Gene Chenault, Who Changed Rock Radio, Dies at 90

Gene Chenault, who with his business partner, Bill Drake, reshaped rock radio in the 1960s with prepackaged programming that delivered more music and fewer commercials to hundreds of stations, creating the automated format common today, died on Feb. 23.

The programming, using reel-to-reel tapes of tightly spaced Top 40 hits, was primarily designed by Mr. Drake and marketed and syndicated by Mr. Chenault. It raised ratings at station after station and brought a certain big-city sound to many small towns. At the press of a button a local D.J. could jump in with his own boisterous one-liner — no more yarns about teenage romance — or a station-identifying jingle. To maximize the music, the Top 40 were sometimes edited, speeded up and pared to 30. The new format gave rise to the stock phrases "boss jock" and "boss radio," which first took hold at KHJ in Los Angeles in 1965. (The word boss was derived from California surfer slang for good, as in "That's a boss wave.") Within a year KHJ leapt from 12th to first place in the Los Angeles ratings. Its slogan: "Much More Music." "The big idea is to unclutter and speed up the pace," Time magazine wrote of the Drake-Chenault format in August 1968.