Friends of the Zeiss
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
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
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
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
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
I did later on receive a B.A. in Journalism [
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
< 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
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,