We had become friends, but V.P. Mike Glickenhaus wasted little time with small talk when, at the end of 2000, he summoned me to his San Diego Clear Channel Radio suite. I was quitting my part-time weekend gig  and was there to tell him goodbye. Next thing I knew, I was nodding “yes” to do full time 6a-10a M-F mornings.. 

I told him I wanted to get rid of the KPOP “clock,” He waved a sovereign hand and it was banished  Up till that moment, the KPOP “clock” had consisted of……

Top of the hour news with four commercial minutes.

A 20 minute  music sweep, no talk during, then back announce the sweep music..

4 minute spot cluster

20 minute music sweep, no talk during , then back announce the music.

4 minute spot cluster

20 minute music sweep to the top of the hour, no talk during…  etc etc..  

The “Happy Hare Clock” allowed my coming in any time I wished between songs with three new slots  at  the 10^th , 30^th , and 50^th  to do a 90 second isolated adlib commercial..  

In my mid-day weekend show, I scored big numbers during the entire year 2000:: # 1 45+ AQH and #1 TSL.on KPOP  with a median 65 year old audience. I did it by injecting personality one liners , billboards. or teasers during the music sweeps, and sneaking a few compatible  boomer  songs into the hourly mix. 

If you’re a programmer, you may be thinking, “Harry, mingling chronologies can’t be done,”  Hey! I did it. I even dropped into # 3 35 +., and now only needed to formalize it on a larger canvas to validate it.. “Only,” I say. That was “ the big only.” 

During my prime career, I had been hired in major markets as a hit man to score  #1, (Echo effect… one… ONE)  trusted to choose my own music, with dramatic results.

For my up- coming KPOP show, I worked on music that would cut diagonally across the age cells, lowering  the demos, resulting in an audience from 35 to 54+. 

Check that. Before launching  the show “Programming” belatedly advised me that I could not deviate from the pre-programmed music spewing out of the Prophet System. By now, I was too committed, and made peace with the inevitable. 

Well, It wasn’t all bad. I still had my newly won  10^th , 30^th  and 50^th minute  90 second live commercial adlib slots, which gave me the leeway to joke around. Humor, prior to transitioning into the “sell,” magnifies response, and individualizes the show. 

I thought I had covered all the bases, but when I entered the studio on my first day of the show, I  discovered that KPOP, power rated at 5000 watts, in reality, generated 1250 watts after sundown till sun up, then pumped out, not 5,000 but 3,750 watts during the daylight hours. That meant I would only reach half the market.  

Oh Well!  It was fun coming back.. The listeners loved it. No one is more loyal and responsive . Old folks are very grateful for their little slice of the radio pie. I and my wife, Carol, took 5 great cruises, put up in luxury suites. It was normal for me to attract 90+ fun loving listeners to go with us. In short, I became institutionalized at KPOP.   

I remained fixated on broadening the music. My immediate superior was the morning man at the Oldies station, just down the hall from my studio. I caught him one day during a break and casually (I thought)  brought up the possibility of migrating beyond the 50’s, my assigned demo cell. He smiled and said, “No. You’re Pop Standards, and do the 50’s music and I am Oldies and do the 60’s. That’s it” He said “That’s it” like case closed. 

To avoid conflict with his Oldies station, I  doggedly conjured up a music list of several hundred “Oldies” songs, none of which he played, and outlined my plan to him again, this time in his office after our shows. He shook his head “no” without reading my list. 

Cataclysmic events intervened.  The FCC ordained that Clear Channel drop five of its radio stations in San Diego, all Mexican therefore illegal, they said. One of them was the Oldies station of my boss.  

That left Pop Standards KPOP, but not for long. Clear Channel tired of diddling with Pop Standards and consigned the station to Air America with whom they made a multi-station deal. KPOP is now KLSD and, after two years on the air, ranks  20^th in Arbitron.. Air America crashed nationally for a lot of reasons.  It did not help Air America that CCR foisted  the KPOP frequency off  on them. I offered to help out with a new liberal KLSD morning show called “Hare America.” They took a conservative attitude toward that. 

To me, such hackneyed formats as, “Music of the 70’s. Music of the 80’s. et al are out . Those vertical slivers of music became thinner and more vertical, finally collapsing in on themselves. The old narrow Top 40 model is gone. The public, over the years, has developed a much broader appreciation  of music. Otherwise, why was ”Oh Brother! Where Art Thou?” a top CD of 2000?  Here is a two hour sampler of the several hundred songs I planned for KPOP. I have left out both older and more contemporary songs for a reason which I will explain later in this series. E-mail me if any are “tune-outs.”

                    The   Happy Hare Show Sampler

        Hour #1

            Pretty Woman                                                  Roy Orbison    

            Straighten up and  Fly Right                              Linda Ronstadt

Let the Music Play                                            Barry White                 

            We’re All Alone                                                Rita Coolidge  (Tops in 1977)

            Take Five                                                         Dave Brubek

            Staying Alive                                                    Bee Gees

At Last                                                             Etta James       

All Night Long                                                   Lionel Ritchie   

Sunny Side of the Street                                    Manhattan Transfer

Midnight Train to Georgia`                                Gladys Knight/Pips

Stardust                                                            Nat Cole

Baby, I Need Your Lovin’                                Four Tops

Blue Suede Shoes                                             Elvis  Presley

California Dreaming                                          Mamas and the Papas

The Name of the Game                                    Abba

Rockin’ Good Time                                          Dinah and Brook

Night Train                                                       Buddy Morrow

Yellow Submarine                                            Beatles

Wooly Bully                                                     Sam the Sham

                                                   Hour #2 

            Hit the Road, Jack                                            Ray Charles

Turn Turn Turn                                                 The Turtles      

That’s What Friends Are For                            Dionne, Elton, Stevie, Gladys   

How Sweet It Is                                               James Taylor

An Old fashioned Love Song                            Three Dog Night

Someday We’ll Be Together                             Supremes

Splish Splash                                                    Bobby Darin

Shining Star                                                      Earth Wind and Fire

Beatle Song Album Selection                            Count Basie

Here We Go Again                                           Norah Jones

I’ve Got You Under My Skin                           Frank Sinatra

Desafinado                                                       Stan Getz/ Charlie Bird

Time in a Bottle                                                Jim Croce

Hotel California                                                The Eagles

            Bad Girls                                                          Donna Summer

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do                             Neil Sedaka                            

Alright OK You Win                                        Tony Bennet and Diana Krall

Midnight Sun                                                    Ella Fitzgerald

Silly Love Song                                                Paul McCartney/Wings

Rescue Me                                                       Fontella Bass

Flamingo                                                          Earl Bostic

Louie Louie                                                      The Kingsmen

     (Songs are to be chosen out of the lists based on “feel” as you go along)

I went to lunch with Mike Glickenhaus. After dessert. I said, “Mike, let me play my broader music till Air America comes in. Come on. What do you say? You have nothing to lose” He paused a millisecond, then nodded, “okay.” Deal done.  

Unbeknownst to Mike, Clear Channel accelerated the arrival date of  Air America.. Within  a few days, Air America made a crash landing before I could take off with my own new air show. 

When Clear Channel, by FCC mandate, spun off the five Mexican radio stations. Mike did what any red blooded radio operator would do. He flew from his lofty CCR V.P. perch, formed a group, and bought (cherry picked) three of them.   

Next week, we will show prep a trip into a Virtual Control Room and put together a never before heard hour on a minute by minute basis. Target 25-54+