1955 - 1959: Burt Buys WROV

The agreement between the Times World corporation and Roanoke Radio which settled the issues involving Channel 7, Channel 27, WROV-FM and WROV-AM was finally reached in the Summer of 1955 when the radio stations were sold to a group headed by Burt Levine and his wife Muriel, doing business as WROV Broadcasters, Incorporated.

But the story of the "Burt Levine" years of WROV really begins in 1952. Roanoke was a burgeoning city where the quality of life was good and improving. The Mill Mountain Zoo had recently opened. Roanoke had just been named an All-American City. The Korean War was over, the troops were home, and people were settling down and starting families. Roanoke had two television stations, WSLS and WDBJ. There were three radio stations, WDBJ, WSLS, and WROV. The fourth, WRIS, would be on by 1954. About this time, Burt was in town looking to buy a radio station.

Burt ran this ad in the paper on July 14, 1955, about a month after he took over.

Ironically, Burt, the son of a Pennsylvania merchant, didn't originally intend to get into the "business side" of radio. "The local station auditioned four of us from high school during the summer, presumably so one of us would get a paying job," said Burt, "but it turned out we all auditioned all summer and nobody got a paying job. That was my indroduction to radio." He graduated from Temple University and eventually did get a paying job writing advertising copy for a station in Philadelphia. "I never thought of myself as a salesman, I thought of myself as a writer" he said.

"When the salesman got sick and had to move to Phoenix for his health, I was the only one that knew the accounts. They told me 'Go start selling.' So, with great reluctance, that's how I started selling."

Burt went on to become the young sales manager of WCAN Radio in Milwaukee and eventually decided to buy his own station. He had traveled through the Roanoke Valley and was so impressed with the friendly people and merchants that he decided it was a perfect place. So, after three years of researching the market, Burt and a group of investors formed WROV Broadcasters, Inc and purchased WROV in 1955.

The April 14, 1955 edition of The Roanoke Times reported that "Arlington Men Will Run WROV" and described a group of businessmen headed by Cy Blumenthal and represented by Roanoke attorney Morton Honeyman who bought the station for $45,000. Honeyman was the station's attorney for years and was partners with Roanoke's Harvey Lutins. Blumenthal, we think, was one of Muriel's uncles.

Don McNeil & Bill Stern.. Don's Breakfast Club was on WROV until early 1960 and Bill Stern Sports was a WROV favorite through 1956.

The group had applied for a permit to operate a 1,000-watt daytime station on the 1050kc frequency the previous January. But with the outcome of the negotiations between Times World and Roanoke Radio, they instead offered to purchase WROV AM & FM when it was decided that both stations would be sold to a third party.

In May, the paper announced "WROV Requests FCC To Approve Corporate Change" and reported that the station asked the commmission to assign its license to Joseph Goodman and associates (more of Muriel's people, we think), doing business as WROV Broadcasters, Inc. By the end of May, this change was approved. Ten days later Frank Koehler, manager of WROV since 1947, abruptly left to become the sales manager of WDBJ-AM effective July 11.

June 12, 1955, we see the first mention of Burt in an article reporting that Coleman Austin, former manager of WRIS, was appointed sports director of WROV. Austin was "the first addition to the station's staff under new management, station manager Burt Levine said." But Austin never returned to WROV. Apparently, after running this story, he changed his mind and turned down the job.

Barbara Felton interviews the Kroger produce man for Woman's World.

Though the article only mentions Goodmon, Honeymon and Blumenthal, we suspect that Burt and Muriel were silent partners in the deal to buy the station and eventually bought out the other investors. We'll research this. In the meantime we'll refer to Burt as being the station's owner as obviously he was the person on the scene calling the shots.

But in reality, Burt was only half of the mix. It is said that "behind every good man is a good woman" and through most of Burt's 33 years of owning WROV, Muriel was his teammate and partner. She was in many ways "the power behind the throne." Burt had the vision but Muriel had the strong business skills and above all, the access to her family's money and expertise. Her father owned radio stations in Florida and she grew up in the radio business. She was a great systems person and later put in one of the earliest IBM systems to manage the station's accounting and program logs.

But she was seldom seen at the radio station. Both Burt and Muriel felt that having him at the station and her working from home was a good idea and the best arrangement for their family. "We felt it would be a disaster if both of us worked in one place."

ROVer the Bulldog adorned WROV sales brochures and stationery in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Burt later recalled "We bought the radio station in the morning and the Times World corporation bought the UHF equipment in the afternoon. We thought that it would be a matter of six months that there would be two television stations on the air in Roanoke. We subleased to Times World our big studio, until WDBJ Television was able to build their studio at the Times World building."

WDBJ-TV left the Mountain Trust Bank studios for their new ones in the Times World building in 1956. WROV also moved out around the same time. There weren't any live "big studio" shows on the station anymore. Also, the advent of tape recorders made it possible to pre-produce commercials instead of having to rely on the sponsors to do them live on the air. Smaller, less expensive facilities would be adequate and, most importantly, would greatly reduce Burt's overhead during his early years in business.

So the stations moved into the transmitter facility—the quonset hut near the tower on Cleveland Avenue at 15th street. A small studio was set up near the transmitter. And the station began doing lots of remote broadcasts including Jerry Joynes' show from the window of the Heironimus store on Campbell Avenue. Jerry recalls "When we went over there it was just the quonset hut. Then they built this small building right adjacent to it. You went up two steps to get to it. Those were some interesting years."

The new addition was a concrete-flat building that was just uphill from the hut and faced Cleveland Avenue. It was painted white and, being slightly larger than the hut, more than doubled the size of the facility. It contained an office for Burt, a reception area, a production studio and a new control room. The hut continued to house the transmitter, the music library, and the all-important restroom.

Jerry Joynes hosted Club 1240 each afternoon, then returned each night to host Moonlight Serenede.

Another early business decision by Burt was to mothball WROV-FM. Burt saw the FM as a money-loser, sold the equipment and turned in the license. At some point, 103.7 was deallocated for Roanoke by the FCC in favor of the 92.3 frequency. For years, Burt would joke that the sale of the FM equipment was "the biggest sale the FM ever made" but twenty-five years later this decision would come back to haunt WROV. At the time, though, it appeared to be a sound business move and allowed the FM antenna to be removed from the AM tower, which improved the AM signal.

Sometimes in life a unique set of random circumstances coalesce to produce a truly unique phenomenon. This was the case in the late 1950s. Television was killing radio in the ratings, yet most shows appealed to older Americans who could afford TV sets. A new form of music called "rock and roll" was becoming popular, due to the likes of Chuck Berry, Bill Haley and Pat Boone with Elvis just around the corner. The post-war baby boom made young people the largest segment of the population, yet they were largely ignored by the mainstream media.

Burt recalled: "It was that period (1955-1958) when you got the transition of the radio networks. TV was breaking out all over. They were moving the top talent on radio—the Jack Benny's, all the mystery shows, the comedy shows—everything that was on national radio was moving over to TV. We saw that local advertisers could replace the national advertisers for whole programs. We came in at a time when we saw the transition (toward) local radio celebrities over national because the national radio celebrities were turning their attention to TV."

Roanoke City buses carried WROV advertisements in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

So Burt's idea "to start from scratch and make radio exciting with local personalities to take the place of national personalities" and target young people by playing the new "rock and roll" music was ingenius. This strategy would eventually lead to WROV—which was smaller than their competition in terms of transmitting power and financial resources—becoming dominant in the market by outsmarting and outworking them.

But this transformation didn't happen overnight. The change from the WROV that Burt purchased to what the station was to become took several years and in the meantime, the station retained some of its "old time radio" roots. Though all the live country shows were gone from the schedule by 1956, the station continued airing many network favorites through the end of the decade.

Three radio dramas ran every morning through 1957. One, When A Girl Marries, was about Joan Field, a daughter in high society who married a struggling lawyer, Harry Davis against her mother's wishes. Another, Whispering Streets, starred Gertrude Warner, Cathy Lewis, Bette Davis and Anne Seymour as hostess-narrators and featured daily stories including "The Boy Who Wanted To Die', "Gold Digging Cowboy", "A Hole In One", and "The Distraught Mother." Another, My True Story, was a radio series which ran on various networks from 1943-1962 that was based upon stories appearing in True Story confession magazine.

Jerry Joynes does his show from Heironimus, Campbell Avenue, 1958. The remote unit was kept in the back of a VW Bus.

WROV also carried syndicated news commentators including Paul Harvey, John Secondari, John Vandercook and John Daly. Secondari later becaue a famous producer of documentaries for ABC. Vandercook had been an NBC newsman but became an ABC employee when the network bought station KQV in Pittsburgh. Daly was host of TV quiz show It's News To Me which featured Walter Cronkite as a panelist. Paul Harvey has been a popular commentator for years and, interestingly, returned to WROV in 1981 when the station sought an older, more mature audience.

Every morning at nine, WROV carried the immensely popular show Don McNeil's Breakfast Club. Don McNeil was from Illinois, grew up in Wisconsin and was ABC's answer to Arthur Godfrey. Listeners laughed at and with him, sang and prayed with him. The show combined sentiment with human interest, music, song, and prayer. Among the most popular features were Don's "calls to breakfast" which were every-15-minutes-wake-up-calls where Don had the audience march around the table. Many thought McNeill was corny but he didn't care. He had a special ability to talk to anyone, from foreign heads of state to humble day laborers.

WROV continued to carry "Breakfast Club" until early 1960. WROV aired another popular syndicated show at night, Bill Stern Sports. Stern was best-known as the host of The Colgate Sports Newsreel. On his fifteen-minute shows he told tales of sports legends and strange occurrences which kept listeners eagerly waiting for the climax. Although some of his reports stretched the limits of credibility, no one doubted that he was a master storyteller who used emphasis, repetition, and pauses to perfection.

Tennis Court Dancing

Locally, Jerry worked the afternoon shift and mostly played "pop" records of Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, and Peggy Lee. During the late 1950s his show was called "Club 1240" and was usually brought to you by "Budweiser, the king of beers." Jerry recalls "Frank Bova, who had Bova Distributing Company, they distributed Budweiser, he had his own rating system.

"He'd go out and look alongside the road and count the empty beer bottles. And right after I started there must have been an upswing in the number of Budweiser bottles, because he thought I was doing a great job. If I'd had any idea that was going on I could have gone out and thrown out a few myself! But I didn't know that until years later."

For a while, Jerry also did the 9pm - midnight slot, as well as Salem Rebels baseball games. This often meant Jerry had to be in two places at the same time. ""I did Salem Rebels baseball. Now you talk about working, we only did the home games. I did 3 to 6pm and 9 to 12 midnight on the air, so I'd tape one hour of my night show, do 3-6, then go do the baseball game and the 6-9 guy would play back the hour on the air to give me time to get back to the radio station to pick up where the tape ran out and finish my night show."

Gary Cooper, Roanoke's first all-night DJ, did the Night Owl show on WROV in the late 1950s.

His night show was called "Moonlight Serenede" and consisted of easy big band music. Glenn Miller's hit was the theme song. Says Jerry "I did my opening over that. It was over the intro then it would come up and they'd sing 'Moonlight Serenede' and I'd go into the first song. I was probably the last guy who ever did a radio show with piano music playing underneath my voice!"

Gary Cooper, Roanoke's first all-night disk jockey, began working overnights when WROV went 24-hours in 1956. At the time, it was a really big deal for Roanoke to get its first 24-hour radio station. Gary was swamped with phone calls, primarily from the many people working the graveyard shift at the N&W Railroad at the time. For a while he called his all-night show "Gary's Party Time." He eventually became a mainstay at WRIS radio, where he worked well into the 1990s.

Barbara Felton began working at the station as the traffic director and host of the show "Woman's World." She had a low voice for a woman and is said to have really not liked having listeners call the station and mistake her for a male. Ones who called her "sir" heard her yell "MA'AM!!!" as she slammed down the phone. Barbara was married to a local businessman who, according to Jerry Joynes, "owned Felton Rugs or Felton Furniture... something like that."

Ken Tanner poses with orchestra leader Paul Whiteman in the Quonset Hut, 1958. Paul is the man who discovered singer Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby.

During the late 1950s, Ken Tanner was host of the long-running WROV morning show "Yawn Patrol" and Lee Davis hosted the midday program. By 1959 Ken did the midday show. Ken, along with WDBJ's Bill Spahr and WBLU's Dick Moran are remembered for "Tennis Court Dancing," a series of summer hops held at varios Roanoke and Salem tennis courts. Typically, Ken hosted Friday night dances at Roanoke's Fishburn Park.

Jim Gearhart grew up in Vinton where his dad was a town councilman. Jim majored in Literature at Roanoke College and originally wanted to be a teacher. However, when looking for a summer job one year, he auditioned for a role in a local outdoor drama called Thy Kingdom Come. Jim won the part of "Chief Villain, the Roman Centurion."

One night, as the story goes, Burt was in the audience, heard Jim and offered him a job at WROV. At 5 A.M. the following Monday, Jim began his broadcasting career, but didn't have much experience with the equipment. So, in trouper style, Jim talked for several hours until help arrived. Hoarse but enthralled, he fell in love with the microphone. And it was that ad-lib morning gabfest which set the tone of his style and approach as he has kept to this day - his belief that the spoken word is more important the musical note. Jim currently does a talk show on a station in New Jersey.

Vinton's Jim Gearhart did the early afternoon show in 1958.

But the original Roanoke radio superstar was a man named Jackson Allyn, who went by the name of Jivin' Jackson. He had a rough sounding voice like Wolfman Jack and was inspired by WRIS personality Herm Reavis and his "Squirm with Herm" club, also Hoss Allen of Nashville's "15 WLAC"—who many Roanokers listened to at night for rhythm and blues music. Jackson played "r & b" records and jazz and was an authority on the subject, counting among his friends many black stars such as Lloyd Price and Little Richard.

Jackson began his show with "'You're listening to Jivin' Jackson, the square bear from way out in nowhere, the Ding-Dong Daddy from Bonsack, with the cool sound in and around Roanoke town, for all you cats and chicks, guys and dolls, and true lovers, too. Remember, ain't nothing shaking but the leaves on the trees and they wouldn't be shaking if it wasn't for the breeze. Ain't nothing jumping but the beans in the pot and they wouldn't be jumping if the water wasn't hot!"

Before long, Jivin' Jackson was one of the most popular disc jockeys in town. And this came as no surprise to Burt, who saw that this was the beginning of an era. As Burt put it, "Us older folks wanted to be young and the younger folks WERE young." Burt recalled "TV was only on at night. During the day, radio was the primary medium. But at night, we had to start developing a new audience. The new audience was teens. So we put Jackson on" in late 1955. In 1956 we were No. 1 at night. In 1957 we were No.1 from the afternoon drive up through midnight, and four or five years later we were No. 1 at all times."

Jivin' Jackson plays records at a 1956 hop.

Ken Tanner recalls a funny story involving Jivin' Jackson, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey. Tommy and Jimmy were preparing for a concert at the old American Legion auditorium in Roanoke which had a six-channel audio board. "Tommy insisted on having six microphones for his orchestra and one for him" says Ken, "but with a six-channel board this wasn't possible. Tommy was upset and basically refused to play unless the additional microphone was added.

"About that time, Jivin' Jackson said 'Let me handle this' and mounted a mic on a stand, then ran the cord off into a dark corner and hid the end of it underneath a board. He then brought the mic out, told Tommy the problem was solved, Tommy placed it where he wanted it, said it sounded great, and the show went on. Afterward, they let Jimmy in on the secret. Jimmy said 'Well, that about figures. Tommy always was a dumbass!'"

Jivin' Jackson eventually left WROV and ended up working for rival WSLS radio, where he broadcasted live from the DJ booth atop the Apperson Drive Lendy's , who continued to sponsor Jerry on WROV. But Jerry never worked in the Lendy's booth (though some people think they remember him there). "I was never in the booth. They were my sponsor at night for about a year...Budweiser and—what was it then—Shoney's. And I was there but I was just downstairs. What happened there was Jack left about the time we were putting in the chimes and the format.

"Jack had throat cancer, I think it was, and he was out for about six months. I think Burt paid for his medical bills. And he came back and did the all night show but that didn't work out for him so he left for WSLS. And SLS is who put the booth up there." Jivin' Jackson stayed at WSLS until he took a job working for Colonel Sanders in Kentucky, a job he came by—no doubt—through his Lendy's connections.