KFAC

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

KFAC was a commercial classical music radio station in Los Angeles, broadcasting on 1330 kHz AM, and 92.3 MHz FM from the 1940s until September 20, 1989 at 2 p.m. when it changed its format. During its heyday, the station was a major cultural force in the Los Angeles area. It featured such disc jockeys as Dick Crawford, Thomas Cassidy, Carl Princi, Fred Crane (actor), Tom Dixon and Doug Ordunio. The station also carried the syndicated "Adventures in Good Music" with Karl Haas daily.

Many of its programs, such as "The Gas Company Evening Concert," "Luncheon at the Music Center," and "The World of Opera" lasted for decades – with the Gas Company show airing for over 40 years. The station's DJs also had unusual career longevity; according to some estimates, between them they had been with the station for over 400 years. This unique staying power, and the fact that for decades KFAC was the only classical musical station in Los Angeles (KUSC, its only competitor, did not broadcast until 1976.) meant that whole generations of Angelinos grew up listening to the station. That meant that along with a level of cultural authority, the station held a special place in their affections as well.

[edit] Early Years

Like most radio stations in the 1940s, KFAC did not fill one niche, but rather broadcast a wide variety of programming, including baseball games from the Pacific Coast League. Its evolution into the all classical-music format was a slow process over many years. Its first classical music show began in December of 1943, when Thomas Cassidy began hosting a two-hour nightly program sponsored by the Southern California Gas Company. Eventually the station added a second show, "Musical Masterpieces". It was Cassidy's responsibility to build the musical library for these shows.

In 1945, the station's owner, E.L. Cord (the A.C. in the station's call letters stand for Auburn Cord, after the Auburn Automobile Company and its Cord brand auto), was touring the station when he saw for the first time the huge collection of discs (a full symphony might take up twelve 78 rpm discs) KFAC owned. Cord decided to make better use of this investment by switching to all-classical music. Management tested the waters on this idea by asking the audience if they wanted another nighttime program, "Lucky Lager Dance Time" (which played pop and swing tunes) to continue or if they would prefer more classical. Classical won by a slim margin.

Tom Dixon hosted the afternoon shift. His frequent errors (from mispronouncing the names of conductors and performers to playing movements of concertos and symphonies in the wrong order), prompted listener Sarah Lee Halpern to write to Dixon suggesting he name his show "Music and Mistakes With Tom Dixon." For a long time afterwards, every time Dixon made an error, he would say, "I'm sorry, Sarah Lee…" Dixon's less-formal atmosphere and willingness to admit his errors on the air endeared him to audiences. (Another listener once asked Dixon, "Who writes your mistakes?") For years Dixon signed off with the phrase "TTFN" (ta ta for now). Dick Crawford on the weekends was famous for playing opera records out of order and once played Bach's Brandenberg Concerto at the wrong speed.

From 1952 – 1973 KFAC broadcast performances from the Hollywood Bowl. The station pioneered an early form of stereo broadcast by having two microphones on different sides of the Bowl. Listeners at home who had two radios were instructed to place them seven to twelve feet apart and tune one to the 92.3 FM band and the other to KFAC's AM frequency, 1330.

From 1953 to 1986 Carl Princi hosted "The World of Opera." Heard weekdays at 3 p.m., this hour-long program played selections from a wide variety of operas, both famous and obscure.

"Luncheon at the Music Center" was created in the early 1960s by Thomas Cassidy, who also hosted the program for its first eleven years. The progam was considered by many the preeminent place to plug theatrical and musical events in the Southern California area. Broadcast live every Monday through Friday (with recorded shows only on holidays) from the Pavilion restaurant in the Los Angeles Music Center, the show interviewed not only musicians but also actors and directors who were either involved in local productions or just visiting the area. The guests actually did eat lunch during the show – during musical interludes – though the hosts did not. Nonetheless, the presence of other diners at the restaurant gave the show one of its hallmark elements: the sounds of plates and cutlery clacking in the background. Originally the program was broadcast using one microphone in the middle of the table. Eventually that was increased to three, which decreased the need for everyone talking to lean so far forward. Martin Workman hosted the show's second 14 years.

[edit] Sale and conversion

Shortly before its end, the station went up for FCC license renewal. After the application was made, a group challenged the renewal claiming that KFAC was not serving the local African-American community. This seemed a ludicrous charge because the station never discriminated against any group in its choice of featured composers or performers.

Investigations seemed to uncover that the protesting group had challenged other station licenses for the purposes of extorting substantial amounts of money from the station owners. It is not known precisely how much money was paid by the owners of KFAC to settle a possible lawsuit, but typically when a station’s license is being contested during the renewal process, there is a slim chance of it being sold.

In 1986 a group of investors headed by Louise Heifetz (daughter-in-law of the violin virtuoso Jascha Heifetz) purchased the station for around $33 million. She and her hatchet-man, program director Robert Goldfarb fired most of the staff announcers in the hope that new talent would attract new listeners. The highly respected engineering staff was also laid off in the new years blood bath of 1987. Supposedly, Goldfarb had been hired to do the same for manager Wally World Smith at KUSC a few years before.

During the next three years the station's ratings declined and it was sold to Evergreen Media, who changed its format and recast it as KKBT-FM "(The Beat", which eventually moved to 100.3 FM), an R&B station. Several years ago, Ralph Guild, the top man in charge of the company that owned KFAC confided that putting the station up for sale was one of the biggest mistakes he ever made.

In 1989, the new owners donated both the KFAC call sign and the classical record library to University of Southern California Radio station KUSC, which assigned the call sign to its Santa Barbara satellite.

Today the frequency is home to HOT 92 JAMZ - Mega Old School and Today's R&B. The KFAC call letters, at home on the Santa Barbara translator for KUSC for over a decade, were replaced when the station chose to have all of its affiliates have call letters ending with "SC."