What a great evening, hell; even Jerry Jones flew in for it.My date for the affair was the beautiful, Lorenda Rae who is pictured with Ron above. Not only, as you can see, is Lorenda beautiful, but she’s also a very talented on-air person at one of the Christian Radio groups.
Anyway, the next morning, when we were all having breakfast together, Ron turned to Lorenda and said, “Not only are you beautiful, you’re also very smart.” “How would you know that, queried Lorenda?” Ron replied, “Well, while two legends were chatting, you were smart enough not to interrupt.”
“Yes, sir,” replied the GM, who immediately went out and bought a bigger house. I wonder if KVIL’s GM downsized? I’ll have to check with Bob Cooper; he’d know.
KZST has been a client of mine for well over 35 years. (I’m not bragging, but I guess I am, the new ratings just came out, and KZST is #1 in every demographic.) Anyway, luckily, Brent adored Ron because when I started the tape, about 10 seconds in, Ron yelled, “THIS IS UNFUCKING ACCEPTABLE,” and the tape session went down from there.
Oh, here’s something I can’t understand. Gary Donohue told me that he’d once done an analysis of the DFW market and discovered that Ron was not only the P1 leader but also the P2 and P3 leader. According to Gary, this had never occurred before in any market.
So my question is, how can Ron do something that has never been done before, be inducted into three radio halls of fame, the Texas Hall of Fame, the NAB Hall of Fame, and the National Hall of Fame and yet never win a radio award? I guess he was too busy getting ratings and didn’t have time to suck up to all the trades.
Ron’s ratings were enormous, but if you ever broke out just the females, you couldn’t count that high; they adored him. So I once asked him how he resisted all those beauties, and he replied, “As they walk towards me, I say to myself, is she worth paying all her Visa bills? The only one that’s passed that test so far is my wife, Nance.
On Twitter @GeoOfTheRadio. Sharing and commenting are encouraged and appreciated.
Dave Charles: Ron Chapman left a huge creative RADIO footprint in our heads and hearts.
I got into the radio business because of talents like this. I never measured up on air but I tried my hardest to improve my engagement.
Thanks for the memories Radio George.
Geo: I have a ton of ’em, Dave.
Having left DFW to launch my first ownership experience in Coastal Northwest Michigan, (106 KHQ) I committed to doing my own morning show in that highly competitive 23 station regional market. I had studied Ron and KVIL while a young exec for TM Productions & Programming in Dallas and through “K-Vill” heard what I came to call “cinematic radio.”
Once back in Michigan on the KHQ morning show (which went from zero to #1 in the first Nielsen (Arbitron) I decided to call Ron on my show; he said “Tim, can you wait 5 minutes? I want to simulcast this on my show!”
So there we were, Ron and I talking about our shows and stations!
A few years ago while on an NAB planning board, I was asked if I cared to nominate someone for the Hall: “Ron Chapman!” I said. “The most remarkable talent I’d ever known!”
XREY: Let me just speak for Ron for a moment and express that the term “Kay-Vil” was *** N E V E R EVER EVER EVER *** used on the air on103.7fm / 1150am (or in the halls if you knew what was good for your career) after December 25, 1969, when the Hanna/Francis/Chapman era began.
“Kay-Vil” was equivalent to the “n-word” to Ron, which represented the late ’60s “David & Goliath” era when the nifty 1150 was a very bad top 40 loser.
Please remember our meteoric rise and great decades as K-V-I-L.
Geo: Well said Xrey but at corporate if we used call letters at all when referring to one of our stations, we only used the last three letters. RMF, VBF, KOX, JNO, etc.
However, when we were talking about WIBC it was Big Mama, WNAP The Buzzard, WIBG was Wibbage, and just like blacks use the “n-word” all the time, we always called KVIL, Kay Ville and she was a fine girl.