If you're anywhere near my age (61) and you grew up where I grew up (Los Angeles), you either listened to 93 KHJ or prided yourself on being too hip or refined to listen to that particular radio station. KHJ "Boss Radio" played the same hits as every other channel and its "boss jocks" didn't add or subtract much except to hit a high energy level as they back-announced records…but it was "the" radio station for a generation or so in these here parts.
That was late sixties. Around 1975, everyone outgrew that format at once, ratings plunged and KHJ went in search of a new raison d'être. For a year or three there, they tried something called "The Rhythm of Southern California." That didn't work. Then the station went to country-western. That didn't work.
They went back to Boss Radio, selling themselves as an oldies station. That didn't work. Then they went to something they called Car Radio, which was a lot of traffic reports interrupted for the occasional song. That didn't work. Then they changed the station name to KRTH-AM to try and coast on the success of KRTH-FM, an FM station with the same ownership but a more successful easy-listening format. KRTH-AM tried to split the difference between oldies and easy-listening and — you guessed it — that didn't work. Then the fit hit the shan…
For a decade or so, the parent company — RKO General — had been under continuous investigation and indictment for unethical and perhaps illegal business practices and in 1989, the F.C.C. ordered them to sell off their radio stations and their one TV station, KHJ Channel 9. What had once been KHJ radio was snatched up by a company that brought in a Spanish-language format. That worked…and it's continued to work to this day. At some point in there, the call letters even reverted to KHJ.
Let's go back to that brief period when they were trying to sell "The Rhythm of Southern California," whatever that is or was. Our video today is more of an audio. It's 7+ minutes of the jingles that were recorded to give the station its identity…and I think you can understand what went wrong just from them. Someone brought in the late, great Paul Frees to do his kinda-like-Orson-Welles voice and it just sounds creepy…like trying to have a dance party in the Haunted Mansion or something. You won't want to listen to the whole thing but listen to a few of the jingles with Mr. Frees and ask yourself if you'd have any desire to tune to this station…or for that matter, any idea what the hell this "rhythm" business was all about. I listened a bit while they were trying the Rhythm Method and I had no idea other than that the disc jockeys tried to sound more mellow and they played a lot of Simon sans Garfunkel…