Origins

     A number of radio pioneers played records over the air in the medium's experimental days-Lee de Forest on several occasions, Reginald Fessenden, "Doc" Herrold in San Jose, and Westinghouse engineer Frank Conrad-in the years before World War I. So did many other known or nameless announcers (at the medium's inception, announcers were allowed to use only their initials on the air) at numerous stations during the 1920s and 1930s, though playing records over the air was frowned upon as a poor use of a scarce medium. Musicians' unions and record manufacturers also encouraged the use of live rather than "canned" music. Years later, stations located along the Mexican border aimed their formats of country music and conservative Christian programs toward American listeners; these programs were hosted by people with warm voices who seemed like comfortable neighbors and were soon widely popular.

     The decline of network radio; beginning in the late 1940s, paved the way for the rise of the DJ. For now stations were forced to be free agents, not mere local conduits of national programs. Having to fend for themselves, stations turned to the easiest and least expensive way of filling time-playing recorded music.

     1930 saw the introduction of one of the first "musical clock" programs (playing a set format of musical types, time notices, advertisements and news within a one-hour period), on KYW in Chicago, hosted by Ms. Halloween Martin. Certainly one of the earliest DJs and one of the first women in such a role, Martin intermixed recorded music with regular time cues and other chatter. The two-hour program moved to WBBM in 1934 when KYW relocated to Philadelphia. There it lasted for a decade, then enjoyed two more years on WCFL. The "musical clock" format remained a radio mainstay well into the 1950s.

     Often cited as the first real "disc jockey," Martin Block first hosted New York station WNEW's Make-Believe Ballroom in 19 35. Using a format borrowed from stations on the Pacific Coast, the program was hugely successful, entering syndication in 1940 (by 1946 it was carried on some 30 stations, making Block the most highly paid radio performer for a brief time). Another New York innovation, WNEW's listener-request­ based Milkman's Matinee gained success as an overnight/early morning program hosted by Stan Shaw.

     The term "disc jockey" seems to have come into use about 1940; it had its basis in such earlier terms as music jockey or record jockey. The "jockey" part may have been based on "riding" a record to fame (or riding gain on an individual record).

     Several historians point to March 1946 and Al Jarvis at Los Angeles station KLAC as being "the first all disc-jockey station with identifiable personalities" (see Passman, 1971). Gene Norman, Dick Haynes, Alex Cooper, and Bob McLaughlin led the Los Angeles market's radio ratings into the 1950s. One popular feature was a daily evening "top 10" countdown program. With the KLAC model, the role of the DJ, as opposed to the earlier announcer, became clearer. The DJ combined the playing of music with chatter and intense station and record promotion. The DJ was also pushing his personality, not merely announcing what was being aired.

     As other stations added DJs to their rosters, a National Association of Disc Jockeys, based in New York, was formed in the late 1940s. The need to cut back on station costs helped promote still wider use of DJs to perform some of their own technical work (some had broadcast engineer licenses) as well as to talk around the music, thus creating the "combo" role.

     But external factors were also increasing the DJ's impor­tance. The development of the 45 rpm record, soon used for pop singles, and the expansion of the market for portable radios, sharply increased the number of young people who listened to radio. This audience grew even faster after 1954 with the introduction of the first transistor radios and the proliferation of car radios. Thanks to these trends, by the 1950s DJs had become central to the popular music record industry­ with both good (increased record sales) and bad (a bribery scandal in the late 1950s) results.

Rise of Top-40 DJ

     The "golden age" of radio DJs came with the inception of Top- 40 radio in the mid-195os. Todd Storz (at KOWH in Omaha and WTIX in New Orleans) in 1953, and Gordon Mclendon (at KLIF in Dallas) paved the way for countless others. They created a formula of tight formats, constant repeating of top popular songs, and flamboyant DJs. The DJs generated listener interest through promotional stunts (flag-pole sitting, treasure hunts) local events (record hops, remote broadcasts), extensive advertising, and other audience-building events. DJs also ​​code of ethics to show listeners that the business was trying to regulate itself.

     In 1965 "Boss Radio" was introduced on KHJ in Los Angeles by Bill Drake and Gene Chenault. This newest twist to Top 40 involved "bigger" everything: huge contests and promotions, greatest events, hottest playlists (super-targeted and narrowed), and the coolest DJs (Ron Jacobs, Robert W. Morgan, The Real Don Steele), who always said just the "right" thing to enhance their larger-than-life images. After its success in Los Angeles, Drake and Chenault implemented the "Boss" approach at other RKO General stations around the country and influenced the sound of Top-40 radio personalities from then on.

Format and DJ Variety

     A major change in the presentation style of contemporary music radio DJs occurred in 1966 with the introduction at KMPX-FM in San Francisco of commercial Underground Radio. A year later, Tom ("Big Daddy") Donahue, after tuning in the eclectic programming of all night radio deejay Larry Miller on the little known KMPX, decided to execute his plan for commercial underground radio at that same station. He is regarded by many as the father of that format. Deejays at FM stations employing this sound (characterized by long album cuts and counterculture ruminations) assumed personas that were in stark contrast to their rock 'n' roll AM radio counterparts. Underground DJs did not scream and shout at their listeners; rather, they spoke softly and conveyed a "naturalness" uncommon for programming targeted at the under thirty-year­ old listeners. Furthermore, the format made room for more female DJs, something in rare supply on the airwaves up to this time. Underground radio was ultimately co-opted in the early 1970s by the corporations that owned them. Management imposed tighter format criteria and sought to eliminate the rambling, sometimes incoherent, monologues and diatribes for which DJs using this format were famous.

     Meanwhile, Beautiful Music stations-initially AM and ultimately FM stereo (mostly automated) outlets-fostered the "deep" voice announcer style that was felt to resonate with their mostly lush instrumental music playlists and mature and temperate image. As with other formats of the period, but especially this format, women announcers were unwelcome as their voices were perceived as too high. In the 1970s and later, when the format adjusted its image (renaming itself Easy Listening) to appeal to a more youthful audience, styles of announcing became less voice-centric and stilted and somewhat more natural and conversational.

     At the same time, the hyper-specialization that occurred in radio programming in the 1970s and 1980s inspired a number of variations in DJ styles. Foremost among them was the bra­ zen, the bold, and the brash as exemplified by the on-air performances of morning DJs throughout the country who emulated the scatological rants of Don Imus and Howard Stern and who worked to create zany "zoo"-like atmospheres, high on talk and offering less music-a format highly popular with some audiences.

Decline

     Many once-popular DJs, such as Dick Biondi, are now heard on "golden oldie" stations playing the same music for the same listeners-both now decades older. Because of the migration of music programming to the FM band in the 1980s, talk became the standard fare at most AM stations and in many ways its savior. Despite the harsh criticism leveled against right-wing broadcasters such as Rush Limbaugh and G. Gordon Liddy, such figures are in great part responsible for AM's continued survival. But these are, of course, political commentators rather than true DJs.

     By 2000 many industry observers sensed a growing dearth of future opportunities for DJs in radio. This was the result of many factors, chief among them being the greater use of satellite syndication (and thus a need to separately program each local market), ever-tighter playlist standardization, music format fragmentation, and ownership consolidation with its usual resulting lay-offs of personnel. The increasing presence of "voice tracking" and "cyber jocking" (the use of a few DJs in many different markets thanks to pre-recording and re-use) is, among other things, killing off the role of smaller markets as radio training grounds for a new generation of DJs.

     All of this has led to more of a coast-to-coast sameness in what remains of radio's DJ sound-what might be termed the "malling" (or mauling) of assembly-line radio. Indeed for many formats, including those of classical or jazz music, people can more readily listen to CDs or tapes (or, increasingly, the internet) for all the luck they are likely to have in finding their favorite music on the air. And this lack of offering special and interesting radio personalities, combined with insufficient musical variety, may prove fatal determinants of radio's future as a venue for music.

     So the story of the radio DJ may have come full circle­ from invention in the late 1930s and early 1940s, to the glory days of the 1950s and 1960s high personality DJ, to a slow decline in the decades since then, to the "plain vanilla" sound of much of music radio today. Radio is once again the home for a more amorphous radio voice, not unlike those early (and unknown) announcers.