Bill Drake

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Bill Drake, born Philip Yarbrough, is an American radio programmer. He chose his now-legendary last name from among his relatives' surnames because it rhymed with WAKE, the AM radio station in Atlanta, USA where he worked in the 1950s. He accepted radio work in San Francisco and it was in Fresno, California that he met Lester Eugene Chenault, who became his business partner. Together, the pair developed highly influential radio programming strategies and tactics as well as working with future "Boss Jocks" (their new name for on-air radio talent).

Drake & Chenault perfected the Top Forty radio format, which had been created by Todd Storz and other radio programmers in the late 1950s, which took a set list of popular songs and repeated them at various times during the day, ensuring the widest possible audience for the station's music. Jingles, news updates, traffic, and other features were designed to make Top 40 radio particularly attractive to car listeners. By early 1964, the era of the British Invasion, Top 40 radio had become the dominant radio format for North American listeners, and quickly swept much of the Western world.

Drake streamlined the Top 40 format, using modern methods such as market research and ratings demographics, to maximize the number of listeners. He believed in forward momentum, limiting the amount of disc jockey chatter, the number of commercials, and playing only the top hits, as opposed to less-organized programming methods of the past. Drake created concepts such as 20/20 News, and counter programming by playing music (aka "sweeping the top of the hour") while his competitors aired News headlines. Drake-Chenault had input into everything from the specific DJs that were hired, to radio contests, visual logos, and promotions. Drake essentially put radio back into the hands of programming instead of sales. Drake hired Dallas, Texas-based radio jingles production company PAMS to produce the Boss Radio jingles, ensuring a bright, high-energy sound that engaged the listener while providing a bridge from song to song, as well as a smooth transition from songs to commercials.

After turning around the fortunes of Fresno's KYNO-AM, Drake applied similar tactics to take KGB from 14th to 1st in San Diego. KGB's owner, Willett Brown suggested to his fellow RKO board members that Drake could turn KHJ around.

In the Spring of 1965, Drake and Chenault were hired to turn KHJ in Los Angeles from a financial and ratings loser into a success. With Ron Jacobs as program director, Robert W. Morgan in mornings, and The Real Don Steele in afternoons, KHJ quickly jumped from near-obscurity to the number one radio station in Los Angeles. "Boss Radio" moved faster and sounded more innovative than the competition, making it the #1 choice over competitors in Southern California.

Bill Drake also programmed KFRC in San Francisco, WOR-FM in New York, KAKC in Tulsa, WHBQ-AM in Memphis, WIBG in Philadelphia (the most famous "Boss Format" outside the RKO family), WRKO in Boston, and CKLW in Windsor, Ontario (across the Detroit River from the city of Detroit).

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Drake and Chenault developed a radio consulting business, Drake-Chenault, marketing the "Boss Radio" sound in the form of similar customized PAMS jingle packages used on KHJ. These jingle packages were sold across the US and overseas. They also marketed "automated" radio format packages such as "Hit Parade", "Solid Gold", "Classic Gold" and "Great American Country". Disc Jockey voices heard on those formats included Billy Moore and the legendary Robert W. Morgan. Drake also produced the pioneering 48-hour radio special The History of Rock & Roll, first aired in Feburary of 1969 on KHJ, and later syndicated nationally. Other radio specials followed, but none were arguably as successful with listeners or critics as much as the History show. Drake-Chenault was sold and eventually dissolved in the mid-1980s, but their radio specials are still available from a variety of sources.

[edit] Further reading

• Douglas, Susan, "Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination," New York: Times Books, 1999.
• Fong-Torres, Ben, "The Hits Just Keep On Coming: The History of Top 40 Radio", San Francisco: Backbeat Books, 1998.
• MacFarland, David, "The Development of the Top 40 Radio Format", New York: Arno Press, 1979.
• Fisher, Mark, "Something in the Air: Radio, Rock, and the Revolution That Shaped a Generation", New York: Random House, 2007.
• Goulart, Elwood F. 'Woody', "The Mystique and Mass Persuasion: Bill Drake & Gene Chenault’s Rock and Roll Radio Programming", 2006.