The Birth of Top 40 Radio: The Storz Stations’ Revolution of the 1950s and 1960s

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Top 40 was the pre-eminent American radio format of the 1950s and 1960s. Although several radio station group owners offered their own versions of the format, the AM stations owned by Todd Storz and his father were acknowledged as the principle developers of Top 40 radio, and the prime movers in making it a nationwide ratings and revenue success.

The Storz Stations in Omaha, New Orleans, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Kansas City, Oklahoma City and Miami are profiled in this book. A daunting written exam that had to be passed by Storz air personalities offers rare insight into the actual complexity of what detractors portrayed as a simplistic format. There is a detailed chapter on the unique
Storz Station sound.
Another covers Storz advertising in radio trade magazines,which cemented the company’s image as the format’s most successful station group and Top 40 as the dominant programming of the day. There are extensive quotations from the memoirs of several of the founders of the format; four of this volume’s five principal writers were managers or programme directors at Storz stations during their heyday.