Herb Jepko - Radio Career

Radio Career

Herb was hired by several Salt Lake City-area stations, including KCPX, where he played jazz for the late night audience; and a new station, KANN in Ogden UT, where he did the afternoon drive shift. Then, in 1962, Herb joined radio station KSL first doing mid-days, and then in April 1963, becoming the station's morning show disc jockey, a shift he held throughout the rest of 1963. Despite being in a very visible shift, Herb was puzzled that KSL signed off at midnight, even though it was a 50,000-watt clear channel station whose booming signal reached most of the western half of North America. He knew how successful Ben Hunter's show had been, and he believed there was a similar late night audience in Salt Lake City that was not being served. On 11 February 1964, Herb's late-night show aired for the first time. It was an open-mic call-in show, initially known as "The Other Side of the Day," and later named the "Nitecaps" in a contest for a new name held among listeners early in the show's first year. By early November 1975, this show became the first nationally syndicated call-in talk show, when the Mutual Broadcasting System agreed to syndicate it. One of the stations that picked it up via Mutual, WHAS in Louisville, was a 50,000-watt "flamethrower" like KSL. The two stations' combined power brought Nitecaps to nearly all of North America.

Jepko's groundbreaking syndication is often cited as the pioneering kick-start for nationally broadcast talk-radio that allowed for the prominence of such hosts as Larry King and Phil Donahue. Ironically, when Jepko's Mutual contract was terminated on 29 May 1977, he was replaced first by Long John Nebel and Candy Jones (a husband and wife team), and then six months later (following Long John's untimely death) by Larry King. (Jepko had evidently been offered a chance to stay with Mutual if he would become more controversial and try to attract a younger audience, but he adamantly refused, feeling he had an obligation to his existing, largely rural and older listeners.) (2)

"The Herb Jepko Nitecap Show" was idiosyncratic, never focusing one any single topic. Carrying a laid-back atmosphere inherent to its (then unusual) 12:00 AM – 6:00 AM time slot, the show consisted entirely of listener call-ins: any subject the listener wished to talk about, no matter how big or small, was allowed, and the only forbidden topics were politics and denominational religion. Later, as the show became more popular, callers were limited to one call every two weeks of no more than 5 minutes. Jepko would run a recording of "Tinkerbell," a music box rendition of the song "Never On Sunday," to indicate that the caller's time was done.

Many of the listeners were elderly or shut-ins, or long-distance truckers, but a number were insomniacs who enjoyed hearing a friendly voice. And in a world of angry talkers, Jepko, whose listeners called him "Herbie," was known for being friendly, warm, and thoroughly non-controversial. He told an interviewer in 1965 that he hoped his show would contribute to "good will and understanding," and that his listeners would feel they were part of a family. (3)