Re: Johnny Hayes rips Doug Cox about KRLA

On Sunday, February 7, 2010 at 11:24:45 AM UTC-8, tedalvy@aoldotcom wrote:
> The National Science Network hired Doug Cox as GM for KPPC FM in
> September 1970.  Doug Cox fired the entire KPPC airstaff on October
> 24, 1971 just as the ratings showed KPPC as Number One in Los Angeles
> Radio (ages 18 to 34 demographic). Doug Cox then drove KPPC to a no
> show on the next book. Here is some insight into his evil pedigree
> (much like the even more evil Hound at KMET FM):
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> LARadio dot com (website is now FREE)
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> December 31, 2009 Response to KRLA Memory
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> Thank you Johnny for clarifying this issue. There are a few of us who rem=
ember you hosting a late night program on KRLA, Collage,  that featured ple=
nty of deep album cuts and serious rock music. I never suspected that Cecil=
 Tuck was actually programming the station. Time goes by and you still find=
 out interesting things. Hope you are well Johnny. All best...Peter Marquar=
d
> =E2=80=9CYou re-ran the following from Doug Cox:
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> =E2=80=98As a fresh new program Director at KRLA in Pasadena, I knew that=
 Lp=E2=80=99s
> [33 1/3] as we called them, were where the superior music was. I
> convinced our management to allow me to program in selected cuts,
> between the top 30, on weekends only! I called it =E2=80=98Long Play Week=
end.=E2=80=99
> The dj=E2=80=99s and the audience loved it. Six months later the same
> management, playing detective, discovered that the tracks that I had
> chosen were being made into singles and were becoming hits. Their view
> was, that I had to be taking money to play this music. When they came
> to me I asked if it had ever crossed their mind, that with the help of
> Johnny Hayes, we were good enough to be picking the future hits and
> that it was a windfall to the station? The answer was no! I was told
> that the station just =E2=80=98loved=E2=80=99 me but that I was to return=
 to
> programming top 30 singles only.
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> I had invited what I believed to be the best in the business to join
> me at KRLA and I had promised them, little money [scale] but uncommon
> freedom in AM broadcasting. I could not let my friends and dj=E2=80=99s d=
own.
> I resigned.
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> Following the next ratings period, the sales manager, Hal Mathews,
> invited me to lunch at the Tap Room restaurant at the old Pasadena
> Sheraton Hotel to inform me that I had been right and the station had
> been wrong. The ratings, thanks to my on-air staff, had taken such a
> jump that Robert W. Morgan, from KHJ, called to congratulate me.
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> Footnote: Hal Mathews, a man who I much admired, was in the landing
> party that hit the beach in Dunkirk. A hand grenade exploded under him
> and nearly destroyed his legs. I figure if he was grumpy every now and
> then he had earned it! I still miss KRLA and radio.=E2=80=99
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> ----------------------
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> The time frame was the late 1960=E2=80=99s and it consists of comments fr=
om
> Doug Cox. I=E2=80=99m not making a federal case of this, and I=E2=80=99m =
not even
> angry, but not one word of what Doug says about the scene at KRLA in
> the timeframe that was discussed concerning his accomplishments was
> the truth. It didn=E2=80=99t happen that way. I would hope that after 40 =
years
> Doug Cox=E2=80=99s life had brought enough gratification that his rewriti=
ng of
> history, so to speak, was unnecessary.
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> The TRUTH is best not discussed here because frankly no one cares, but
> it was I who waged a campaign lasting years trying to get management
> to allow skillfully selected lp cuts played in regular rotation.
> Management was almost never receptive, as is to be expected, but
> especially since the station and its format were literally run from
> the shadows by the station=E2=80=99s news director Cecil Tuck. Cecil knew=
 not
> one record from another, but that didn=E2=80=99t stop him. Cecil thought =
his
> clever contests and the concept creation of Hudson=E2=80=99s Commandos wa=
s
> enough, but it was not, and KHJ rolled over us like they always had
> since back in May 1965.
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> Yes I struggled to get lp cuts played, as did Humble Harve over at
> KHJ, but it was =E2=80=98Big Daddy=E2=80=99 Tom Donahue, first at KMPX-Sa=
n Francisco
> and later at KPPC-Pasadena and KMET that broke the music scene wide
> open and was an inspiration to both Harve and myself. Donahue had the
> vision and got the job done and it was he who ultimately got the
> deserved credit.
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> And to Doug I would say . . . you created nothing back then and your
> exaggerations of the past are especially meaningless now. Let it go,
> Doug, and Happy New Year!=E2=80=9D
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> =E2=80=93 Johnny Hayes, Hollywood
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> -end-