Tom Rounds
Encyclopedia
Tom Rounds is an American radio broadcasting
executive, founder and chief executive officer of Radio Express
in Burbank, California
.
in Massachusetts
in the late 1950s, Rounds then worked at WINS (AM)
in New York City
as a newsman in 1959 before agreeing to travel to Honolulu with the station's general manager to work at station KPOI. While in Hawaii, Rounds—hoping to gain publicity for his new position as a disc jockey
—set the world record for sleeplessness. The period of 260 hours awake was attained while Rounds was sitting in a department store
window display. The record was eclipsed in 1964 by San Diego high school student Randy Gardner. Rounds became a regional celebrity following the stunt, and eventually rose to lead the station as program director
.
had been program director at KPOI before moving to KHJ
in Los Angeles
under influential radio programmer Bill Drake
. Drake was seeking to install his signature Boss Radio
format in the Bay Area in 1964; Jacobs recommended his protégé, Tom Rounds, for the position at KFRC
in San Francisco. While at KFRC, Rounds began promoting large multi-act concerts to benefit charity and gain publicity for the station and the bands it featured. After holding the Beach Boys Summer Spectacular at the Cow Palace
in 1966, Rounds and KFRC conceived of a large outdoor festival featuring a fair atmosphere similar to the popular Renaissance Pleasure Faire
. The KFRC Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival was held in the second weekend of June 1967 at Mount Tamalpais State Park
in Marin County, California
, to support the Hunters Point Child Care Center. Featuring Jefferson Airplane
, The 5th Dimension, The Doors
and many other acts, it drew nearly 60,000 attendees. The Fantasy Fair produced by Rounds is considered the first rock festival
in history, preceding the more well-known Monterey Pop Festival
by one week.
Rounds left KFRC in the Fall of 1967; his decision to move beyond the restrictions of AM radio was documented on the front cover of the first issue of Rolling Stone
magazine, with the headline "Tom Rounds Quits KFRC" on the upper right beside a large photograph of John Lennon
.
. Rounds led the company to successfully produce several dozen "artist-promoting films" for acts such as Jimi Hendrix
, Steppenwolf
and The Animals
, working with many record companies to produce the early videos.
The company also included Ron Jacobs, and with him Rounds continued to be involved with the promotion of large scale music events in markets associated with Bill Drake. In 1964, Rounds and Jacobs had joined with another Honolulu entertainment entrepreneur, Tom Moffat, to form Arena Associates. This company was responsible for bringing mainland music acts to the newly built Blaisdell Center. Mel Lawrence, who had co-produced both the Fantasy Fair and the Monterey festival the following week was also involved with the company. Chief among the financial backers of Arena Associates was Tom Driscoll, heir of the family that owned the Driscoll's
berry producing agricultural group. With the heavy backing of Driscoll, Rounds and Arena Associates produced several concerts. The most prominent of the events was the Miami Pop II
festival, held in December 1968 at Gulfstream Park
, a horse racing venue in South Florida. The original Miami Pop Festival had been held in May and promoted by Michael Lang, who later was responsible for the Woodstock Festival
. The second event led by Rounds and Jacobs was hailed two weeks later in the New York Times as "a resounding success in both organization and programming, making it the first significant major pop festival held on the East Coast". Times reviewer Ellen Sander noted that the Miami festival truly represented the full spectrum of popular music acts, rather than relying on the presence of a few headlining acts to generate revenue.
, a radio production and syndication company that created a variety of programs which it then distributed to radio stations throughout North America. The most widely recognized of the programs Rounds headed at Watermark was American Top 40
, which featured the team of announcer Casey Kasem
and producer Don Bustany
. The program was popular in large markets and also allowed small market stations to present a three-hour national music chart
countdown show at nominal cost that nevertheless produced good ratings
and helped generate advertising revenue. The program reached audiences at over 500 radio stations in the United States by the 1980s. In 1990, Rounds announced the introduction of American Top 40 syndicated programming into the Soviet Union
, adding that country to the list of seventy where the program was heard at the time. The show is currently on the air under a division of the American media
conglomerate Clear Channel Communications
.
in the early 1980s as ABC Watermark, Rounds became responsible for the promotion and syndication of American Top 40 and other programs outside the United States. His independent company Radio Express was created in 1985 and currently produces and syndicates World Chart Shows
hosted by Lara Scott and PJ Butta, among other programming. The company also handles syndication outside the US for American radio programs such as The Rick Dees Weekly Top 40
and American Country Countdown
, as well as for major international special events such as the Live 8
and Live Earth
concerts. Rounds continues to head the company, which claims on its website to have established relationships with over 5,000 radio stations in 140 countries.
Commercial broadcasting
Commercial broadcasting is the broadcasting of television programs and radio programming by privately owned corporate media, as opposed to state sponsorship...
executive, founder and chief executive officer of Radio Express
Radio Express
Radio Express is an independent radio syndication company based in Burbank, California, whose main focus is in markets outside the USA. The company was founded by Tom Rounds, one of the creators of American Top 40...
in Burbank, California
Burbank, California
Burbank is a city in Los Angeles County in Southern California, United States, north of downtown Los Angeles. The estimated population in 2010 was 103,340....
.
Early years
After first entering the broadcasting profession at the campus radio station of Amherst CollegeAmherst College
Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...
in Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
in the late 1950s, Rounds then worked at WINS (AM)
WINS (AM)
WINS , known on-air as "Ten-Ten Wins", is a radio station in New York City, owned by CBS Radio. WINS's studios are in the combined CBS Radio facility at 345 Hudson Street in the TriBeCa section of Manhattan, and transmitting towers in Lyndhurst, New Jersey.WINS is one of the nation's oldest...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
as a newsman in 1959 before agreeing to travel to Honolulu with the station's general manager to work at station KPOI. While in Hawaii, Rounds—hoping to gain publicity for his new position as a disc jockey
Disc jockey
A disc jockey, also known as DJ, is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, "disc" referred to phonograph records, not the later Compact Discs. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the medium.There are several types of disc jockeys...
—set the world record for sleeplessness. The period of 260 hours awake was attained while Rounds was sitting in a department store
Department store
A department store is a retail establishment which satisfies a wide range of the consumer's personal and residential durable goods product needs; and at the same time offering the consumer a choice of multiple merchandise lines, at variable price points, in all product categories...
window display. The record was eclipsed in 1964 by San Diego high school student Randy Gardner. Rounds became a regional celebrity following the stunt, and eventually rose to lead the station as program director
Program director
In service industries, such as education, a program director or programme director researches, plans, develops and implements one or more of the firm's professional services...
.
KFRC San Francisco
Ron JacobsRon Jacobs (broadcaster)
Ron Jacobs is an American broadcaster, author, record producer and concert promoter. He is best known as the program director of KHJ radio in Los Angeles during its ground-breaking "Boss Radio" period , and as co-creator of the countdown show American Top 40, and the seminal radio program The...
had been program director at KPOI before moving to KHJ
KHJ (AM)
KHJ Radio in Los Angeles, California broadcasts Spanish-language entertainment programming as La Ranchera. It was also one of America's most formidable Top 40 radio stations in the 1960s and 1970s as 93 KHJ before changing its format in 1980....
in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
under influential radio programmer Bill Drake
Bill Drake
Bill Drake , born Philip Yarbrough, was an American radio programmer who co-developed the Boss Radio format with Gene Chenault via their company Drake-Chenault.-Early career:...
. Drake was seeking to install his signature Boss Radio
Boss Radio
Boss Radio was the name of two radio programming formats, both launched in the early 1960s: One in the United States, and one in the United Kingdom. Although the names were the same, the formats were quite different.-Boss Radio in the United States:...
format in the Bay Area in 1964; Jacobs recommended his protégé, Tom Rounds, for the position at KFRC
KFRC (defunct)
KFRC was a radio station in San Francisco, California in the United States, which made its first broadcast on Wednesday, September 24, 1924, from studios in the Hotel Whitcomb 1231 Market Street. KFRC originally broadcast with 50 watts on the 270 meter wavelength , then moved to 660 kHz. in...
in San Francisco. While at KFRC, Rounds began promoting large multi-act concerts to benefit charity and gain publicity for the station and the bands it featured. After holding the Beach Boys Summer Spectacular at the Cow Palace
Cow Palace
Cow Palace is an indoor arena, in Daly City, California, situated on the city's border with neighboring San Francisco, notable as a sporting arena.-History:...
in 1966, Rounds and KFRC conceived of a large outdoor festival featuring a fair atmosphere similar to the popular Renaissance Pleasure Faire
Renaissance Pleasure Faire of Southern California
The Renaissance Pleasure Faire of Southern California , is the first, original modern Renaissance Fair; it opened in 1962 and has run yearly since that time. Presently owned by Renaissance Entertainment Productions , it is a commercial re-enactment of a 1580s market faire at Port Deptford, an...
. The KFRC Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival was held in the second weekend of June 1967 at Mount Tamalpais State Park
Mount Tamalpais State Park
Mount Tamalpais State Park is a California state park, located in Marin County, California. The primary feature of the park is the Mount Tamalpais. The park contains mostly redwood and oak forests. The mountain itself covers around . There are about of hiking trails, which are connected to a...
in Marin County, California
Marin County, California
Marin County is a county located in the North San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. As of 2010, the population was 252,409. The county seat is San Rafael and the largest employer is the county government. Marin County is well...
, to support the Hunters Point Child Care Center. Featuring Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band formed in San Francisco in 1965. A pioneer of the psychedelic rock movement, Jefferson Airplane was the first band from the San Francisco scene to achieve mainstream commercial and critical success....
, The 5th Dimension, The Doors
The Doors
The Doors were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, California, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Krieger...
and many other acts, it drew nearly 60,000 attendees. The Fantasy Fair produced by Rounds is considered the first rock festival
Rock festival
A rock festival, or a rock fest, is a large-scale rock music concert, featuring multiple acts.The first rock festivals were put on in the late 1960s and were important socio-cultural milestones. In the 1980s a minor resurgence of festivals occurred with charity as the goal.Today, they are often...
in history, preceding the more well-known Monterey Pop Festival
Monterey Pop Festival
The Monterey International Pop Music Festival was a three-day concert event held June 16 to June 18, 1967 at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey, California...
by one week.
Rounds left KFRC in the Fall of 1967; his decision to move beyond the restrictions of AM radio was documented on the front cover of the first issue of Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine, with the headline "Tom Rounds Quits KFRC" on the upper right beside a large photograph of John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
.
Music video and rock festival pioneer
Upon resigning from KFRC, Rounds joined Amherst classmate Peter Gardiner in a new video production company based in Los Angeles called Charlatan Productions. The company is acknowledged as being among the first to focus exclusively on the use of cinematography and music together in the form that is now ubiquitous among major music acts, the music videoMusic video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
. Rounds led the company to successfully produce several dozen "artist-promoting films" for acts such as Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
, Steppenwolf
Steppenwolf (band)
Steppenwolf are a Canadian-American rock group that was prominent in the late 1960s. The group was formed in 1967 in Los Angeles by vocalist John Kay, guitarist Michael Monarch, bassist Rushton Moreve, keyboardist Goldy McJohn and drummer Jerry Edmonton after the dissolution of Toronto group The...
and The Animals
The Animals
The Animals were an English music group of the 1960s formed in Newcastle upon Tyne during the early part of the decade, and later relocated to London...
, working with many record companies to produce the early videos.
The company also included Ron Jacobs, and with him Rounds continued to be involved with the promotion of large scale music events in markets associated with Bill Drake. In 1964, Rounds and Jacobs had joined with another Honolulu entertainment entrepreneur, Tom Moffat, to form Arena Associates. This company was responsible for bringing mainland music acts to the newly built Blaisdell Center. Mel Lawrence, who had co-produced both the Fantasy Fair and the Monterey festival the following week was also involved with the company. Chief among the financial backers of Arena Associates was Tom Driscoll, heir of the family that owned the Driscoll's
Driscoll's
Driscoll's is the brand name of Driscoll Strawberry Associates, Inc., a Watsonville, California-based producer and distributor of fresh berries. Driscoll's is a supplier and marketer of both organic and conventional berries, including strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries and other...
berry producing agricultural group. With the heavy backing of Driscoll, Rounds and Arena Associates produced several concerts. The most prominent of the events was the Miami Pop II
Miami Pop Festival
The Miami Pop Festival was the name of two different music festivals that took place in 1968 at Gulfstream Park, a horse racing track in Hallandale, Florida , just north of Miami....
festival, held in December 1968 at Gulfstream Park
Gulfstream Park
Gulfstream Park Racing & Casino is a racetrack and county-approved racino in Hallandale Beach, Florida, in the United States. During its annual meet, which spans December through April, it is one of the most important venues for horse racing in America....
, a horse racing venue in South Florida. The original Miami Pop Festival had been held in May and promoted by Michael Lang, who later was responsible for the Woodstock Festival
Woodstock Festival
Woodstock Music & Art Fair was a music festival, billed as "An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music". It was held at Max Yasgur's 600-acre dairy farm in the Catskills near the hamlet of White Lake in the town of Bethel, New York, from August 15 to August 18, 1969...
. The second event led by Rounds and Jacobs was hailed two weeks later in the New York Times as "a resounding success in both organization and programming, making it the first significant major pop festival held on the East Coast". Times reviewer Ellen Sander noted that the Miami festival truly represented the full spectrum of popular music acts, rather than relying on the presence of a few headlining acts to generate revenue.
Watermark and American Top 40
Strawberry mogul Tom Driscoll was also involved in the formation of another of Rounds' businesses. In 1969, again with backing from Driscoll, Rounds and Jacobs formed Watermark Inc.Watermark Inc.
Watermark Inc. was a radio syndication company that was founded in 1969 by Tom Rounds and Ron Jacobs. Watermark's best known programs were American Top 40 and its spinoff American Country Countdown. Both shows were created by Casey Kasem and Don Bustany....
, a radio production and syndication company that created a variety of programs which it then distributed to radio stations throughout North America. The most widely recognized of the programs Rounds headed at Watermark was American Top 40
American Top 40
American Top 40 is an internationally syndicated, independent radio program created by Casey Kasem, Don Bustany, Tom Rounds and Ron Jacobs. Originally a production of Watermark Inc...
, which featured the team of announcer Casey Kasem
Casey Kasem
Kemal Amin "Casey" Kasem is an American radio personality and voice actor who is best known for being the host of the nationally syndicated Top 40 countdown show American Top 40, and for voicing Shaggy in the popular Saturday morning cartoon franchise Scooby-Doo.Kasem, along with Don Bustany and...
and producer Don Bustany
Don Bustany
Donald S. Bustany is an American radio and television broadcaster.Bustany was born in Detroit to Lebanese-American parents. He and Casey Kasem were co-creators of the syndicated radio program American Top 40 and American Country Countdown...
. The program was popular in large markets and also allowed small market stations to present a three-hour national music chart
Record chart
A record chart is a ranking of recorded music according to popularity during a given period of time. Examples of music charts are the Hit parade, Hot 100 or Top 40....
countdown show at nominal cost that nevertheless produced good ratings
Ratings (broadcast)
Ratings is a term used to describe the methods used by radio, cable and terrestrial television programming measure their performance. Ratings are collated using audience measurement.-Mechanisms for Calculating Ratings :...
and helped generate advertising revenue. The program reached audiences at over 500 radio stations in the United States by the 1980s. In 1990, Rounds announced the introduction of American Top 40 syndicated programming into the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, adding that country to the list of seventy where the program was heard at the time. The show is currently on the air under a division of the American media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
conglomerate Clear Channel Communications
Clear Channel Communications
Clear Channel Communications, Inc. is an American media conglomerate company headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It was founded in 1972 by Lowry Mays and Red McCombs, and was taken private by Bain Capital LLC and Thomas H. Lee Partners LP in a leveraged buyout in 2008...
.
Radio Express
After Watermark was absorbed into the American Broadcasting CompanyAmerican Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
in the early 1980s as ABC Watermark, Rounds became responsible for the promotion and syndication of American Top 40 and other programs outside the United States. His independent company Radio Express was created in 1985 and currently produces and syndicates World Chart Shows
The World Chart Show with Lara Scott
The World Chart Show with Lara Scott is an independent internationally-syndicated weekly radio program currently hosted by Lara Scott.A typical 2 hour program features 22 songs, consisting of the Top 20 songs, compiled according to reports submitted by its affiliates; and 2 "Border Breakouts", up...
hosted by Lara Scott and PJ Butta, among other programming. The company also handles syndication outside the US for American radio programs such as The Rick Dees Weekly Top 40
Rick Dees Weekly Top 40
Rick Dees' Weekly Top 40 is an internationally-syndicated radio program created and hosted by American radio personality Rick Dees. It is currently heard on over 200 radio stations worldwide and the American Forces Network. It is distributed domestically by Citadel Media Networks and...
and American Country Countdown
American Country Countdown
American Country Countdown, also known as ACC or American Country Countdown with Kix Brooks, is an internationally syndicated radio program which counts down the top 30 country songs of the previous week, from No. 30 to No. 1, according to the Mediabase country chart...
, as well as for major international special events such as the Live 8
Live 8
Live 8 was a string of benefit concerts that took place on 2 July 2005, in the G8 states and in South Africa. They were timed to precede the G8 Conference and summit held at the Gleneagles Hotel in Auchterarder, Scotland from 6–8 July 2005; they also coincided with the 20th anniversary of Live Aid...
and Live Earth
Live Earth
-Background:Founded by Emmy-winning producer Kevin Wall, in partnership with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, Live Earth was built upon the belief that entertainment has the power to transcend social and cultural barriers to move the world community to action...
concerts. Rounds continues to head the company, which claims on its website to have established relationships with over 5,000 radio stations in 140 countries.