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Bill Ballance started the radio version of the women’s sexual revolution of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Many outside of Southern California know him his for his legendary relationship with Dr. Laura Schlessinger but there’s more to his contribution to talk radio than that.

He got his first taste of radio in college in the late 1930s. After several radio jobs in Denver he joined the Marines during WW II. After the war, he returned to the business at KOA, Denver. He was offered a television show in Chicago in 1951 and in 1952 headed to California to work as a staff announcer at KNX, Los Angeles. There, he did an afternoon show with a live audience and a late night show that featured movie stars as guests and questions phoned in from listeners (but read by Ballance).

In 1969, after noticing that his KGBS, Los Angeles audience was largely women, he developed the “Bill Ballance Feminine Forum” show where women would call in to talk about relationships. The concept seems tame by today’s standards but it was truly groundbreaking at the time. He took the show to L.A. at KABC and stayed there until 1977 when Dr. Toni Grant replaced him. Ballance spent the last part of his career in San Diego at KFMB doing the “All Talk Slice of the Night” show until his retirement in 1994.