Host of Quiz Show Hopes to Spur a Radio Renaissance

Insomniacs. When Bob Shannon closes his eyes he can see thousands of them across America.

Shannon has a plan to revive radio, bring back the Golden Age when dramas, call-in quiz games and comedy routines played over the airwaves. And he has a specific audience in mind.

“You’re going to find out that we can bring radio back after 11:30 at night,” Shannon said. “I’m not afraid of Johnny Carson. I’m not afraid of Joan Rivers. Radio is strong late at night, all night long.”

Shannon wants to begin this renaissance with his own show, “The Man Says Yes.” It’s a quiz game that is broadcast every other Sunday on tiny (3,000 watts), public-radio station KCSN-FM (88.5). Listeners call in and attempt to identify a mystery person, place or thing. They are given periodic clues and allowed to ask “yes” and “no” questions. Shannon answers these questions by saying either “The man says yes” or “The man says no.” Two “no” answers and the caller is out.

“It’s the fast and exciting radio game of vegetable, animal and mineral,” as the 65-year-old host describes it over the air.

Small Budget

The half-hour show originates from a one-room studio on the campus of California State University, Northridge. There isn’t much of a budget, so prizes for correct guesses are limited to things like dinner for two at a local restaurant or VIP passes to a motorcycle show at the Anaheim Convention Center.

And the show’s following is rather limited. During a recent half-hour episode, fewer than a dozen people called in. Several were regulars--Nathan of San Fernando, Doris of Northridge--and they called three or four times during the same show.

Undaunted, Shannon declares that “The Man Says Yes” and other shows like it represent the future of radio. Right now, the show broadcasts to its small audience in the afternoon. He thinks it could be a nationwide hit late at night. Shannon bases this belief on the past.

Top-Rated Show

Thirty-seven years ago, Shannon hosted “The Man Says Yes” on KMPC-AM (710) five nights a week. It was one of the top-rated shows in Los Angeles during the early 1950s, he says.

Shannon started in radio at a time when it was the only show in town. He got his big break in 1937 at station WTMJ in Milwaukee, announcing for “Reinie and the Grenadiers,” a locally well-known polka band.

Shannon went on to work for several of the major radio networks. His voice was heard on such shows as Lionel Barrymore’s “Mayor of the Town” and “The Jimmy Durante-Gary Moore Show.”

“That was big, that was glamorous,” he recalled.

Shannon came to Los Angeles in the late 1940s to work as a network announcer for CBS. That network invited him to audition as host for “The Man Says Yes.” It was the best of times for the radio announcer. It was also the beginning of the end. Television loomed on the horizon.

‘Glorified Jukebox’

With the demise of radio, Shannon switched to television for a while, working as an announcer and writer. Later, he went into the investment business. Meanwhile radio, he says, became nothing more than “a glorified jukebox.”

Shannon figured he’d never sit in front of a microphone again. But about four years ago, the people who run KCSN launched a campaign to bring back old-time radio. The call went out to stars of the past and Shannon answered that call.

At first, his quiz game was broadcast only occasionally as a special feature on a show called “30 Minutes to Curtain,” which also offered recordings of classic radio shows, as well as newly written dramas and comedies.

“The Man Says Yes” became popular enough to earn its own time slot.

Hopes to Go Nationwide

Flushed by success, Shannon has begun an effort to take his brand of radio across the country. He has formed a four-man company, Goodtime Radio Productions, with his son, Michael; a former television colleague and co-host, Dee Dee Dunnavan; and Armand Lojo. They hope to syndicate “The Man Says Yes” and other shows like it nationally.

The way Shannon tells it, the project has been met with interest. However, one radio station and a syndication network said they had been offered the show but had no intention of picking it up. Yet, spokesmen for both acknowledged there is room for that type of entertainment on radio today.

“You have to be willing to experiment and old-time radio falls under that category,” said Steve LaBeau, an AM-radio consultant currently working with KFI-AM (640). “But it has to be on the right radio show at right time slot and targeted to the right audience. You’d have to do a lot of research.”

Similar Show Canceled

KFI recently canceled its own, somewhat similar, game show in favor of a nationally syndicated talk-show broadcast. Chuck Tyler, an assistant program director and host of the show, said “The Radio Game Show” did well for awhile, then seemed to lose appeal.

“It was certainly something new for listeners who were not familiar with the shows of the early days,” he said, but added, “It was a novelty.”

Carl Goldman, director of programming services at the Transtar Radio Network, said he sees a renaissance coming for old-time radio but added that such shows aren’t “in tune with where our network is headed.”

Lojo, Shannon’s 59-year-old business partner, scoffs at such thinking.

“They are leading radio to its own demise. They’re not creative,” he said. “We’re trying to hit people and start a revolution.”

“This is a throwback and people want old-time radio,” added Dunnavan, 39 (“like Jack Benny when he died”).

Shannon nods in agreement. He foresees a day when his voice will again be heard coast-to-coast, when he will be able to give away “Honda motorcycles, GE refrigerators, things like that.”

“This is fast,” he says. “This is exciting.”