The Springfield News-Leader from Springfield, Missouri • Page 19

vet (Sanyo" is got a a a a a a a a a a SUNDAY NEWS-LEADER July 20, 2003 5B "Usually media trends started at the coast and came inland. But Top 40 was just the opposite." KC station pioneered Top 40 format 50 years ago By Brian Burnes THE KANSAS CITY STAR KANSAS CITY The Top 40 is 50. It was 50 years ago that the radio format known for its heavy rotation of popular songs began to find vast audiences for stations desperate to remain relevant as television grew. The format is credited to the Storz broadcasting family, whose network of stations was anchored by WHB of Kansas City, the AM station it purchased in the early '50s. To those who once worked there, it meant being part of something much larger than themselves.

"I felt like an extra in a great Hollywood epic," Dan Oberholtz, a former WHB disc jockey known on the air as Dan Diamond, said recently. Oberholtz is one of several WHB disc jockeys once known as the World's Happiest Broadcasters that gathered recently at Chapman Recording Studios in Kansas City. They were interviewed by Tom McCourt, a Fordham University professor studying the evolution of radio after World War II. "This is an area of media history woefully underscrutinized," said McCourt. "With the rise of television in the 1950s, radio really had to redefine itself." When the Storz family of Nebraska bought Omaha station KOWH in 1949, it was ranked seventh among Omaha stations.

Not long after, the station ruled that market, due in part to stunts such as treasure hunts. Storz tried the same trick in Kansas City. One 1955 treasure DEATHS, from Page 4B Mr. Theodore "Ted" Planchon, 93, Monett, a retired postal carrier, died at 10 a.m. Saturday in Cox-Monett Hospi- tal.

Services are 11 a.m. Monday in Buchanan Funeral Home with burial in Monett I.O.O.F. Cemetery. Visitation is 10 a.m. to service time Monday in the funeral home.

Mr. Charles M. Rogalla, 63, Everton, a farmer and U.S. Army veteran, died at 1 a.m. Saturday in his home.

Memorial services will be at a later date. Cremation under direction of Birch Funeral Home, Everton. Mr. Paul Leslie Smith, 50, Eldridge, a certified heating, ventilation and air-conditioning technician, died at 1:44 a.m. Friday in his home.

Services are 7 p.m. today in Holman-Howe Funeral Home, Lebanon. Visitation will follow services in the funeral home. Ms. Vivian Rose Saeger Smith, 55, Riverside, formerly of Lebanon, an account representative, died at 4:20 p.m.

Thursday in her home. Rosary service is 2 p.m. Tuesday in Hol1-Howe Funeral Home, Lebanon, with burial in Calvary Catholic Cemetery. Visitation is 1 p.m. to service time Tuesday in the funeral home.

Mr. James David Monroe Tate, 64, Mesa, formerly of Springfield, a retired businessman, died July 13 in Buffalo, N.Y. Services will be at a later date under direction of Walnut Lawn DeGraffenreid-Wood Funeral Home. Mrs. Doris L.

Trager, 79, Cross Timbers, died Saturday in St. John's Regional Health Center, Springfield. Graveside services are 11 a.m. Monday in Cross Timbers Cemetery under direction of Reser Funeral Home, Warsaw. Visitation is 6 to 8 p.m.

today in the funeral home. Other Deaths Mr. Kenneth R. Case, 96, Marshfield, Fraker Funeral Home. Mrs.

Connie Sue Coffer, 48, Springfield, Birch Funeral Home, Ash Grove. Mr. Dennis Lane, 49, Lebanon, Holman-Howe Funeral Home, Lebanon. Mrs. Joyce Marie Rechkemmer, 68, Springfield, Pitts Chapel, Bolivar.

Mr. Roy P. Stout, 45, Greenfield, Greenfield Funeral Chapel. Tech Talk Answers to your computer questions Mondays in Life. NEWS-LEADER "(The early '50s) is an area of media history woefully underscrutinized.

With the rise of television in the 1950s, radio really had to redefine itself." Tom McCourt, Fordham University professor states, and at night in Canada and the Caribbean. "It was the revved-up version of what Storz had pioneered in Omaha and New Orleans," said former WHB disc jockey Richard Fatherley. With the rise of rock 'n' roll, WHB became the beacon around which a vast new demographic teenagers listening to rock grew. What is today called the "Big Chill" generation first heard the eclectic mix of music it calls its own on stations playing Top 40. Opinions differ as to whether all this was on the Storz agenda.

Fatherley says no. "WHB wasn't in the entertainment business. It was in the audience business," he said. "It was in the business of delivering audience, and they found a way to do that through popular music." Contemporary broadcasters can only dream about an audience share as big as WHB's at its peak. The winter 2003 ratings listed KPRS-FM as the highestrated Kansas City station, with a 7.9 percent share of the listening audience.

"Back then, in certain times of the day, the WHB share was close to 50 percent," said Fatherley. JIM BARCUS THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Former WHB disc jockeys Dan Oberholtz (front), known on air as Diamond Dan, and Jim Gammon went to a recording studio in Kansas City to recount their experiences at one of the nation's first Top 40 stations. hunt featured checks of steadily escalating value hidden at four spots across Kansas City. The last prize, a $1,000 check, was awarded to a listener who found a turtle bearing the station's call letters planted near the Loose Park pond. The result was four different traffic jams and lots of WHB listeners wading into the water at Loose Park.

The Kansas City police chief, not amused, suggested that such contests cease. But Time magazine, the next year, christened R. Todd Storz, the network's chief, "the fastest-rising figure in U.S. radio." Beyond contests, WHB became known for its carnivallike sound effects, such as echo chambers and musical station identification jingles. But above all else, WHB offered music.

The origins of the Top 40 format date to World War II. While Storz was serving in the U.S. Army, he noticed how restaurant customers, faced with perhaps 70 choices in the jukebox, often selected the same 10 or 12 songs. Then he watched with wonder when waitresses, after several hours of hearing the same songs, used their tip money to play those songs yet again. Storz refined the idea through the early 1950s, and the format received its formal name at the second Storz station, WTIX, in New Orleans, purchased in 1953.

In Kansas City, where the Storz group purchased WHB in 1954, the concept was combined with sheer power. The Storz station in Omaha had been a daytime-only operation. The New Orleans station was powered by only 250 watts. WHB, however, featured a signal. During the day it could be heard in four Sprint The PCS Center The BIG Phone Sale.

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Nokia 3585i is a trademark of the Nokia Corporation. phones. Copyright Sprint Spectrum L.P. All rights reserved. Sprint and the diamond logo are trademarks As a result, radio station managers from across the country booked Kansas City hotel rooms specifically to record WHB broadcasts, said Fatherley, and bring the Storz sound to their own markets.

"Usually media trends started at the coast and came inland," Fatherley said. "But Top 40 was just the opposite." Storz died in 1964. The growth of the FM band splintered the listening audience, and WHB's young audience grew up. WHB, once at 710 on the AM dial, is today a sports talk station at 810, following a recent frequency swap. The Top 40 format still exists, sometimes called "contemporary hits radio." The same concept a heavy rotation of limited number of songs is common to stations playing country, rock or other varieties of music.

But the audience that Top 40 used to command is history. "The media is so niche-driven now, and what is lost is a cultural commonality," McCourt said. Just to remind themselves how long ago it was, WHB alumni recently visited the station's former penthouse studios atop what is now an apartment building. WHB vacated the building in 1969, and the current building management believes no one has leased the space since. From its peeling acoustical tiles to its clouded controlroom windows, the old studio didn't look much like the home of the World's Happiest Broadcasters.

"I feel like a ghost," said Oberholtz. "And you can quote me.".