Really? Your first job in radio was as a program director?

I often get a surprised reaction when I tell people that yes, my very first job was as a program director. How did that happen? Seems like it was meant to be. Even as I continued my teenage dream of being in radio, I was more focused on the behind the scenes. I wanted to know how things happened on the radio. Why did they play the songs when they played them? Who told the disc jockeys what to say?
Who made the decision on the contests and station promotions?

Yes, I had fun making tapes and pretending to be on the air. I could also see how it would be cool
to be thought of as someone on the radio. I did not however really crave attention or want to be out in public with this. I just thought it was cool to play records and talk on the radio.

So with Mr. Shaners help, I selected SUNY Geneseo as a destination for college. They had a good communications department, plus as a teachers college I learned the female to male ratio was about
5 to 1.

Upon arrival at Geneseo I sought out the college radio station to see if I could get on the air. There were actually two stations. An FM non commercial station that featured NPR programming and played jazz music and an unruly animal house type AM carrier current station (could only be heard on campus) that played Top 40 music. The FM folks were snobs and I immediately tried to get on the AM station WGBS. While hanging around the station I saw the on air schedule posted on the control room door. There were at least 40 names and a long waiting list of people who wanted to be on the air. The station manger was a guy named Steve Rondinero, who was famous on campus because he already had some commercial experience working on several stations in Buffalo including my dream station WKBW. He had just completed a summer of working part time overnights on KB and often held us in rapture while telling stories of what it was like. Of course since he worked overnights he was able to get to know legendary KB morning guy Danny Nevereth. Steve was also a bit of a prick and listened with distaste to one of my home made radio station tapes, which I was hoping to use as an audition for the station. He told me to get lost, and talk to him next year when I was a sophomore. Unfortunately there are still lots of PD"s in the business who act that way, but that's another story.

I was disappointed, but still determined. So as the fall wore on and I became disillusioned with the whole college experience and the seemingly useless courses I was taking I came up with an idea. What if I when to Rondinero and proposed to work the overnight shift on the station. No one wanted to do that, in fact the station signed off at midnight most nights during the week because no one would work. Plus most everyone was sleeping and not paying any attention to the station.

When I hit him with the idea Rondinero simple said, sure knock yourself out. It was a stroke of genius, except for the fact that it make making class the next day very tough and while I got lots of on air time that first semester, my heart was just not into any of the classes I was taking. My grades were not good and after on semester of burning up the overnight airwaves on the college station and struggling with class, it was clear to me that college was just going to take too long. I wanted to be in radio now and I was not learning anything that would help me get on the radio. In fact the most profound thing I can remember was from my class called Interpersonal communication. Professor Goetzinger lead the class and often remarked about how he got food and snot in his beard and it was a pain but he couldn't bring himself to shave it.

Nope, college was not for me and I had a plan. I remember my dad saying to me, OK your not going back next semester, what do you figure you'll do? Join the Air Force I gulped. And that's what I did. I tried to get into Armed Forces radio but they had not openings at the time, so I enlisted and became an Air Force Security Specialists.(Air Force version of MP).

During my time in the service I still dreamed of radio and spent lots of time listening to radio wherever I was and when I came home from the service, once again my dad said, what do you figure you'll do? My mom sort of came to the rescue. She had seen ads on TV for a Vocational school in Buffalo that had a course in radio. We looked up the school and made an appointment to go up for a tour.

The Advanced Training Center, on Sheridan drive in Buffalo was mainly a welding and auto body repair kind of school. Buy a guy named Bill Desing, convinced them to offer radio and he put the course together. It was six month, six hours a day from noon to six of combined classroom and in studio training. The goal of the course was for each student to emerge with a professional resume, a three minute air check, three commercials written and produced by the student and a nice well rounded understanding of how radio worked. Plus in those days you had to pass an FCC test and get a license to be on the air, so there was prep for that test as well.

Sign me up I said. My GI benefits paid for school, and I could draw unemployment while going to school so I started making the 60 mile drive to Buffalo every day, just in time for the Oil crisis of 1977. Gas prices jumped from about 55 cents a gallon to over a dollar, but hey, I was gonna be on the radio.

The school had two fully equipped studios. One was styled after an FM station and the other an AM Top 40 station and we got to spend time in each studio almost every day. We had about three hours of classroom time and three hours working on air and writing and producing commercials. Mr. Desing had a well rounded background and he really taught us a lot. He had copies of old radio shows like Gunsmoke, Fred Allen and The Shadow. We spent hours listening to these old radio dramas and learned about the golden age of radio. It was frustrating sometimes thought because we would get hooked on one of the shows and then find out that he didn't have the next show in the series and we got left hanging.

Bill Desing was my first mentor and he gave me great advice. I had told him of my make believe radio station and my failed college experience. He said to me, I predict you will be programming radio station in big markets someday. He said you're a natural and while working on the air is fun, you seem to want to be in charge and that's rare. He also told me something very important: Do not limit yourself by Geography. what he meant was : go where the jobs are. Radio is tough to break into and you have to willing to go to wherever to get that first job. Plus remember there are only a few radio stations in each town. So when you want to advance, be ready to move. I know this was great advice because my 11 classmates, all from Buffalo thought they could get a break, and get their first job in a large market. Didn't happen. None of them every got a job in radio as far as I know.

At the end of six months I passed the course with flying colors. I had a well done resume'. I had a decent three minute on air check tape and three commercials that I wrote and produced. The next step was
to place an ad in Broadcasting magazine. Don't remember exactly what it said, but in any event it was telling the radio world that I was ready for that first challenge.

I can't say I was full of confidence as I waited for the phone to ring, but I was somewhat optimistic. I had managed to get a part time job at a station in Olean (20 miles away). So while going to school during the week I got to do the Sunday morning god squad shift on WMNS AM 1360. God squad is what we call that shift because it was mostly airing religious programs on tape. I did get to be on the air from 6 AM to 7 AM before all the religion started. After that it was mostly getting the tapes ready to go and baby sitting the station, but hey it was a start. One of the shows I had to run each Sunday was the Lutheran Hour. The first time I ran the show I panicked! It lasted only 15 minutes. I couldn't figure out where the other 45 minutes went. Turns out the show was only supposed to be 15 minutes. Don't ask me why they still called it the Lutheran HOUR.

My first time actually on WMNS was a nightmare. I was going to ATC during the week and contacted the program director of the station to offer my services on a part time basis. He said sure come in for an interview. I had one of my college shows for an audition tape and he listened for a minute and then said follow me. We walked through- the station to the on air control room. The midday guys was playing a tune and had his feet up on the console, reading the newspaper. I glanced at the big clock on the wall and saw that it was about five minutes before noon. Oh, he is letting me see the control room I thought. Must be he is going to hire me. As I began the self congratulation in my mind I heard the PD say to the midday guy: hey take a break, go get some lunch. He's taking over and he gestured to me.

What! OK the PD said you've got a five minute newscast at the top of the hour, then you'll play tunes until 1, here are the commercials for the hour, the script for the newscast, a pair of headphones and up on the wall is the format clock. Follow it..and have some fun, I'm going to lunch.

My face got so hot I felt like I was on the sun. Somehow I muddled through the hour and wasn't horrible because he did in fact hire me for the god squad. I do remember driving home that day thinking why in the world do I want to do this?

Then something cool happened. The phone did ring. Ben Granger, the General manager of a station
in Peru Illinois wanted to talk to me about coming to work. He had seen my add and requested I send a resume and tape, so I did.

He called back a week later and said, how would you like to be our program director? What! I thought this was for an on air position. No he said, we want you to come out and be our program director. I thought to myself I have no idea how to do that. So of course I accepted the job, we agreed that my pay would be
105 dollars a week and I loaded up my car and headed for Illinois.

I'm a program director, now what do I do?

Next time: What do you mean your second job in radio was as a General Manager?