[rollei_list] Re: OT: Harley Earls and Broadcasting

Broadcast History Site:

http://www.midcoast.com/~lizmcl/links.html

Fascinating reading. Most of it happened before I was born.

Thor



On 24. mars. 2009, at 10.26, Richard Knoppow wrote:




-----Original Message-----

From: Marc James Small <marcsmall@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Mar 23, 2009 10:13 PM
To: rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [rollei_list] Re: OT:  Harley Earls and Broadcasting

At 12:53 AM 3/24/2009, Richard Knoppow wrote:


This arrangement lasted until Don
Lee's death in 1935.


Thanks, Richard.  I knew that you would have the
full story.  Don Lee, for your records, died on
30 AUG 1934, and his son Tommy, continued to run
things under the Don Lee name until he sold out to ABC in 1959.

Marc


msmall@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Cha robh bàs fir gun ghràs fir!
That can't be right. Tommy lee committed suicide in 1950 or 1951. He had a company under his name that held the television patents, mostly the work of Harry Lubke. I am not sure at this point who this was eventually sold to but its possible that is what you are thinking of. It was independent of the broadcasting operation. The television station, KTSL, was sold to the Columbia Broadcasting System and became KNXT, now KCBS-TV. Columbia had previously had a partnership with the Los Angeles Times owning KTTV, channel 11. CBS never liked partnerships and dropped KTTV, selling their share back to the Times in 1951 when they acquired KTSL. Meanwhile, the Don Lee network and its four owned and operated stations, KHJ, Los Angeles, KFRC, San Francisco, KGB, San Diego, KDB Santa Barbara, were acquired by a group of former Don Lee executives headed by Louis Allen Weiss and Willet Brown. They sold out to General Tire and Rubber some time after this. At about the same time Don Lee Broadcasting bought KFI-TV from Earl C. Anthony and it became KHJ- TV, channel 9. At some point in the early to mid 1950's (I am going by memory here) General Tire bought the remainder of the Mutual Broadcasting System including WOR, New York, and the Boston stations. WGN, one of the founding partners in Mutual was owned by the Chicago Tribune, who still owns it. KHJ stopped being a Mutual affiliate when the format was changed to the "Boss Radio" R&R format which continued until RKO General, the broadcast division of General Tire and Rubber was ruled by the FCC to be unfit to hold broadcast licenses. This was partly due to some devious bookkeeping at the radio and TV stations and also due to GT&R being involved in a number of very questionable business practices. GT&R decided the call KHJ should go with the TV station but its buyer, the Disney company decided to drop it in favor of KCAL. Disney has no class. The radio station, which holds the second oldest license in Los Angeles (KNX is the oldest) became KKHJ, but it was a Spanish language stations and KK is not nice in Spanish to the FCC allowed the re-issue of the three letter call and it once again became KHJ. So much for musical chairs in LA radio. All the calls are now scrambled. Don Lee also held a pioneer FM license, that station is now KRTH (K-Earth) 101.1. KFI also had an authorization for an FM station with 250,000 watts ERP. It would have become the most powerful FM station in the US but ECA decided there was no money in FM and never developed it. FM stations are no longer authorized with this much power. BTW, KHJ was put on the air originally by the L.A. Times although the first authorization was issued to C.R.Kierulff, who was a major supplier of electrical equipment. It is possible that Cap Kierulff sold the station to the Times but I can find nothing in the old FCC documents to show what exactly happened there. A friend is now writing a history of Los Angeles radio and TV stations. I have to ask him what stuff he has found that is a mystery to me. Unfortunately, the people I knew who were directly involved in the pioneering era of broadcasting on the West coast are all dead now so I can't ask the million questions I have.
This is fifty-thousand watt, clear-channel station, K F I, Los Angeles, Earl C. Anthony Incorporated, Southern California distributor for _Packard_ automobiles... KHJ never mentioned Cadillac but maybe did earlier. Station breaks were K H J AM and FM, the Don Lee stations for Los Angeles (pronounced with a hard G). 

    Does anyone remember Lonesome Gal?
And now, with the playing of our national anthem, we leave the air until we return at six AM tomorrow. Good Night. 






--
Richard Knoppow
dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Los Angeles, CA, USA
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