A Mighty Voice
In 1964, my brother and I were riding in the car with our parents. We were on US 61, deep in the Ozark foothills of southern Missouri just north of where it flattens out into the bootheel.
As if on cue, my father pulled the car to the side of the road about halfway down a valley. All the cars behind us and in front of us, in both directions, did the same.
As far as the eye could see, parked cars lined the shoulder of the two-lane country highway, windows down, many with doors open. Drivers and passengers sat quietly, almost reverently. Not one car was traveling on the roadway itself. At that frozen moment in time, the scene was replicated from Minnesota to Louisiana.
A voice boomed out over the valley. It was not the voice of God, though it might as well have been. It was in fact, the voice of Harry Caray, riding on what every radio listener through Middle America instinctively knew as the 50,000 red-hot clear-channel watts of the Voice of St. Louis, the legendary KMOX Radio.
For the Cardinals, to take this game would be to clinch the NL Pennant. Bottom of the ninth, two outs. Seconds later, the Cardinals won. Days later, calling the World Series to a national radio audience, Caray would exercise uncharacteristic non-partisan reserve when the Cards took it all; but not this afternoon.
His audience this day was strictly the Cardinal faithful, and his words still send fond shivers up the spines of baseball fanatics all along the nation’s midsection.
THE CARDINALS WIN THE PENNANT!
THE CARDINALS WIN THE PENNANT!
THE CARDINALS WIN THE PENNANT!
HOLY COW!!!!!
In the years before major league baseball came to places like Atlanta and Houston and Kansas City, and all the tiny towns and farms in between, there was KMOX. It was, for all purposes, indistinguishable from St. Louis Cardinals baseball.
Generations of these far-flung fans never made it to Sportsmans’ Park or Busch Stadium. To them, the Cards were KMOX and the famous voices which became synonymous with the team. Gabby Street. France Laux. Harry Caray. Jack Buck. Mike Shannon. Skip Caray. Joe Buck. Bob Costas.
In his book “Voices of the Game,” author and historian Curt Smith called KMOX the “greatest radio station in the country.”
Under the divine rule of CBS regional vice-president Robert Hyland, Jr. (himself perhaps the most legendary KMOX staffer of them all), the station became known as the “jewel in the CBS radio crown.” Its formidable AM signal reached far beyond the United States, careening between the ionosphere and the Earth’s surface to untold points on the globe.
My father spent part of his World War II tour of duty in India. Occasionally on clear nights, he and his buddies used to be able to catch the “Mighty MOX” as if it were a shortwave station. In a way, it was like the Internet is today. It was a very local and very instant taste of home to soldiers scattered throughout the world. Many of those men and women developed a deeply emotional loyalty to KMOX that seamlessly extended to the Cardinals when the station became the team’s exclusive play-by-play source after the war. They handed those loyalties off to the next generation.
One of America’s first commercial stations, KMOX signed on in the mid- 20’s. There is some disagreement as to how the call letters came about. One school of thought contends it refers to its first evening of operation (midnight of X-Mas, 1925). Others insist it referred to the location of its transmitter in Kirkwood, Missouri (KMO) and the experimentally-high wattage (X) with which the station made its much-touted debut.
One thing is known. Over the years, KMOX grew to be the very definition of responsive local programming, quality local news, weather and sports coverage, and a sincere dedication to its community of license. For years, it wielded more influence in St. Louis than all the newspapers (including Pulitzer Publishing’s flagship Post-Dispatch), and radio & TV stations combined.
It was home to non-sports legends as well. Jack Carney. Jim White. Rex Davis. Bob Hardy. Ann Keefe. One simply cannot underestimate the ties between these people, this station, and millions of Midwesterners. A Prairie Home Companion is fiction. KMOX was always the real deal.
(Click on the image to see larger. Thanks to the Post-Dispatch and stl.com for this graphic and for much of the historical information which is included in this blog. The P-D has done a terrific job not only of covering the facts, but the emotions, of this story.)
KMOX also knew the secret of branding. Everything it did had to underscore the three words which comprised its slogan, its commitment, its Mantra. They should be familiar to Southwest Louisianians. KMOX declared and proved itself to be “At Your Service” and it always remained true to that brand.
In 1986, I was general sales manager at KPLC. Then-general manager Ron Loewen was shaping a new vision for the station. As I sat in his office fronting Division Street, we pondered how Channel 7 could do a better job of serving its viewers. It didn’t take long to make our list of attributes essential to any responsive local broadcaster.
It took even less time to agree on the brand that embodied our shared vision. I grew up in St. Louis. Ron grew up in Wichita, Kansas, well within KMOX’s “footprint.” We had a benchmark to which we could aspire.
KPLC’s channel number added a nod toward alliteration. It seemed almost providential. We would be Seven At Your Service.
I tell you all this because this week the Earth Moved. After 52 years, the Cardinals announced that their play-by-play broadcasts will no longer be heard on KMOX. For a variety of business and marketing reasons much-debated in Cardinal Nation, the baseball team’s owners have purchased half of KTRS, a station with dramatically less coverage than blowtorch KMOX.
KTRS’ inferior coverage will be offset by an expansion of the team’s radio network, a patchwork quilt of teakettle stations. The games are available on the internet and of course there’s lots more television coverage than there used to be. The Cards have also cut a deal which will give fans a break on XM satellite radio subscriptions since they carry all of the MLB games. I don’t know exactly how that will work. Maybe you have to answer a series of Cardinal trivia questions successfully to get your discount.
I’ve listened to the games on XM. It’s not the same. I miss hearing from “Dave Sinclair, your South County Ford Dealer…thank you and here’s my address.” Regular KMOX listeners will know what I mean. Local commercials are part of the fabric and lore of any community.
KTRS is supposed to have lots more Cardinal-related programming, and will become the centerpiece of a new ballpark village to surround the team’s new retro Busch Stadium in downtown St. Louis. There are far fewer seats in the new stadium and they’ll cost a lot more. There are also lots of luxury suites which will ring the registers of the Cardinals’ owners.
As the Post-Dispatch’s Bernie Miklasz so eloquently puts it, “I don’t think there are any villains here. This is simply what happens in corporate America when big businesses attempt to make the best possible deal for their self-interest.” I agree. But it is clear that a team which always placed a value on reaching deep into its fan base for support now prefers to court a smaller but more lucrative base of supporters, be they fans or corporations or media partners. New Orleans Saints fans will understand this concept.
As fate would have it, I write this on a laptop as I head north toward St. Louis on Interstate 55. Decades ago it replaced US 61 as the arterial “spine” which connects the South to the Midwest along the Mississippi River. This time I’m the parent and sitting in the front seat. My wife Debbie is driving, and our daughter Jennie (albeit 22 and a grad student at LSU) is in the back seat. I’m looking out over the very same valley where that impromptu celebration broke out in 1964.
We’re going to a family reunion. I’ll be seeing some distant relatives I probably haven’t seen since Bob Gibson was on the pitcher’s mound at Busch. It’s not lost on me that we’re listening to the XM radio we had installed in the Suburban. On Sunday, my father-in-law and I will be at Busch to watch the Cards play the Braves, no doubt for the last time since the wrecking ball will bring that fabled “60’s doughnut” stadium down after this season. With it will disappear the huge red KMOX sign that has been a permanent fixture next to the broadcast booth for as long as any of us can remember.
So what will become of the legendary KMOX?
It is not mine to pass judgment, and I’m not very good at reading tea leaves. However, over the years the self-proclaimed “Sports Voice of America” has let St. Louis’ two other professional teams, the Rams and the Blues, slip to other stations. It has replaced much of its signature “At Your Service” local programming with agenda-laden syndicated radio wallpaper such as Rush Limbaugh. Major decisions regarding KMOX are for the most part no longer made in St. Louis.
Though I’m sure the good people at Infinity Broadcasting will disagree with me, their station in St. Louis has become pretty much like every other radio station, except for an above-average commitment to local news coverage (which has all but disappeared in the radio industry).
I’m saddened to see the passing of the Cards-KMOX partnership. Though I am all too familiar with the ever-changing realities of the broadcast business, it was one of those things I took for granted, like the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. Most Cardinal fans in St. Louis will get used to changing the dial from 1120 to 550 for games. But for the thousands of Cardinal fans here in Louisiana and the rest of Cardinal Nation, the emotional link will be sorely tested though likely not broken.
Wrenching change brings with it the opportunity for re-invention. Bill Smith of the Post-Dispatch summarizes KMOX’s legacy and the challenge now before it:
“…to much of its listenership, from the cities to the far-flung farms and small towns of Middle America, KMOX has been, first and last, a baseball station.
“KMOX (also) continued to be a community radio station, a station that championed progress, fostered debate and sought to amuse and entertain. The station has given a public voice to the mayor, the soldier, the dancer, the doctor and the farmer. And most often it has done it with wit, intelligence and respect.”
That is true, though the station has not endeavored to regenerate its aging audience with new listeners. It was definitely a late and reluctant adopter of the Web. I’ve learned that managing a local broadcast station is like driving a sports car through mountain roads. As with the accelerator and the brake, there’s a delicate balance between tradition and innovation if a station is to remain both relevant to its community and financially viable.
Not a day goes by at KPLC that I don’t think about KMOX. We’ve weathered the collapse of two transmitting towers and have emerged stronger. We did it by obsessively adhering to those same principles of giving a public voice to the mayor, the soldier, the dancer, the doctor and the farmer. It is my hope that we also do it with wit, intelligence and respect.
Now with the loss of the St. Louis Cardinals, the station which has been such an inspiration to us at KPLC must find a way to rise to what may be an even more difficult challenge.
Dad-in-law Bud Hacker and me at Busch. Deb surprised us with the tickets or I would've packed my Cardinal Red shirt & cap. Instead, a Krewe de la Noblesse shirt, representing all Cardinal fans in Louisiana.)
Epilogue: Sunday. The Cards win 5-3 on a 9th-inning Grand Slam. America's (real) Team beats America's most annoyingly-marketed Team. God's Voice has spoken through the bat of David Eckstein.
UPDATE: October 10. The Astros have unseated America's most annoyingly-marketed Team in the NL playoffs and will face the Cardinals again. Gotta love Houston. As to Atlanta being a baseball town, check out this blogsite in the AJC: http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/ajc/bravesfans/entries/2005/10/09/going_going_gon.html
As if on cue, my father pulled the car to the side of the road about halfway down a valley. All the cars behind us and in front of us, in both directions, did the same.
As far as the eye could see, parked cars lined the shoulder of the two-lane country highway, windows down, many with doors open. Drivers and passengers sat quietly, almost reverently. Not one car was traveling on the roadway itself. At that frozen moment in time, the scene was replicated from Minnesota to Louisiana.
A voice boomed out over the valley. It was not the voice of God, though it might as well have been. It was in fact, the voice of Harry Caray, riding on what every radio listener through Middle America instinctively knew as the 50,000 red-hot clear-channel watts of the Voice of St. Louis, the legendary KMOX Radio.
For the Cardinals, to take this game would be to clinch the NL Pennant. Bottom of the ninth, two outs. Seconds later, the Cardinals won. Days later, calling the World Series to a national radio audience, Caray would exercise uncharacteristic non-partisan reserve when the Cards took it all; but not this afternoon.
His audience this day was strictly the Cardinal faithful, and his words still send fond shivers up the spines of baseball fanatics all along the nation’s midsection.
THE CARDINALS WIN THE PENNANT!
THE CARDINALS WIN THE PENNANT!
THE CARDINALS WIN THE PENNANT!
HOLY COW!!!!!
In the years before major league baseball came to places like Atlanta and Houston and Kansas City, and all the tiny towns and farms in between, there was KMOX. It was, for all purposes, indistinguishable from St. Louis Cardinals baseball.
Generations of these far-flung fans never made it to Sportsmans’ Park or Busch Stadium. To them, the Cards were KMOX and the famous voices which became synonymous with the team. Gabby Street. France Laux. Harry Caray. Jack Buck. Mike Shannon. Skip Caray. Joe Buck. Bob Costas.
In his book “Voices of the Game,” author and historian Curt Smith called KMOX the “greatest radio station in the country.”
Under the divine rule of CBS regional vice-president Robert Hyland, Jr. (himself perhaps the most legendary KMOX staffer of them all), the station became known as the “jewel in the CBS radio crown.” Its formidable AM signal reached far beyond the United States, careening between the ionosphere and the Earth’s surface to untold points on the globe.
My father spent part of his World War II tour of duty in India. Occasionally on clear nights, he and his buddies used to be able to catch the “Mighty MOX” as if it were a shortwave station. In a way, it was like the Internet is today. It was a very local and very instant taste of home to soldiers scattered throughout the world. Many of those men and women developed a deeply emotional loyalty to KMOX that seamlessly extended to the Cardinals when the station became the team’s exclusive play-by-play source after the war. They handed those loyalties off to the next generation.
One of America’s first commercial stations, KMOX signed on in the mid- 20’s. There is some disagreement as to how the call letters came about. One school of thought contends it refers to its first evening of operation (midnight of X-Mas, 1925). Others insist it referred to the location of its transmitter in Kirkwood, Missouri (KMO) and the experimentally-high wattage (X) with which the station made its much-touted debut.
One thing is known. Over the years, KMOX grew to be the very definition of responsive local programming, quality local news, weather and sports coverage, and a sincere dedication to its community of license. For years, it wielded more influence in St. Louis than all the newspapers (including Pulitzer Publishing’s flagship Post-Dispatch), and radio & TV stations combined.
It was home to non-sports legends as well. Jack Carney. Jim White. Rex Davis. Bob Hardy. Ann Keefe. One simply cannot underestimate the ties between these people, this station, and millions of Midwesterners. A Prairie Home Companion is fiction. KMOX was always the real deal.
(Click on the image to see larger. Thanks to the Post-Dispatch and stl.com for this graphic and for much of the historical information which is included in this blog. The P-D has done a terrific job not only of covering the facts, but the emotions, of this story.)
KMOX also knew the secret of branding. Everything it did had to underscore the three words which comprised its slogan, its commitment, its Mantra. They should be familiar to Southwest Louisianians. KMOX declared and proved itself to be “At Your Service” and it always remained true to that brand.
In 1986, I was general sales manager at KPLC. Then-general manager Ron Loewen was shaping a new vision for the station. As I sat in his office fronting Division Street, we pondered how Channel 7 could do a better job of serving its viewers. It didn’t take long to make our list of attributes essential to any responsive local broadcaster.
It took even less time to agree on the brand that embodied our shared vision. I grew up in St. Louis. Ron grew up in Wichita, Kansas, well within KMOX’s “footprint.” We had a benchmark to which we could aspire.
KPLC’s channel number added a nod toward alliteration. It seemed almost providential. We would be Seven At Your Service.
I tell you all this because this week the Earth Moved. After 52 years, the Cardinals announced that their play-by-play broadcasts will no longer be heard on KMOX. For a variety of business and marketing reasons much-debated in Cardinal Nation, the baseball team’s owners have purchased half of KTRS, a station with dramatically less coverage than blowtorch KMOX.
KTRS’ inferior coverage will be offset by an expansion of the team’s radio network, a patchwork quilt of teakettle stations. The games are available on the internet and of course there’s lots more television coverage than there used to be. The Cards have also cut a deal which will give fans a break on XM satellite radio subscriptions since they carry all of the MLB games. I don’t know exactly how that will work. Maybe you have to answer a series of Cardinal trivia questions successfully to get your discount.
I’ve listened to the games on XM. It’s not the same. I miss hearing from “Dave Sinclair, your South County Ford Dealer…thank you and here’s my address.” Regular KMOX listeners will know what I mean. Local commercials are part of the fabric and lore of any community.
KTRS is supposed to have lots more Cardinal-related programming, and will become the centerpiece of a new ballpark village to surround the team’s new retro Busch Stadium in downtown St. Louis. There are far fewer seats in the new stadium and they’ll cost a lot more. There are also lots of luxury suites which will ring the registers of the Cardinals’ owners.
As the Post-Dispatch’s Bernie Miklasz so eloquently puts it, “I don’t think there are any villains here. This is simply what happens in corporate America when big businesses attempt to make the best possible deal for their self-interest.” I agree. But it is clear that a team which always placed a value on reaching deep into its fan base for support now prefers to court a smaller but more lucrative base of supporters, be they fans or corporations or media partners. New Orleans Saints fans will understand this concept.
As fate would have it, I write this on a laptop as I head north toward St. Louis on Interstate 55. Decades ago it replaced US 61 as the arterial “spine” which connects the South to the Midwest along the Mississippi River. This time I’m the parent and sitting in the front seat. My wife Debbie is driving, and our daughter Jennie (albeit 22 and a grad student at LSU) is in the back seat. I’m looking out over the very same valley where that impromptu celebration broke out in 1964.
We’re going to a family reunion. I’ll be seeing some distant relatives I probably haven’t seen since Bob Gibson was on the pitcher’s mound at Busch. It’s not lost on me that we’re listening to the XM radio we had installed in the Suburban. On Sunday, my father-in-law and I will be at Busch to watch the Cards play the Braves, no doubt for the last time since the wrecking ball will bring that fabled “60’s doughnut” stadium down after this season. With it will disappear the huge red KMOX sign that has been a permanent fixture next to the broadcast booth for as long as any of us can remember.
So what will become of the legendary KMOX?
It is not mine to pass judgment, and I’m not very good at reading tea leaves. However, over the years the self-proclaimed “Sports Voice of America” has let St. Louis’ two other professional teams, the Rams and the Blues, slip to other stations. It has replaced much of its signature “At Your Service” local programming with agenda-laden syndicated radio wallpaper such as Rush Limbaugh. Major decisions regarding KMOX are for the most part no longer made in St. Louis.
Though I’m sure the good people at Infinity Broadcasting will disagree with me, their station in St. Louis has become pretty much like every other radio station, except for an above-average commitment to local news coverage (which has all but disappeared in the radio industry).
I’m saddened to see the passing of the Cards-KMOX partnership. Though I am all too familiar with the ever-changing realities of the broadcast business, it was one of those things I took for granted, like the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. Most Cardinal fans in St. Louis will get used to changing the dial from 1120 to 550 for games. But for the thousands of Cardinal fans here in Louisiana and the rest of Cardinal Nation, the emotional link will be sorely tested though likely not broken.
Wrenching change brings with it the opportunity for re-invention. Bill Smith of the Post-Dispatch summarizes KMOX’s legacy and the challenge now before it:
“…to much of its listenership, from the cities to the far-flung farms and small towns of Middle America, KMOX has been, first and last, a baseball station.
“KMOX (also) continued to be a community radio station, a station that championed progress, fostered debate and sought to amuse and entertain. The station has given a public voice to the mayor, the soldier, the dancer, the doctor and the farmer. And most often it has done it with wit, intelligence and respect.”
That is true, though the station has not endeavored to regenerate its aging audience with new listeners. It was definitely a late and reluctant adopter of the Web. I’ve learned that managing a local broadcast station is like driving a sports car through mountain roads. As with the accelerator and the brake, there’s a delicate balance between tradition and innovation if a station is to remain both relevant to its community and financially viable.
Not a day goes by at KPLC that I don’t think about KMOX. We’ve weathered the collapse of two transmitting towers and have emerged stronger. We did it by obsessively adhering to those same principles of giving a public voice to the mayor, the soldier, the dancer, the doctor and the farmer. It is my hope that we also do it with wit, intelligence and respect.
Now with the loss of the St. Louis Cardinals, the station which has been such an inspiration to us at KPLC must find a way to rise to what may be an even more difficult challenge.
Dad-in-law Bud Hacker and me at Busch. Deb surprised us with the tickets or I would've packed my Cardinal Red shirt & cap. Instead, a Krewe de la Noblesse shirt, representing all Cardinal fans in Louisiana.)
Epilogue: Sunday. The Cards win 5-3 on a 9th-inning Grand Slam. America's (real) Team beats America's most annoyingly-marketed Team. God's Voice has spoken through the bat of David Eckstein.
UPDATE: October 10. The Astros have unseated America's most annoyingly-marketed Team in the NL playoffs and will face the Cardinals again. Gotta love Houston. As to Atlanta being a baseball town, check out this blogsite in the AJC: http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/ajc/bravesfans/entries/2005/10/09/going_going_gon.html
posted by Jim Serra at 8/07/2005 11:12:00 AM
12 Comments:
I have lived in Kansas City for most of the past 22 years. I have been semi-dependent on KMOX for my attachment to the "Cardinal Nation" for each of those 22 years.
But because KMOX doesn't really turn on the turbocharger until after 7, I have also had to devote two other car radio AM buttons to St. Joe and Sedalia. If I'm on the Kansas side of State Line Road, KSFT comes in better. If I'm on the Missouri side it's KSIS.
I also have Gameday Audio from MLB.com to keep me posted at my office or when I'm hooked up to my home computer.
The passing of KMOX from Cardinal country means I'll have one extra radio button to tune to another one of those in-your-face talk radio stations. Actually I'll have three available buttons.
XM Radio here I come.
But it won't be the same. As I think about why it won't be the same I must admit it really doesn't have anything to do with KMOX. It won't be the same, I mean it hasn't been the same since Jack left us.
XM can't replace that.
Max Utsler
Jim,
Many thanks for the article on KMOX.
I, too, grew up in St. Louis (two tours there as my father was in the Army) before winding up in Lake Charles (worked in the news department at KPLC from 1977-81) so your writing struck a chord with me.
I still have a cassette tape of Jack Buck's call of the final inning of the 1982 World Series, recorded off my stereo in my old Bilbo St. apartment as we could almost always pick up KMOX in Lake Charles on good evenings (when KWKH wasn't fading in-and-out).
Haven't lived east of the Rockies since 1986, when I left Louisiana for ten years in Guam, so it's been a long time since I've been able to pick up KMOX on a summer evening. I occasionally listen to Mike-and-Wayne through the internet, but it's just not the same.
Someday, maybe I'll get back to Lake Charles - I imagine things have *really* changed since we worked out of the old gas station/newsroom under the tower. Actually, those changes had already started while I was still there - we worked out of that old restaurant a block north of the station for a year before the new two-story newsroom/sales office opened in 1980, but I always remember that old, musty, creaky gas station.
Take care,
Jerry Modene
Tucson, Arizona
Jerry,
GREAT hearing from you. You wouldn't recognize Lake Charles...filled with casino resorts, world-class golf courses, and downtown Lake Charles is a showplace instead of a war zone.
Please come visit soon...will buy you dinner and catch up on the old days, in LC and StL...
Best,
Jim
Great blog, I also have a casino related site, If you want or need more exposure get casino traffic by the thousands at **casino traffic** Works for me!
Hello Jim Serra, I was surfing and saw your A Mighty Voice blog. Excellent stuff. I provide voice broadcasting for businesses online and my site is voice broadcasting.
Howdy Jim Serra, Your A Mighty Voice blog is very good. I personally am involved with voice broadcasting services and my site is voice broadcasting services.
Hi there Jim Serra. I was searching for the latest information on home refinance leads and somehow, which I don't understand, found your site. Although A Mighty Voice wasn't what I was interested in, I'm sure glad I found your site. I'll keep on looking for home refinance leads but I just had to comment on how much I enjoyed reading the comments here. home refinance leads I bookmarked your site.
Hi, Jim Serra, I was surfing and searching for some info on voice broadcasting and noticed your site. Your this post though sounded interesting so I took a look. It was not relevant to my voice broadcasting search but, I am glad to stop by and view your interesting viewpoints! Keep up the great blogging.http://www.lowcosttraffic.com/mlm-telerecruiter.html
Hi, Blogger, I was surfing and searching for some info on voice broadcasting and noticed your site. Your this post though sounded interesting so I took a look. It was not relevant to my voice broadcasting search but, I am glad to stop by and view your interesting viewpoints! Keep up the great blogging.http://www.lowcosttraffic.com/mlm-telerecruiter.html
Hello there, Jim Serra, I thought your A Mighty Voice blog was great with good comments. Awesome. Nice Blog. voice broadcastingl .
Hi, Jim Serra, I was surfing and searching for some info on mlm leads and noticed your site. Your this post A Mighty Voice though sounded interesting so I took a look. It was not relevant to my mlm leads I was glad to read your interesting comments. Keep up the fantastic blogging.
Hi, Jim Serra, I liked your blog its my first time here! Your A Mighty Voice and comments were very interesting. If you are interested, go see my telemarketing although it relates more to Businesses who are tired of manually calling prospects and need low cost voice broadcasting. All the best to you!
Post a Comment
<< Home