KDWB Rob Sherwood Air Check

KDWB Rob Sherwood Air Check - 9/30/71


Rob Sherwood and Don Bleu at Minnesota Raceways.

Rob Sherwood was originally doing evenings on WDGY, the Storz Station, when I became Program Director of KDWB, which was was in need of major rebuilding. I quickly realized that I would never find an evening jock who could beat Rob. I had to hire him, weakening WDGY while strengthening KDWB. He was receptive to talking, but cautious. Rob was already wealthy, so a big salary wouldn't lure him. It would take something fun. I offered him an all expense paid trip around the world as a signing bonus, an opportunity to have major input into the "new" KDWB, and those things finally did the trick. Rob Sherwood came to KDWB. He never took the trip, but did go on a small trip to Europe on "us".

With this move, Storz Broadcasting knew they had some major competition coming after them. Even with that, WDGY was heavily entrenched, they were blessed with a 50KW transmitter, and they had been around a long time with consistent programming. The battle was long and hard, but KDWB eventually triumphed. KDWB was aided in the battle by Robert H. Storz's rigid and ill-conceived central control out of Omaha that hampered the local momentum.

Perhaps a bit unorthodox in his personal life (he left his Christmas tree up year around), he was a dynamic and powerful talent, and had a lot of influence on the direction KDWB took in that era.