PROGRAMMING THE MASSES: HOW KDKA RADIO
SHAPED THE WAY PITTSBURGHERS VIEWED
THE CHRISTMAS SEASON.
For decades, KDKA radio, 1020 on the AM
dial, was the titan of the Pittsburgh Radio
market. The era I wish to focus on in this
post is from 1968 through 1975. The time of
year I wish to address is the Christmas
Season, and the broadcast hours which I feel
merit discussing are weekdays from 6:00 AM
to 12:00 PM. In the four or five weeks before
Christmas, the morning disc jockey, Jack Bogut,
(who started with the station in 1968), would
anchor the station's broadcasts from the
front window of the Joseph Horne Department
Store. The one Christmas song which I associate
best with the era is "Ring Christmas Bells"
(1962) by the Ray Coniff singers. That recording (as
well as the song itself) is
unusual, and to some people's tastes, downright bizarre.
However, it set the tone (in an unauthentic sense)
for traditional Christmases, seemingly rooted
in British observances. Mr. Bogut led the station's
appeal for donations to Children's Hospital. That
initiative was co-sponsored by a Pittsburgh
newspaper and was branded "The Old Newsboys' Drive."
Mr. Bogut provided humorous stories. Some of those
were of a far-fetched nature, such as the search for
the mythical perfect farkleberry tree. It was the era
of the Vietnam war with horrendously high weekly number
of U.S. soldiers killed in action. Somehow, KDKA
led its listeners to believe that adhering to
traditional Christmas tenets was worthwhile.
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