Nightcap

[Kevin Vahey]

I stumbled across Nightcap one night around 1974. At that time it was
heard on 3 stations WBAL Baltimore, WHAS Louisville and KSL Salt Lake
City and those 3 stations covered the lower 48.

Jepco would give a caller about 3 minutes and then cut them off with a
musicbox sound he called Tinkerbell. It was bland.

Around this time AT&T longlines lowered their sees for 24 hour service
and CBS started doing overnight newscasts and Jepko wound up on
Mutual. Jepko didn't last very long on Mutual (may have been illness)
and they then went with Long John Nebel and his wife which was cleared
in Boston by WITS. Long John also became ill ( may have died ) and was
replaced by a fellow out of Miami named Larry King from WIOD. King
caught fire unlike the others hosts and became must listen to radio in
the late 70's.

Then the floodgates opened and birdfeed became the rage. RKO Network
may have been the first to offer full network satellite service by the
bird and offered an all night music show out of NY hosted by Bob
Dearborn.

Then Bruce Williams showed up and soon everything after 7 PM seemed bird driven.

The final straw was when Rush became the first successful bird show in
the day and radio hasn't been the same since.

I wish this new guy luck but he going to have to deal with angry
listeners. One would think CBS learned their lesson after Rover.

I guess not.