Prosperous Garrulity

When television put the big whammy on radio, most radio stations took to rock 'n' roll and platter chatter to survive. Not Manhattan's WOR, which was 40 years old last week. Now more prosperous than ever, WOR has a simple and astonishing formula. On the air for 24 hours every day, it devotes 20 hours and 30 minutes of that time to talk. Some good, some bad, some indifferent. But talk.

The first 15 minutes of every hour between 6 a.m. and 11 p.m. are news; the remaining 45-minute segments are presided over by compulsive and often personable conversationalists.

Poisons Out. The day begins with John A. Gambling, who can out folksy all his competitors in handing out homey chatter on gardening and pets, giving advisories on schools closed by weather, reading notices of church suppers, rummage sales and ice cream socials. Almost singlevoicedly, Gambling comes as close as anyone can to transforming New York Radioland into a single, small town community. He plays occasional records by genteel orchestras and hearty sing-along groups. When his show goes off the air at 9 a.m., there is no more music on WOR for the next seven hours.

At 9:15 a.m. WOR takes its listeners to a "house on East 68th Street in little old New York," where Dorothy ("Sweetie") Kilgallen and Spouse Richard ("Darling") Kollmar fill the air with papier-mache sophistication, some slightly dated hep talk (Dottie still peppers her sentences with words like cat, bug and dig), and some vicious meows. Dorothy also has an inclination to be hilariously wrong. With authority and certitude, she misplaces geographical landmarks, mispronounces French words, and misnames the heroes of history. WOR listeners tune her in with something of the same impulse that makes crowds gather at a fatal accident. When one correspondent caught her flatfooted in a factual error, she noted his return address and sniffed characteristically: "If he's so smart, what's he still doing in Perth Amboy, New Jersey?" Says one regular: "I listen to Dorothy and Dick every morning just to get the poisons out of my system."

Inspired Kinghead. Martha Deane comes on at 10:15 a.m. to present an urbane interview with a top political figure, an author, a theatrical personality or a world traveler. "Martha Deane" has been the nom de microphone of several ladies. Mary Margaret McBride first used it more than 20 years ago. The current, excellent incumbent is Marian Young Taylor, one of radio's rare interviewers who read books before confronting their authors and see plays before discussing them.

In the evening, WOR gets farther out. At 11:15 Jean Shepherd comes on, a brilliant and undisciplined night sprite. A sort of oral abstract expressionist, Shepherd begins to talk, gains speed, and skims along by free association. He remembers his Indiana boyhood with a command of imagery so precise that he can spin into the air everything from the smell of an old-fashioned icebox to the guilty excitement of an adolescent boy looking through a stack of Breezy Story Magazines down in a corner of the cellar. When he begins to run out of breath, jazz comes on softly behind his voice, and he continues, accelerating maniacally, until the jazz drowns his voice altogether. The jazz ends abruptly. Shepherd begins again. He is the inspired kinghead of a minor and secret sect.

Cleared Throat. At midnight comes one of radio's strangest and longest shows. Long John Nebel is on until 5 a.m. with a herd of beat and offbeat guests--flying-saucer spotters, clairvoyants, steam-locomotive buffs, all single-mindedly devoted to their own idiosyncrasies. Nebel greets the dawn undaunted by the knowledge that his audience of loyal fans consists mainly of insomniacs, night-blooming necromancers, and hash slingers in all-night diners. After Long John, the station clears its throat with a half-hour of music called Sunrise Serenade before John A. Gambling begins another garrulous day.

"About six years ago we discovered that kids were listening to radio and adults were being driven away," says WOR's 36-year-old General Manager Robert Leder. As advertisers have discovered, WOR's adult listeners have more money to spend than the kids who walk around with transistors clipped to their ears, listening to the local version of their rival rock-'n'-roll competitors.

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