Dan Lovett, the guy Bob Allen replaced behind the KTRK abc13 sports desk in the 70s, has some great stories about radio, TV and of course sports (and largely Houston sports stories to boot). He was there for the opening of the Harris County Domed Stadium aka The Astrodome.
After radio, Lovett and a young anchor you might have heard of, Dave Ward, worked together at 13 and raised hell afterwards till the wee hours of the morning. Often times they raced each other back to their houses as the sun was peeking over the horizon. Were they doing research on upcoming stories together at Kay's library? Well...you can probably guess. Find out what was really happening by reading the book. I'll give you this much, it led to an intervention as you will see. Lovett also writes about Dave Ward's movie appearance in My Sweet Charlie.
Let's not forget Lovett's impressions of the White Knight in Blue Shades, Marvin Zindler and what he did to channel 13 upon his arrival.
Naturally I enjoyed the Houston stuff, but really liked being a fly on the wall when Lovett left Houston for WABC New York and his time working with Roger Grimsby and Geraldo Rivera (not sure Lovett is such a fan of the latter, LOL). And reading about his time at W 66th, you might say the more things change the more they stay the same.
Lovett does a great job weaving the narrative about his career and big sports, news and cultural events going on throughout. How does he do it? He was there covering it in the first place.
I also appreciate his list of his own broadcasting bloopers. Not many of these broadcaster bios are that honest. These tomes are usually filled with I did this great thing, then this great thing, I met this famous person and they liked me and I did all of this all by myself. Lovett does not take this approach, he even as a chapter on TV producers. Want another holds barred TV read - go read this too.
So if you like TV, radio, Houston, sports or history in general..I recommend Anybody Seen Dan Lovett?: Memoirs of a Media Nomad.
Dan Lovett, a former abc13 KTRK Houston sports anchor who rose to prominence with ABC Sports, sat down with KHOU 11's Jason Bristol to discuss his latest book 'Deadly Number$: The Suffering Seven.'
First, they discussed a wide range of topics, including his early career, favorite athletes to cover, and memorable moments calling games.
Early in his career, Dan Lovett found himself broadcasting for the Houston Oilers during a difficult time for the team. They only won two games in two years. This was when he joked that he had started drinking double vodka tonic cocktails but said that owner Bud Adams did make one smart decision.
Lovett says he became friends with some athletes he covered, including AJ Foyt, Elvin Hayes, Sam Huff, Jean-Claude Killy, and Arnold Palmer. This was not a common practice for sports broadcasters at the time, Lovett explained, but he believed it gave him a better understanding of the athletes he was covering.
Some of the most memorable moments in Lovett's career were covering Evel Knievel's attempt to jump the Snake River Canyon and working with legendary broadcaster Howard Cosell, who stiffed Lovett for a four-dollar cab ride to a White House function.
The book 'Deadly Number$: The Suffering Seven' is a work of fiction that Lovett wrote over a period of seven or eight years. It's about seven people who all hold winning tickets in the biggest lottery in American history, but none of them can collect their winnings. The characters in the book are all named after streets in Houston. The winning lotto numbers come from the jerseys of Houston Astros players who helped win the 2022 World Series.
According to Dan Lovett, film companies have been interested in adapting the book into a movie.
Bunny Orsak, 86, was the person who donned the black cat costume, that is still such a great memory for a subset of Houston TV viewers.
For those who don't know, KiTiRiK was named after the station's call letters KTRK. Why a black cat? Well, some consider the 13's channel assignment unlucky, hence the former mascot and this famous kid's program host.
"I recently spent a great weekend with KITIRIK and her husband Larry at one of their homes in New Mexico," former KTRK sports anchor Dan Lovett told mikemcguff.com. "Bunny Orsak is now 86 but remains to me the Grand Gal of them all on Houston TV."
Another great past KTRK talent is sportscaster Dan Lovett (he went on to work in New York for ABC after Houston). Currently he is on a U.S. Route 66 trip to the West Coast. The other question is will he run into Buz Murdock?
I can just imagine the catching up Orsak and Lovett must have done during their visit.
"[Orsak] went on the air with the station back in 1954 and left in 1971, when the new owners Caps Cities Broadcasting axed her show in favor of Leave it to Beaver reruns," Lovett recalled. "The best they could do was give her $200 severance for all of her years of loyalty to KTRK. We shared many other stories, but I won't mention names to protect the guilty at 13 (including me)."
"And when the station decided to take Kitirik off the air, oh, my Lord," Ward told me. "We had mothers and their children protesting, carrying signs around the front of the building, you know. 'Unfair. Keep Kitirik.'"
The following text is from Lovett's Beatles chapter:
The Beatles Have Landed
...They twist, they shout, kids knock themselves out...
August 19, 1965. I am here for the scoop, and to help scoop up The Beatles. The Beatles are on Texas soil, arriving in the middle of a muggy night at Hobby Airport in Houston. It is the fourth stop, and the only one in Texas, on a ten-city tour that began in front of 55,000 frenzied fanatics at Shea Stadium in New York. They arrive from Atlanta, where they had performed a few hours earlier in a brand new outdoor stadium (one day to become a parking lot).
I work for KILT radio. My assignment from the news director is to "get your butt out to Hobby and report on the big event.” Our station is sponsoring their two concerts at the Sam Houston Coliseum.
I am not impressed. Elvis is my man, who, along with Jerry Lee Lewis and Roy Orbison, had received more play than these four kids from across the pond in the U.K. I don’t see what the fuss is all about; but I do see the fuss.
Much will be written over the coming years about The Beatles’ visit to Houston. The most popular story has the late Dickie Rosenfeld being the man responsible for getting them to the Bayou City. That is partially true. Rosenfeld, at the time, is the General Sales Manager at KILT. He is instrumental in promoting and coordinating The Beatles’ two shows in Houston.
In reality, it is Bill Weaver, then General Manager of KILT, who’d been given the green light, and I mean green, from station owner Gordon McLendon, to see to it that KILT is the station bringing “the boys” to Texas.
Dallas was one of the stops on their inaugural tour of the U.S. a year earlier. Prior to their concert in Big “D,” in mid-September of 1964, there was an open date in late August for them to play in Houston. However, Bayou City teenagers would only learn years later that it never happened. The teens of the ’60s, who are now in their sixties, may never have known why. Until now.
The Beatles opened their 1964 North American Tour at the Cow Palace in San Francisco on August 19, 1964, followed by shows in Las Vegas, Seattle, Vancouver and Hollywood. August 26 was the open date. Paul Berlin, the most well-known Top 40 disc jockey in Houston in those days, had received a call from his contact with The Beatles. He asked if Paul, who was on KNUZ, the rival rock station to KILT, would like to promote a concert by The Beatles in Houston on August 26.
Berlin jumped at the opportunity, only to check his calendar and discover a major conflict. Paul had already booked Sonny and Cher for that date in 1964. He convinced his contact not to bring The Beatles to town and kill his booking. Thus, Houston got Sonny and Cher, while The Beatles twisted and shouted that night at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre outside Denver.
Capitol Records is the American subsidiary of London-based Electric & Musical Industries, which owns the rights to all of The Beatles’ recordings. In 1963, as the group was creating a sensation across the pond, Capitol had no desire to release their records in the U.S., where British artists were considered to be pale imitators of the authentic, homegrown stuff. EMI farmed out single releases to two small, independent distributors: Vee-Jay, a black-owned R&B label out of Chicago; and Swan, a Philly-based outfit once co-owned by Dick Clark of American Bandstand.
Vee-Jay releases in February (“Please Please Me”) and May (“From Me To You”) quickly disappeared with little fanfare. In September it was Swan’s turn. They released “She Loves You” and sent promoters to radio trying to create a buzz among the most influential music marketers of the day. Murray the “K” played it for the first time in New York City on WINS radio. His former cohorts at Swan thought Dick Clark would give them a boost, but he showed little interest. Clark spun it one afternoon during his “Rate-A-Record” segment. The response was weak. Reportedly, the American teens in the studio giggled when shown a picture of the mop-topped lads. The song just wasn’t that popular. What remains The Beatles’ best-selling U.K. single of all-time failed to even chart on Billboard in the U.S. back in ’63.
In Houston, Arch Yancy, of KNUZ, received a copy of “She Loves You” from Wayne Schuler, the regional rep for Capitol Records. Yancy said he played it at a sock hop one Friday night at Mount Carmel High School and the kids didn’t much care for it. He played it the next day on his KNUZ radio show and got much the same lack of response.
Of course, the apathy soon turned into near-apoplexy after teens began seeing film clips of British Beatlemania on prime time TV. By the time “the boys” landed in New York the following February, the disease had already infected a growing legion of stateside youths. After three iconic appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show, followed months later by the ’64 tour, the fever was inescapable. Houston’s teens were not immune.
Gordon McLendon, not to be outdone when it came to mining promotional gold, gave Weaver a blank check and told him to get on a plane and fly to New York City, where the group’s manager, Brian Epstein, was making plans for the 1965 tour. Weaver was told to cut a deal. He pulled it off. Epstein filled in the check for $100,000. KILT received clear rights to promote the hottest group in the world at the time, with the added bonus of shutting out archrival KNUZ, which was in no position to suddenly stop playing The Beatles’ records and pretend they didn’t exist.
Yancy, the first D.J. to play a Beatles record in Houston, told me Dave Morris, owner of KNUZ, didn’t want any part of The Beatles. Morris wouldn’t have parted with any money to bring them to Houston, anyway. Certainly not a hundred grand!
To establish my presence on the scene, I make my initial call to the KILT newsroom from a pay phone on the Gulf Freeway. I am killing time waiting to tell Houston the British invasion is coming, like a modern-day Paul Revere. It is a raucous spectacle at Hobby. The only time I would see anything quite like it again in Houston would be the rowdy weekend crowds at Gilley’s in Pasadena, a joyful beer joint owned by singer Mickey Gilley. When you walked into Gilley’s, you had to be ready to ride a mechanical bull and geared up to party.
This is, however, the wee hours of a Thursday morning. No bar.
At around 2:00 a.m., a four-engine Electra taxies in with The Beatles and their entourage on board. I can see them peering through the small windows on the big bird.
A screaming pack of hysterical teens storms the tarmac as the plane slowly comes to a stop. The challenge is now to extricate the four lads who are recognized throughout the music world. “The boys” will not be able to disembark down the air-stairs, as they had famously done when they first arrived at JFK Airport on February 7, 1964, waving to the loonies who had been safely barricaded out of harm’s way.
They probably thought their arrival was to have been a secret. But this very moment might be the first time you will see the words “secret” and “radio promotion” in the same sentence. Other than my regular over-the-air “news” bulletins, how would 5,000 screaming teenagers know when to show up at Hobby to swarm their plane, break through police barriers and almost climb the wings to get a glimpse of their idols? I never saw anything like that at Gilley’s.
Rosenfeld has it all under control. It doesn’t bother him that thousands of chaotic kids are clogging the tarmac. Dickie, in fact,
probably orchestrated the entire scene. He is a master at pulling off big events in Houston.
What to do?
Rosenfeld had previously made arrangements to have an airport food truck available to dolly up to the plane and unload The Beatles by way of its elevated scoop. For that to happen, the pilot taxies the plane away from the mob and toward a remote hanger at Hobby. The kids are crushed as the plane begins to pull away. Emotionally crushed, that is, although, with the lack of security, it would not have been a surprise if a few of them had been flattened as they chased after the plane with reckless abandon.
With the teenyboppers at bay below, the service truck’s scoop is elevated so The Beatles can walk onto it. I become more involved at this point by helping Paul, John, George and Ringo get off the plane. It is quite fun actually. The Beatles are enjoying it, too. Lennon and McCartney yuk it up as they wave and shout to the throbbing throng below them. It is a routine of which they will soon grow weary; their very last concert tour will end in San Francisco in just 375 more manic days.
The truck begins to lower the cargo bed without the group’s manager, Brian Epstein, who is still attempting to disembark. With one foot in the plane and the other in the air, Epstein tries to leap to the lift as it moves away. He plunges about sixteen-feet and lands on his back. He is taken to a hospital by taxi. Sadly, Epstein would die two years later from an accidental drug overdose.
The Beatles are transported to a Brinks armored truck, which takes the mop-tops (with me as their station chaperone) to the loading dock at the Sheraton Hotel. The conversation on the trip downtown is pleasant enough, it seems. With their thick Liverpudlian accents and consistent use of slang, I have no idea what they are talking about most of the time.
The King Curtis Band, Cannibal and the Head Hunters and Sounds Incorporated perform as the warm-up acts for the Fab Four at both shows, at 3:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. The Beatles play the same twelve songs at each performance. They open with “Twist and Shout,” but they don’t play “She Loves You.” Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Some 12,000 kids, paying five bucks each, are jammed into the 5,000-seat arena for both performances. KILT is paying 150 police officers to keep the bedlam from turning into a complete riot.
Rental cost for the Sam Houston Coliseum is $1,500. Police security costs $2,500. KILT also donates almost $15,000 to the Houston Farm and Ranch Club, a social organization of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, for which the Coliseum had originally been built.
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame DJ Russ Knight, “The Weird Beard,” and the nighttime jock on KILT, emcees both shows and makes the historic introductions. He threatens to cancel the afternoon show if the rowdy fans in the first few rows can’t get a grip on their overwrought passions.
Chuck Dunaway, known as the “Round Mound of Sound” on his KILT morning show, is also part of the big party. I am there, too, with a backstage press pass as one of the station’s newsmen. I reluctantly observe the event as The Beatles holler their way through two thirty-five-minute performances in the old building. These are short concerts by latter-day standards, but to me it seems like the noise will never end. I’m not being critical of the music. I can barely hear it. Shrieking teens, primarily female, generate enough decibels to put a double “L” in the word; my ears are still ringing.
Chuck Dunaway, another early icon of rock and roll radio, is the only Houston DJ to be invited aboard The Beatles’ plane prior to its departure from Houston. Malcolm Evans, The Beatles’ close friend and tour manager, takes Dunaway aboard the Electra as it idles on the runway awaiting lift off from Hobby.
Inside, sitting alongside McCartney and Starr, Dunaway is getting some final comments from “the boys” before it is time to go.
They autograph a program for Dunaway, who, years later, gives it to his son, who in turn sells it to a collector in England.
With far less fanfare than their arrival, they depart for their next stop on the tour, Comiskey Park in Chicago.
Many years later I will fully realize what had taken place in August of 1965 in Houston. Although, as the Brits might say, they were not my “cup of tea,” one cannot ignore their mark on music history.
In 1972, Dungan left for WCAU Philadelphia. Ed Brandon was hired as his replacement. Dungan later went to WXYZ Detroit and then to WFAA 8 in Dallas until he retired. Lovett says Dungan's wife, Janet, used to book the talent and audience for the channel 13 show "Dialing for Dollars."
Lovett left channel 13 in 1974 to go to WABC-TV in New York City.
"It was a great day for the three of us to be together again for the first time in over 40 years," Lovett told mikemcguff.com.
At a lunch today at Mia's Table in the Upper Kirby District, KTRK abc13 anchor Dave Ward met with two former channel 13 sports anchors and a Houston Rockets broadcaster.
Ward took video of Bob Allen and his KTRK predecessor Dan Lovett along with Houston Rockets play-by-play commentator Bill Worrell.
"I'm doing better everyday," Allen told Ward in the video. "I lost 50 pounds, I got weak, went through a year of treatment which sucked. Now I'm going to rehab and I'm getting stronger everyday, feel better everyday. My biggest problem is just being patient. The doctors are giving me a thumbs up."
So what is Lovett doing this days?
"I'm trying to stay out of jail," Lovett joked with Ward.
She doesn't wear a black cat costume anymore, but Kitirik brought good luck to children for decades
Last week, the childhood icon of many children watching KTRK channel 13 for decades, Kitirik, came to Houston for a visit.
"She came in from her home in New Mexico to join several of us old geezers from channel 13 days when she had her show on the station from 1954 to 1971," former KTRK sports anchor Dan Lovett told mikemcguff.com. "She was kind enough to have pics taken with [Dave] Ward and me."
Lovett says Kitirik, aka Bunny Orsak in real life, who used to don the black cat costume is now in her 80s, "but still the grand gal she always was back in the day."
Speaking of KTRK children show legends, when I worked at the station I got a chance to interview Cadet Don. His real name is Al Eisenmann. He now writes books.
Dallas’ WRR puts fresh focus on music
One of America’s last remaining commercial classical stations will put a greater focus on the music in 2015 as WRR, Dallas (101.1) will make some changes.
KHOU 11's Lily Jang engaged after fairy tale proposal
It was a typical Friday night for KHOU Ch. 11 morning news anchor Lily Jang and her hunky beau, chef Kevin Bryant of Eleven XI restaurant — until something special happened.
Radar the weather dog has health scare
Houston's favorite dog, Radar, visited the KPRC Local 2 studios with some important news. We wanted to let our viewers know that Radar had a health scare.
From Ali to A.J. Foyt, Dan Lovett’s book tells stories from a life in broadcasting
“Anybody Seen Dan Lovett? Memoirs of a Media Nomad” is an appropriate title for the longtime newsman’s memoirs. Almost a half-century after sharing the set with Dave Ward at KTRK (Channel 13), Lovett, 74, is as likely to be in Africa or New Zealand, working on freelance film projects, as he is enjoying an active retirement at his Houston home.
Hilarious Engagement Photo Is Worth More Than A Thousand Words!
Lauren, a popular disc jockey on Mix 96.5 KHMX, is the oldest daughter and happily unmarried at age 32. She is the one on the right, drinking champagne. Her sisters from left to right are Melanie, Melissa, and Amy, all engaged or married. Also, Lauren has accepted the nomination for The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Woman of the Year. (Thanks to PR Fairy @farbulous)
WOAI Gives New Contract To Joe 'Pags' Pagliarulo
iHEARTMEDIA News WOAI-A/SAN ANTONIO has agreed to a new contract with JOE “PAGS” PAGLIARULO. PAGLIARULO hosts “The JOE PAGS Show” weekdays, 5–8p (CT).
Patrick Crawford back home and on the mend
KCEN Meteorologist Patrick Crawford is out of the hospital and home with family more than a week after he was shot in the parking lot of the KCEN studios.
The Washington Post and The Texas Tribune announce new partnership
Beginning in 2015, The Washington Post will enter an exciting new partnership with The Texas Tribune, which will include shared editorial content, collaboration on events and more. The Texas Tribune will also join the more than 220 newspapers currently participating in The Post’s digital partner program, offering their subscribers 52 weeks of free and unlimited digital access to The Washington Post.
Remembering KPRC's Ray Sletner
You may not have known him, but you knew his work. For two decades, Ray Sletner was the "man behind the sound" at Local 2.
Legendary abc13 KTRK weatherman Ed Brandon has died
abc13 KTRK chief meteorologist Tim Hellerhas announced Ed Brandon, 75, has died. Heller says the longtime channel 13 weatherman passed away peacefully last night.
Brandon was a very popular figure on Eyewitness News from May of 1972 until April of 2007.
"I was diagnosed with chronic heart disease after a heart attack in 2002," Brandon told me a little more than a year ago. "With proper diet and medication, I am managing well. My heart medications adversely affect my kidneys, so I am also being treated for that. I won’t be climbing any mountains or running any marathons, but I can do most anything I want to."
Since retiring, Brandon had been involved in the recovery movement after his public battle with substance abuse. Each year he held the annual Ed Brandon/Cenikor Golf Tournament to raise funds for those struggling.
In his spare time, he enjoyed traveling and seeing lots of plays and films.
While Brandon forecasted and covered a plethora of weather events, he was an avid news junkie. He would sit in on the afternoon news meetings at KTRK and pitch story ideas. One of his ideas of fun was watching the Houston City Council meetings available on cable TV.
"I consider myself incredibly fortunate to have lived, as a listener and a viewer, through the '60s and then, as a participant, through the '70s and '80s on television in Waco, television and radio in Houston," Brandon told mikemcguff.com in 2007. "And those were some great times."
Brandon grew up in Texas and worked for radio and television station in Central Texas.
"When I was eight years old, my parents took me to visit a friend who was a disc jockey in Waco," he told me in 2007. "I saw him and that just fascinated me, and I wanted to be on the radio. When I was in junior high school, a teacher took me and a group of other students to be on a TV program in Waco. At that point, not only did I want to be in broadcasting, I wanted to be in television too."
It was at Austin's KHFI where he lived his dream to the fullest.
UPDATE
Winham Edward Branstetter (Known to many as Ed Brandon) official obiturary
"They determined that since I was the disc jockey on the radio in the morning and I did the noon talk show and I did the six o'clock weather, they after the six o'clock news which ended at 6:30 they had me tape the weather cast for the ten o'clock news," Brandon recalled.
Ed Brandon, Dave Ward and Dan Lovett pose for Houston Rodeo parade ad (courtesy of Dave Lovett who explained to me in email, "All on horseback and none of us knew how to ride, let along look like cowboys. But those were the days...")
"Ed Brandon was truly like a brother to me," Dave Ward posted on Facebook. "Our bond extended thru our careers and beyond. He will be missed by me and the entire city. Ed, we will always love and miss you, brother."
"Ed Brandon was the consummate communicator because he connected with audiences at all levels...with warmth, wit, understanding, and deep knowledge," former KTRK anchor Shara Fryer told mikemcguff.com. "Ed could just as easily have been a news anchor because he knew it all and was excited about events, people, history, Houston and Texas...he brought all of that to his insights into good weather and bad. In many ways, we trusted our lives and our property to his guidance. Yet, whenever he entered a room, his humility always came first. I loved him like a brother and will always be grateful for the unforgettable years (27) we shared."
"I remember Ed joining Dave Ward and myself on Eyewitness News back in the beginning, he had been hired out of Austin TV and became a fixture and important figure on the news program," former KTRK sports anchor Dan Lovett told mikemcguff.com. "It was great working with Ed and his many fans will miss him."
"I mourn the death of a friend," former KTRK investigative reporter Wayne Dolcefino told mikemcguff.com. "So many memories. Such an awesome colleague. Viewers loved Ed Brandon because he was on TV, the same person he was in real life, part of the magic that was Channel 13. Ed was a key ingredient in the greatest run in what is the story of a great TV station. His death reminds us all of great memories."
In 1972 Houston came calling, and Brandon worked the rest of his career for KTRK.
"I consider a lot of it just incredibly good luck and I can't ignore the fact that I came to channel 13 at exactly the right time," Brandon told me a decade ago. "They hired Marvin Zindler six months later. I started in May of '72, he started in January of '73. They hired Marvin, they brought Bob Allen in from KPRC radio to do the sports, we had a manager and a program director and a promotions manager and a production manager who were the absolute best and who built the station in to a power house. As far as I know it's probably one of the most successful local television stations in the country. It just has to be it's a very big profit maker."
That's when Eyewitness News started to become the top newscast in Houston and the staff had a lot of fun according to Brandon:
"One time, Mayor Louis Welch was in the television station, for some reason that I've forgotten. Our station manager, Ken Johnson, arranged as a surprise for me, for Louis Welch to stand on a ladder behind the weather set and at the point when I gave the forecast and said whatever the chance of rain was, the mayor poured a bucket of water down on me and said, "You never get that right. Let's face it: it's always 50 percent; either it's going to rain or it's not going to rain." And it was a big joke. But the manager of a television station did that; that was his idea."
Then there was the time Brandon did the weather in disguise:
"For some reason, there was a wig, a very bad full hair wig in the studio. And it was one of those Mondays, I think, when the weekend had been totally different from what the forecast had indicated. It was probably a rainy weekend after it had been forecast to be a sunny weekend.
And Dave and Shara [Fryer] turned to me for the weather segment and, when the camera came on me, I was wearing the wig. And they said, "Ed, what's the weather?" and I said "Ed couldn't be here today; I'm his cousin Kevin", and I made up an excuse about why Ed couldn't be there. It got a good laugh, which was what it was all about."
Ed was a big fan of blogs and was a reader of this one. In fact, he put my blog on the map when he announced his retirement on it. Any fan of Brandon's or media will enjoy this 2007 interview he did with me about his career.
The holidays are almost upon us, so what are some quick gifts you can buy on Amazon related to Texas TV, radio, or media in general?
Now, this idea didn't happen to pop into my head just because my 101 KLOL documentary "Runaway Radio" is now on DVD and would make a perfect Christmas gift. It is available on Amazon, Walmart, and Barnes & Noble websites.
No, I thought about the Texas television anchors, reporters, meteorologists, and other journalists who have worked hard on a labor of love like your favorite lowly Texas media blogger did with his 14 year in the making film.
This list is taken from books I have received releases from over the years, with a few bonus ones from before my blog existed. To show you how hard it is to be an author, some of the books I have featured over the years are no longer available.
Here are some Texas media gift options from Houston to Dallas to Austin to El Paso and surrounding areas in the Lone Star State!
Last Thursday, The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo let us know the sad news that former Rodeo Houston announcer Bill Bailey had died.
"The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo™ today lost one of its biggest ambassadors with the passing of 'The Constable,' Bill Bailey," Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo president/CEO Joel Cowley said in a statement. "Bill was more than a Show Lifetime Vice President or one of our past RODEOHOUSTON announcers — he was a true friend to so many of us. He represented the Texas-sized heart of the Show, and our volunteers, staff, and the many young Texans he helped through the years will miss him tremendously."
Former KTRK sports anchor Dan Lovett wrote into mikemcguff.com with this nice remembrance and an update concerning Bailey's memorial service which is later today:
I am sure you have heard of the passing of legendary radio and rodeo announcer Bill Bailey.
He passed at age 76 Thursday and a memorial service will be held next Wed. Aug 2 at 2pm at the First Baptist Church, 7500 Fairmont Parkway in Pasadena.
I first met Bill back in 1964 when I came to Houston to work at KILT.
He was then on KIKK in Pasadena, the country station and one of the top rated stations in the market.
He became involved in the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo for 54 years and of course, was elected as a Harris Co. Constable for Precinct 8 until he retired a couple of years ago.
He was a great guy and I remember an ad that KIKK ran in the Houston Post and Chronicle back in the late 60's.
It was Bill, Joe Ladd and Arch Yancey, two of the other disc jockey's on KIKK.
All were buck naked and riding horses.
The ad proclaimed: "These Cowboys have nothin' on but KIKK".
The holidays are almost upon us, so what are some quick gifts you can buy on Amazon related to Texas TV, radio, or media in general?
Now, this idea didn't occur to me just because my 101 KLOL documentary "Runaway Radio" is now on DVD and would make a perfect Christmas gift. It is available on Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy and Barnes & Noble websites.
No, I thought about the Texas television anchors, reporters, meteorologists, and other journalists who have worked hard on a labor of love like your favorite lowly Texas media blogger did with his 14 year in the making film.
This list is drawn from books I have received releases for over the years, with a few bonus titles from before my blog existed. To illustrate how difficult it is to be an author, some of the books I have featured over the years are no longer available to make this list!
Here are some Texas media gift options from Houston to Dallas, Austin, and El Paso, plus surrounding areas in the Lone Star State!
Dave Ward's relationship with Ron Stone and Steve Smith, plus how Dave was all about Luv Ya Blue and the Oilers
Today is Dave Ward's big anniversary. He has now officially been the anchor of KTRK abc13 for 50 years. See the Guinness World Record photo below.
I've heard some argue, if you were going to have a Mount Rushmore of Houston TV anchors Dave Ward would be a face, and so would Ron Stone and Steve Smith. Ward talks about those fellow anchors and his time travelling with the Houston Oilers, a job he says he would have gladly paid to do (and based on the salary, that was almost true).
Mike McGuff: All right, obviously, Dave Ward, still on the air, but I think people will associate, two competitors with you, Ron Stone and Steve Smith, from Channel 2 [KPRC] and Channel 11 [KHOU], respectively. What was your relationship with, like with them?
Dave Ward: Very good. Both of them left. Ron Stone was on Channel 11 when I was at KNUZ. And Steve Smith was on Channel 2. They both left. Ron Stone went to New York and Steve went to Pittsburgh.
They were both gone about a year, and then they both came back. Only Ron Stone came back to Channel 2. Steve Smith came back to Channel 11, and I think I remember making some, some wisecrack on the air about, "Well, welcome back guys. It's just hard to tell where you are now," or something like, you now.
And Stone told me he went to work for NBC Radio News in New York. And he said, "David, I got there. I went down to Rockefeller Center, my first day I did my first radio newscast on the air, and signed off, 'Ron Stone, NBC Radio News,'" and he said, "I was ready to come home then." But it took him about a year to get back.
Ron and I worked together on the Houston Oiler radio crew for about eight years, from about '72 to about '80. Ron Stone and Ron Franklin were with us and we had some great times. We went to home and away [games], we flew with the team on the Oiler charter. And I got to know all of those guys real well.
I'll remember one game in Cleveland, Ohio, late in the season. It had to be in December, freezing cold. The visiting radio booth was on the roof of the old Cleveland Municipal Stadium, right out on the edge of that roof. So we had to sit on bar stools and look almost straight down at these guys running around, you know, 200, 300 feet below us there.
Well, that wind coming off of Lake Erie, it was brutally cold up there. Ron Stone had to read a disclaimer before every game, "The announcers for today's game are hired by and paid by the Houston Oilers." And that day he said, "The announcers for today's game are hire by and paid by the Houston Oilers, but not nearly enough to be up here in this freezer."
I mean, you set your coffee down, and if you didn't move it for five minutes or so, it's frozen.
Mike: [laughs]
Dave: It was about zero degrees that day.
Uh, we had all kinds of experiences and going to, on those Oiler trips. I remember defensive tackle Elvin Bethea, Hall-of-Famer. He always sat on the very back row of the plane. He did not like flying, and he had heard, someone had told him, "Well, the very back of the plane, that's the safest place," so he always sat at the very back.
They put us, the radio crew and sports writers and stuff, on the back left side of the plane. The players were on the right side of the plane. And Elvin, he'd come walking down that aisle carrying his stuff, and he'd look and he'd see us back, and he'd say, "Well, I see the riff-raff are with us again." We were the riff-raff to Elvin. I got to know Elvin Bethea real well. He's a real friend.
I started doing the statistics. I didn't say anything on the radio. I just kept a full set of statistics for the play-by-play, Ron Franklin, and the color, Ron Stone. And I started doing that, I was in Denver at a game. Ron Franklin did the play-by-play, and Dan Lovett did the color back then, when Dan was still with us there at Channel 13.
And I just kept a rudimentary. I sat up in the broadcast booth with 'em and kept some basic statistics for 'em. Well, [the Houston Oilers general manager] was sitting in the booth for the last quarter of the game. And when we signed off, both Franklin and Lovett turned to him and said, "You oughta put Dave on the crew to keep stats for us. That really helped. He kept a pretty good set of stats, and it added to the broadcast."
And, [the GM replied], "Yeah, OK. Dave, would you like to do that?" And I said, "Sure." They paid me 15 bucks a game, $15 a game, but I went to every Oiler game that they played, home and away. I would have paid Bud Adams 15 bucks to get to do that.
Mike: So you were just a big fan of the, of the NFL and, and the Oilers?
Dave: Sure, oh, yeah. That was back in the "Luv Ya Blue" era. I saw every game, uh, Bum Phillips coached, every game Earl Campbell played, every game Dan Pastorini played.
Mike: So here you were, Dave Ward, Eyewitness News, but you weren't even on the radio with 'em at this point, you were just there behind the scenes...
Dave: No, I was just keeping stats. But, they made a, a little bit out of it. You know, you've got Dave Ward, the anchorman from Channel 13, Ron Stone, the anchorman from Channel 2, and Ron Franklin, the sports anchor from Channel 11. We had all three channels in the same broadcast booth, and they, they didn't make a big deal out of it, but it was unique.
Mike: I guess Bob Allen was on those flights with you, covering for the...
Dave: A few of 'em. Sometimes, yeah. After Lovett left and went to New York, then Ron Stone became the color guy, and that's when we had all three, stations represented. But, yeah. Bob or a reporter, sports guy, would make a lot of those away trips, yeah.
Dave: He was with me on the air for 38 and a half years there at Channel 13. And, he had that horrible cancer. Battled that cancer for about two years before it finally killed him, bless his heart. He was a good guy. He was good on the air.
Mike: Were you friends off, off the air?
Dave: Oh, yeah. Yeah, very much so. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Texans' Vandermeer to give up talk-show duties
Marc Vandermeer will become director of radio broadcasting for the Texans and will leave his job as KILT's (610 AM) morning drive-time anchor in late May or early June, team and station officials said.
Exclusive February PPM Analysis: Dallas, Houston
ALL ACCESS presents Top-10 PPM market highlights, compiled by dmr for ALL ACCESS and powered by XTRENDS, radio's #1 PPM and diary analysis tool.
Morning host Bryan Beck departs KGSR
Music lovers gathered Saturday morning at the W Austin Hotel for 93.3 KGSR-FM’s live South by Southwest broadcast featuring Keane and others got a shock when DJ Bryan Beck told them he’s leaving the station.
City, state in circus of corporate welfare
NBC Sports Group recently leased 32,000 square feet in the Houston Pavilions for a local studio. Like most companies looking to open an office in a new city, it arrived with its hand out says Loren Steffy.
The Shot Heard ‘Round The World… And The TV Tube
On March 21, 1980, 90 million TV viewers tuned in to see what was long anticipated to happen: J.R. Ewing was shot! On the #1 primetime drama, Dallas!
The Origin Of Call Letters
Ever wonder how radio and TV stations got their call letters? Ken Foote tells us all about Dallas TV stations and their call letters?
I've lived in Montrose for over 20 years, and read stories about the Death of Montrose in every single one of those years. This, though, seems like a nail in the coffin. #kpft@KpftHoustonpic.twitter.com/nwemSS31AS
A "Land for Sale" sign from Coldwell Banker Commercial agent Lloyd Lee now sits in the Houston community radio station's parking lot. By the way, I always loved how the staircase rails spell out "KPFT."
The Pacifica station's studios have been in the house since 1975 according to a 2015 Houston Chronicle article by Craig Hlavaty. That site was formerly called Radio Row because 100.3 KILT and 101 KLOL were right down Lovett Boulevard.
KPFT's first program director Sam Hudson said the original KPFT studios were in downtown Houston. UPDATE: Chris Huff from DFW Radio Archives tells me according to the FCC, the two locations before Lovett Boulevard were 102 San Jacinto St. (Oct '69-Feb '70) and 618 Prairie St. (Feb '70-Jan '75).
New KPFT general manager David Baes recently told OutSmart magazine's Kim Hogstrom about the studio's condition:
"Unfortunately, the stately old home in Montrose that has housed KPFT all these years has fallen into deep disrepair, forcing the crew to largely vacate the building and work remotely. The building also suffers from regular break-ins, and the walls harbor extensive black mold. Baes is working to secure the structure and solicit bids for mold remediation to make the building functional again.
It would be so nice to have a space that is not a risk to human life,” Baes states with a laugh. “The old house on Lovett Boulevard is paid for, but my dream would be to move the entire operation to a place that is newer, healthier, and better suited for our needs."
"Pacifica is in the process of relocating KPFT, our Houston station, to another site in Houston which can best suit our needs. KPFT's existing building holds a very special and sentimental meaning for the Pacifica community. Projected costs for the major repair and restoration of the building proved to be prohibitive and the property is no on the market. As a result of a favorable real estate market in the Houston area we expect to use part of the proceeds from the sale of the building to pay down the principal on our outstanding loan with FJC and still have sufficient funds left over to finance the relocation of the building."
According to the Harris County Appraisal District, the house was built in 1940. The building area is listed as 3,640 square feet while the property is 13,013 SF. HCAD lists the physical condition as "poor."
UPDATE EMAIL FROM AUGUST 2021
"My name is Nuri Nuri and I have been a programmer/host at KPFT radio for over 29 years.
I am writing to explain a thing or two about the sale of the KPFT building.
KPFT radio did not put up the building for sale, Pacifica Foundation did - so they can pay their debts. I, like many, are opposed to the sale and recognize the building's importance and its historical value not to mention keeping the character of Montrose and the Montrose area. If you use FB, checkout the video I posted on he building.
Our former manager David Baes's statement is wrong. The mold and building issues are not what made us vacate, the pandemic did. Once the building was literally locked down with doors to the main studio, production room, and news studio locked things started to fall apart as, and I'm sure you know this, a building uninhabited and left alone starts to fall apart. A/C needs to be run normally water through the pipes, and circulation. During lockdown I don't believe these were in effect properly. In addition, the lack of management and direction brought about as a result of incompetent (local and national) members who's agenda may have been different than KPFT's resulted in hiring incompetent interim managers. With lack of direction and managers and hence money no action was taken to remediate the mold and fix the building.
David did some good things to the station during his few months here and I commend him for that, but I disagree with his and anyone else's ideas of moving the station to some other location, perhaps corporate rather than spend money repairing and upgrading this beautiful building with so much history that is located "in the heart of Montrose" as we have always announced on the air.
Anyway - I just wanted to clarify these things mainly that KPFT did not put up the building for sale - Pacifica did!"
Embedded below is an interview with Texas singer-songwriter Joe Ely where you can see what the 90.1 KPFT radio studio looks like.
*post updated with change of date when KPFT moved to 419 Lovett in 1975.
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