorized by the FCC Broadcast Division June 20, to increase their day power to 5,000 watts. KVI, operating on the choice 570 kc. channel was given its five-fold power boost effective July 7. It will continue operating with 1,000 at night. In the case of KOL, the FCC reconsidered and granted its application for a day power increase to 5,000 watts or 1270 kc, with 1,000 watt night.
DECEMBER 1936 -KRSC WILL BE IN NEW HOME ON JANUARY 15- Station to Increase Power and Extend Broadcast Time -One of the happiest radio executives in Seattle, I believe, is Robert Priebe, manager of KRSC. For about January 15 he will achieve the goal toward which he has worked long and hard—the opening of new studios at 319 Fairview Place. More than that, KRSC, now operating from 6 a.m. to sundown, will become an unlimited time station, and the power will jump from 100 to 250 watts. In announcing the opening yesterday, Ted Bell, associated with Priebe, said that the new KRSC home will have a 250-watt transmitter and a 215-foot Seattle-made vertical radiator antenna. (P-I columnist Ray D. Ofan)
DECEMBER 29, 1936 -It will be farewell to Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians over KOL at 9 p.m. They will be replaced next Tuesday night by Al Pearce and his gang, including Morey Amsterdam, Lord Bilgewaters, Mabel Todd, Andy Andrews, Tony Romano, Bill Wright, the Three Cheers, Arlene Harris and Harry Foster. Directing the orchestra will be Larry Marsh.
December 13, 1936 -Operators of Radio Station KOL became owners yesterday of the former Olympic Theater Building at 1419 8th Ave., and at the same time revealed plans to establish studios and a sumptuously furnished at a cost of #30,000. It was announced through John Davis and Company, realtors, who handled the deal for the buyer and the seller.
KOL thus will be one of the few major radio stations in the West owning and occupying an entire office building.
STAGE TO BE BUILT -The main floor of the 2-story building will have an auditorium with a seating capacity of 700, a full stage for studio productions, and a large console organ. Part of the lobby will be reserved for advertising displays.
Control rooms, broadcasting studios, an audition room, staff headquarters and business offices are to be established on the second floor according to plans outlined yesterday by Archie Taft, owner-of-the-station. The basement will be utilized for cooking schools and special activities.
The reinforced concrete building, erected in 1928 at a cost of $60,000, was purchased from the Home Savings and Loan Association.
DECEMBER 1937 -JERRY GEEHAN, sports announcer of KMO, Tacoma, has been associated with KMO for several years. Recently transferred to KVI Seattle studios in charge of programs. H. J. McAllister has been named KVI chief announcer.
WALTER CRONKITE, football announcer, has been appointed to the news bureau of WKY, Oklahoma City. He was formerly with United Press and came from Austin.
MAY 1938 -Copyrighted musical contest program called Syncopated Riddles has started on KMO, Tacoma, Wash. Each program is built around an idea to which clues are given in the musical selections played. For example, listeners write in the total of numbers in selections like Three Little Words, Forty-Second Street, Two Cigarettes in the Dark, When You and I Were Seventeen, etc., played on the program. Daily weekly and monthly prizes are given by participating merchants. The series averages 1,000 letters weekly, says KMO.
JUNE 1938 -FIFTY-FIVE members of the Tacoma Engineers Club played at a clambake at the Vashon Island, Puget Sound between Seattle and Tacoma. Club president Jim Wallace, KVI chief engineer, was host.
STORE ANNIVERSARY Brings 3½ Hour Program to KVI, in Tacoma
ADVERTISING plum fell into the lap of KVI, Tacoma, Wash., recently when the local Rhodes Department Store bought 3½ hours to celebrate its 46th anniversary, concentrating its entire advertising budget on KVI. Novel slant was the fact that each of the programs was devoted to some particular department of the store, such as an Aloha show of Hawaiian music in the interests of the Rhodes Surf Shop.
Highlight of the day’s series was an hour program from the store’s auditorium featuring a fashion show which contrasted styles of the Victorian era with modern fashions. Included were Mike Men’s Mixup, a quarter-hour show dramatizing mistakes made by announcers, and Sports Slants, featuring Jerry Geehan, KVI newscaster. The program schedule was worked out by Ed Jansen, KVI commercial manager, and directed by Kay Kelly, editor of KVI’s Woman’s Page of the Air.
MARCH 1939 -KIT, Yakima, Wash., was host to 5,000 visitors at the formal opening of its new studios Feb. 12. Mr. and Mrs. Carl Haymond, owners of KMO, Tacoma, and also of KIT, and Manager James A. Murphy, personally received the visitors and staff members handled the studio tours. In addition an address by Mayor E. B. Murphy and origination of a Don Lee network program, the day’s broadcasting schedule consisted of elaborate musical presentations.
JUNE 1939 -To build good will between business men and the city’s two radio stations, KMO, Tacoma, recently conducted a Radio Day at a Tacoma Chamber of Commerce luncheon, with representatives of both stations participating. Luncheon officiated, and Carl E. Haymond, president of KMO, Mr. and Mrs. Earl Irwin, heads of KVI, spoke at the meeting, each covering a different phase of the industry.
SEPTEMBER 1939 -Roscoe Smith news editor of KMO, Tacoma, Wash., for the last five years, has transferred to the sales department. Ted Knightlinger succeeds him as new editor. Dick Ross, KMO program director, has announced his coming marriage to Wanda Dyke this winter.
MARCH 1939 -Charles Foll, formerly of KFRC, San Francisco, and KWKL, Longview, Wash., has joined the announcing staff of KMO, Tacoma. Dick Ross, continuity director, recently named program director of the station, in addition to his other duties.
OCTOBER 1939 -KMO, Tacoma, Wash., built a special display at the recent Tacoma Home Products Exposition and broadcast daily programs, promoting home-own products. The exhibit included for visitors entertainment, apparatus, booklets were prepared on the radio industry and handed out to visitors. Jerry Geehan, KMO announcer, also handled the exposition public address work.
