One Hot Throwdown

Upstairs in his spacious office on a recent afternoon, Carter opens mail using a letter opener topped with a golf ball. Carter likes to golf. A scorecard from Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio, rests on his desk. Born in 1958, he could pass for someone still in his thirties. He's 6 feet 2 inches tall, wears a neatly trimmed mustache and has a tendency to end his sentences with the phrase per se. Describing the habits of the African-American consumer, for example, he says, "We don't have time to pick up the paper, per se. We don't have time to watch television, per se. But we do turn on our radio station, and we do listen."

That's supported by the ratings done by the audit firm Arbitron. According to the the summer ratings, 176,300 people a week listen to Hot 103 Jamz. African-Americans make up the lion's share of the audience, but about a third is white or Latino.

Despite the fact that KPRS commands a large, multiethnic audience, Carter says businesses often refuse to advertise. Reluctant ad buyers tell salespeople that 103.3 listeners are not a "good fit" — a polite way, perhaps, of saying "too black" or "too poor." The station, he says, competes with negative images in the media. "We're not all killers," he says. "We're not all carjackers. We're not all pimps. We're not all prostitutes. We are some educated people that have money that will spend it if you invite us to come and spend it with you. But if you don't talk to us, how are we supposed to know that?" He emphasizes that he's not looking for pity. "I'm doing my fair share, but I feel like there are businesses that I could be doing better numbers with just because of what we do here."

At times, KPRS has resorted to unusual sales tactics. Carter tells a story about one chain with 10 local stores that had refused to buy time on KPRS. Carter met with store officials to blackmail them. He threatened to air spots suggesting that KPRS listeners should boycott the store, which he declines to name. "They didn't want to hear that," he says.

So what happened?

"Well, they bought [ads with] us. Of course they did. And now they're making money. Their stores are doing very well."

Prejudice plays a central role in the history of KPRS. The founder, Skip Carter, grew up in segregated Savannah, Georgia, where he dreamed of a radio career. After his discharge from the Army at the end of World War II, he studied engineering at the RCA Institute in New York.

Frustrated by a lack of opportunity for blacks, Skip Carter wrote a letter in 1948 to the National Association of Broadcasters. After the letter was printed in Broadcasting magazine, Skip Carter's plight came to the attention of Alf Landon, the former governor of Kansas. Landon hired Carter to work at a station he owned in Leavenworth.

In 1950, with Landon's help, Skip Carter acquired the equipment of a defunct Olathe station, KPRS 1590. Carter set up a transmitter in a shack at 19th Street and Brooklyn before setting up a permanent studio at 23rd Street and Benton, near old Holy Name Church.

In the '50s, KPRS played black artists while other stations in town reached for Pat Boone's versions of "Tutti Frutti" and "Long Tall Sally." For blacks, the station provided a voice, says Lee Bohannon, a community organizer with the Local Investment Commission. "Without having KPRS in the black community, for many years we would have been without a radio station at all."

In segregated Kansas City, KPRS also gave white listeners their only exposure to songs played on the east side. Chuck Haddix, host of The Fish Fry, a blues, jazz and R&B show on KCUR 89.3, remembers tuning in 1590 to hear James Brown and Eddie Harris. "KPRS gave young white guys like me the opportunity to listen to black music," he says.

Skip Carter belonged to several civic organizations, including the NAACP. After the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, he went on the air to appeal for understanding and equality. But he was more of a businessman than a social activist. In 1969, popular morning host John L. Frazier complained about his pay. Carter and his wife, Mildred, accused Frazier of belonging to a black militant organization and fired him. Eventually, a National Relations Labor Board examiner upheld charges of unfair labor practices brought by Frazier and two other former employees.

KPRS did not lead in the ratings, but the business turned a profit. Skip Carter purchased 35 acres in Raytown, where he and his two children owned homes. "I lived a pretty fun life for a black kid in Raytown in the '60s," Michael Carter says. "We had horses. We had a lake. We had boats. We had hunting. We went fishing." Michael Carter says the family was not rich, however. Country Club Plaza trips, he remembers, were for window-shopping only.