How often do you come across a true genius? How about three? All in the same family? Even without seeing IQ test scores, it’s evident by their legendary smarts in management, engineering, and marketing, that Bill, Cyril, and Dan Brennan were broadcasting geniuses who made untold contributions to our industry. The ABA takes great pleasure inducting the three Brennnan brothers into the Association’s Hall of Fame.
The Brennan dynasty started on a dairy farm owned by the boys’ parents, Cyril M. and Mary Brennan. While working at the Brickyard, Alabama farm, Bill took a radio repair correspondence course and began selling radios around the area.
“He’d sell these radios for just a dollar down and a dollar a week,” says Jim Brennan, Bill’s oldest son. “They were always breaking, so he’d pick up the radio and repair it and that grew into quite a business.” Enough of a business, in fact, to finance his electrical engineering degree which he earned at Auburn University in 1939.
After graduation, he was offered a scholarship to Harvard where he received a Master of Science degree in Communication Engineering. “It took him one year to get a two-year degree,” says Jim. “And when he came back, he went to get his engineering license from the state, and they told him they didn’t have anybody that could qualify to test him!”
Cyril G. Brennan was born on the farm in 1920. Even as a toddler, he began to show an interest in radio. An entry in his baby book says, “He likes to play with all kinds of electrical things – plugs, sockets, wires, blown bulbs, etc. He can connect them up easily.”
Cyril skipped a couple of grades in elementary school and graduated from high school when he was sixteen years old. About this time, the senior Brennan sold the farm and Cyril stopped worrying about milking cows at 4 a.m. for the rest of his life.
By now, older brother Bill worked at the National Union Radio Tube Company in New Jersey. Cyril joined Bill there and also got a job at the tube company. Both acquired knowledge that would serve them well in the future.
A year later, Cyril enrolled at Auburn University, but found he already knew what they were teaching. It was just as well because it was 1946 – wartime – and he was called up for military service and sent to the Army’s Eastern Signal Corps Training Center.
“The war was basically over,” explains Cyril’s daughter, Donnie. “At the end of the day, the Army would let him and his friend, George Blaskow, take all this stuff they were using in the signal corps. They’d mail the boards back to Alabama and that’s how they built WVOK.”
WVOK was a team effort. The Brennans worked with another legendary broadcasting family, the Benns to make the station operable. Billy Benns and Bill Brennan met in engineering school at Auburn and were the best of friends. Much earlier, when Cyril M. was in school, he was friends with Iralee Whitaker. Iralee married William Benns, Sr. and became Billy’s mother. So, the two families were already connected in a couple of different ways.
It took some quick-witted maneuvering through the FCC’s rules and regulations, but in October of 1947, Birmingham gained a new radio station, WVOK, the Voice of Dixie. One of the new station employees was 18-year-old Dan Brennan, Bill and Cyril’s younger brother.
In the mid-forties, the Brennans moved from Alabama to Florida where Dan graduated from high school. However, the construction of WVOK brought the family back to Birmingham where Dan got a degree in Business Administration from Birmingham Southern. He then began his on-air and sales career.
As the years went by, the Brennans’ presence on the radio dial increased. WBAM in Montgomery went on the air in 1953. WAPE, a Jacksonville, Florida power-house, hit the airwaves in 1958. In Chattanooga, Tennessee, WFLI was up and running in 1961. The family also owned and operated a television station – WSLA in Selma, which went on the air in 1960.
“Daddy’s main contribution was he obtained the licenses,” says Jim about his father, Bill. “He financed or arranged the financing for the stations … he was the one that started it.”
Bill was also instrumental in the engineering side of the business. While at the tube company in New Jersey, he learned about extended electrical performance curves of certain tubes and this knowledge was put to good use.
“They built these stations from the ground up. They did it the old-fashioned way,” says David Israel who was the general manager of WAPE AM/FM from 2006 -2010. The Brennans no longer owned the stations, but David became friends with the family while doing research for a possible book about the family’s history.
“Most people were buying equipment from the manufacturers,” he explains, “but the Brennans were one of the few still building their own transmitters which allowed them to really create a unique sound.”
Cyril’s talent for building transmitters was especially astounding. “The stations each had a unique sound to them because Cyril got in there and redesigned certain sections of the transmitter to the frequency it was operating,” says David. “Their sound had a richness that is almost unparalleled to this day. It was warm, rich – they had a great presence on the air.”
Because the transmitters were so powerful, they threw off a lot of heat. Cyril figured out how to use water to cool the tubes, so a source of water (a fountain, a pond and even a swimming pool) was incorporated into each station’s design.
While Bill and Cyril were working behind the scenes, Dan was front and center. In addition to being a popular on-air personality, he was a top-billing account executive and produced all the stations’ content. In fact, his natural proclivity in marketing took programming out of the studio and into the community through live concerts called the “Shower of Stars.”
“I could go back through just a litany of concerts,” says Dan’s daughter Debbie. “The Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys, even Elvis and the Beatles!”
“Daddy wanted to bring the audience what they wanted to hear,” she explains. “He had them all. And he was adamant that the concerts were promotions strictly to support the community, bringing live music to the south – and that was a big deal back then.”
Although the Beatles concert took place in Florida, not Alabama, we have to include the story.
“It was 1964 and this was their second U.S. concert,” says Debbie. “Daddy had them sign a contract for $52,000! And the Beatles would only play if the audience wasn’t segregated. That’s why they came to play for my family.”
“A hurricane came through and the Jacksonville station was off the air. My dad had to buy airtime on other stations to tell people the Beatle concert was still on. They had to nail down the drums and microphones. My dad introduced them and I was on the front row!’
Sometimes really intelligent people lack people skills and common sense. This was not the case with the Brennan brothers.
Jim says his father, Bill, was delivering milk when he was still a kid. He had to know how to interact with others and as a grownup, that interaction led to a desire to help others.
“I think it was back when we were building WBAM, we had a man who would pick up and deliver laundry … a black man. And one day he came by and told dad that he’d really like to get into radio, and asked if he could have a job,” Jim says. “Dad told him that instead of having a job in radio, why didn’t he start his own station? He told the man to save up $10,000 and then come back and see him. You know later, the guy knocked on the door and said, ‘I saved $10,000!”
“Daddy got his lawyer up in Washington D.C. to apply for a license in Huntsville and then he donated the transmitter and studio equipment and the guy started his own station. It was quite successful.”
Cyril’s daughter, Donnie, credits her father with having a generous supply of common sense. “My dad was the perfect father. He was always there for me,” she says. “I was head nurse for a while and was having trouble with 32 nurses under me. They all wanted more hours and were always fighting. I was a mess. I asked dad one night what I should do.”
“He told me to get a stick out of the backyard and pass it around the room and let each one of them talk. Nobody else can talk while they’ve got the stick. And you know, it worked! He was a good man. A really good man.”
Debbie talks about how her father, Dan, not only loved music, but he also loved others who loved music and would do just about anything to help them further their careers.
“He’d take bands all around the state to let them perform at local schools for exposure,” says Debbie. “On Saturday mornings, local artists and musicians were invited to the station to perform live. He wanted to give everyone a chance. When WVOK-FM (later WRKK, K99) was on the air he produced an album featuring popular local bands. I still have a few boxes,” laughs Debbie. “Want one?”
“Their people skills were amazing,” says David. “In talking to people who knew the brothers, when you ask about them, people just light up. People speak lovingly about these guys and that’s not usually the case when you’re talking about businesspeople.”
“They were in show business, but it was also a family business. Their stations were legendary, but I think that reflected the brothers’ love of the business and their ideas to create things that were bigger than life in all of their communities,” continues David.
“I don’t think there will ever be any entrepreneurs like them again in the broadcast industry. The brothers were unique gentlemen in a unique period of time.”
