Richard Wagstaff Clark was born in Mount Vernon, New York.He was an average student until he reached the tenth grade and discovered radio..At that time he decided radio would be his career. The summer after high school Clark was given a job at WRUN-AM radio in Rome, NY. The station was owned by his uncle and run by his father. Clark was only an office boy, but the station manager asked him to fill in for a vacationing weatherman on WRUN's new FM station. By summer's end Clark had advanced to station breaks.
Clark attended Syracuse University where he majored in advertising with a minor in radio. In his senior year he had a got a job with WOLF a country station in Syracuse He came back to WRUN for a short time where he used the name Richard Clay that led to his first television job, as a newscaster at WKTV in Utica, NY. Using the name Dick Clark in 1952 he went to work for WFIL radio and television in Philadelphia, PA.That summer WFIL decided to follow the new trend of having announcers play records over the air. Shortly there after, they tried the same format on television. Bob Horn, a WRIL radio deejay, aired an early form of music video on a show called "Bandstand". Within a month teenagers were invited to come and dance while Horn played records.. The show became very successful with the high school students.