As the NYTimes notes in its obituary, Bill Drake introduced innovations in radio formatting that now seem commonplace. A profile first run in Time Magazine’s August 23, 1968 edition gives us an idea of how ground-breaking his innovations truly were:

“Once new jocks are hired, they are drilled for a couple of months in the Drake style. The big idea is to unclutter and speed up the pace. The next recording is introduced during the fadeout of the last one. Singing station identifications, which sometimes run at oratorio length elsewhere, are chopped to H seconds on Drake stations. Commercials are reduced to 13 minutes, 40 seconds an hour—about one-third less than the U.S. average. Newscasts are scheduled at unconventional times, such as 20 minutes after the hour. Thus, when the competition is carrying news, Drake-trained deejays run a “music sweep” (three or four recordings back-to-back) to lure away dial switchers.”

“Should he hear a disk jockey he doesn’t dig, Drake gets on the blower (he has 21 phones around the house, including one in each of the five bathrooms).“When that phone rings,” says one old jock, “you know it’s death time, man.”

“Sometimes he will go unannounced to the town of one of his clients and just check into a motel, dial-hop around the radio, and then decide how to beat the competition. For example, the program director of Memphis’ WHBQ says that his Drake-ordered strategy is to go for “the schoolteacher who lets her hair down, forgets the Mantovani, and swings a little.” (Time Magazine)