October 14, 2025 • 34 mins
Radio IDs, something few of us (me included) think of but have all experienced and cherished. They are those fun zingers, prompting a new radio show or DJ. They change for the holidays and for topical reference. They are the sounds of our past, present, and future, and the focus of this episode.
Twenty Thousand Hertz hired me to produce an episode on Radio IDs and now I’m sharing its ENCORE. Thank you to Twenty Thousand Hertz, Dallas Taylor, and Casey Emmerling for letting me run this ENCORE and for hiring me to produce it in the first place.
The original episode can be found here.
Let’s make this world of sound more intriguing, more unique, and more on brand.
—
For more on sound in marketing, sign up for the Sound In Marketing Newsletter http://eepurl.com/gDxl6b.
Want your very own Make Sound On Purpose mug? You can find it here.
For further inquiries, email Jeanna at mailto:jeanna@dreamrproductions.com
The Sound In Marketing Podcast is produced by Dreamr Productions and hosted, written, and edited by Jeanna Isham. It is available on all the major podcast channels here https://pod.link/1467112373.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeannaisham/
https://twitter.com/Jeanna_Isham
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Welcome to the Sound in Marketing podcast.
The Sound and Marketing Podcastexplores and defines
sound on purpose,in marketing and in advertising.
I'm your host Jeanna Isham, ownerand founder of Dreamr Productions
and Sound in Marketing Learning.
I create, consult and educate brandson the power of sound in marketing.
As I take a pause between seasons,
(00:28):
I have one more podcastencore episode to share.
This one is from my favorite podcast,20,000Hz,
which I just so happened to producefor from time to time.
Radio IDs.
Not a word I really knew,but certainly something I'd heard.
You know those fun little zingersbetween radio programs?
Here's one from my memories (WKRP theme song)
(00:50):
WKRP in Cincinnati,a similar idea to the NBC chimes. (NBC sonic logo)
But I'll keep this brief
as we godeep into the details in the episode.
So enjoy this trip down memory lane.
I present to you Radio Station Jingles.
80 Years of Earworms.
(01:12):
You're listening to 20,000Hz.
I'm Dallas Taylor.
I spent a lot of my formative yearslistening to the radio.
And while today's streamingapps are really convenient,
I do find myself missingthose over-the-top super epic radio ads.
Power 96.1
(01:32):
Power. Power.
Power 96.1
Cool oldies for Your work day.
Cool 105
How many we Love
our country.
(01:53):
Country 94 point 5 KFK.
S number one hit music Station.
102.7
Kiss FM.
Chicago's 97 nine.
FM
(02:19):
Radio IDs
are essentially sonic signaturesfor radio stations.
That's producer and sound strategistJeanna Isham,
who's also the host of the SoundIn Marketing podcast.
Just like music itself, IDjingles have evolved over the decades.
Each one is a cultural and historicalsnapshot of the time and place
it was created,and the origin of these little melodies
(02:42):
goes all the way back to the early 1900s.
When radio was first invented.
It was basically telegraph signals,and it was mostly used for ships
at sea to be able to communicatewith stations on land.
(03:04):
That's Jonathan Wolffert
who has over 50 years of experiencemaking radio IDs.
And when you're using Morse code,you want your message to be as concise
as possible.
So rather than taking the timeto spell out
the name of a long ship,they started using abbreviations.
So these ships would be assigned call
(03:24):
letters.
In 1912, it was decided by all the nations
that the various letters of the alphabetshould be assigned to different countries.
The United States ended up with the W's,
KS, A's and the N’s.
(03:48):
Canada got some of the C's,Mexico got some of the X’s, and so forth.
And then as commercial radio
started taking off, they appliedthis same system to radio stations.
The Department of Commerce decidedthat the radio stations
to the east of the Mississippi River
(04:09):
would be licensed with W call letters.
They're broadcasting over WAAM,
and this comes to directfrom the Edison studios.
And the stations to the west ofthe Mississippi would have K call letters.
This is KGEI
General Electric Station,
(04:29):
San Francisco, California.
But soon enough, they ran into a problem.
Radio grew very quickly
starting in the 1920s,
and before longthere were hundreds of different stations
and it was hard for people to really knowwhat station they were listening to.
(04:52):
These stations realized
that simply stating their namejust wasn't memorable enough.
It became advantageous to do some catchy
musical jingle thing,to get the attention of the audience
and have somethingthat's a little more identifiable.
One of
the first stations to adopt a jingleID was New York's WJZ in the early 40s.
(05:17):
Now, backthen, due to limits in technology,
almost everything you heard onthe radio was live.
That was the era where stations had livebands and live performers and live shows.
But at nighttime, WJZ started playingprerecorded music
which made them ahead of their time.
And since the deejays were off the clock,they'd occasionally drop in jingles
(05:39):
like this to remind listenerswhat they were hearing all night long.
We bring you a song, a night, a melody
from WJZ
There's a smile Upon Your Dial at 717
WJZ
(06:00):
This was right around the timethat the U.S.
entered World War Two.
There were a lot of night shift workers
because all of the plantsand factories were going around the clock.
And you can hear that
reflected in one of these jinglesthat WJZ ran
in the middle of the nightto salute those night shift workers.
(06:22):
24 hours a day.
Are working hours for the USA
We dedicate this song to you who
Work the whole night long.
It's kind of haunting and scaryall at the same time.
(06:45):
The access is listening
Sssh, don’t talk
Certainly very differentfrom what you hear today on the radio
in the way of jingles WJZ, New York.
But it wasn't until after the war
(07:06):
that these jingles really took off.
The real history of the radiojingle business
began in Dallas in 1947,
when a guy named Gordon McLendonput on a radio station
with the name KLIF.
(07:27):
At some point, they decided
that they should use the talentthat was there, doing these live shows
to sing a little commercialfor the sponsors of the show.
You better get wild through the green mile darling.
(07:48):
You'll find ayou have a tough time, Charlie. Keeping
all those cows away
If you look at me all day.It gave them the idea that, well, maybe
they should record a little commercialfor the station itself.
And so they started making jinglesfor KLIF.
(08:11):
This came from K- KL-
KLI
KLIM
KLIM 790 on your dial.
These jingles gave the stationa fun and memorable sonic identity,
and they were also useful for programingeven during the live shows.
(08:36):
If they had to switchfrom one studio to another,
or if one show ended a little earlyor something and they needed something
to fill up the time, they could always goto one of these prerecorded jingles
and by themselves, 30s or a minute.
It's wonderful.
Summer radio KLIF
(08:58):
in Dallas.
One of the jingle makers at KLIFwas a man named Bill Meeks.
After a few years.
Bill Meeks thought,you know, maybe there's a business here.
Maybethere are other radio stations around
who do not have accessto these live performers.
(09:22):
And so he left.
And in August of 1951,he started his company, PAMS.
PAMS stands for productionadvertising merchandizing service.
Here's one of their early jingles.
Disc jockeys. Weather reports.
Time and music. The first in sports.
Make sure your dial is always set at KTRN
(09:44):
at KTRN
Bill Meeks wasn'tthe only one who wanted to take advantage
of the musical talent in Dallas.
Rival companiesformed, and soon Dallas became the radio
jingle capital of the world.
In the early years, one trend was to usea device called the Sonavox.
It's a way to make an instrument
(10:06):
or a sound effect of some sortappear to be talking.
The Sonavox was invented in 1939.
It involves two handheld speakersthat you hold up to your throat.
Then you form words with your mouth,which shapes the sound into something
like speech.
In Disney's Dumbo, they used a Sonavoxto make the voice of the train whistle.
(10:27):
All aboard! Let's go!
PAMS really pioneered doing that.
And a couple of examples of whatthat sounds like
are some of the first ones that they did
for KFWB in Los Angeles.
KFWB channel 98
(10:54):
When crafting these jingles, PAMS
was also paying attentionto what the kids were up to in the 50s.
A lot of young couples going out on dateswould try to go find some dark,
secluded place so that they could turn offthe car and snuggle, shall we say.
And that idea wound up in this hilariousjingle.
(11:16):
Let’s Park
Kind of dark and see the view. The view?
I'm watching you. Hold hands. That
fits my plans.
I go for you.
Move toward me and you're through.
I turn on the radio.
Oh, see what we missed.
Who could resist?
I simply love WMPS in the moonlight.
(11:38):
Great 68 WMPS WMPS
great 68.
Awe. That is so 50s that I love it.
As you can hear, John has a lotof nostalgia for these old radio jingles.
You get to hear how things changed
(11:59):
and evolved,not just musically, but lyrically as well.
And it's just kind of fun
to relive those eras in these shortlittle songs like that.
That passion is how Johnfirst found his calling.
I grew up in New York City area.
During the 1960s, there were
two radio stationsthat I heard most of the time.
(12:21):
One of them was WNEW, which my parentsliked to listen to because it played
all the standards, all the Frank SinatraTony Bennett kind of big band music.
There’s only one- W
NEW
(12:43):
I being much younger,wanted to listen to WABC
because it was the top40 rock n roll station
77 WABC
And I noticed these little songs
where somebody was singingabout the radio stations.
(13:06):
77 music
WABC.
Even as a ten year old kid,I said, well, who are those people?
And where did that come from?
And then one fateful day,
I was listening on the Am radio bandto out of town
(13:29):
stations from Buffalo and Clevelandand Chicago and other places.
And I started to hear the same jingles
77 WABC
But with different words,different call letters.
But it was clearly the same jingle 790
(13:50):
WAKO
other WABC versions
other WABC versions
other WABC versions
Channel 91 WBXR
(14:13):
this completely flipped my switch
and was like, well, who's doing this?
And can I possibly
start collecting these thingsjust to compare them and have them?
It turns out these variationsall came back to the radio
jingle juggernaut PAMS,who produced WABC's signature jingles.
At one time,
(14:34):
WABC New York was the most listenedto radio station in North America,
and you would find stationsin every city you went to
that wanted to sound like WABC.
These stations could go to PAMSand commission custom
versions of these hit jingles,but with their unique call letters.
(14:55):
PAMS did that in such a way that stations
all over America copiedwhat WABC was doing.
77 WABC
1360 WSAI.
1520 KOMA
(15:15):
All American KEYN
And it went beyond
just America. During the 60s.
PAMS was unquestionablythe top jingle producer
in the world, and stationseverywhere were using PAMS jingles.
Mexico City, the London Sound
(15:41):
Super musica
el Prima. John wanted to be part
of creating that shared experience.
Most young guys who are interested
in recording or music,they want to work in a studio.
They want to record bands.
(16:02):
And I, on the other hand,wanted to work at this one specific place
because what I wanted to makewas this one specific thing.
These jingles.
Eventually that dream led him to PAMS.
So by perseverance and good fortune,
I was actually able to get a job at PAMS.
(16:23):
And I did that for several years.
And then one thing led to another,and my wife and I decided
to start our own company,which is called Jam Creative Productions.
Jam stands for John and Mary Lynn.
The two of us actually competedwith PAMS for several years.
(16:46):
Jam immediately hit the ground running,and soon enough
they got a call from a familiar station.
After we had been
in business officially less than a year,
we got this call from Wabc,which is the station I grew up with
that got me interestedin all this in the first place.
(17:08):
The guy at Wabc called up
and said, well, we're having troublefinding the kind of jingles that we need.
Would you like to do some stuff for WABC?
And I'm thinking, yeah,I could probably work them in.
You know, this is like the biggest dealever, the full circle
(17:29):
of being the guy who was ten years old,hearing the jingles on that station
and becoming the guymaking the jingles for that station.
So we started doing jinglesfor WABC in 1975.
Music radio and WABC.
And we're still doing jingles for WABC.
(17:51):
You can still hear our stuff on the airthere all these years later.
News talk radio 77 WABC
New York City.
Working at PAMS
and then Jam John was at the forefrontof the changing trends in radio.
(18:14):
Radio got a lot more researched
and scientific, and the result ofthat was that radio stations started
using shorter and shorter jinglesfor example, this is how long it took.
One radio station to introducethe weather forecast in the late 50s
is it going to be cool?.
(18:35):
Is it going to be warm?
Is it gonna be clear
Or stormy
Mr. weatherman,
take the cue and tell uswhat the weather's going to do.
Here's how they introducedweather ten years later.
(18:57):
KFRC weather
As the years went on,they cut them down even further.
They would just havewhat is known as a shotgun
jingle,which is a very fast, frantic drum intro.
And then the call lettersare sung and that's it.
WXLO
Jam even made a shotgun jinglethat used a classic Sonavox effect.
(19:20):
Listen for the robotic effect on thew. WABC.
Then in 1977,Jam started getting a particular request.
At the time, everybody was in a Star Warskind of a frame of mind,
and everythingneeded to have little laser bursts in it.
(19:41):
And so we did a very, very short
jingle with a little laser effecton the front and some brass
and the call letters,and they used it all the time
WABC.
That jingle has been usedby radio stations everywhere.
There are hundreds of versionsof that jingle, and it's just
(20:04):
because it's so functional
WPGC
Radio One
Boste Aruba
But while Jam was adaptingto these changes,
by the mid 70s, PAMS founder,Bill Meeks, was struggling.
(20:25):
He decided that the companyneeded to diversify
because he kind of lost faithin the jingle business, and it just became
a bunch of bad business decisionsthat spelled the end of the original.
PAMS
PAMS suspended operations in 1978.
Then in 1990, Jam bought The PAMSCorporation and all of its copyrights.
(20:49):
So now we are PAMS as well, and we'restill here all these years later.
Since then, Jam has producedthousands more radio IDs for stations
across the U.S.
and around the world.
In 2024,they celebrated their 50th anniversary
with this playful meta jingle.
It's time for celebrationand self-congratulation.
(21:11):
It's a golden year, 50 years ofJam, we’ve sung station after station.
All across the nationand around the world.
50 years of Jam.
Over the years, Jam has inspiredother Jingle Heads
to get in the game themselves.
John Wolfert is probably the reasonI'm in this business,
(21:33):
and wherever popular musicgoes, radio ID jingles are always
close behind.
Z100
New York
That's coming up after the break.
(21:53):
So don't move that dial.
Whatever you do, listen real closeand give it a try.
Start going steady with WDGY
radio ID jingles started in the 1940sand really took off
(22:14):
when companies like PAMSand eventually Jam hit the scene.
Just like pop songs,
these jingles are little timecapsules of the era they were made in.
For instance,you can practically feel the 80s
dripping off these radical jam jingles.
Hip Radio 93
(22:36):
I love the way of
the United Kingdom National radio one.
KHFL, Z100
Hot time in the summer time with hot hits
It's during that decadethat we meet our next radio jingle.
(22:59):
Maestro Eric Huber.
At the time, Ericwas interning at a Seattle radio station,
working on some jingles for them,
and the programmer for that stationwalked in and handed me a CD
with all of JAMS then current
radio jingle offerings.
(Radio jingles)
(23:22):
k h t r.
And it blew my doors off, man.
I mean, as far as the craftsmanship,the musicality,
and just the overall excitement of thepresentation, man, it was a work of art.
And so my hat is off to John Wolfort,because I think he set the bar
for what Radio IDs could be.
And he's obviouslyan incredibly talented guy.
(23:49):
Cut to a
few years later, in the early 90s,Eric and his friend
Steve Thomas want to produce pop songs,but they're having trouble.
Unfortunately,we weren't really able to get traction
on the artist developmentand songwriting side of things.
Meanwhile,the musical landscape is rapidly changing.
This was a really interesting
time for pop music because grungewas crossing over to the mainstream.
(24:11):
Pearl Jam- Oh, I,
I'm still alive
and hip hop musicwas crossing over to the mainstream.
I can vividly remember whereI was the very first time I heard nothing
but a G thing by Doctor Dre, and it'slike this and like that and like this.
To the mic
(24:32):
The rise of these new genresmeant new radio stations,
and since Eric already had some experiencewith radio jingles,
we thought there was an opportunityto do something in this genre
in terms of an id jingle package.
So Eric and Steve formed
a company called Real World Productionsto show off what they could do.
(24:52):
They created a package of jingles for WPGC,
which was a huge hip hopand R&B station in Washington, D.C.
we actually reached outto some of the artists
that we were working with on the R&Bhip hop side of things,
brought them into the studioand recorded this jingle package on spec.
On spec is when you produce somethingbefore any contracts have been signed.
(25:14):
In other words, it's a proof of concept.
We just produced this thing for freeand literally called up Jay Stevens,
who was programing the station and said,hey, we want to do this.
Are you willing to to give it a listen?
Here are a few of the jingles they sent.
As you can hear, they perfectly capturethe sound and vibe of 90s
(25:35):
hip hop and R&B rock.
90’s IDs
90’s IDs
90’s IDS
90’s IDS
(25:59):
90’s IDS
WPGC liked what they heardand Real World was off to the races.
Soon after, they landed a gigwith another station called cube,
and the sound of the stationwas just a little more poppy and upbeat,
so the package shiftedmore in that direction.
(26:23):
CUBE 93
More on
sort of the techno house side of things.
Techno genre for CUBE
Sometimes these jingles were directly
(26:44):
inspired by a particular artistor song ACE of Base sound a like
ACE of Base sound a like
Yeah, that's the ace of base cut
for companies like Eric's.
It's a fine line to walk.
(27:05):
We're also not necessarilywanting to be too derivative
or to be too specific to a particular songor a particular era,
because I don't want to make a jinglethat's going to burn in five minutes,
and then it's like,oh, this is the ace of base cut.
It sounds so dated, you know?
So there's kind of a dancethat we're doing.
Trying to predictwhere the format is heading
(27:27):
and what the sound of the formatwill be in six months or a year,
when Real World makes a package of radiojingles, say for a country station,
they might start with onethat's more rockin 98.5 KYGO
Then they might make a version that'sa little more laid back and nostalgic.
98.5 KYGO
(27:49):
98.5 KYGO
maybe they know that the station'slisteners are fans of the show
Hell on Wheels,which has a stomping down and dirty
sounding theme song.
So they craft a jingle
that evokes that same vibe.
(28:16):
For a weather alert,
they might make somethingwith a bit of a breaking news flair to it.
98.5 KYGO
And for contests and giveaways,they might make something more poppy
and celebratory.
Another winner KYGO
(28:39):
For every single packagethey create, Real World
makes around 50 to80 individual pieces of music.
98.5 KYGO.
And when you broaden it outto different languages and countries,
the stylistic variationsbecome even more pronounced.
(29:01):
La Mega
(German lyrics)
(German lyrics)
Music.
(foreign language)
(29:22):
now, typically the people singing thesejingles are professional studio vocalists,
but there are some exceptions,like the package Real World
made for a sports Station back in 1999.
They wanted a sort of sports chant,
something that could be imaginedas a crowd at an arena getting hyped up.
So I came up with the ideaof using my own voice and stacking it up
(29:46):
about 50 times, and to match the energyof a wild sports fan at a game.
I literally had to drink Red bulland take my shirt off
and get pretty jacked up.
So it was a lot of work.
Sports radio, sports radio.
950 KJRAM
Seattle
It's like it's dripping with masculinity.
(30:12):
On the more
wholesome side of things, Real Worldalso does holiday jingles.
Adult contemporary stations in particular,will typically transition
to 100% Christmas musicholiday music in November and December.
That is often when these stationsare doing their highest billing.
And so for a station like coast,where the Christmas programing
(30:32):
is such a big deal,they really want to sell the idea
that coast is your go tofor Christmas music,
your home, your home for the holidays.
Coast, 103.5
The Christmasprograming is sort of a special time
when you're playing musicfor the sake of nostalgia
(30:54):
that would not show upon the radio station the rest of the year,
and capturing that nostalgia can sometimesmean evoking
a specific holiday staple.
Here'sBobby Helms's classic Jingle Bell Rock,
as it plays,we’ll gradually faded over to a coast ID
called a jingle swing, jingle Bell, jinglebell, jingle bell rock.
(31:14):
The jinglebells swing and, jingle bells ringing.
Goin’ and blowin’
Your home for the holidays.
COST 103.5
(31:38):
In any good piece of sonic branding,nostalgia
is one of the most powerful ingredients,and radio ids are no different.
People associatethese little tunes with different times
in their lives and the different placesthat they've lived.
They stick in our heads for years,and when we hear these melodies again,
those memories come flooding back.
(32:00):
And that's part of whythese jingles are still used
by so many stationsaround the world today.
I think radio station IDjingles are going to continue to be used
as long as there's radio stations,really. Not by every station,
but by some stationsthat really want to make an impact.
(32:21):
And fortunately for those stations,there are still people
like John and Eric who live and breathethese jingles.
I chose to bein the jingle production business
because it combines all of my interests
radio, music, electronics, recording.
I'm having a good time doing itand that's why I'm still here.
(32:44):
I feel so blessed to be able
to ply my craft as a musician, composer,producer in a realm
where creativity is valued and where
that creativity forges an emotional bond.
Through music,we have the ability to create joy
and to create emotional experiencesfor listeners.
(33:05):
And I'd like to think thatin some small way, the world is better off
because we're out here in the studio,you know, cranking out
ID jingles.
(33:27):
20,000Hz
is produced out of the sounddesign studios of Defacto Sound.
Hear more at Defacto sound.com.
This episode was written and producedby Jeanna Isham
and Casey Emmerlingwith help from Grace East.
It was sound designand mixed by Justin Hollis and Jay Dickey.
Thanks to our guests,John Wolfort and Eric Huber.
(33:49):
To learn more about their work,just follow the links in the show notes.
Finally, Jeanna hosts her own podcastabout all things Sonic branding.
It's called Sound In Marketing,and you can listen and follow
right here in your podcast.
Player I'm Dallas Taylor.
Thanks for listening.
I hope you're enjoying the show.
(34:10):
Be sure to subscribe to the SoundIn Marketing monthly newsletter
for episode releases, Sonic branding,resources, news and new swag.
Big thanks to Dallas,Taylor and Casey Emmerling at 20,000Hz
for letting me rerun this, and for callingon me to write some super fun content.
Until next time.
Links to the 20,000Hz episode and podcast,as well as other
(34:32):
links will be provided in the show. Notes.
Let's make this world of soundmore intriguing, more unique, and
more and more on brand.
Welcome to the Sound in Marketing podcast.
The Sound and Marketing Podcastexplores and defines
sound on purpose,in marketing and in advertising.
I'm your host Jeanna Isham, ownerand founder of Dreamr Productions
and Sound in Marketing Learning.
I create, consult and educate brandson the power of sound in marketing.
As I take a pause between seasons,
(00:28):
I have one more podcastencore episode to share.
This one is from my favorite podcast,20,000Hz,
which I just so happened to producefor from time to time.
Radio IDs.
Not a word I really knew,but certainly something I'd heard.
You know those fun little zingersbetween radio programs?
Here's one from my memories (WKRP theme song)
(00:50):
WKRP in Cincinnati,a similar idea to the NBC chimes. (NBC sonic logo)
But I'll keep this brief
as we godeep into the details in the episode.
So enjoy this trip down memory lane.
I present to you Radio Station Jingles.
80 Years of Earworms.
(01:12):
You're listening to 20,000Hz.
I'm Dallas Taylor.
I spent a lot of my formative yearslistening to the radio.
And while today's streamingapps are really convenient,
I do find myself missingthose over-the-top super epic radio ads.
Power 96.1
(01:32):
Power. Power.
Power 96.1
Cool oldies for Your work day.
Cool 105
How many we Love
our country.
(01:53):
Country 94 point 5 KFK.
S number one hit music Station.
102.7
Kiss FM.
Chicago's 97 nine.
FM
(02:19):
Radio IDs
are essentially sonic signaturesfor radio stations.
That's producer and sound strategistJeanna Isham,
who's also the host of the SoundIn Marketing podcast.
Just like music itself, IDjingles have evolved over the decades.
Each one is a cultural and historicalsnapshot of the time and place
it was created,and the origin of these little melodies
(02:42):
goes all the way back to the early 1900s.
When radio was first invented.
It was basically telegraph signals,and it was mostly used for ships
at sea to be able to communicatewith stations on land.
(03:04):
That's Jonathan Wolffert
who has over 50 years of experiencemaking radio IDs.
And when you're using Morse code,you want your message to be as concise
as possible.
So rather than taking the timeto spell out
the name of a long ship,they started using abbreviations.
So these ships would be assigned call
(03:24):
letters.
In 1912, it was decided by all the nations
that the various letters of the alphabetshould be assigned to different countries.
The United States ended up with the W's,
KS, A's and the N’s.
(03:48):
Canada got some of the C's,Mexico got some of the X’s, and so forth.
And then as commercial radio
started taking off, they appliedthis same system to radio stations.
The Department of Commerce decidedthat the radio stations
to the east of the Mississippi River
(04:09):
would be licensed with W call letters.
They're broadcasting over WAAM,
and this comes to directfrom the Edison studios.
And the stations to the west ofthe Mississippi would have K call letters.
This is KGEI
General Electric Station,
(04:29):
San Francisco, California.
But soon enough, they ran into a problem.
Radio grew very quickly
starting in the 1920s,
and before longthere were hundreds of different stations
and it was hard for people to really knowwhat station they were listening to.
(04:52):
These stations realized
that simply stating their namejust wasn't memorable enough.
It became advantageous to do some catchy
musical jingle thing,to get the attention of the audience
and have somethingthat's a little more identifiable.
One of
the first stations to adopt a jingleID was New York's WJZ in the early 40s.
(05:17):
Now, backthen, due to limits in technology,
almost everything you heard onthe radio was live.
That was the era where stations had livebands and live performers and live shows.
But at nighttime, WJZ started playingprerecorded music
which made them ahead of their time.
And since the deejays were off the clock,they'd occasionally drop in jingles
(05:39):
like this to remind listenerswhat they were hearing all night long.
We bring you a song, a night, a melody
from WJZ
There's a smile Upon Your Dial at 717
WJZ
(06:00):
This was right around the timethat the U.S.
entered World War Two.
There were a lot of night shift workers
because all of the plantsand factories were going around the clock.
And you can hear that
reflected in one of these jinglesthat WJZ ran
in the middle of the nightto salute those night shift workers.
(06:22):
24 hours a day.
Are working hours for the USA
We dedicate this song to you who
Work the whole night long.
It's kind of haunting and scaryall at the same time.
(06:45):
The access is listening
Sssh, don’t talk
Certainly very differentfrom what you hear today on the radio
in the way of jingles WJZ, New York.
But it wasn't until after the war
(07:06):
that these jingles really took off.
The real history of the radiojingle business
began in Dallas in 1947,
when a guy named Gordon McLendonput on a radio station
with the name KLIF.
(07:27):
At some point, they decided
that they should use the talentthat was there, doing these live shows
to sing a little commercialfor the sponsors of the show.
You better get wild through the green mile darling.
(07:48):
You'll find ayou have a tough time, Charlie. Keeping
all those cows away
If you look at me all day.It gave them the idea that, well, maybe
they should record a little commercialfor the station itself.
And so they started making jinglesfor KLIF.
(08:11):
This came from K- KL-
KLI
KLIM
KLIM 790 on your dial.
These jingles gave the stationa fun and memorable sonic identity,
and they were also useful for programingeven during the live shows.
(08:36):
If they had to switchfrom one studio to another,
or if one show ended a little earlyor something and they needed something
to fill up the time, they could always goto one of these prerecorded jingles
and by themselves, 30s or a minute.
It's wonderful.
Summer radio KLIF
(08:58):
in Dallas.
One of the jingle makers at KLIFwas a man named Bill Meeks.
After a few years.
Bill Meeks thought,you know, maybe there's a business here.
Maybethere are other radio stations around
who do not have accessto these live performers.
(09:22):
And so he left.
And in August of 1951,he started his company, PAMS.
PAMS stands for productionadvertising merchandizing service.
Here's one of their early jingles.
Disc jockeys. Weather reports.
Time and music. The first in sports.
Make sure your dial is always set at KTRN
(09:44):
at KTRN
Bill Meeks wasn'tthe only one who wanted to take advantage
of the musical talent in Dallas.
Rival companiesformed, and soon Dallas became the radio
jingle capital of the world.
In the early years, one trend was to usea device called the Sonavox.
It's a way to make an instrument
(10:06):
or a sound effect of some sortappear to be talking.
The Sonavox was invented in 1939.
It involves two handheld speakersthat you hold up to your throat.
Then you form words with your mouth,which shapes the sound into something
like speech.
In Disney's Dumbo, they used a Sonavoxto make the voice of the train whistle.
(10:27):
All aboard! Let's go!
PAMS really pioneered doing that.
And a couple of examples of whatthat sounds like
are some of the first ones that they did
for KFWB in Los Angeles.
KFWB channel 98
(10:54):
When crafting these jingles, PAMS
was also paying attentionto what the kids were up to in the 50s.
A lot of young couples going out on dateswould try to go find some dark,
secluded place so that they could turn offthe car and snuggle, shall we say.
And that idea wound up in this hilariousjingle.
(11:16):
Let’s Park
Kind of dark and see the view. The view?
I'm watching you. Hold hands. That
fits my plans.
I go for you.
Move toward me and you're through.
I turn on the radio.
Oh, see what we missed.
Who could resist?
I simply love WMPS in the moonlight.
(11:38):
Great 68 WMPS WMPS
great 68.
Awe. That is so 50s that I love it.
As you can hear, John has a lotof nostalgia for these old radio jingles.
You get to hear how things changed
(11:59):
and evolved,not just musically, but lyrically as well.
And it's just kind of fun
to relive those eras in these shortlittle songs like that.
That passion is how Johnfirst found his calling.
I grew up in New York City area.
During the 1960s, there were
two radio stationsthat I heard most of the time.
(12:21):
One of them was WNEW, which my parentsliked to listen to because it played
all the standards, all the Frank SinatraTony Bennett kind of big band music.
There’s only one- W
NEW
(12:43):
I being much younger,wanted to listen to WABC
because it was the top40 rock n roll station
77 WABC
And I noticed these little songs
where somebody was singingabout the radio stations.
(13:06):
77 music
WABC.
Even as a ten year old kid,I said, well, who are those people?
And where did that come from?
And then one fateful day,
I was listening on the Am radio bandto out of town
(13:29):
stations from Buffalo and Clevelandand Chicago and other places.
And I started to hear the same jingles
77 WABC
But with different words,different call letters.
But it was clearly the same jingle 790
(13:50):
WAKO
other WABC versions
other WABC versions
other WABC versions
Channel 91 WBXR
(14:13):
this completely flipped my switch
and was like, well, who's doing this?
And can I possibly
start collecting these thingsjust to compare them and have them?
It turns out these variationsall came back to the radio
jingle juggernaut PAMS,who produced WABC's signature jingles.
At one time,
(14:34):
WABC New York was the most listenedto radio station in North America,
and you would find stationsin every city you went to
that wanted to sound like WABC.
These stations could go to PAMSand commission custom
versions of these hit jingles,but with their unique call letters.
(14:55):
PAMS did that in such a way that stations
all over America copiedwhat WABC was doing.
77 WABC
1360 WSAI.
1520 KOMA
(15:15):
All American KEYN
And it went beyond
just America. During the 60s.
PAMS was unquestionablythe top jingle producer
in the world, and stationseverywhere were using PAMS jingles.
Mexico City, the London Sound
(15:41):
Super musica
el Prima. John wanted to be part
of creating that shared experience.
Most young guys who are interested
in recording or music,they want to work in a studio.
They want to record bands.
(16:02):
And I, on the other hand,wanted to work at this one specific place
because what I wanted to makewas this one specific thing.
These jingles.
Eventually that dream led him to PAMS.
So by perseverance and good fortune,
I was actually able to get a job at PAMS.
(16:23):
And I did that for several years.
And then one thing led to another,and my wife and I decided
to start our own company,which is called Jam Creative Productions.
Jam stands for John and Mary Lynn.
The two of us actually competedwith PAMS for several years.
(16:46):
Jam immediately hit the ground running,and soon enough
they got a call from a familiar station.
After we had been
in business officially less than a year,
we got this call from Wabc,which is the station I grew up with
that got me interestedin all this in the first place.
(17:08):
The guy at Wabc called up
and said, well, we're having troublefinding the kind of jingles that we need.
Would you like to do some stuff for WABC?
And I'm thinking, yeah,I could probably work them in.
You know, this is like the biggest dealever, the full circle
(17:29):
of being the guy who was ten years old,hearing the jingles on that station
and becoming the guymaking the jingles for that station.
So we started doing jinglesfor WABC in 1975.
Music radio and WABC.
And we're still doing jingles for WABC.
(17:51):
You can still hear our stuff on the airthere all these years later.
News talk radio 77 WABC
New York City.
Working at PAMS
and then Jam John was at the forefrontof the changing trends in radio.
(18:14):
Radio got a lot more researched
and scientific, and the result ofthat was that radio stations started
using shorter and shorter jinglesfor example, this is how long it took.
One radio station to introducethe weather forecast in the late 50s
is it going to be cool?.
(18:35):
Is it going to be warm?
Is it gonna be clear
Or stormy
Mr. weatherman,
take the cue and tell uswhat the weather's going to do.
Here's how they introducedweather ten years later.
(18:57):
KFRC weather
As the years went on,they cut them down even further.
They would just havewhat is known as a shotgun
jingle,which is a very fast, frantic drum intro.
And then the call lettersare sung and that's it.
WXLO
Jam even made a shotgun jinglethat used a classic Sonavox effect.
(19:20):
Listen for the robotic effect on thew. WABC.
Then in 1977,Jam started getting a particular request.
At the time, everybody was in a Star Warskind of a frame of mind,
and everythingneeded to have little laser bursts in it.
(19:41):
And so we did a very, very short
jingle with a little laser effecton the front and some brass
and the call letters,and they used it all the time
WABC.
That jingle has been usedby radio stations everywhere.
There are hundreds of versionsof that jingle, and it's just
(20:04):
because it's so functional
WPGC
Radio One
Boste Aruba
But while Jam was adaptingto these changes,
by the mid 70s, PAMS founder,Bill Meeks, was struggling.
(20:25):
He decided that the companyneeded to diversify
because he kind of lost faithin the jingle business, and it just became
a bunch of bad business decisionsthat spelled the end of the original.
PAMS
PAMS suspended operations in 1978.
Then in 1990, Jam bought The PAMSCorporation and all of its copyrights.
(20:49):
So now we are PAMS as well, and we'restill here all these years later.
Since then, Jam has producedthousands more radio IDs for stations
across the U.S.
and around the world.
In 2024,they celebrated their 50th anniversary
with this playful meta jingle.
It's time for celebrationand self-congratulation.
(21:11):
It's a golden year, 50 years ofJam, we’ve sung station after station.
All across the nationand around the world.
50 years of Jam.
Over the years, Jam has inspiredother Jingle Heads
to get in the game themselves.
John Wolfert is probably the reasonI'm in this business,
(21:33):
and wherever popular musicgoes, radio ID jingles are always
close behind.
Z100
New York
That's coming up after the break.
(21:53):
So don't move that dial.
Whatever you do, listen real closeand give it a try.
Start going steady with WDGY
radio ID jingles started in the 1940sand really took off
(22:14):
when companies like PAMSand eventually Jam hit the scene.
Just like pop songs,
these jingles are little timecapsules of the era they were made in.
For instance,you can practically feel the 80s
dripping off these radical jam jingles.
Hip Radio 93
(22:36):
I love the way of
the United Kingdom National radio one.
KHFL, Z100
Hot time in the summer time with hot hits
It's during that decadethat we meet our next radio jingle.
(22:59):
Maestro Eric Huber.
At the time, Ericwas interning at a Seattle radio station,
working on some jingles for them,
and the programmer for that stationwalked in and handed me a CD
with all of JAMS then current
radio jingle offerings.
(Radio jingles)
(23:22):
k h t r.
And it blew my doors off, man.
I mean, as far as the craftsmanship,the musicality,
and just the overall excitement of thepresentation, man, it was a work of art.
And so my hat is off to John Wolfort,because I think he set the bar
for what Radio IDs could be.
And he's obviouslyan incredibly talented guy.
(23:49):
Cut to a
few years later, in the early 90s,Eric and his friend
Steve Thomas want to produce pop songs,but they're having trouble.
Unfortunately,we weren't really able to get traction
on the artist developmentand songwriting side of things.
Meanwhile,the musical landscape is rapidly changing.
This was a really interesting
time for pop music because grungewas crossing over to the mainstream.
(24:11):
Pearl Jam- Oh, I,
I'm still alive
and hip hop musicwas crossing over to the mainstream.
I can vividly remember whereI was the very first time I heard nothing
but a G thing by Doctor Dre, and it'slike this and like that and like this.
To the mic
(24:32):
The rise of these new genresmeant new radio stations,
and since Eric already had some experiencewith radio jingles,
we thought there was an opportunityto do something in this genre
in terms of an id jingle package.
So Eric and Steve formed
a company called Real World Productionsto show off what they could do.
(24:52):
They created a package of jingles for WPGC,
which was a huge hip hopand R&B station in Washington, D.C.
we actually reached outto some of the artists
that we were working with on the R&Bhip hop side of things,
brought them into the studioand recorded this jingle package on spec.
On spec is when you produce somethingbefore any contracts have been signed.
(25:14):
In other words, it's a proof of concept.
We just produced this thing for freeand literally called up Jay Stevens,
who was programing the station and said,hey, we want to do this.
Are you willing to to give it a listen?
Here are a few of the jingles they sent.
As you can hear, they perfectly capturethe sound and vibe of 90s
(25:35):
hip hop and R&B rock.
90’s IDs
90’s IDs
90’s IDS
90’s IDS
(25:59):
90’s IDS
WPGC liked what they heardand Real World was off to the races.
Soon after, they landed a gigwith another station called cube,
and the sound of the stationwas just a little more poppy and upbeat,
so the package shiftedmore in that direction.
(26:23):
CUBE 93
More on
sort of the techno house side of things.
Techno genre for CUBE
Sometimes these jingles were directly
(26:44):
inspired by a particular artistor song ACE of Base sound a like
ACE of Base sound a like
Yeah, that's the ace of base cut
for companies like Eric's.
It's a fine line to walk.
(27:05):
We're also not necessarilywanting to be too derivative
or to be too specific to a particular songor a particular era,
because I don't want to make a jinglethat's going to burn in five minutes,
and then it's like,oh, this is the ace of base cut.
It sounds so dated, you know?
So there's kind of a dancethat we're doing.
Trying to predictwhere the format is heading
(27:27):
and what the sound of the formatwill be in six months or a year,
when Real World makes a package of radiojingles, say for a country station,
they might start with onethat's more rockin 98.5 KYGO
Then they might make a version that'sa little more laid back and nostalgic.
98.5 KYGO
(27:49):
98.5 KYGO
maybe they know that the station'slisteners are fans of the show
Hell on Wheels,which has a stomping down and dirty
sounding theme song.
So they craft a jingle
that evokes that same vibe.
(28:16):
For a weather alert,
they might make somethingwith a bit of a breaking news flair to it.
98.5 KYGO
And for contests and giveaways,they might make something more poppy
and celebratory.
Another winner KYGO
(28:39):
For every single packagethey create, Real World
makes around 50 to80 individual pieces of music.
98.5 KYGO.
And when you broaden it outto different languages and countries,
the stylistic variationsbecome even more pronounced.
(29:01):
La Mega
(German lyrics)
(German lyrics)
Music.
(foreign language)
(29:22):
now, typically the people singing thesejingles are professional studio vocalists,
but there are some exceptions,like the package Real World
made for a sports Station back in 1999.
They wanted a sort of sports chant,
something that could be imaginedas a crowd at an arena getting hyped up.
So I came up with the ideaof using my own voice and stacking it up
(29:46):
about 50 times, and to match the energyof a wild sports fan at a game.
I literally had to drink Red bulland take my shirt off
and get pretty jacked up.
So it was a lot of work.
Sports radio, sports radio.
950 KJRAM
Seattle
It's like it's dripping with masculinity.
(30:12):
On the more
wholesome side of things, Real Worldalso does holiday jingles.
Adult contemporary stations in particular,will typically transition
to 100% Christmas musicholiday music in November and December.
That is often when these stationsare doing their highest billing.
And so for a station like coast,where the Christmas programing
(30:32):
is such a big deal,they really want to sell the idea
that coast is your go tofor Christmas music,
your home, your home for the holidays.
Coast, 103.5
The Christmasprograming is sort of a special time
when you're playing musicfor the sake of nostalgia
(30:54):
that would not show upon the radio station the rest of the year,
and capturing that nostalgia can sometimesmean evoking
a specific holiday staple.
Here'sBobby Helms's classic Jingle Bell Rock,
as it plays,we’ll gradually faded over to a coast ID
called a jingle swing, jingle Bell, jinglebell, jingle bell rock.
(31:14):
The jinglebells swing and, jingle bells ringing.
Goin’ and blowin’
Your home for the holidays.
COST 103.5
(31:38):
In any good piece of sonic branding,nostalgia
is one of the most powerful ingredients,and radio ids are no different.
People associatethese little tunes with different times
in their lives and the different placesthat they've lived.
They stick in our heads for years,and when we hear these melodies again,
those memories come flooding back.
(32:00):
And that's part of whythese jingles are still used
by so many stationsaround the world today.
I think radio station IDjingles are going to continue to be used
as long as there's radio stations,really. Not by every station,
but by some stationsthat really want to make an impact.
(32:21):
And fortunately for those stations,there are still people
like John and Eric who live and breathethese jingles.
I chose to bein the jingle production business
because it combines all of my interests
radio, music, electronics, recording.
I'm having a good time doing itand that's why I'm still here.
(32:44):
I feel so blessed to be able
to ply my craft as a musician, composer,producer in a realm
where creativity is valued and where
that creativity forges an emotional bond.
Through music,we have the ability to create joy
and to create emotional experiencesfor listeners.
(33:05):
And I'd like to think thatin some small way, the world is better off
because we're out here in the studio,you know, cranking out
ID jingles.
(33:27):
20,000Hz
is produced out of the sounddesign studios of Defacto Sound.
Hear more at Defacto sound.com.
This episode was written and producedby Jeanna Isham
and Casey Emmerlingwith help from Grace East.
It was sound designand mixed by Justin Hollis and Jay Dickey.
Thanks to our guests,John Wolfort and Eric Huber.
(33:49):
To learn more about their work,just follow the links in the show notes.
Finally, Jeanna hosts her own podcastabout all things Sonic branding.
It's called Sound In Marketing,and you can listen and follow
right here in your podcast.
Player I'm Dallas Taylor.
Thanks for listening.
I hope you're enjoying the show.
(34:10):
Be sure to subscribe to the SoundIn Marketing monthly newsletter
for episode releases, Sonic branding,resources, news and new swag.
Big thanks to Dallas,Taylor and Casey Emmerling at 20,000Hz
for letting me rerun this, and for callingon me to write some super fun content.
Until next time.
Links to the 20,000Hz episode and podcast,as well as other
(34:32):
links will be provided in the show. Notes.
Let's make this world of soundmore intriguing, more unique, and
more and more on brand.
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.