KFXM / KDUO Studios - 666 Fairway Drive, San Bernardino

KFXM - KDUO Studios, 666 Fairway Drive, San Bernardino, California

In October of 1963, the newly built Holiday Inn and the KFXM / KDUO studios became the home for all of the various employees working at numerous studios and offices in San Bernardino and Riverside. KFXM had sales offices at the California Hotel at 5th and "E" street in downtown San Bernardino. The broadcast studios were located in the transmitter building (see graphic below) out in a field that had been a cow pasture. The field later became a 9-hole executive golf course. KDUO had sales offices at the Mission Inn in Riverside and the broadcast studios were originally located on 8th street (now University Avenue) and Lemon Street in Riverside. The new studios and offices put everybody under one roof. The old saying, "if this building could talk, boy would their be some stories." This would be an understatement because of the depth of the history of these radio stations over thirty years under the ownership of Howard Tullis and John Hearne. Literally hundreds of people worked as On-Air talent, advertising sales executives, bookkeeping, the traffic department (scheduled and logged the commercials on the air) and management.

KFXM Studio and Newsroom

Above is the KFXM studio that was occupied by many who are on this Website. Note the 45 RPM records stacked on top of the cart machines. The turntables were gear driven and their tone arms were balanced with pennies. The newsroom at right with the teletype, reel tape machines to record reports from the phone. If you look closely you'll see the microphone on the desk on the right that's for the KDUO news. Quite literally, the newsman would do the KFXM news at :55 on the hour and then spin around in the chair and do the KDUO news at the top of the hour. The pictures are courtesy of Vic Moreno.

 

 

KFXM / KDUO Building Floorplan

Pictured (above) is the basic floorplan and layout of the KFXM/KDUO studio and offices. A few things changed over the years such as; new equipment, furnishings and other improvements (see below).The original sales personnel were; Bill Bellman, John Barton, Helen Jones and Al Barnett. These people were legends in the advertising game in the Inland Empire as KFXM was the main station in town with an audience that was into second and third generation listeners. Helen Jones was a neighbor of ours and my Dad, Bob Bunnell approached neighbor Helen Jones about going to work in radio advertising sales at KFXM. That was in 1964 and a time when there were literally no women working in the male-dominated advertising sales profession. Helen literally cut her "teeth" at KFXM and one of her mentors was the infamous "Bill the Bellman." Bill Bellman was the senior man in the advertising department and he made sure that you knew that. Bill had contacts (clients, etc.) that were as long as both your arms and then some. Fiercely competitive, Bill did not like to miss an opportunity to write a contract. Because of the lack of privacy because the room was wide-open, Helen Jones would be talking with a client or prospective client and Bill would overhear the conversation. Within minutes after the call he would get Helen's attention and proclaim, "HELEN... Forget it!....he's a friend of mine." The sales staff had it's share of new people over the years with some real interesting personalities.

In 1972-73, the studios and offices underwent a major remodel with all new equipment and furnishings. In the middle of the building was the "snake pit" (see above) where the advertising salespeople had their desk, typewriter and phone. The sales room was remodeled and had dividers with paneling installed that was shoulder high (not ceiling high) and still did not provide much privacy. Prior to the remodel, the sales room was wide-open, no dividers or anything and there was no such thing as privacy.

KFXM Transmitter and Studios, San Bernardino, California

This is a computer generated graphic that I created from memory and a black and white photo sent to me by Bill Earl by email. The picture didn't have any windows on the building and there was a chain-link fence at the front of the building. I know that there were windows on the building because I used to go out to the studios/transmitter with my Dad (Bob Bunnell) to deliver radio spots to get them on the air. I was told that during the strike, the transmitter was fire bombed and the building sustained some major damage. When they rebuilt parts of the building, I believe the decision was made to remove the windows and add the chain link fence for security reasons. Just a note of fact is that shortly after the new studios at the Holiday Inn were moved into, the neon KFXM sign letters were removed. I found out that the reasoning was that with nobody being at the transmitter anymore, management wanted to discourage the fans and general public from going out to the building like they had done in the past. Before the Holiday Inn studios were built, all KFXM programming came from the transmitter building. Most radio stations had this type of arrangement where the broadcast originated at the transmitter. Unlike today where security would be a major consideration for a radio station broadcast studio, in the old days, the only thing between you and the disc jockey was a piece of glass and a door. There will be more on the transmitter and some of the hilarious things that went on inside this historic building soon.