The notorious convention that nearly broke Top 40 radio forever

Sixty-five years ago, there was a convention for radio DJs in Miami that was summed up as 'booze, broads, and bribes.' It was the start of a scandal that echoes into today.

Radio, record people, podcasters, performers, and everyone who works behind the scenes are in Toronto for the 42nd annual Canadian Music Week, June 2-8. It’s the largest gathering of music industry folk anywhere in the country.

Plenty of schmoozing, deal-making, networking, award-giving, and knowledge-gathering will happen over the next few days. CMW, as it’s known for short, is one of many such industry events that occur around the world. As a regular attendee, I can tell you that the conference and associated music festival are well-organized and orderly.

This, however, was not the case at the Americana Hotel in Miami Beach sixty-five years ago. Things were so wild at the Second Annual International Radio Programming and Disk Jockey Convention in May 1959 that Top 40 radio and rock ‘n’ roll were nearly broken forever.

The story of what happened in Miami Beach began a year earlier in Kansas City with The Pop Music Disc Jockey Convention and Radio Programming Seminar, the first such event. It attracted the biggest names in radio along with reps from a half-dozen or so record labels. One guest speaker was the rock-hating Mitch Miller of Columbia Records who saw this new rock ‘n’ roll thing as a scourge on culture, society, and especially the youth of America. He scolded the assembled group for playing this music and urged everyone to return to playing proper songs by artists such as Frank Sinatra and Lena Horne. He was a real downer.

Organizer Todd Storz, one of the inventors of the Top 40 radio format, decided to change direction in 1959. The new venue was the Americana, right on the beach along 97th Street in Bal Harbor. This second convention was billed as an opportunity for people involved with the new Top 40 rock ’n’ roll radio format to exchange ideas and to learn how to make their programs and radio stations better. There were speakers, panels, and presentations. President Dwight Eisenhower gave a filmed address. Robert King, the mayor of Miami, declared it “Disk Jockey Week” in the city. On the surface, the convention looked like any other industry gathering.

Not quite.

This was an opportunity for 19 record labels and dozens of record men to wine and dine DJs — all of whom were men, by the way — in hopes of currying favour and influence over what records they played on their radio shows back home. They knew these men were so powerful and influential with their audiences that they could make or break songs. The men on the air had to be onside if anyone hoped to have a hit record.

And how did they plan to do that? By showing them the best and craziest time of their lives.