The Other Blonde Bombshell at KGB

I don't mean the Russian KGB ( Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti ) I am referring to 101.5 KGB-FM in San Diego. From the beginning of time, one of the virtues of radio is that the talent is faceless and sometimes even nameless. Talent in radio is a disembodied voice which through personality and character a person can build a relationship and even loyalty with their listeners. When images of a DJ are cynically used as marketing eye-candy, that power is undermined.

The Internet has exacerbated the problem with live studio cams, pin-up calendars, and hot top 50-lists. But exploiting female air-staff for marketing is not new. There are numerous history examples; Anita Gevinson just was one among many.  Sam Phillips did not want to start an all-women radio station to support the ERA.
It happens in other industries and there are reams of serious literature on this topic. But in Radio in particular it seems to be an artifact, not a product of the industry.

What got me on this topic was the recent passing of Sue Delany-Leighton. It's sad because as recently as 2010 the San Diego Troubadour magazine referred to her as "the other blonde bombshell." The original blonde bombshell in their view was Susan Hemphill, another KGB-FM staffer. It was probably the only print media attention either had gotten in years. Delany only managed more print coverage by dying. In her obituary, NBC San Diego called her voice "sultry."  Yes, in her obit. The really sad thing is that Delany was a serious DJ, who was in California broadcasting for decades. Still, R&R spelled her surname wrong almost every time.

After graduating from San Diego State University, Delany went into radio. She started doing a night-shift on KKDJ in Frenso in December of 1979 when the station first flipped to AOR.  Previously it had been KARL, a MOR station going back to 1965. In 1980 she moved on and took the 7:00 PM to 12:00 Midnight shift at KBOS, in Tulare, CA. She left the station in 1981 for a better shift at XETRA "91X."  In 1982 she started hosting the KGB morning show and Jeff Prescott.  This was the show that everyone remembers. There in 1989, Delany was called the “high priestess of afternoon-drive radio..." by the San Diego Tribune. She remained at the station until 1992.

Michael Berger took over her morning show seat in 1986 and in 1990 he and Prescott moved the show to 91X to compete with KGB. The new KGB morning show was Dawn Patrol, lasted two years and then it moved to 105.3 KCBQ. There was a purge going on and that same year Delany fled California moved to Tampa, FL to host an afternoon show on WYNF. Che came back to California in the late 1990s and got a slot at KCLX where she worked a 5:00 PM to 9:00 PM shift on weeknights. Somewhere in there she was also at KUPR.  Her last known radio gig was at 107.1 KLYY before it flipped to KSSE Spanish Contemporary Hits in 1999. She is survived by her husband Doug Leighton and her brother Chris. More here.

Art Linkletter's House Party

You know that trite saying "Kids Say the Darndest Things"? That was Art Linkletter's fault. One of the segments on his "House Party" program, Linkletter interviewed kids between the ages of five and ten years old. It is usually claimed that this segment was unscripted. I have trouble believing that was always true. In the 27 year run of this program, he interviewed some 23,000 rug rats. I don't know when he picked up the segment, but it was before 1947. The show started like this:

"Come on in, you're just in time for the house party... and the man of surprises and a million laughs, Art Linkletter! Well here it is the middle of the week, and the House Party rolls along with it's 30 minutes of informal fun, games, gags, gimmicks and gifts and guests from all over the United States..."

The program It began running in the afternoons on CBS at 4:00 PM, on three odd days a week. In 1948 ABC picked up the series with GE staying on as the sponsor. CBS picked it back up in 1950 and continued to run the program until 1967. When it was sponsored by Pillsbury in 1950, it was the Pillsbury House Party.  General Electric, the original sponsor had been content for it just to be named "House Party." From 1952 onward it was just called "The Linkletter Show" the name didn't' matter, it was always hosted by Art Linkletter. You can hear an episode here.

Arthur Gordon "Art" Linkletter was actually Canadian by birth, if you weren't aware. He was abandoned as an infant and adopted by a preacher that relocated him and his new family to San Diego in 1917. He didn't attend college. Instead he became an announcer at KGB-AM in San Diego. Back then it was on 360 meters bu tit shifted to 1210AM probably about when Art was on the air. The moved to1360 in 1942 later becoming the well known KLSD-AM. In his 1950 autobiography Confessions of a Happy Man, he wrote about KGB in great detail. Linkletter began as an announcer in 1933, and was promoted to Program Director just a year later, and then Station Manager by 1936.  But that didn't stop him from leaving the station that year.

It was on KGB that Linkletter honed his schtick hooping it up and ad libbing with audience members.It was excessively wholesome by modern standards. But, while syndicated by CBS in most of the 1950s, the program had better than a 6 share in the Hooper ratings. By then the show ran Monday through Friday in the mornings at 10:30 AM. Linkletter hosted another, better known program at the same time "People Are Funny" which ran from 1942 to 1960. Under the title Art Linkletter's House Party, the show premiered on CBS television on September 1, 195. It's new sponsor was the Lever Bros' Company.

Both "House Party" and  "People Are Funny" made the leap to television cementing his career in the new media. he died last year at the age of 97.