After dinner, many of us turn on the television. Cable TV today carries more than 200 channels, but when I was young, in the 1950s, there were just four channels and all were in black and white.
My mother often told us how good we had it then. When she was young, in the 1920s and ‘30s, her family sat around the radio. It brought the world closer to her, she said.
Regular commercial radio broadcasting began in 1920 in the United States. It came to Hawaii less than two years later. The day was May 11, 1922, and the station was KGU.
Calling itself the "Voice of Hawaii," radio station KGU went on the air 90 years ago today. It beat out KDYX by a scant 15 minutes. "Hello, hello," said the announcer at 10:57 a.m., then "Ave Maria" was played by the renowned violinist Kathleen Parlow.
KDYX (which became KGMB and is now KSSK) went on the air with an "aloha" at 11:12 a.m. It was sponsored by the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. There were 25 radio receivers on Oahu at the time.
The next day, The Honolulu Advertiser reported "the first successful radio broadcasting concert given by any newspaper in Hawaii was broadcast from the powerful radio station on the roof of the Advertiser building between 7:30 and 9 p.m. last night."
Marion Mulrony, a friend of Alexander Graham Bell, got the first license for a radio station in Hawaii. The 33-year old partnered with the Thurstons of The Honolulu Advertiser to launch KGU.
In the early days, call letters were assigned by the Department of Commerce and had no meaning. Three-letter calls were assigned until 1922 when they ran out. Four-letter calls then began to be issued.
In the late 1920s, stations began requesting call letters that had meaning to them. Today, KGU is one of the only radio stations in Hawaii whose call sign has no meaning.
Although it was powered by only 2,500 watts, KGU was often heard by listeners on the mainland because the airwaves were empty. A KGU Listeners Club developed there.
Actually, Hawaii could often receive mainland broadcasts. When the first ratings were compiled in 1940, three stations shared the honors. This was a bit surprising since there were only two stations on Oahu: KGU and KGMB. The third station was WLW in Ohio, which operated with 500,000 watts.
Back then, radio was primitive by today’s standards. Stations often signed on and off several times during the day. If it had no sponsor, KGU would often just go off the air.
Capt. Ed Musick and navigator Fred Noonan used KGU’s signal in 1935 as a homing beacon during their survey flights of the Pacific for Pan American World Airways. During World War II, Japanese pilots used the station’s signal to lead them to Pearl Harbor.
KGU’s Harry B. Soria Sr. was the first DEEJAY in Hawaii in the 1930s, before the term was used, "He had a show called ‘Going to Town with Harry Soria,’" says son Harry Soria Jr. "He was the first to have his name on a show here."
Despite being Hawaii’s first radio personality, Soria needed to keep his day job at Von Hamm-Young. Radio paid him only 50 cents an hour.
The term "disc jockey" may have been coined by radio commentator Walter Winchell in 1935. It first appeared in print in a 1941 Variety magazine article. It referred to someone who skillfully maneuvered records live on the radio. Before this, most music heard on the radio was from a live, in-house orchestra.
The jockey controlled the loudness by "riding the gain" dial on the control panel. Others say later DEEJAYS "rode" records to success by frequently playing them.
"Paul Wilcox, Leslie Wilcox’s dad, was the first to have the term ‘disc jockey’ applied to him in Hawaii," Harry Soria Jr. says.
"My dad came to Hawaii around 1941," says Leslie Wilcox, president and CEO of PBS Hawaii. "He had a radio show called ‘Midnight Owl,’ but it didn’t pay very well. His real job was selling commercials. My siblings and I called him ‘Father Time’ because he sold time on the radio."
KGU and KGMB were the only commercial broadcast stations on Oahu until after World War II. Within a few months of the war’s end, KHON, KPOA and KULA came on the air using surplus military radio equipment bought for pennies on the dollar.
KHON called itself Radio Honolulu in those days. In 1959, KHON radio became KPOI at 1380 AM.
The radio market is competitive and stations often change formats. Today, KGU (760 AM) is a business talk station and owned by Salem Communications.
Bob Sigall, author of the "Companies We Keep" books, looks through his collection of old photos to tell stories each Friday of Hawaii people, places and companies. Email him at Sigall@Yahoo.com.
