Bill Keene

Bill Keene (1927 – April 5, 2000) was a television and radio personality who became famous in the Los Angeles, California market as a traffic and weather announcer. He was particularly known for his colorful humorous traffic reports which included numerous puns and he became a fixture in Los Angeles broadcasting.

Keene first took to the airways while still in high school in his native Scottsbluff, Nebraska. After serving as an Army Air Corps navigator during World War II, he was hired as news and sports director at KBOL radio in Boulder, Colorado where he studied journalism at the University of Colorado. Keene's Los Angeles broadcasting career began in 1957 at KNXT-TV (now KCBS-TV) as a weather reporter. He is credited with helping pioneer the station's hourlong news format, promoted as The Big News, which featured Keene and long time Los Angeles newscaster Jerry Dunphy and Brent Musberger. During the same period he also reported the weather on the sister radio operation KNX (AM). Later he hosted the daytime television variety show "Keene at Noon" which was later called "The Bill Keene Show."