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Bill Drake, pioneer in radio, dies of cancer
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Published: December 2, 2008
LOS ANGELES
Bill Drake, a legendary radio programmer who revamped Top 40 radio in the 1960s, has died. He was 71.
Drake died of lung cancer Saturday at West Hills Hospital and Medical Center, said Carole Scott, his domestic partner.
In the '60s, Drake was known as one of the most powerful men in the radio industry. His formula for success was called the Drake format: less talk, fewer commercials and more music.
"What he did for American radio, particularly the Top 40 format, was to clean up all the clutter, such as disc jockeys rambling on and on forever," said John Long, the president of the Georgia Radio Hall of Fame, which inducted Drake in 2007.
Born Philip Yarbrough on Jan. 14, 1937, Drake grew up in Donalsonville, Ga., and started his radio career in Bainbridge, Ga., while still in high school.
He attended Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, according to his Web site, and moved to Atlanta in the late '50s to work as a disc jockey -- and later program director -- at WAKE. He changed his name to Drake, he later said, because the station wanted a name that rhymed with its call letters.
By the early '70s, according to Drake's Web site, his company was offering sales and programming consulting services to more than 350 full-time radio stations.
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