Word: rko
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...idea might charitably be called the brainchild of Los Angeles-based Program Director Bill Drake, who runs the action for RKO's 14 powerful pop-music stations. The concept is founded on the premise that the average radio audience changes every 30 minutes. Thus the notion is to keep repeating?over and over and over again?the same monster items that everyone wants to hear. In fact, Top 40 is an illusory designation; 25 is more like it. "Getting a record into air play," says Kal Rudman, publisher of an East Coast record tip sheet, "is tougher than getting...
...been at it again. Since he proved ineffective in dealing with football futures earlier this year (his diagrammed play did not keep the Miami Dolphins from losing 24-3 to the Dallas Cowboys in the Super Bowl), he turned this time to baseball past. At the behest of an RKO General radio reporter, and later in a bylined article for the Associated Press, President Nixon elaborately documented his choices for an alltime, All-Star baseball team...
...tapped, Hughes had a practice of calling at any hour of the night, demanding that his aides go to a public telephone booth and call him back. He also insisted that they give him the number from which they were calling. When Perry Lieber, Hughes' publicity man at RKO, got such a call at Hedda Hopper's house, he did not feel like hunting up a public phone. He waited, took a long extension cord and called Hughes from Hedda's closet, feeling that this was private enough. But Hughes insisted on knowing the number-and recognized...
...Hughes gained control of RKO Pictures. Despite heavy losses-$15 million in one year -he managed to sell out at a profit. At times, his management of TWA was also less than inspired. After long hesitation, he plunged into ordering jets on all sides, and without fully realizing it ran up commitments of close to $500 million. Noah Dietrich recalls in his book that when he remonstrated with Hughes and pointed out that the board of Hughes Tool had to be consulted, Hughes replied: "That's no problem; just tell those stooges to give their approval." He lost control...
...severely tried. Just as he was beginning to establish himself in postwar Hollywood as a young director of substantial gifts, he was offered the script of a shrill melodrama entitled I Married a Communist. He refused to film it. Later he discovered that to his bosses at the old RKO studio, anyone who declined the project was politically suspect. Losey's political history-sponsoring Composer Hanns Eisler, supporting Playwright Bertolt Brecht, signing a friend-of-the-court brief for Producer Adrian Scott, one of the original Hollywood Ten-got him into serious trouble. Soon he was called to testify...