[teachercreature]

The Last Contest
Somewhere along Mission Gorge Road near Santee California is an unassuming marker commemorating one of the greatest radio stations of the golden era of top forty radio, San Diego’s KCBQ. Inscribed on the marker are the names of many of the people who made the station a legend. They include the name of one Jack McCoy. Known for his Rod Serling-like voice, in 1972, McCoy conceived perhaps the greatest promotion in radio history, The Last Contest. Listeners were presented with a mind-boggling number of “prize packages” from which to choose. Each package contained an outrageous array of prizes including yachts, airplanes and sports cars. All you had to do was call a phone number announced on the air and select the number of the prize package you desired. The promotion ran for thirteen days. At the end, when the final “secret phone number” was finally announced, a third of the San Diego telephone system was out of order for a half-hour. Parts of San Diego county along the coast were without phone service for an hour and a half as “Q” listeners jammed the phones. TM Productions, aware of the enormous success of the promotion, purchased the rights to the contest and proceeded to develop an entire jingle package based on “psychologically tested” synthesizer beds similar to the ones McCoy had used in the Last Contest. They then proceeded to market The Last Contest and the sibling jingle package called Shockwave. Here are the remarkable demos that Jack McCoy produced for the Last Contest and Shockwave.

https://soundcloud.com/teachercreature/last-contest-shockwave

[IainJohnston]

Nothing wrong wih hearing about the “Legendary KCBQ (FM)”…

https://soundcloud.com/allthebestjingles/2017-ij-kcbq-sandiego-cassettepotpourri

Some of the above I’ve posted before, some not – all from a now ancient 1988 (?) cassette I mooched
from the station back before the CD/internet was “invented” so lots of hiss etc instead of “digital quality”!

[teachercreature]

Loved this. Amazing that they were still using the same classic TM shotgun they were using in 1972 when The Last Contest aired. Actually the audio is pretty good. Thanks for posting

[ratnobMember]

Wonderful authentic radio. This is one of my favourite airchecks from the depths of the shotgun era. Thank you.

[Tracy CarmanMember]

Check this out…..

[jonnoMember]

Thanks TC, i was going to post the sub of my Shockwave demo reel but it’s on a NAS drive that currently has a failed power supply board.

Replacement PSU board is ten dollars but shipping from the manufacturer in Taiwan is another 30.. hmm

[teachercreature]

Hi Tracy. Haven’t been on JM for a couple weeks and missed your post of the stereo version of the Shockwave demo. Thanks very much for posting. As a production guy, I think that one of the amazing things I appreciate most is the background music and effects that McCoy uses particularly on the Last Contest demo.

[Tracy CarmanMember]

The original demo was done on a 4-track reel, which I transferred to digital. I’d post the whole thing, in multitrack, but there’s no clean way to do it. It’s quite a production piece, though.

[kenhudMember]

What can I say? It made me smile.

[ratnobMember]

Nothing wrong wih hearing about the “Legendary KCBQ (FM)”…
https://soundcloud.com/allthebestjingles/2017-ij-kcbq-sandiego-cassettepotpourri

Really great. I know that shotgun jingles finally became tedious and uncreative, but this aircheck shows just how they brought energy to a station. Thanks for posting, IJ.

[IainJohnston]

You’re welcome Geoff :^)

KCBQ “tagged” their TM, JAM etc shotgun-length cuts on to the ends of “promos” or “stagers” as they used to be
called before the word “sweeper” was invented.

Its from a cassette I scrounged from the station when I thought there weren’t any Jingle Collectors in the UK any
more in the late 1980s/early 1990s – Little did I know…
https://jpst.it/16FMp

I’ve still got a drawer-full of such cassettes direct from stations from New Zealand to Newfoundland – all
pre-internet/digital era.

[teachercreature]

What a tease! Seriously, are you not going to post any audio from this cassette? I’m all ears….actually my nose is pretty big too.

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