Friends of the Zeiss

P.O. Box 1041

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15230-1041 U.S.A.

Telephone: 412-561-7876

Electronic Mail: < friendsofthezeiss@planetarium.cc >

Internet Web Site: < http://www.friendsofthezeiss.org >

 

2005 September 13

 

Mr. David Yadgaroff, Vice President and General Manager

KYW 1060 Newsradio

101 South Independence Mall East

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19106 -2597

 

Dear Mr. Yadgaroff:

 

I want to congratulate KYW Newsradio for your pioneering efforts in the field of all-news radio and for maintaining an all-news, all the time format for 40 years. This is quite an accomplishment. All-news radio is a very important public service—almost a utility. However, this is one public service that cannot be operated by the government. I am so happy that certain commercial radio stations, such as KYW, have taken-on such a labor-intensive, and hence expensive, format, to serve the public.

 

And, I have been listening to KYW for the entire 40 years that you have been broadcasting all-news, all the time!

 

Of course, living in Pittsburgh, this means I have been listening in the evenings, and occasionally early mornings. However, there is one exception to this. I spent most of the Summer of 1966 in Wayne, Pennsylvania along the suburban PhiladelphiaMain Line.” So, I did listen to KYW during all day parts of KYW’s first Summer as an all-news radio station.

 

I guess you can say that I have been a “news junkie” for my entire life, influenced by my father who was very interested in news, public affairs, and history. Early in my youth, in the 1960s, I would listen to the hourly news on your sister station, KDKA [the world’s first commercial radio station] each morning before going to school. I can remember the legendary Pittsburgh newscaster, “Uncle Ed” Schaughency giving the news each weekday morning.

 

Then one day, my father showed me an advertisement in Time magazine, indicating that WINS and KYW were starting a new type of radio format: all-news, all the time. I recently checked the bound copies of Time magazine from 1965, at the library. Enclosed is a copy of the Time magazine advertisement I believe that he showed me 40 years ago.

 

I find the headline of this advertisement a little odd: “This war isn’t being fought just every hour on the half  hour.” Although there were a few stations and maybe one network (Mutual) broadcasting news on the half-hour, most broadcast news on the hour. I wonder why they did not simply say “every hour on the hour”?

 

As KDKA was Westinghouse’s flagship station, my father and I hoped that eventually KDKA would also become an all-news radio station. However, that was not to be. At that time, the ratings of KDKA Radio were among the highest in the entire country; hence, they had no need to change format. It would be another ten years before Pittsburgh would get an all-news radio station: KQV [which will be celebrating their 30th anniversary as an all-news radio station next month].

 

 

 

 

Mr. David Yadgaroff                           2005 September 13                               Page 2 of 2

 

 

 

In fact, I find the similarities of KYW and KQV fascinating. One might even think that Pennsylvania passed a state law mandating the all-news radio stations in the Commonwealth must begin with the letter “K” [despite the fact that Pennsylvania is far east of the Mississippi Valley!], have only three call letters, and use a news ticker !!!

 

And, Bob Dickey, who started all-news radio at WINS and KQV, also coined the slogan still used by WINS, KQV, and KYW: “You give us 22 minutes, we will give you the world.”

 

With interference from KDKA and CFRB, it was, and is, very difficult to receive WINS in Pittsburgh. However, fortunately, KYW booms into Pittsburgh every night and early morning. At the time, I was already interested in AM radio “DXing,” so I started listening to KYW on a regular basis. And, being a Pennsylvania radio station, not only does KYW give me international and national news, but also state news!

 

I did later on receive a B.A. in Journalism [University of Kentucky, 1978], with an interest in radio. During college, I was employed with the university’s PR department [University Information Services], where I produced radio spots and actualities for state radio stations [and, sometimes for radio stations and networks beyond Kentucky, if the news was very significant].

 

In my junior year of high school, I acquired my Third Class “ticket” from the FCC. And, I used it to become general manager of a small carrier-current radio station operated at a Summer camp for boys and girls near White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. I operated this station as the radio counselor for six summers. You can learn more about this rather unique educational radio operation at:

< http://johnbrashear.tripod.com/wlcr.html >.

 

Today, I am Project Director of a small non-profit organization called Friends of the Zeiss. We are lobbying for the preservation and restoration of historic equipment and artifacts that were used at Pittsburgh’s original Buhl Planetarium and Institute of Popular Science [I was a Planetarium Lecturer and Astronomical Observatory Coordinator at this institution during the 1980s and early 1990s], including the Zeiss II Planetarium Projector [prior to its 2002 dismantling, it was the oldest operable major planetarium projector in the world !].

 

Just last month, we succeeded in having the City of Pittsburgh designate the original Buhl Planetarium building as a Historic Landmark. And, last year, Friends of the Zeiss sponsored Pittsburgh’s only public observing session, with telescopes, of the historic Transit of the Planet Venus across the face of the Sun [which last occurred in 1882!].

 

Again, congratulations on the milestone of 40 years of all-news radio at KYW. And, hopefully, I will be listening to all-news radio on KYW for another 40 years!

 

Sincerely yours,

 

 

 

Glenn A. Walsh

Project Director

 

gaw

 

Enclosure:             Advertisement from Time magazine, September 24, 1965, regarding conversion of WINS and KYW to an all-news radio format.