Radio Is A Family Affair For The Carters

To understand the challenges faced by Carter Broadcast Group is to travel back in time to the America of the late 1940s. Jackie Robinson had just been signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers and was facing angry fans wherever he played. Rest rooms were still divided by color, blacks were forced to sit in the back of the bus, and separate-but-equal schools were the norm, not the exception. African-Americans could not sit at dime store lunch counters, and the distance between black and white neighborhoods was still measured in terms of how “Jim Crow” flies.

It was against this backdrop that Andrew “Skip” Carter aspired to be a U.S. radio broadcaster. Born in Savannah, Ga., he had been fascinated by radio since he was 14, when he built his first radio set and experienced the power the medium could bring to the world. Carter studied physics at Georgia State University for three years and went on to enroll in the RCA School of Electronics and New York University, earning his FCC first-class broadcast license.

That was in 1947, and three years later his dream became reality when former Kansas governor and fellow broadcaster Alf Landon hired him to run KCLO-AM in Leavenworth, Kan. Landon subsequently helped Carter obtain a station license and a small transmitter, and a fellow entrepreneur named Edward Pate offered financial support and business acumen to launch a new station in Kansas City, Mo.

At the time KPRS-AM was a 500-watt daytimer that broadcast a full menu of R&B and blues music to an enthusiastic Midwest audience that transcended racial lines. It was the nation’s first black radio station west of the Mississippi River, and in 1951 it opened its first studio at 12th and Walnut Street in Kansas City. By 1952, Carter and Ed Pate became business partners and purchased the station for $40,000 from the Johnson County Broadcasting Corp.

The single AM station continued to entertain and inform the African-American community in Kansas City through the ’50s and ’60s. By 1969 the Carter family had assumed a controlling interest in the station, and in 1971 they moved the primary format to KPRS-FM (103.3 MHz), while the AM evolved to a fully automated format. The two stations continued to serve the Kansas City market through unprecedented cultural and political changes, and in 1987 Skip Carter, who several years earlier had begun to have health issues, named his grandson Michael president of the company.

One of Michael’s first moves was to return both stations to “live” formats designed to super-serve a loyal, local audience. Skip Carter died in 1989, and with the help of his widow Mildred, the family’s broadcasting legacy lived on and moved forward. She had been working with a public relations/promotion firm that brought prominent African-American entertainers into the Kansas City area, and Skip brought her into what was to become the family business. Mildred was involved with many social causes of the day, marching in picket lines across the South and helping the homeless and hungry in Kansas City. After her husband’s death she became chairperson of the board and the stations continued to grow and to solidify their standing in the African-American community with various outreach programs and promotions.

Mildred Carter died on Jan. 3, 2003 — a date that Michael Carter finds oddly synchronistic. “Think about it,” he says. “My grandmother died on one-oh-three three — 103.3. Hard to believe that’s just a coincidence.”

Over the years — particularly after consolidation began in earnest in 1996 — the Carters had many opportunities to sell the two stations and get out of the business. Cash flow multiples upwards of 25 often were tempting, but the family did not have its collective eye on making a fast buck. 

“My grandparents had a vision about trying to perpetuate our family business,” Michael recalls. “It was started in 1950 and, at the time, segregation was so pronounced and made things difficult. Black radio was not really popular, and there was a lot of cover music that the white radio stations played. It sounded and looked like us, but it wasn’t us. Despite the fact that the Midwest was not very accessible for blacks in the first place, especially during that time frame, we were able to get through and survive.”

Not only were Skip and Mildred Carter up against stiff segregation; they also were faced with a dearth of music to play on the station. “Black artists didn’t have a lot of outlets that would play their music,” Michael says. “In fact, black artists barely could even find a place to play. The fact was, there were a lot of people who listened to our radio station, but because of the color barrier, no one said anything. People would listen, but if there were two white folks in the car and if one of them wanted to listen to our radio station, they still would change the channel because they couldn’t admit he was listening.” 

Not only did this “closet listener” syndrome make it difficult for KPRS (both the AM and FM) to garner significant ratings; it also fueled a perception among businesses that either no one listened to the stations, or that they attracted the “wrong” type of clientele. “Over the years we’ve had some issues with some companies that specifically do not want to attract black customers,” Michael says. “They’re so caught up in their stereotypes that they don’t grasp the spending power of the African-American consumer. Some advertisers are beginning to figure out that black folks can afford to buy cars, go to amusement parks and dine at fine restaurants. But it’s been a struggle.”

Carter Broadcast Group not only succeeded even though it owned just one AM and one FM station; it did so during a period where companies were either consuming every radio facility in sight — or getting out of the business altogether. “When someone is offering 25 times cash flow, it’s very tempting for the guy who’s been in business 30 years and has no more kids in school to take the money and get out,” Michael Carter says. “But my family decided we were going to do this our way. We weren’t going to sell, and we didn’t need 30 radio stations. We decided to work on the street if we had to. I could not believe the number of companies that tried to convince my grandmother to sell KPRS, but she told them all ‘no — my grandson wants to run this company, and as long as he wants to, we’re going to keep it.’ After my grandmother died I felt I had a commitment to fulfill. I wanted to make sure my kids had a future. This company is here if they want it. I’m not going to force them to do this, but if they want it, here it is.”

The vision that Andrew “Skip” Carter realized in 1950 remains as strong today as it was 65 years ago, Michael says. “We have been very fortunate, and we’ve had to keep our wits about us about how we’re going to do business,” he observes. “We’re not one of the big players, but we are a small company that had the balls to withstand everything that has been thrown at us. We’ve gone through ‘no-Urban dictates,’ we’ve been ravaged by the PPM, and we’ve struggled with everything from deregulation to desegregation. All along we stood our ground and said ‘we’re going to do what we have to do.’”

As the oldest African-American family-owned radio station owners in the U.S., Carter Broadcast Group defied the social and financial obstacles of the times. Reminded of his family legacy every day, Michael Carter feels fortunate to be the grandson of a man and a woman who had the fortitude and foresight to do what many folks said couldn’t be done.

“How lucky am I to be the leader of a group of people who have given their heart and soul to this radio station?” he asks, not entirely rhetorically. “I don’t make a lot of money, I don’t drive a Ferrari, and I don’t wear $1,000 suits. I’m just a normal guy who loves radio. I started when I was eight years old, and my grandfather gave me an opportunity I will never forget.

“We own two radio stations in Kansas City, and I’m tickled to death to be inducted into this group of Giants. It just doesn’t happen every day, and it damn sure doesn’t happen every day to black broadcasters.”

The Library of American Broadcasting will honor this year’s Giants of Broadcasting & Electronic Arts at a luncheon at New York’s Gotham Hall on Oct. 15. For tickets, congratulatory ads and other information, please contact Joyce Tudyrn at [email protected]. The luncheon is presented by the International Radio and Television Society Foundation. TVNewsCheck is publishing these profiles as an in-kind contribution to the library. You may read other profiles in the series by clicking here.