The Astor Broadcast Group Grows With One Leg in the Inland Empire
Inland Empire Business Journal (California)
February 2005
by Joe Lyons
The history of the Astor Broadcast Group is the history of Art Astor. He
was born into an Armenian immigrant family. After a tour in the Army Air
Corps (earning him the Air Medal with four clusters) he took a
communications degree from USC in 1949 on the G.I. Bill.
His loyalty to the school remains apparent as he wears the cardinal and
gold colors at least once a week and carries the football and basketball
broadcasts on KSPA, his Ontario station. But that’s getting ahead of the
story.
Degree in hand, he started in TV as what he describes as `the Armenian
Dick Clark,’ but that was 50 years ago. Since then his efforts have
mostly been off the air in radio sales and management. He has been
involved in the Southern California broadcast industry ever since. Among
other positions he has held, he headed the sales department at Los
Angeles station KHJ during the great `Boss Radio’ days of the early sixties.
Back then, before MTV and iPod’s and CDs it was possible for one AM
radio station to have 40 percent of the listening audience.
In the 1970s, while general manager of KDAY, he got the legendary
Wolfman Jack to come across the border from Mexico to come to work in
L.A. Many of those radio tapes still exist and can be heard on the air
on AM 1510 here in the Inland Empire today. But again we are getting
ahead of things.
By the late seventies, he was in partnership which owned KIK-FM, a
country station out of Orange County. By 1982, he had bought out his
partners and, with the purchase of an AM/FM operation in the Bay Area,
he became the proud owner of the Astor Broadcast Group.
Radio companies are a lot like Disneyland. They are never quite
complete. The Astor Group has been just that way. Stations have been
acquired. Stations have been sold.
An FM and two AM signals in the San Diego area were added. The FM was
sold last year. KIK-FM was sold off just before that.
In 1999, Hank Stickney, owner of the Quakes, sold his Rancho Cucamonga
radio station, known as The Muscle, to the Astor group. The calls became
KMXN with the name AM 1510 applied to it to let people know where it is.
The name has stuck, but the call letters are now KSPA.
In one unusual move, when it was decided to remodel the transmitter site
at 9th and Vineyard, the station made a temporary move to the corporate
offices in Anaheim. That was over a year ago.
The signal remains the same. The official city of license is still
Ontario, but the studios are still down in Orange County. Oddly enough,
those studios are also the site of an incredible collection knows as
Astor Classics.
It seems that back in the seventies, Astor fell in love with a 1967
Jaguar 4.2 sedan. That car became the start of a remarkable collection.
Nearly 200 `rolling sculpture’ are now the heart of an amazing fleet
– from a 1925 Dodge Bros. car to one of the largest private collections
of Packards in the area.
Each car is as original as possible and all are drivable. In fact they
all get out on the road sooner or later. Many famous names are attached
to these cars including Orson Welles, Cary Grant, Admiral Nimitz and
even Howard Hughes.
The collection also includes rare console model radios, early TVs,
including a prototype from the 1939 Worlds Fair. Slot machines,
telephones, prewar toys, juke boxes, autographed photos of Hollywood
greats are also all part of the collection. As a boy Astor had wanted a
good watch but his family couldn’t afford ones. Now he owns almost 200,
including rare and expensive ones, Hopalong Cassidy watches and pocket
watches.
Soon the Astor Group will be opening a multipurpose event center which
will put the entire collection on proper display as a special attraction
for groups looking to hold their functions in a most unusual atmosphere.
As for AM 1510, it too has developed a penchant for collectibles. The
grand traditions of Astor’s Alma Mater, USC, can be heard, including the
recent BCS championship game. Broadcast legend George Putnam airs `One
Reporters Opinion’ at noon each day. And the late, great Wolfman Jack
holds sway every night at 6:00 p.m. (7:00 p.m. to midnight on
Saturdays). The rest of the day the music of people like Frank Sinatra
and Dean Martin add to the sound.
In this age of corporate broadcasting, where programming people in New
York issue memos every day on what to air to people like us 3,000 miles
away, the Astor Broadcast Group remains one of the last of the
independent entrepreneurships in our area.
Today, AM 1510 is one-third of the broadcast part of the company. KCEO,
and a rarity on the AM band, and classical music, KFSD 80, are located
in North County San Diego.
At nearly 80, Art Astor can still be found in one of his offices every
day. Of course which office he can be found in depends on whether he’s
working on plans for the event center, getting ready for a major car
show, developing the international syndication of the Wolfman Jack shows
or planning new ideas for Ontario’s AM 1510.
Last year the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce presented Art Astor with a
lifetime achievement award. They may have been premature.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress