The fastest-rising figure in U.S. radio is Omaha's R. (for Robert) Todd Storz, 32, whose low estimate of listeners' intelligence is tempered only by his high regard for their cupidity. On the four Storz-owned stations in Omaha, New Orleans, Minneapolis and Kansas City, he has found that giveaways work even better for stations than they do for individual programs. Storz shovels out jackpots in a succession of quizzes, guessing games and treasure hunts that occasionally tie up traffic when the search is on. This cash-and-harry formula is so popular with listeners and advertisers that Storz in six years has run a $20,000 investment of his own, plus $30,000 from his father, into a $2,500,000 network. Last week, in his biggest deal to date, he paid $850,000 for Miami's WQAM and prepared to test Florida's IQ.
When his listeners are not being told about a new giveaway, they get a steady serenade from disk jockeys, broken only by stunts and five-minute newscasts. Storz permits no cultural note; he allows his stations only 60 records at a time, lets them play only the 40 top tunes of the week, well larded with commercials.
Storz newscasts, which ignore the U.N. for other international bodies, e.g., Anita Ekberg, are aired five minutes before every hour, so that they can catch listeners who switch off other stations' on the-hour announcements. Last week Storz was warming the mikes in Omaha and Minneapolis for "the biggest one-shot giveaway of all time on either radio or TV." The prize: two bank drafts for $105,000, each hidden within a ten-mile radius of Storz's Stations KOHW and WGDY. which will start broadcasting clues next week. (The insurance group underwriting the prize estimates that there is only one chance in 47 that Storz will have to pay off.) If the booty goes un-found by June 17, Storz will pay only $500 consolation prizes to the hunters who eventually stumble onto the two hiding places.
"Turn the Set Off." Todd Storz first got interested in radio as a ham operator. After a three-year stint in the Army, he passed up the family brewery to take a whirl at being a disk jockey. He lasted only a short while after advising a woman who had written in to complain about his record selections: "Ma'am, on your radio you will find a switch which will easily turn the set off." In 1949, after working for another station as a salesman, Storz heard that Omaha's pioneer KOHW was on the block for $75,000. With his father he formed the Mid-Continent Co., borrowed enough to buy the ailing station.