DJ Sally Jessy Raphael

 

Sally Lowenthal was born February 25th, 1935 but if you recognize that face you would better know her as Sally Jessy Raphael. But her career started in radio and according to multiple publications she was fired from eighteen of the twenty four radio stations she worked at. The 2003 book Watching TV Talk Shows, cites merely 18 "jobs" so that claim is highly questionable. But without a doubt she had a huge radio career before her breakout in Television.  Her autobiography Sally: Unconventional Success lists a nine sets of call letters: WAVS, WFAS, KDKA, WINS, WIOD, WMCA, WOR, WPIX-TV, WPLG-TV and WRC-TV.  (Note: the index includes stations she never worked at. Ex. WOR, and KDKA.)

She's still alive as of this writing, 91 years old and she's only been retired since about 2014. You probably know her as a TV talk show host. For a stage name she combined her mother's maiden, Raphael and Jessy from her father's family. It was a name she used as early as the 1970s on air. 

During her teenage years she moved between San Juan, Puerto Rico and the New York suburbs. In Scarsdale, New York she worked at the local AM radio station, 1230 WFAS-AM in White Plains. The station had a program in which Junior High School kids read the news on the air and Raphael was one of the students selected to participate. She attended Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, but no record ties her to WRCT, though it did sign on in 1949... so it's possible. 

She also attended the University of Puerto Rico in San Juan and graduated from Columbia University in New York. Raphael studied acting under at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre. Her autobiography starts in her 20s with a radio show at an unnamed station in San Juan. A caption for a picture suggests the station was 630 WKYN-AM. Her mroning show may or may not have been simulcast on WQBS 99.9 San Juan or 760 WORA-AM. It's not clear how much network was in that network. One source reported that she she hosted a cooking show on WAPA-TV in Puerto Rico. If it's true it was her first foray into television.

Before TalkNet her radio career is hard to track. Print references are few. Her autobiography is a good source but it's not a resume, it's a hard knocks tale. The hard, dated references are hwo we put the time line together. She is quoted on the back of the 1983 book Making It In Radio as Sally Jessy Raphael with TalkNet. In 1977 she won a Lulu award for the Sally Jessy Raphael Show on WMCA in New York. [SOURCE] The OPC Bulletin of November 15th 1977 has a blurb about her WMCA career as she stressed that talk shows are journalism. [SOURCE]

 "Indeed it was the capacity crowd needed, for "the fastest mike in town." For 17 years an expert in moderating radio talk shows, Raphael is most currently with WMCA. She regaled a laughing, cheering audience from the moment she stood up throughout hour she had the floor.  "This is the first time I have addressed a live audience," she declared almost shyly.  To titters, she added, she wanted to show "Why I am the greatest telephone talk person in the country, and modest."

The OPC issue from October states that "She’s been in the business 17 years, with 17 different radio or TV stations." That may be the origin of the "fired 18 times" tall tale. It goes on to add that for three years at WMCA, she did an hour-and-a-half TV program in the morning, a noon program featuring classical music and a night-time rock radio show.  If the 17 year tenure is correct, she started at the station in 1960. For that to be true she'd have had to start in 1960. According to her autobiography she was hired by WMCA in 1976 and fired in 1981. 

Yet the OPC Bulletin adds details to her resume missing from even her autobiography. In Miami, she was a radio reporter with Storer Broadcasting Corporation.  That would have to be WGBS-AM, which Storer acquired in 1945 as WFTL and moved from Ft. Lauderdale.  She also hosted her own daily public affairs program on that Post-Newsweek TV station.  Post Newsweek owned 3 different stations at one point but I think this was WPLG. But the first station she cites in her Florida tenure was 1190 WAVS-AM in Davie, FL. She eventually worked her way up to WIOD-AM in Miami.

She got a News anchor job at Channel 11, WPIX-TV in 1976, but was fired 8 months later. That probably overlapped with her part time at WINS-AM in New York. In between WINS and WMCA she was offered a full time job at KDKA and turned it down to work at WMCA rather than relocate again. [SOURCE] But after WMCA is when she went big. 

WPIX Action news, 1976

Raphael  hosted a radio call-in advice show distributed by NBC Talknet which ran from 1981 to 1987, but was so popular it went into radio syndication in 1982. Prior to that it was broadcast our of WRC-TV in Washington D.C. One source reports it ran into 1987 overlapping her TV career. 

“In Touch with Sally Jessy Raphael” debuted as a local 30-minute weekday program on Oct. 17, 1983, airing after “Donahue.” It was shot at KSDK’s studio. The Sally Jessy Raphael Show (later shortened to Sally), which ran in first-run syndication from October 17, 1983, to May 24, 2002. She rose to fame in the 1980s. But that TV talk show ran until 2002, just short of 20 years in network syndication.

American Labor Party Radio Broadcasts of 1950

You can be forgiven if you have never heard of the American Labor Party (ALP). It was established in 1936, splitting from the Socialist Party of America (SPA). It's political activity was almost exclusively limited to the state of New York. In 1956, the party was terminated by its New York state committee. So unless you are a New Yorker, and over the age of 65, you'd have to read a lot of history to bump into the ALP.  (Note the SPA only existed from 1899 - 1972)


In 1948, the ALP wasn't going to support Harry Truman. So they backed Progressive Party candidate Henry A. Wallace. Wallace won a whopping 2.4% of the vote, which was more than Teddy Roosevelt, but also obviously a loss for the Progressive Party and the ALP. However, they re-elected Vito Marcantonio in the United States House of Representatives. They also elected Leo Isacson to fill a vacant seat in a Bronx district but lost in the general election that November. Let's take a look at the candidates.

Candidates:

• W. E. B. DuBois for U.S. Senate 
• Vito Marcantonio for U.S. Senate  
• Janet Scott, for U.S. Senate  
• Dr. Clementina Paolone, for Lieutenant Governor
• John T. "Jack" McManus, for NY State Governor
• Frank Scheiner, NY State Attorney General 
• Paul L. Ross, for NYC Mayor
• Michael Jiminez, for Comptroller
• Harriet Wolff, for State Assembly
• Dorothy Bloom, for State Assembly
• Frances Smith, for State Assembly
• Scott K. Gray, Jr.,
• Nicola Rossi 

The problem might have been the Communists. The Communist Party USA openly endorsed the Progressive Party. By connection, some of the ALP staff were Marxists, and some Progressive Party candidates that the ALP supported were alleged communists. Notably among them was Lee Pressman who was not allegedly a communist. He was exposed in 1948 by HUAC as a paid spy for Soviet intelligence. Lee was a member of the Progressive Party (not the ALP) but the stink was smeared all over the left-wing parties during the red scare. Nonetheless the ALP ran real candidates in 1950, even if things were looking grim. The State of New York even managed to kick Wolff, Gray, Rossi and Bloom off the ballot before election day. More here and here.

By October The candidates were getting on-air to promote their campaigns. You can see that not all the candidates hit the airwaves. Wolff, Gray, Rossi and Bloom were already gone. DuBois appeared the most often, but Ross and Paolone were able to make multi-lingual appeals. Most appearances were on WMCA even though WEVD, was literally founded by the Socialist Party of America. But The Jewish Daily Forward had taken an increasing control over programming moving the station toward the center. According to Nathan Godfried's oft-cited but rarely read text, Legitimizing the Mass Media Structure, the SPA at least had turned to NBC and other channels to make its political message heard. 

There is little to corroborate most of the appearances listed on the schedule. But the DuBois appearances are well-documented, with audio, video and even personal papers known in the DuBois Papers held at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst [LINK]. But the below list is not complete. DuBois own papers include a speech by candidate Frances Smith given at WMCA on October 27th.

DATE	CALLS	TIME	CANDIDATE
10-09-1950	WMCA	9:30 - 9:45 PM	Dr. W. E. B DuBois
10-12-1950	WMCA	9:30 - 9:45 PM	John T. "Jack" McManus
10-15-1950	WEVD	3:00 - 3:15 PM	Paul L. Ross (Yiddish)
10-16-1950	WMCA	9:30 - 9:45 PM	Paul L. Ross
10-19-1950	WMCA	9:30 - 9:45 PM	Dr. W. E. B DuBois
10-22-1950	WEVD	3:00 - 3:15 PM	Paul L. Ross (Yiddish)
10-22-1950	WOR	9:15 - 9:30 PM	DuBois & McManus
10-23-1950	WMCA	9:30 - 9:45 PM	McManus & Dr. Paolone
10-25-1950	WMCA	7:30 - 7:45 PM	Cong. Vito Marcantonio
10-26-1950	WMCA	9:30 - 9:45 PM	Dr. W. E. B DuBois
10-29-1950	WEVD	3:00 - 3:15 PM	Paul L. Ross (Yiddish)
10-29-1950	WHOM	4:00 - 4:15 PM	Dr. Clementina Paolone (Italian)
10-30-1950	WMCA	9:30 - 9:45 PM	Paul L. Ross
10-31-1950	WMCA	9:30 - 9:45 PM	Dr. Clementina Paolone
11-01-1950	WMCA	8:30 - 8:45 PM	Jack McManus
11-02-1950	WMCA	7:30 - 7:45 PM	Cong. Vito Marcantonio
11-03-1950	WMCA	9:30 - 9:45 PM	Dr. W. E. B DuBois
11-05-1950	WEVD	3:00 - 3:15 PM	Paul L. Ross (Yiddish)
11-05-1950	WHOM	4:00 - 4:15 PM	Dr. Clementina Paolone (Italian)
11-05-1950	WJZ	6:45 - 7:00 PM	McManus & Dr. Paolone
11-06-1950	WMCA	9:15 - 10:00 PM	DuBois, McManus, Ross &  Paolone

By the 1950s, the ALP had lost much of its support to the rival Liberal Party of New York, in part because of accusations of communist influence in the ALP.  In the end, most of the Republican ticket was elected. Only the incumbent U.S. Senator, Herbert H. Lehman [D], managed to retain his seat. DuBois only won 3.93% of the vote for the U.S. Senate, losing out to incumbent Herbert H. Lehman [D], and trailing well behind Joe R. Hanley [R].

The New York stations they appeared on are an interesting mix: WMCA, WEVD, WHOM, WJZ and WOR. There are easily dozen large New York City AM stations which were on air in 1950. My guess is that they focused their budget on Manhattan.

There were also Television broadcastsbut all of them were on WPIX. WPIX-TV only signed on in 1948 as Channel 11(VHF.)  From 1948 to 1965, WPIX produced Three Star News, a 6:30pm newscast that ran for half an hour. So the speeches would have aired shortly afterward.

DATE	CALLS	TIME	CANDIDATE
10-08-1950	WPIX	7:15 - 8:00 PM	Dr. W. E. B DuBois
10-15-1950	WPIX	7:15 - 8:00 PM	Dr. Clementina Paolone
10-22-1950	WPIX	7:15 - 8:00 PM	Paul L. Ross

The sheet also had a section for their Upstate radio schedule. (below) Not all of these statison even exist anymore. WXKW operated on 850 kHz from 1948–1953 signing off after litigation around some engineering issues. Sounded the same year was 1150 WRUN in Utica. They changed calls to WUTI after a sale in 2008. 590 WROW was founded in 1947, still on air today they switched from Mututal to ABC in 1950. WEVT there is a typo, that has to be 1280 WVET, which also which also launched in 1947. They kept those calls until 1961, currently they are WHKT. 950 WARC also was founded that year, they changed calls to WBBF in 1953. 1260 WNDR predates them by one year, starting in 1946 just like 1450 WKAL in Utica. 620 WAGE started in 1941, and flipped the calls to WHEN after a sale in 1954.

DATE	CALLS	CITY	TIME	CANDIDATE
10-22-1950	WROW	Albany	9:15 - 9:30 PM	DuBois & McManus
10-22-1950	WEBR	Buffalo	9:15 - 9:30 PM	DuBois & McManus
10-22-1950	WEVT	Rochester	9:15 - 9:30 PM	DuBois & McManus
10-22-1950	WNDR	Syracuse	9:15 - 9:30 PM	DuBois & McManus
10-22-1950	WKAL	Utica-Rome	9:15 - 9:30 PM	DuBois & McManus
11-05-1950	WXKW	Albany	6:45 - 7:00 PM	Paolone & McManus
11-05-1950	WKBW	Buffalo	6:45 - 7:00 PM	Paolone & McManus
11-05-1950	WARC	Rochester	6:45 - 7:00 PM	Paolone & McManus
11-05-1950	WAGE	Syracuse	6:45 - 7:00 PM	Paolone & McManus
11-05-1950	WRUN	Utica-Rome	6:45 - 7:00 PM	Paolone & McManus

It appears that 970 WEBR was the most established station on the upstate list, having signed on in 1924. Those calls moved to 1440 in 2012, and the 970 stick became WDCZ. They even predate 1380 WKBW which was founded in 1926, they had been on 1520 kHz for decades even by this broadcast in the fall of 1950. So here we see old stations, new stations... just what appears to be a budget-driven slice of the radio dial. Charitably one could argue that by design, a random looking selection might represent a random selection of the electorate. So I consulted the Mighty Fybush, and even he agreed it appeared to be "stations where you could buy a block of time inexpensively."

After the 1950 drubbing, the ALP regrouped and in 1952, they endorsed Progressive Party candidate Vincent Hallinan for President and Corliss Lamont for US Senate. Thaty went nowhere. In the 1954 election, the ALP failed to garner 50,000 votes for any of its candidates and it lost its place on the New York ballot. They ceased to exist shortly thereafter. Maybe they should have got time on 1010 WINS?

Crazy Dr. Jerry Carroll

The adjective "Crazy" can mean mentally ill or mentally deranged, especially if manifested in a wild or aggressive way. But it can also just mean extremely enthusiastic. Both of these apply in the story of Eddie Antar, and DJ Jerry Carroll. If you were of the age in the 1980s, you may recall a series of radio and television ads featuring Crazy Eddie.  If you don't remember the name perhaps you remember the tagline "...His prices are INSAAAAAANE!!!!"  If not... here's a refresher.

The word "insane" is key here. In normal usage it just means mentally ill. But in modern parlance it can mean that as non-literal insult. But it can also mean irresponsible, unreasonable or very foolish, as in to apply irrational judgement. This can informally describe scenarios that are merely irresponsible, wacky or wild. I credit Crazy Eddie, the actor with propagating that last use case into popular parlance. True to form, Eddie was actually New York radio disc jockey: Jerry Carroll.

The chain of electronics stores is long gone today, but the real Crazy Eddie, Eddie Antar, started the business in 1971 in Brooklyn, NY with his brother Sam. Their connection to Jerry was happenstance, but it made Carroll into the defacto face of the business.  In 1972, The Antar's bought airtime on 101.9 WPIX in New York. They went cheap and went for a live read.  The DJ was "Dr. Jerry" Carroll, who ad libbed the shop's slogan into a primal scream "...His prices are INSAAAAAANE!"  Eddie Antar loved it; he called the station and told Carroll to use that delivery every time. Carroll obliged and continued the style as they launched TV spots in the 1980s.

At its peak there were 43 Crazy Eddie stores earning more than $300 million in annual sales. Then came the fall. Eddie was very naughty. He was indicted for tax fraud, overstating income, bogus asset valuations,  stock dumping, overstating insurance claims, debit memo fraud and the topper... money laundering. More here. Eddie fled the country and had to be extradited from Israel to stand trial. The board of directors revolted and the whole Antar family was cut out of the business. In 1989, the company declared bankruptcy and was liquidated.

In 1998, the grandchildren of Eddie, Allen, and Mitchell Antar revived the chain with a shop in Wayne, New Jersey, and as an online Internet venture, crazyeddieonline.com. The revived company retained the slogan "his prices are insane" and re-hired Jerry Carroll! But the storefront didn't prosper and in 1999 it closed.

Fresh from prison, Eddie returned to the company in 2001 which then was only an online store. Jerry Carroll was hired a third time to do its advertising.  But somewhere between 2004 and 2004 it sank for good. The Crazy Eddie trademark was bought by the Trident Growth Fund. In July 2006, Trident attempted to auction the brand and the domain name crazyeddie.com on eBay, but had no takers.

The rise and fall of Crazy Eddie overshadows the rest of Jerry Carroll's radio career. Before the Antars, Carroll was "Dr. Jerry" and was "prescribing your rock ’n’ roll!” on WPIX.  Born in 1947, Carroll was a young DJ at 26 when he met the Antars. More here.  There is an apocryphal story of a WNYU student DJ also named Jerry Carroll who co-hosted a record hop with Bob Lewis from WABC-AM back in 1966. I like to think it's the same Jerry Carroll. Regardless Carroll was on WPIX thru at least 1977 when he switched to afternoons after hosting the nightly show "Disco 102." He had previously been on WVIP, and WRNW, so the WABC story, fits nicely.

WTC Antenna

I was not aware of this exhibit until today. The Newseum continues to impress. Starting in the Summer of 2011, they began exhibiting the upper section of the 360-foot antenna mast from the World Trade Center North Tower.


The backstory is the story every American knows. Terrorists conducted suicide attacks using commandeered aircraft to target U.S. landmarks including the World Trade Towers in New York City. Aircraft collided with two WTC buildings, which collapsed and resulted in the deaths of 2,606 people at WTC including all 19 terrorists, 246 passengers, 72 law enforcement officers, 343 firefighters, and 55 military personnel.

The Radio and TV dial in New York city had a lot of dark spaces that day as many area stations broadcast from WTC. Nine TV and four FM radio stations were knocked off the air including WPIX-TV, WCBS-TV, WABC-TV, WNBC-TV, WNEW, WFAN and WPAT.  [SOURCE] On the new WTC structure, a mast was built that could support the whole of the NYC radio band. More here.

The Nightbird

Alison Steele was a New York DJ on 102.7 WNEW-FM. ON air she was known as "The Nightbird". To understand her career you need to hear her voice. Writers who miss all kinds of details of her career still manage to dwell on it's particular qualities: sultry, smoky, soft, sexy, syrupy, and "could melt butter" get repeated over and over. It's all true, but there was much more to her life than her provocative delivery.  In 1976 she became first woman to receive Billboard Magazine's "FM Personality of the Year" award. Did I mention the Jimi Hendrix song "Night Bird Flying" was inspired by her?

A Brooklyn native, at the age of 14 she broke into the biz running errands for a TV station. While Steele was at the peak of her career she was also a single mother. At the age of 19, she married orchestra leader Ted Steele, (of the Chesterfield Supper Club) who was twenty years older than her. It didn't last, and she had to add young single mother to her list of responsibilities.

In 1966 she got her big break. The FCC issued a rule making that but an end to the long time practice of AM/FM simulcasts. WNEW-FM decided to debut "Sexpot Radio" and hired an all female airstaff. the idea crapped out in under 2 years and Steel was the lone survivor. They segued into a free-form progressive rock station and she had to learn what the hell that meant. Management wasn't helpful to say the least. They buried her show in a 2:00 AM to 6:00 AM shift.  It was only when they discovered she was rated number one in the slot the moved her show back to start at 10:00 PM.  As for the voice?  Well she played it up. In a 1971 interview she was quoted as saying

"I'm a night person," she said in 1971, when she was with WNEW, where she worked on AM and FM for about 14 years. "I think it has a mysterious quality. I never get lonely up here."

She left the station in 1979 and worked at a few other New York area stations: WNEW-AM, WPIX, and even CNN as a correspondent. She was an announcer on the TV soap opera, Search for Tomorrow and even was the voice of an in-flight audio entertainment channel on board Trans World Airlines. Her last gig in radio was on WXRK from 1989 to 1995 where she was on Monday through Friday from 2 to 6 AM, like the shift that made her famous. She only left the show due to illness, in 1995. She died that year of stomach cancer.

KOWL Vs. the ACLU

In 1952 the ACLU found itself in an interesting position. They were defending Reverend Clayton D. Russell against KOWL in an unfair firing. In the words of Arthur Croghan, the president of KOWL "Russell was not a desirable person to be using the airways of KOWL"  He made vague accusations that the reverend was "friendly" with communist types. Further that they tried to avoid broadcasting "...utterances of a communistic nature or which tended to encourage the overthrow of the government of this country." 

Croghan was really turning on the heat. The reverend must really have said something subversive right? He thought that "...communism has appeared to plague the tranquility of the citizens and government of this country..."  The ACLU had protested KOWL's termination of Reverend Russell's contract and written a complaint to the FCC. KOWL had broken their contract with Russell because they believed he was a Communist. The ACLU asked the FCC to deny the renewal of KOWL's license. This was a bitter and nasty fight that was in the papers from the beginning.

Russell had a 30 minute program at 10:00 AM every Sunday. But really Russel hadn't said anything even vaguely communistic.  As the Los Angeles Daily News reported in October of 1950 in a single headline "Radio Station Bans Pastor On Whisper He's Red."  Russel just "appeared" on one of the Red Channels lists. All it took was a single comment from one person and the career of anyone in media could be wrecked. Russel was firm in his side of the story. The rumor was a lie.

"I am not a communist. I have never been a communist, or sympathetic with communists in any way. In fact, I have made anti-communist speeches.  I have never uttered a subversive word in my radio talks."  

He was adamant. Not everyone at KOWL was onboard the red-branding wagon.  To his credit, James Coyle, the assistant to Croghan had a completely different take that he shared with the times. Despite which, the rev was still never allowed to return. 

"...we found on investigation his name is in several lists of persons supposed to be friendly with communism. We have watched his speeches closely and he has never uttered a word that could be objected to and we do not think he is a communist."

So why was he fired and why did the ACLU get involved? 1580 KOWL-AM was a 5,000 watt Santa Monica radio station.It was his pulpit and he was becoming a very powerful person in the valley. He was the leader of a black church with 4,000 members with ties to black-owned businesses. In 1946 he was a candidate for a seat on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. In other words, he was shaking things up. He was not a commie. The charges of communism were a cover for a skirmish in the battle for civil rights. The ACLU tried to make examples of WPIX and KOWL for their political blacklisting. They saw it as discriminatory hiring practices. Their petition was denied on both counts.

It was a shame because KOWL had a pretty stellar record for hiring minorities. they had blacks on air at least as early as 1946. It begs the question why Russel?  Probably just because he was a bit louder than other hosts. Or perhaps someone in local government had a problem with him individually. The informants used in the compilation of the Red Channels were never revealed.

In 1953 still without a radio program, he resigned the pastorate because his congregation accused him of fiscal shenanigans. It didn't slow him down much. He founded the the Church of Divine Guidance in 1954 and in 1959 he ran for a seat on the Los Angeles City Council. He died in 1981. AM 1580 in Santa Monica is now KBLA-AM a Spanish station owned by multicultural broadcasting.

The Bebop Radio Ban

Long before the harsh attacks on rock n' roll in the 1950s, there was an attack on bebop for  the same reasons. Bebop burst on the the American jazz scene from the fingertips of rebellious musicians like Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell and Charlie Parker. Even other more traditional jazz musicians criticized their experiments. But in the early 1940s it was catching on with a certain audience: rebellious white teenagers; a group we now refer to historically as beatniks. (though the term 'beat' wasn't popularized until the late 1940s.)

As it did in later in the 1950s, racial mixed audiences really set off conservatives. It may seem incongruous, but the most remembered even event in this "ban" was in California. In the March 25th 1946 issue of Newsweek, Ted Steele Program Director of 710 KMPC-AM was quoted as saying "Bebop... tends to make degenerates, out of our young listeners. . . ." Time Magazine backed them up with an article that described bebop in unflattering terms "What be-bop amounts to: hot jazz overheated with overdone lyrics, full of bawdiness, references to narcotics and double talk." Ted listed a some of the "banned" songs:

1. Woody Herman - Your Father's Moustache

2. Harry "The Hipster" Gibson - (All Releases)

3. Slim Gaillard - (All Releases)

4. All versions of the song "Come For A Ride"

5. All versions of the song "Drink Hearty"

6. All versions of the song "Cement Mixer"

7. All versions of the song "Who Put The Benzedrine In Mrs. Murphy's Ovaltine."

You might immediately notice that not all of the above is strictly bebop. What had set Ted off was the drug references the song "Who Put The Benzedrine In Mrs. Murphy's Ovaltine." He was singling out for the most part Harry Gibson and Slim Gaillard. Predictably, the ban packed houses for Slim and Slam and won Gaillard an invitation to to appear on Bing Crosby's radio show.The move was wholly ineffective. Gaillard had already sold 20,000 records in Los Angeles alone. In 1938 Benny Goodman played "Flat Foot Floogie,"on the Camel Caravan program; the tune was written by Slam Stewart. the ban coalesced the jazz community in favor of bebop with Downbeat and Metronome magazines both supporting the artists.  Downbeat accused Steele of slander. Metronome was more interested in defending jazz as a whole, explaining that strictly speaking, Slim Gaillard and Charlie Parker were very different birds. Unexpectedly it was all thsi press that elevated the word "bebop" into the formal jazz lexicon. More here.

According to some sources, other stations, as many as 19 unnamed broadcasters followed suit. Different articles refer to east Coast stations that followed suit. There's also a direct reference to KFWB dropping it's land line to Billy Berg’s Rendezvous, a hot jazz night club where Harry the Hipster performed. Harry's program was mostly targeted at a black audience, but unknown to many.. he was white. In 1947 Harry released a 78 rpm platter on Musicraft "I Stay Brown All Year ‘Round / Who Put The Benzedrine In Mrs. Murphy's Ovaltine."  Harry got black balled by the record industry after that. In 1951 he opened a club in Miami, and started his own label: Hip Records.

Ted wasnt' just a hater of jazz, he was also a stuffy musician who was vested in the old meme. On the West coast Steele had been a bandleader for a number of big names: Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Louis Prima and Jo Stafford. Ted left town shortly thereafter and played some CBS shows with his own Orchestra. He even did one of those awful Novachord records for Decca. He and his orchestra ended up hosting the Stork Club in New York City, for the Chesterfield Supper Club on NBC. 

Things didn't work out at KMPC-AM and he left for KNX-AM in 1949. He stayed for a year then left for New York. From there he went to TV in about 1953. He also worked at WPIX-TV channel 11 doing a teen-focused dance program sponsored by Pepsi called The Ted Steele Show and another as Uncle Ted  hosting a program of silent cartoons. He must have liked TV as he also worked on WATV-TV channel 13 and WOR-TV channel 9. In that era he also was announcing at WMCA and also appearing on Cavalcade of America. In 1950 Billboard magazine said he was on air 32 hours a week, making him one of the busiest broadcasters in the city. But he fell out of favor, or burned out or something. the reasons are lost to time but a few years later he was doing a lone program on 970 WAAT-AM in Newark NJ.