How to Make Money

Trying to sell books on the prairies of western Canada was getting Jack Kent Cooke no place. He awoke one cold morning, after a miserable night's sleep in his auto, and made a passionate resolution to make some money.

First, he shifted from literature to soap. Then, just as he was getting to be a pretty good soap drummer in northern Ontario, he met a man who owned a little string of radio stations. Cooke knew nothing about the radio business, but he talked himself into a job. A few months later he was manager of the string. In 1941, he bought a station of his own in Rouyn, Quebec, and after less than two years sold it for $100,000, which was five times as much as he paid.

Next, he turned his attention to Toronto. After considerable study, he let a few selected businessmen in on his ideas. Last September, he bought Toronto's station CKCL for $500,000, changed its name to CKEY, and went to work.

Dark, energetic, ambitious Radioman Cooke, 32, works at his new station from 9 a.m. to midnight. He has made a number of changes. CKEY produces its own shows and sells them to sponsors pretty much on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. The whole day is plotted out as a smooth-flowing, well-balanced 24-hour show, and sponsors are allowed to buy pieces of it. They cannot impose their own ideas; the show is set by Cooke. Most of the acts run from 40 minutes to an hour, and two of them run two solid hours apiece. Commercials are few & far between.

Last week CKEY had just stepped up its power from 1,000 to 5,000 watts. In four months it had topped the city's three other stations in listener-response.

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