We moved into our new house in Charlotte on Labor Day weekend 1987. Vicky and I still talk about how exciting it was to finally own our own home. Our intentions had been to rent for a while, but we couldn't pass up the deal we got on our place.
2119 Heather Glen lane would be our home for the next 5 years and little did we know the kind of
adventures we would have in the neighborhood.
The Heather Glen development was about 50 percent complete so there were lots of places in various stages of completion. In fact we bought our place when it was just in the dry wall phase. Vicky flew down one weekend in June and we got to pick out colors carpet fixtures and counter tops.
After moving in our stuff that had been in storage all summer we settled into life in our little cul de sac. Most of the homes around us were empty but by mid fall they were starting to fill up. We met our neighbor across the street. His name was Rickey and he was a teacher and really nice guy.
Then one fall afternoon Vicky was watching things out the window as she often does, and she whispered, Ran, come here, look. Out the window I saw a couple walking around the house next door. Vicky said, I think they might be hippies. I looked again and noticed that the guy had shoulder length hair and a beard and the woman was petite with long dark hair.
Not long after that Danny, Sherry, Ginny and Wally moved in. Danny and Sherry Graves, and their two dogs Ginny and Wally. Ginny was the small yappy type and Big Wall was a large yellow dog we came to love over the next few years.
In fact we came to love them all. They became our best friends and the best neighbors we've ever had. They spent holidays with us and they adopted our kids and often took Jennifer out to dinner with them on Friday nights.
When Sherry had a baby boy Kevin, Vicky watched him during the day when she went back to work. Danny became my radio historian. He had been around Charlotte radio and paid attention to what was happening with the Q. So we had long talks over our fence in the backyard about radio.
We always included Danny and Sherry in our kids birthday celebrations and they did the same with Kevin.
It was great to have friends next door. Especially when Hurricane Hugo came knocking. It was a huge storm as you remember and slammed into Charleston a full Category 4 hurricane. All the week the talk had been that once it came ashore it would weaken as most storms do. That it would bring us rain and some wind, but that Charleston was going to take the brunt of the storm. With Charlotte being a couple hundred miles inland we did what anybody would do. The Q threw a hurricane party at a club called The Cellar.
We were enjoying Hurricane drinks at the club while Hugo slammed into the coast. Little did we know that the storm would hit Charlotte with 100 mph winds and the full fury of a hurricane.
At three AM my Rusty, my overnight jock called the house. I woke with a start and immediately heard what sounded like a freight train bearing down on us. Rusty was shouting, the power is off.....the wind is blowing like crazy and every time I throw the breaker switch to start the generator sparks fly off it.
Don't do that anymore I told him. I'll be right there.
I got up and got dressed, by this time the kids were awake and in bed with Vicky. I was still not really making the connection that this was Hugo. I left for the station and the wind and rain and Vicky and the kids ended up going next door to stay with Danny and Sherry.
As I drove up I 85 toward the station I was the lone idiot on the road. What I did not know is that the center of the storm was approaching and it was still a full blown hurricane. At one point the wind blew my Firebird from one lane of the interstate to another. As I turned onto radio road to head out the station I could see the tower field for Big Ways. It was a 5 tower array but I was only counting four towers.
I got to the station and the engineers were on-stite and they had the generator up and running. We got the station back on the air. Dwayne showed up but no Ray (Ray Mariner). Not too long after we got back on Ray called. He had been standing in his kitchen drinking coffee while his car warmed up. He stood watching as a huge tree came down. It landed on both his car and his wife's care. I guess I need someone to pick me up he said.
Charlotte was destroyed. Trees down everywhere, not power anywhere. No water, no ice. I'm proud to say our neighborhood really pulled together. We pooled our resources, like gas grills and ice and cooked community meals at night and shared our hurricane stories.
One night we were at Danny and Sherry's playing Trivial pursuit by candlelight in their dinning room. ?The kids were all in the living room playing games as well. Erin was 8 at that time and she came into the room and said, I hear noises next door. The house on the other side of Danny's was the home of a pilot and he was gone a lot.
Danny went out the back door, pistol in hand and I went of the front door. I was wearing a T shirt shorts and no shoes. We both saw a car backed up the front door of the pilot'sfhouse and a couple guys wrestling a TV out the door. Danny shouted at them as he came around to the front of the house and they dropped the TV and jumped into their car. I began running back toward my house and Danny followed. My Firebird I shouted and he nodded. As we approached the car I stepped into a hole on the lawn and broke my big toe on the left foot. Grimacing in pain I jumped into the car and fired it up.Danny got in wielding his pistol. We tore off after the car. It's probably just as well that we couldn't find them. I'm not sure what we would have done if we had caught them.
Here's a tip. If you go thruough a hurricane, lose power and want to get the power back on, here is what you do. Buy some type of expensive item that helps you cope with being out of power and the power comes back on.
After ten days of now power, no TV, cooking on Gas grills and no A/C I was ready for some Football. I was determined to see Monday night football, so I bough a battery operated TV. It was like 300 dollars and used 8 D batteries. I set it up in the living room on a TV tray and watched Monday night football. The Power came on the next day.
Hugo is just one of many example of the great times we had living in the cul de sac on Heather Glen lane. And while they didn't turn out to be hippies, Danny and Sherry and eventually their son Kevin became a very big part of our lives. Something Vicky and I talk about often.
We still really miss the Hippies next door.
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Saturday, August 20, 2011
The Summer of Dwayne
Thump, we hit another curb as we turned right. I didn't say anything but it was the second time we had
bounced over the curb while making a right hand turn. We we're cruising the streets of Myrtle Beach. Dwayne was giving me the tour. It was July of 1987 and he had convinced me that we need to hit
Myrtle Beach for the weekend and I had agreed. Earlier in the evening we had met some of Dwayne's beach buddies and hit a few nightspots. By the time we were bumping curbs we were headed to one of D's friends condos to spend the night.
By this time Dwayne had indeed become the music director for WROQ. He had pursued the job daily. He was in my office with ideas for which new songs made sense for the station. He talked to everyone around the country about music. Remember, this was pre email, pre internet. Dwayne worked the phones like a crazy person.
Dwayne's background up to that point had been in radio news. He grew up in Boone NC and graduated from Appalachian State. He eventually ended up at WKZQ in Myrtle Beach as a news anchor and reporter. Dwayne was at once fearless and tenacious in almost any situation. He chased hurricanes, went undercover with the sheriff's department on a drug bust and interviewed everyone you can imagine. He won several South Carolina news awards from the Associated Press and others.
What I saw in Dwayne was that same unending pursuit. Only now he was in pursuit of great songs and information about those songs and artists. We spent a great deal of time together I got settled in. While his mountain upbringing had instilled a certain hillbilly aspect to his nature, he was also one of the most intelligent individuals I ever encountered. He was fluent in all important subjects. From politics to pop culture. He was also witty, charming to a fault and in the right circumstances a complete Southern Gentleman. I like Dwayne right away. I mean, other than his Jed Clampett walk and his George Jetson hair cut what was not to like.
So, I made a decision. Why not give this guy a chance. He was so passionate about it. He also saw a dead end in the news side of the business. So I went to the General manager and told him I wanted to move Dwayne out of news to become my music director. OK, he said, what air shift will he do?
Well, he's not really gonna do an air shift, just be music director. An off air music director? The GM was dumbfounded. I'll admit, it was unheard of. But, I figured I was doing 3-7 on the radio plus being the PD for WROQ and operations manger over our AM station Big WAYS and I could use the help. Finally he agreed, but told me, you have to tell Lassister.
Frank Lassister was the news director. A veteran broadcaster to be sure. Golden throated and well traveled, Frank was not happy about losing his street reporter and fill in person to be a God Damn music director. But I managed to convince him that it would be good for the station, and that Dwayne could still fill in for him when need be.
I'm sure Frank was not alone in wondering what the hell I was up to. Mostly I recognized Dwayne's talent. But I was also looking for an ally. Someone to bounce ideas off and to help me make the station better.
With Vicky and the girls still in NY waiting for our new house to be ready, Dwayne and I spent a lot of time together. We worked long hours and often went out to dinner to plan and scheme. Dwayne was a natural born strategist and loved game playing and crafting attacks and counter attacks on our competition.
To some extent snaring the MD job at the Q full filled a dream of Dwayne's. Having grown up in Boone he had listened to the station for many years. It really was his dream job. Dwayne also brought a lot of Swagger to the station. Confidence. It was infectious. He loved being at the Q and over the years he gave his heart and soul to the station and his co-workers, no not co-workers, friends.
Over the years Dwayne became well know all over the country by radio and record people alike. When a special version of a new song came out..Dwayne would have a copy the next day. Overnighted by one of his friends. When information about an artist broke, Dwayne was on the case. When a new format trend developed in other markets, Dwayne had the info.
All I had to do really was challenge him. Whatever the challenge was, he wouldn't sleep until he had accomplished something great.
One of my favorite Dwayne stories involved the release of Madonna's song Vouge. We had received word from the label that they were shipping us a copy of the new single over night. It would be arriving the next day. Dwayne came to me with this info at about 9 am. I mused, sure would be nice
if we could get a copy and hit the air with it before 107.9 wouldn't it?
Dwayne smiled. What if I told you I could get a copy of Vouge by 8 tomorrow morning? Well, I said Fed ex doesn't get here until 10 or after so how can you do it?
So in an effort to out-do the competition we hit the air that morning at 11 with a promo that guaranteed the Q would have the new Madonna single before anyone else. We would play it at 8am the next morning and then every 95 minutes all day.
The next morning I'm driving to work. It's about 8 and I hear my morning guys making a fuss over Dwayne bursting into the studio with a special delivery. Yup within seconds Vouge was blasting through my speakers. I flipped over the competition. No mention of Vouge.
Dwayne was waiting in my office when I got to the station. OK I said, how did you do it. After a few moments of his patented giggle he shook my hand and said, it pays to make friends with guys who work at the Fed ex counter at the Airport. Dwayne had gone to the airport and picked up the package at 5 am, rather than wait for the regular delivery to the station. Brilliant.
As he walked out of my office he tossed another package to me. It was addressed to WBCY.
Dwayne grinned and said, the guy at Fed Ex said, hey, since your picking this up for the radio station will you deliver this one to?
Sure Dwayne told him. We didn't hear Vouge on the competition for another 24 hours.
That kind of planning was typical of Dwayne and over the years we had many more adventures just like that one. Dwayne became a frequent guest in my home and got to know Vicky and the girls and we enjoyed 4 and a half years of friendship and fun at the Q.
We all eventually went our separate ways, but stayed in touch. Dwayne went to the West coast to work for a trade magazine and to terrorize L.A.
Just before Christmas that next year I got a call from Dwayne. He said that he was going to be back in North Carolina for the holidays and we should get together. We did just that along with John Kilgo and Ray Mariner, two more of our Q compatriots. We gathered in North Myrtle beach at Kilgo's family's beach house. We spent the weekend re-living our great times in Charlotte, telling stories and promising that we would keep in touch and keep getting together every year.
We did just that. That gathering was named "the Kilgo conclave".
For the next 15 years the four of us would gather around the holidays for the Conclave. After that first year other folks began to join us. Some years we would gather at the Beach. Some years in the Mountains. I think the reason we felt the way we did was Dwayne. He was the hub we all revolved around.
We stopped doing the Conclave three or four years ago, I've lost count. Too many conflicts, family commitments and so on for us to be able to find a weekend that worked for everyone. At the last conclave as we always did, at some point in the weekend we spent some time alone remembering the glory days at the Q. Dwayne never failed to thank me for giving him that opportunity all those years ago to get out of news and into music. It turned out to be his calling. After radio, and the LA magazine experience Dwayne entered the world of Record promotion, working for several different labels. He was masterful at it.
My friend Dwayne died last fall. He was just 49. Most of the Conclave group reunited at his funeral in Boone.
Several years after the curb bumping in Myrtle Beach Dwayne mentioned it to me. He said, man I shouldn't have been driving, but I didn't want to admit that to you and I was nervous cause I was driving my new boss around. I was hoping you didn't notice.
Notice what? I said.
Next time:The Hippies next door.
bounced over the curb while making a right hand turn. We we're cruising the streets of Myrtle Beach. Dwayne was giving me the tour. It was July of 1987 and he had convinced me that we need to hit
Myrtle Beach for the weekend and I had agreed. Earlier in the evening we had met some of Dwayne's beach buddies and hit a few nightspots. By the time we were bumping curbs we were headed to one of D's friends condos to spend the night.
By this time Dwayne had indeed become the music director for WROQ. He had pursued the job daily. He was in my office with ideas for which new songs made sense for the station. He talked to everyone around the country about music. Remember, this was pre email, pre internet. Dwayne worked the phones like a crazy person.
Dwayne's background up to that point had been in radio news. He grew up in Boone NC and graduated from Appalachian State. He eventually ended up at WKZQ in Myrtle Beach as a news anchor and reporter. Dwayne was at once fearless and tenacious in almost any situation. He chased hurricanes, went undercover with the sheriff's department on a drug bust and interviewed everyone you can imagine. He won several South Carolina news awards from the Associated Press and others.
What I saw in Dwayne was that same unending pursuit. Only now he was in pursuit of great songs and information about those songs and artists. We spent a great deal of time together I got settled in. While his mountain upbringing had instilled a certain hillbilly aspect to his nature, he was also one of the most intelligent individuals I ever encountered. He was fluent in all important subjects. From politics to pop culture. He was also witty, charming to a fault and in the right circumstances a complete Southern Gentleman. I like Dwayne right away. I mean, other than his Jed Clampett walk and his George Jetson hair cut what was not to like.
So, I made a decision. Why not give this guy a chance. He was so passionate about it. He also saw a dead end in the news side of the business. So I went to the General manager and told him I wanted to move Dwayne out of news to become my music director. OK, he said, what air shift will he do?
Well, he's not really gonna do an air shift, just be music director. An off air music director? The GM was dumbfounded. I'll admit, it was unheard of. But, I figured I was doing 3-7 on the radio plus being the PD for WROQ and operations manger over our AM station Big WAYS and I could use the help. Finally he agreed, but told me, you have to tell Lassister.
Frank Lassister was the news director. A veteran broadcaster to be sure. Golden throated and well traveled, Frank was not happy about losing his street reporter and fill in person to be a God Damn music director. But I managed to convince him that it would be good for the station, and that Dwayne could still fill in for him when need be.
I'm sure Frank was not alone in wondering what the hell I was up to. Mostly I recognized Dwayne's talent. But I was also looking for an ally. Someone to bounce ideas off and to help me make the station better.
With Vicky and the girls still in NY waiting for our new house to be ready, Dwayne and I spent a lot of time together. We worked long hours and often went out to dinner to plan and scheme. Dwayne was a natural born strategist and loved game playing and crafting attacks and counter attacks on our competition.
To some extent snaring the MD job at the Q full filled a dream of Dwayne's. Having grown up in Boone he had listened to the station for many years. It really was his dream job. Dwayne also brought a lot of Swagger to the station. Confidence. It was infectious. He loved being at the Q and over the years he gave his heart and soul to the station and his co-workers, no not co-workers, friends.
Over the years Dwayne became well know all over the country by radio and record people alike. When a special version of a new song came out..Dwayne would have a copy the next day. Overnighted by one of his friends. When information about an artist broke, Dwayne was on the case. When a new format trend developed in other markets, Dwayne had the info.
All I had to do really was challenge him. Whatever the challenge was, he wouldn't sleep until he had accomplished something great.
One of my favorite Dwayne stories involved the release of Madonna's song Vouge. We had received word from the label that they were shipping us a copy of the new single over night. It would be arriving the next day. Dwayne came to me with this info at about 9 am. I mused, sure would be nice
if we could get a copy and hit the air with it before 107.9 wouldn't it?
Dwayne smiled. What if I told you I could get a copy of Vouge by 8 tomorrow morning? Well, I said Fed ex doesn't get here until 10 or after so how can you do it?
So in an effort to out-do the competition we hit the air that morning at 11 with a promo that guaranteed the Q would have the new Madonna single before anyone else. We would play it at 8am the next morning and then every 95 minutes all day.
The next morning I'm driving to work. It's about 8 and I hear my morning guys making a fuss over Dwayne bursting into the studio with a special delivery. Yup within seconds Vouge was blasting through my speakers. I flipped over the competition. No mention of Vouge.
Dwayne was waiting in my office when I got to the station. OK I said, how did you do it. After a few moments of his patented giggle he shook my hand and said, it pays to make friends with guys who work at the Fed ex counter at the Airport. Dwayne had gone to the airport and picked up the package at 5 am, rather than wait for the regular delivery to the station. Brilliant.
As he walked out of my office he tossed another package to me. It was addressed to WBCY.
Dwayne grinned and said, the guy at Fed Ex said, hey, since your picking this up for the radio station will you deliver this one to?
Sure Dwayne told him. We didn't hear Vouge on the competition for another 24 hours.
That kind of planning was typical of Dwayne and over the years we had many more adventures just like that one. Dwayne became a frequent guest in my home and got to know Vicky and the girls and we enjoyed 4 and a half years of friendship and fun at the Q.
We all eventually went our separate ways, but stayed in touch. Dwayne went to the West coast to work for a trade magazine and to terrorize L.A.
Just before Christmas that next year I got a call from Dwayne. He said that he was going to be back in North Carolina for the holidays and we should get together. We did just that along with John Kilgo and Ray Mariner, two more of our Q compatriots. We gathered in North Myrtle beach at Kilgo's family's beach house. We spent the weekend re-living our great times in Charlotte, telling stories and promising that we would keep in touch and keep getting together every year.
We did just that. That gathering was named "the Kilgo conclave".
For the next 15 years the four of us would gather around the holidays for the Conclave. After that first year other folks began to join us. Some years we would gather at the Beach. Some years in the Mountains. I think the reason we felt the way we did was Dwayne. He was the hub we all revolved around.
We stopped doing the Conclave three or four years ago, I've lost count. Too many conflicts, family commitments and so on for us to be able to find a weekend that worked for everyone. At the last conclave as we always did, at some point in the weekend we spent some time alone remembering the glory days at the Q. Dwayne never failed to thank me for giving him that opportunity all those years ago to get out of news and into music. It turned out to be his calling. After radio, and the LA magazine experience Dwayne entered the world of Record promotion, working for several different labels. He was masterful at it.
My friend Dwayne died last fall. He was just 49. Most of the Conclave group reunited at his funeral in Boone.
Several years after the curb bumping in Myrtle Beach Dwayne mentioned it to me. He said, man I shouldn't have been driving, but I didn't want to admit that to you and I was nervous cause I was driving my new boss around. I was hoping you didn't notice.
Notice what? I said.
Next time:The Hippies next door.
Life in the fast lane part 1
One of the most important things I've learned in 35 years of radio, is that people are the most important resource we have in the business. They tend to be quirky, introverted, passionate and ego-centric. Those are not bad qualities to have when you spend you days sitting in a room along pretending that you are talking to people. That's what it's like to be on the radio. You sit there, playing songs and talking to no one. Being an introvert helps and a very high percentage of on air folks have that quality in spades. Most are more comfortable in front of a microphone that a group of people. On the other hand, when you put a microphone in front of most anybody else they act like it's a rattlesnake and recoil.
Anyway, the experiences I've had are wonderful but the people I've met on this journey have made it really special. Up to this point in the story I had already encountered some very memorable characters, but in Charlotte that went to a whole new level.
All of us have times in our life that we cherish and look back upon fondly. For many it's High School or College. For some it's the military experience. I have great memories from all of those times, but my time in
radio is even more special. Charlotte in particular stands out because the the incredible cast of characters I encountered at WROQ as well as the folks who became our neighbors. It will take me a few chapters to
re-live the rich experience we all had while in Charlotte.
--
It was May of 1987 when I crossed into North Carolina on I 77. I stopped at the rest area at Fancy Gap to take a breather and admire the view. I had been driving for a few hours from Woodstock Virginia. I had stopped over there to see my old Air Force friend and roommate Martin French. The day before I had driven from N.Y. about a six hour drive. Vicky had given me a wonderful send-off: A surprise going away party in our backyard in Waterloo. Friends and former co-workers showed up for the party, some I hadn't seen in quite some time. She managed to arrange the whole thing complete with a large tent in the backyard without me suspecting a thing.
Up to this point in the trip I had been reflecting on the party and saying goodbye to Vicky and girls for a while. I'll admit there were some teary miles along the way. But as I got back into the car after a brief rest at Fancy Gap I started thinking about what I was traveling toward. I flipped on the radio as I got back on
the interstate and tuned in 95.1. The Q came blasting in. After about 30 minutes I thought to myself, wow!
The station sounded great. One of my first thoughts was, yikes, what have I gotten myself into? Am I ready for this? This is really a big time sounding radio station.
I've found that over the years, each time I have gone to a new station I have the same reaction when driving into town for the first time to take over as the Program director. But in all cases I've figured it out and went on to be successful at each turn.
I arrived in Charlotte in the early evening on a Sunday night. The station had set me up at a Hampton Inn for a month so I could get settled. I checked in and started planning my first day at the station which would begin early on Monday morning.
It turned out to be a typical first day experience. I spent time with the General Manager and the Corporate programmer who had hired me. I met with the staff and moved into my office. What cool digs, the office was a glassed in office with a private bathroom, a first for me. We spent some time strategizing on the direction of the station and then I settled in for put my plan together.
Here is where one of the most memorable characters entered my life. He was hanging just outside my office door and had been for quite some time. I finally motioned for him to come in.
He shook my hand and said with his amazing baritone voice, Hey, I'm Dwayne Ward. I remembered that
he worked in the news department as a street reporter and fill in anchor on the morning show when our Lead anchor was out.
We both sat down and Dwayne handed me several CD's. These are some tunes I think we should look at to add to the play list he said. I took the CD's and replied, uh, don't you work in the news department?
Yup, he said, but I'm going to be your music director.
With that he got up and walked out.
Next time: The Summer of Dwayne.
Anyway, the experiences I've had are wonderful but the people I've met on this journey have made it really special. Up to this point in the story I had already encountered some very memorable characters, but in Charlotte that went to a whole new level.
All of us have times in our life that we cherish and look back upon fondly. For many it's High School or College. For some it's the military experience. I have great memories from all of those times, but my time in
radio is even more special. Charlotte in particular stands out because the the incredible cast of characters I encountered at WROQ as well as the folks who became our neighbors. It will take me a few chapters to
re-live the rich experience we all had while in Charlotte.
--
It was May of 1987 when I crossed into North Carolina on I 77. I stopped at the rest area at Fancy Gap to take a breather and admire the view. I had been driving for a few hours from Woodstock Virginia. I had stopped over there to see my old Air Force friend and roommate Martin French. The day before I had driven from N.Y. about a six hour drive. Vicky had given me a wonderful send-off: A surprise going away party in our backyard in Waterloo. Friends and former co-workers showed up for the party, some I hadn't seen in quite some time. She managed to arrange the whole thing complete with a large tent in the backyard without me suspecting a thing.
Up to this point in the trip I had been reflecting on the party and saying goodbye to Vicky and girls for a while. I'll admit there were some teary miles along the way. But as I got back into the car after a brief rest at Fancy Gap I started thinking about what I was traveling toward. I flipped on the radio as I got back on
the interstate and tuned in 95.1. The Q came blasting in. After about 30 minutes I thought to myself, wow!
The station sounded great. One of my first thoughts was, yikes, what have I gotten myself into? Am I ready for this? This is really a big time sounding radio station.
I've found that over the years, each time I have gone to a new station I have the same reaction when driving into town for the first time to take over as the Program director. But in all cases I've figured it out and went on to be successful at each turn.
I arrived in Charlotte in the early evening on a Sunday night. The station had set me up at a Hampton Inn for a month so I could get settled. I checked in and started planning my first day at the station which would begin early on Monday morning.
It turned out to be a typical first day experience. I spent time with the General Manager and the Corporate programmer who had hired me. I met with the staff and moved into my office. What cool digs, the office was a glassed in office with a private bathroom, a first for me. We spent some time strategizing on the direction of the station and then I settled in for put my plan together.
Here is where one of the most memorable characters entered my life. He was hanging just outside my office door and had been for quite some time. I finally motioned for him to come in.
He shook my hand and said with his amazing baritone voice, Hey, I'm Dwayne Ward. I remembered that
he worked in the news department as a street reporter and fill in anchor on the morning show when our Lead anchor was out.
We both sat down and Dwayne handed me several CD's. These are some tunes I think we should look at to add to the play list he said. I took the CD's and replied, uh, don't you work in the news department?
Yup, he said, but I'm going to be your music director.
With that he got up and walked out.
Next time: The Summer of Dwayne.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Summer Hiatis is over....
Ok, so I sort of took the summer off from the blog and History of Radiorandy.
In case you just found this, there are chapters done that start in, well the beginning when as a kid
I dreamed about being on the radio. You can catch up on the story be scrolling down thru the early posts.
The story is complete through 1986 which takes us up to our pending move to Charlotte and
the incredible days at WROQ.
Several Chapters about our time in Charlotte are ready to go and I will post them over the next few days.
Thanks.
RCB
In case you just found this, there are chapters done that start in, well the beginning when as a kid
I dreamed about being on the radio. You can catch up on the story be scrolling down thru the early posts.
The story is complete through 1986 which takes us up to our pending move to Charlotte and
the incredible days at WROQ.
Several Chapters about our time in Charlotte are ready to go and I will post them over the next few days.
Thanks.
RCB
Monday, June 13, 2011
IT WAS LIKE WORKING IN A BANK
So it's 1986. My radio career is about 8 years old. So far I've broadcast from a corn field, been shot at, cleaned up dirty beer glasses and found a mentor. For details, you can read the previous posts.
Anyway after almost 4 years at CQ 102 in Geneva under the tutelage of David Weinfeld, I was starting to feel like it was time to pursue larger market opportunities. We had a great team at CQ and did a lot
of wonderful things and pretty good radio I think, but I had certainly maxed out in terms of compensation.
In the late summer that year I got a call from John Elliot at WVOR in Rochester. Said he wanted to meet with me. Said they had had their eye on me for some time. He was aware that I was station manager by now at CQ and continued to do weekends at WPXY in Rochester.
I wend to Rochester to meet with him and the station GM who was also part owner and a Rochester broadcasting legend: Jack Palvino.
In the meeting they laid out a plan to bring my on board to do afternoons and to be a "PD in training". In other words, eventually, if I played my cards right, they would promote me to PD. The money was pretty good and WVOR was one of the top stations in Rochester. So after a discussion with Vicky I Took the gig.
It was like the best and worst of radio. The studios were located on the 17th floor of a downtown office building, the pent house actually. Beautiful. In the control there were floor to ceiling windows that allowed a view of the entire city. All the best equipment. It really was an incredible layout for a radio station. The best I'd every seen. We had our own traffic helicopter and each afternoon on his way out to report traffic, he would fly by my window and wave to me.
On the other hand these guys were so pretentious and full of themselves that it was insufferable. White shirts, slacks and ties was the dress code. Hushed tones in the common area's of the station. Lots of closed door
meetings. It really was like working in a bank.
I settled into the afternoon drive show and tried to get involved in programming stuff but Elliot basically shut me out. I found a small storage area in the engineering area that had a desk and phone and set up camp, since no office seemed to be in the works for me.
To make matters worse, after investigating the housing situation in Rochester we found it to be way out of
our price range to move anywhere near the city. So we stayed in Waterloo and I had an hour drive each to work every day. Plus parking was in the deck under the building and it was 5 dollars a day. Doesn't seem like much now, but between the cost of driving and the daily parking most of my pay increase was eaten up.
I learned a valuable lesson about checking out the economics of the situation before jumping into another market.
After a couple of months of the freeze out, the drive, the parking expense and the white shirt and tie routine I was miserable.
All the other jocks were nice, but most were older and had settled into doing their air shifts and going home. Most of them had other incomes of some sort. So there was no real team feeling. No fun. No radio station stuff.
I could see what these guys wanted. They wanted you to commit for life essentially and maybe eventually you might get a promotion, or more money, but don't count on it. To them the prestige of working there was
supposed to be enough.
Well, not for me.The only upside was that my ratings in afternoon drive were great.
I tried my best to get involved in programming stuff, but the door kept slamming in my face and I began to think about bolting. I knew of course that it had to be something good, so I started looking around.
Then, lo and behold, a familiar voice on the phone.
Hey, I just picked up a client station in Charlotte NC and we need a PD. It's a hot rockin' flame throwin' top 40 station. It was Gary Burns, David's close friend and radio consultant who had come to CQ to rob our talent bank for the launch of PXY.
Look, he said, fly down to Charlotte this weekend and we'll talk with the corporate PD. The job was actually Operations manager for WROQ and Big Ways and AM/FM combo in Charlotte.
I flew down, had a great meeting with Gary and Neil Newman who was the corporate PD for the company that had just purchased the stations from Stan and Sis Kaplan.
I guess it was a good meeting, cause they offered me the job on the spot. Then it was time to talk money.
Gary asked what I was making in Rochester and without blinking said, OK we'll double that.
Wow, a real life Rock n Roll station, 100,000 Watt Flamethrower with legendary call letters, an exciting city and twice what I was making. I asked Gary if I had to wear a white shirt and tie, he just laughed at me. That sealed it.
At the airport I called Vicky with the news. Double what you were making? She asked. Yes I said and I've already taken a look at housing and we can certainly buy a house.
I could have flown home without the plane.
Monday morning I gave my well dressed friends at WVOR my two weeks notice. They went berserk.
It was two of the best weeks of my life.
Next time: Life in the fast lane.
Anyway after almost 4 years at CQ 102 in Geneva under the tutelage of David Weinfeld, I was starting to feel like it was time to pursue larger market opportunities. We had a great team at CQ and did a lot
of wonderful things and pretty good radio I think, but I had certainly maxed out in terms of compensation.
In the late summer that year I got a call from John Elliot at WVOR in Rochester. Said he wanted to meet with me. Said they had had their eye on me for some time. He was aware that I was station manager by now at CQ and continued to do weekends at WPXY in Rochester.
I wend to Rochester to meet with him and the station GM who was also part owner and a Rochester broadcasting legend: Jack Palvino.
In the meeting they laid out a plan to bring my on board to do afternoons and to be a "PD in training". In other words, eventually, if I played my cards right, they would promote me to PD. The money was pretty good and WVOR was one of the top stations in Rochester. So after a discussion with Vicky I Took the gig.
It was like the best and worst of radio. The studios were located on the 17th floor of a downtown office building, the pent house actually. Beautiful. In the control there were floor to ceiling windows that allowed a view of the entire city. All the best equipment. It really was an incredible layout for a radio station. The best I'd every seen. We had our own traffic helicopter and each afternoon on his way out to report traffic, he would fly by my window and wave to me.
On the other hand these guys were so pretentious and full of themselves that it was insufferable. White shirts, slacks and ties was the dress code. Hushed tones in the common area's of the station. Lots of closed door
meetings. It really was like working in a bank.
I settled into the afternoon drive show and tried to get involved in programming stuff but Elliot basically shut me out. I found a small storage area in the engineering area that had a desk and phone and set up camp, since no office seemed to be in the works for me.
To make matters worse, after investigating the housing situation in Rochester we found it to be way out of
our price range to move anywhere near the city. So we stayed in Waterloo and I had an hour drive each to work every day. Plus parking was in the deck under the building and it was 5 dollars a day. Doesn't seem like much now, but between the cost of driving and the daily parking most of my pay increase was eaten up.
I learned a valuable lesson about checking out the economics of the situation before jumping into another market.
After a couple of months of the freeze out, the drive, the parking expense and the white shirt and tie routine I was miserable.
All the other jocks were nice, but most were older and had settled into doing their air shifts and going home. Most of them had other incomes of some sort. So there was no real team feeling. No fun. No radio station stuff.
I could see what these guys wanted. They wanted you to commit for life essentially and maybe eventually you might get a promotion, or more money, but don't count on it. To them the prestige of working there was
supposed to be enough.
Well, not for me.The only upside was that my ratings in afternoon drive were great.
I tried my best to get involved in programming stuff, but the door kept slamming in my face and I began to think about bolting. I knew of course that it had to be something good, so I started looking around.
Then, lo and behold, a familiar voice on the phone.
Hey, I just picked up a client station in Charlotte NC and we need a PD. It's a hot rockin' flame throwin' top 40 station. It was Gary Burns, David's close friend and radio consultant who had come to CQ to rob our talent bank for the launch of PXY.
Look, he said, fly down to Charlotte this weekend and we'll talk with the corporate PD. The job was actually Operations manager for WROQ and Big Ways and AM/FM combo in Charlotte.
I flew down, had a great meeting with Gary and Neil Newman who was the corporate PD for the company that had just purchased the stations from Stan and Sis Kaplan.
I guess it was a good meeting, cause they offered me the job on the spot. Then it was time to talk money.
Gary asked what I was making in Rochester and without blinking said, OK we'll double that.
Wow, a real life Rock n Roll station, 100,000 Watt Flamethrower with legendary call letters, an exciting city and twice what I was making. I asked Gary if I had to wear a white shirt and tie, he just laughed at me. That sealed it.
At the airport I called Vicky with the news. Double what you were making? She asked. Yes I said and I've already taken a look at housing and we can certainly buy a house.
I could have flown home without the plane.
Monday morning I gave my well dressed friends at WVOR my two weeks notice. They went berserk.
It was two of the best weeks of my life.
Next time: Life in the fast lane.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
ARE YOU IN RADIO, OR ARE YOU A BROADCASTER?
Not a lot of people do what I do. When compared to other business and industry. There are only 10,000 radio stations in the country. If each one had a program director, that would mean there are 10,000 program directors in the country. But that is not the case. Because many companies now have guys programming two or more stations, that number is more likely 6 or 7 thousand. That means there are only that many jobs in the entire country for what I do. To say it's competitive to find and keep a PD job these days is an understatement. I been lucky. I've been a PD my entire career.
Many of the experiences and lessons from CQ 102 have given me the edge I think. I think of myself as a broadcaster, not just someone in radio.
The distinction is that a broadcaster understands that stations owe much to their communities. We are using public air waves to make money and we need to repay that buy doing good works in our communities. I began to understand this concept while working with David at CQ 102.
In the following years I have been involved in fund raising, volunteering, tornado relief, building homes and many other charitable projects through the various radio stations I have programmed. I put it down on paper and in dollars raised for my entire career so far, the number is around 3 Million dollars.
It started with the Happiness House radiothon at CQ 102. The Happiness House was a specialized school in Geneva for kids with very serious issues. They were funded by various groups including the United Way, but always seemed to come up short. David and I toured the facility and met with the Director to see how we could help. We decided a radiothon would be the way to go.
It became one of the most rewarding things I've ever done. We would suspend programming for 24 hours. No music. No commercials. Just stories about the kids and their families and lots of begging for money. The entire staff contributed. Answering phones, taking pledges, accounting, getting food.
The air staff would stay up for 30 hours strait trading shifts on the air and pleading with folks to get the phones ringing. At the end we would all be exhausted, punchy and delirious when we got our final total. The first year I think we did around 13,000 dollars. The radiothon became an annual event and for the next several years we topped the dollar amount every single year. It was a great feeling and I became hooked on these types of events.
Every on on the CQ staff bought into this concept and put forth amazing effort on efforts like the HH radiothon.
CQ also responded to a need in the community created by a very sad story.
John Walsh's son Adam was abducted and murdered. The story galvanized the country. It brought to light the fact that many parents, when confronted with a missing child situation, often did not have a current photo of the child with them. (John Walsh of course went on to spearhead efforts on behalf of missing children ant to host America's most wanted).
So, the CQ Child ID program was born. We would set up in shopping centers and malls and offer a free child ID card to parents. A color photo of the Child on a small laminated card you could carry in your wallet. Response was incredible. We had lines stretching around the block at every event. We got some nice attention from the N.Y. State Assembly as well. Local officials attended one of our events and we got lots of press coverage. I'm proud to say the first child to receive an ID card was Erin. She got her picture in the paper at the ripe old age of 3. The photo showed Erin getting her fingerprints done, with Assemblyman Mike Nozzolio and a couple of Sheriff's deputies.
I know Jenn is reading this and screaming, "WHEN DO I SHOW UP IN THE STORY". It's coming.
Anyway, back to Erin. She loved going to the station with me and I often took her along on Saturdays at the office. We would spend time in the production studio working on commercials and stuff and I started recording her and playing it back for her to hear what she sounded like. One Saturday I had her record something that I ended up using on the air every single day I worked at CQ 102.
Each day at 3 at the beginning of my on air shift, out of the speakers you would hear a tiny voice say:
CQ 102, Randall C. Bliss....that's my dad! Everywhere I went through out the Fingerlakes people would say, Oh yeah, you're that guy who has the kid on the air every day. An important lesson. You can't go wrong putting kids on the air, people love it.
Along with truly great community stuff, CQ 102 had a cast of characters that made every day at work fun.
Evan Coleman, the golden throated 19 year old, who loved radio so much he never went home. He often worked late and sleep on the couch in the front office. Evan was tall and thin and the most pasty white person I've ever seen. He was blessed with an amazing metabolism which allowed him to eat anything and everything. He was actually banned from local restaurants that featured all you can eat salad bars.
Uncle Lewie, our flamboyant night jock who the kids loved. His phones never stopped ringing during his night-time show. On one of his first nights on the air he did the Top 5 at 9 countdown in reverse order. In other words he played the number one song first, then number two and so on. At least the #3 song was in the right spot. Kinda takes the suspense out of the feature.
One of our overnight jocks Paul Mcarthur believed that the coffee machine talked to him. I tuned in one night at about 3 am to check on him and he was discussing this coffe machine phenominon on the air.
Danny Weinfeld, David's younger brother who served as our engineer. He lived in Boston and only visited a few times a year, thankfully. Danny constantly made him self a nusiance because he wanted to work on equipment in the air studio in the middle of the morning or afternoon show. He didn't like it when I told him overnight shifts were invented for engineers to work on equipment.
The list goes on, charaters all but also many very talented people like Ace News anchors David Waples, Kim Young, Monica Wilson, Marti Casper and Paul Attea. On air talent Dangerous Dan Lundy, Mike Smith, Bruce Barrows, Gabe Sinicropi Mark Casti and Tom Sherman. All great people who went on to great success after their time at CQ 102.
All in all I spent four years at CQ, eventually rising to station manger. This move came after David's family sold the station to a new group and David stayed on to help the new company build a group of stations. He was traveling a lot looking at markets and stations so he promoted my to station manager to fill the gap while he was away.
I learned a lot in those four years and got much better at being both a programmer and an on air talent. For much of those four years I also worked part time on a station in Rochester on the weekends. That came about after David's friend Gary Burns came a visitin'.
Gary was a programming consultant and had just signed on with a station in Rochester to lauch a new Top 40 format on WPXY. He came to visit us in Geneva and steal some folks for the on air lineup. Evan Coleman was hired full time and he asked my to work weekends and fill-in as well. Of course David added Evan's name to the list on the wall. Eventually Bruce Barrows left CQ for PXY as well.
So I continued programming CQ, doing afternoons and then on weekends driving to Rochester to do two or three shifts each weekend.(it was a 60 mile drive one way). Because the stations had some signal overlap, I used a different name in Rochester, Scott Randall. It was confusing. I carried three by 5 index cards with the station call letters and the name I was using at the time and I put it on the console to remind myself who I was and where I was.
It was brutal and left little time for home life and I did this scedule for over two years. It did however really allow me to hone my skills just by the sheer repetition. I did manage some time with the family though and in 1985 Jennifer came along. She was born on Mothers day, May 12. On that saturday we were having a CQ 102 staff picnic and vollyball game in the park next to Seneca lake. We had a great time and Vicky was doing fine. That night around 11 she said, I think it's time to go. We took Erin next door to the neighbors and headed for the hospital with the four way lights flashing. Vicky still kids me about making her sit on a blanket
on the car seat because....well you can figure it out.
Jenn arrived early the next morning. A real nice Mothers day present for sure. So now our little band of radio gypsies had grown to four and I began to feel the pull to move up to larger markets. I felt like my four years at CQ had prepared me for a challenge at the next level.
It wouldn't be long before I got my chance.
Many of the experiences and lessons from CQ 102 have given me the edge I think. I think of myself as a broadcaster, not just someone in radio.
The distinction is that a broadcaster understands that stations owe much to their communities. We are using public air waves to make money and we need to repay that buy doing good works in our communities. I began to understand this concept while working with David at CQ 102.
In the following years I have been involved in fund raising, volunteering, tornado relief, building homes and many other charitable projects through the various radio stations I have programmed. I put it down on paper and in dollars raised for my entire career so far, the number is around 3 Million dollars.
It started with the Happiness House radiothon at CQ 102. The Happiness House was a specialized school in Geneva for kids with very serious issues. They were funded by various groups including the United Way, but always seemed to come up short. David and I toured the facility and met with the Director to see how we could help. We decided a radiothon would be the way to go.
It became one of the most rewarding things I've ever done. We would suspend programming for 24 hours. No music. No commercials. Just stories about the kids and their families and lots of begging for money. The entire staff contributed. Answering phones, taking pledges, accounting, getting food.
The air staff would stay up for 30 hours strait trading shifts on the air and pleading with folks to get the phones ringing. At the end we would all be exhausted, punchy and delirious when we got our final total. The first year I think we did around 13,000 dollars. The radiothon became an annual event and for the next several years we topped the dollar amount every single year. It was a great feeling and I became hooked on these types of events.
Every on on the CQ staff bought into this concept and put forth amazing effort on efforts like the HH radiothon.
CQ also responded to a need in the community created by a very sad story.
John Walsh's son Adam was abducted and murdered. The story galvanized the country. It brought to light the fact that many parents, when confronted with a missing child situation, often did not have a current photo of the child with them. (John Walsh of course went on to spearhead efforts on behalf of missing children ant to host America's most wanted).
So, the CQ Child ID program was born. We would set up in shopping centers and malls and offer a free child ID card to parents. A color photo of the Child on a small laminated card you could carry in your wallet. Response was incredible. We had lines stretching around the block at every event. We got some nice attention from the N.Y. State Assembly as well. Local officials attended one of our events and we got lots of press coverage. I'm proud to say the first child to receive an ID card was Erin. She got her picture in the paper at the ripe old age of 3. The photo showed Erin getting her fingerprints done, with Assemblyman Mike Nozzolio and a couple of Sheriff's deputies.
I know Jenn is reading this and screaming, "WHEN DO I SHOW UP IN THE STORY". It's coming.
Anyway, back to Erin. She loved going to the station with me and I often took her along on Saturdays at the office. We would spend time in the production studio working on commercials and stuff and I started recording her and playing it back for her to hear what she sounded like. One Saturday I had her record something that I ended up using on the air every single day I worked at CQ 102.
Each day at 3 at the beginning of my on air shift, out of the speakers you would hear a tiny voice say:
CQ 102, Randall C. Bliss....that's my dad! Everywhere I went through out the Fingerlakes people would say, Oh yeah, you're that guy who has the kid on the air every day. An important lesson. You can't go wrong putting kids on the air, people love it.
Along with truly great community stuff, CQ 102 had a cast of characters that made every day at work fun.
Evan Coleman, the golden throated 19 year old, who loved radio so much he never went home. He often worked late and sleep on the couch in the front office. Evan was tall and thin and the most pasty white person I've ever seen. He was blessed with an amazing metabolism which allowed him to eat anything and everything. He was actually banned from local restaurants that featured all you can eat salad bars.
Uncle Lewie, our flamboyant night jock who the kids loved. His phones never stopped ringing during his night-time show. On one of his first nights on the air he did the Top 5 at 9 countdown in reverse order. In other words he played the number one song first, then number two and so on. At least the #3 song was in the right spot. Kinda takes the suspense out of the feature.
One of our overnight jocks Paul Mcarthur believed that the coffee machine talked to him. I tuned in one night at about 3 am to check on him and he was discussing this coffe machine phenominon on the air.
Danny Weinfeld, David's younger brother who served as our engineer. He lived in Boston and only visited a few times a year, thankfully. Danny constantly made him self a nusiance because he wanted to work on equipment in the air studio in the middle of the morning or afternoon show. He didn't like it when I told him overnight shifts were invented for engineers to work on equipment.
The list goes on, charaters all but also many very talented people like Ace News anchors David Waples, Kim Young, Monica Wilson, Marti Casper and Paul Attea. On air talent Dangerous Dan Lundy, Mike Smith, Bruce Barrows, Gabe Sinicropi Mark Casti and Tom Sherman. All great people who went on to great success after their time at CQ 102.
All in all I spent four years at CQ, eventually rising to station manger. This move came after David's family sold the station to a new group and David stayed on to help the new company build a group of stations. He was traveling a lot looking at markets and stations so he promoted my to station manager to fill the gap while he was away.
I learned a lot in those four years and got much better at being both a programmer and an on air talent. For much of those four years I also worked part time on a station in Rochester on the weekends. That came about after David's friend Gary Burns came a visitin'.
Gary was a programming consultant and had just signed on with a station in Rochester to lauch a new Top 40 format on WPXY. He came to visit us in Geneva and steal some folks for the on air lineup. Evan Coleman was hired full time and he asked my to work weekends and fill-in as well. Of course David added Evan's name to the list on the wall. Eventually Bruce Barrows left CQ for PXY as well.
So I continued programming CQ, doing afternoons and then on weekends driving to Rochester to do two or three shifts each weekend.(it was a 60 mile drive one way). Because the stations had some signal overlap, I used a different name in Rochester, Scott Randall. It was confusing. I carried three by 5 index cards with the station call letters and the name I was using at the time and I put it on the console to remind myself who I was and where I was.
It was brutal and left little time for home life and I did this scedule for over two years. It did however really allow me to hone my skills just by the sheer repetition. I did manage some time with the family though and in 1985 Jennifer came along. She was born on Mothers day, May 12. On that saturday we were having a CQ 102 staff picnic and vollyball game in the park next to Seneca lake. We had a great time and Vicky was doing fine. That night around 11 she said, I think it's time to go. We took Erin next door to the neighbors and headed for the hospital with the four way lights flashing. Vicky still kids me about making her sit on a blanket
on the car seat because....well you can figure it out.
Jenn arrived early the next morning. A real nice Mothers day present for sure. So now our little band of radio gypsies had grown to four and I began to feel the pull to move up to larger markets. I felt like my four years at CQ had prepared me for a challenge at the next level.
It wouldn't be long before I got my chance.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
CQ 102
WECQ (Geneva NY) is a legend. No really. You may not have heard of the station, but trust me, a ton of very talented people came out of WECQ to go on to much success in radio. It was the ultimate farm team station. Program directors in large markets kept an eye on the station and would often swoop in and grab on air people and news people for large market gigs. I don't want to give the impression that it was some kind of revolving door situation. Folks that got the chance to work at CQ got some coaching, some encouragement, a nice work environment and when the time came, a helping hand out the door. What I mean by that is, that David Weinfeld who was part owner and General manager would gladly help you find that next great gig when the time was right. It was ok to tell him you wanted to move on. You didn't have to sneak around making air checks and typing resume's. No, David was fine with you moving on to something better when it was time. In fact he was happy to make some calls on your behalf. He used this to his advantage in attracting talent.
How does a revolving door help your station? Well, on David's wall in his office he kept a page of yellow legal pad paper with a list of all the names of people who had worked at CQ and then moved on to a larger market. Most of the names had a city and station name listed. When interviewing someone David would
pull the sheet down from the wall and hand it to the prospect. He would say, well here is a list of the last few people who left CQ and where they went.
It was an impressive list and this was usually enough to seal the deal. Using this technique plus his astute nose for talent CQ 102 was always staffed by a very talented group.
This was the first time I had encountered this kind of open-ness around a radio station. After leaving CQ I rarely have encountered it, but when given the chance I attempted to emulate David's approach. It was one of the many lessons I learned while working with David, but maybe the most important.
Radio only has one resource. People. The tower and building and transmitter and studio equipment mean nothing without talented people to create great programming. So it's not much of a leap to say, you really need to take care of your people and get the most out of them if you want to be successful.
You'd think everyone would understand that, but alas the Radio industry is full of C students. Most of them in managment through some accident, or inheritance or just plain dumb luck. In the spirit of full disclosure I must credit the "C student theory" to Gary Burns. Gary will show up later in the story.
Anyway, it was rare that radio stations had an atmosphere of openess and encourgment. There were lots of closed door meetings and sneaking around to make air checks. Plus lots of late night copy machine usage in the sales area when it came time to make resume's
Radio, until the mid '90's was very Mom and Pop. The FCC limited the number of stations you could own. There were no mega companies that owned stations. No stock, no stockholders, no IPO's. Just stations run by small companies. Many times family companies. We didn't have many benefits, no human resource department, no legal department and not much training on how to manage people. Oh sure we taught people how to be on the air and write copy and do news and so forth. But most companies did not spend much time teaching managers how to actually manage people.
Given that, a lot of stations were really very poorly run in terms of how their people were treated and that was generally accepted by folks who wanted to work in radio.
That's one of the reasons why CQ was such breath of fresh air.
I arrived in September of 82 to take over as PD at CQ 102. Pat Gillen the current PD was adding his name to David's list on the wall. He was going to program a station in Trenton NJ WPST.
It was sort of a reunion at CQ. John Hogan was the sales manager and we shared an office. He of course had been my partner in crime in the unfortunate Oneonta episode.
Once again I settled into a motel for a while, with Vicky and Erin remaining in Rushford. Shortly I found a small house to rent in nearby Waterloo and once again Mom and Dad helped us move our stuff and get settled.
I took over a station that was well staffed and focused and really one of the best sounding small market stations I had ever heard. It was a little intimadating.
But soon I was setting about putting my mark on CQ like all the previous PD's had done and having a great time.
During my time at CQ 102 I encountered a collection of characters that influenced me and made my experience one of the richest in my career.
Next time some of those characters and some of the amazing things we did at CQ.
How does a revolving door help your station? Well, on David's wall in his office he kept a page of yellow legal pad paper with a list of all the names of people who had worked at CQ and then moved on to a larger market. Most of the names had a city and station name listed. When interviewing someone David would
pull the sheet down from the wall and hand it to the prospect. He would say, well here is a list of the last few people who left CQ and where they went.
It was an impressive list and this was usually enough to seal the deal. Using this technique plus his astute nose for talent CQ 102 was always staffed by a very talented group.
This was the first time I had encountered this kind of open-ness around a radio station. After leaving CQ I rarely have encountered it, but when given the chance I attempted to emulate David's approach. It was one of the many lessons I learned while working with David, but maybe the most important.
Radio only has one resource. People. The tower and building and transmitter and studio equipment mean nothing without talented people to create great programming. So it's not much of a leap to say, you really need to take care of your people and get the most out of them if you want to be successful.
You'd think everyone would understand that, but alas the Radio industry is full of C students. Most of them in managment through some accident, or inheritance or just plain dumb luck. In the spirit of full disclosure I must credit the "C student theory" to Gary Burns. Gary will show up later in the story.
Anyway, it was rare that radio stations had an atmosphere of openess and encourgment. There were lots of closed door meetings and sneaking around to make air checks. Plus lots of late night copy machine usage in the sales area when it came time to make resume's
Radio, until the mid '90's was very Mom and Pop. The FCC limited the number of stations you could own. There were no mega companies that owned stations. No stock, no stockholders, no IPO's. Just stations run by small companies. Many times family companies. We didn't have many benefits, no human resource department, no legal department and not much training on how to manage people. Oh sure we taught people how to be on the air and write copy and do news and so forth. But most companies did not spend much time teaching managers how to actually manage people.
Given that, a lot of stations were really very poorly run in terms of how their people were treated and that was generally accepted by folks who wanted to work in radio.
That's one of the reasons why CQ was such breath of fresh air.
I arrived in September of 82 to take over as PD at CQ 102. Pat Gillen the current PD was adding his name to David's list on the wall. He was going to program a station in Trenton NJ WPST.
It was sort of a reunion at CQ. John Hogan was the sales manager and we shared an office. He of course had been my partner in crime in the unfortunate Oneonta episode.
Once again I settled into a motel for a while, with Vicky and Erin remaining in Rushford. Shortly I found a small house to rent in nearby Waterloo and once again Mom and Dad helped us move our stuff and get settled.
I took over a station that was well staffed and focused and really one of the best sounding small market stations I had ever heard. It was a little intimadating.
But soon I was setting about putting my mark on CQ like all the previous PD's had done and having a great time.
During my time at CQ 102 I encountered a collection of characters that influenced me and made my experience one of the richest in my career.
Next time some of those characters and some of the amazing things we did at CQ.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
OK IS THIS RADIO THING WORTH IT?
As I look back on the events that have unfolded so far in my radio randy history, it makes me wonder why I didn't just decide to do something else. I don't remember thinking that at all at the time. As I write this story I'm wondering why I wasn't more bummed out. Young and stupid might be the answer. But clearly I did have a passion for radio that just wasn't going to be extinguised.
After the fiasco in Oneonta we moved back home again. Once again my mom and dad to the rescue. My grandmother had just died around the same time and she was living in a house in downtown Rushford that my folks still owned. So it was proposed that we stay with them thru the Holidays and then move into my gramma's house after the first of the year. One positive we have experienced in Oneonta, in the trailer, was that Erin had started walking. She was only about 11 months which is pretty early. But if you know Erin, not surprising.
What to do about a job? Clearly there were no radio opportunities in Rushford, or the surrounding area. Once again my brother lent a helping hand. He and my cousin had just started a new venture that involved a new technology. This new system helped large consumers of electricty lower their electric bills. Mostly designed for Restaurants and other businesses of that size. It was a computer unit that was installed and connected to all the cooling units and walk in freezers. This computer controlled how many of the units could switch on at any given time, there bye limiting the demand charges that businesses have to deal with.
They had sold the system to a chain of restaurants in Buffalo and they offered me the chance to work with the install crew to put these systems in. So we drove to Buffalo each day and spent time in the kitchen area of these fine eating establishments. What we all learned about what goes in kitchens has given us all pause ever since. One day while installing a thermostat inside a walk in freezer, we notice a stack of what looked like fluorescent lights stacked up. They were about 2 feet long and when we enquired about what they were doing in the freezer, one of the cooks explained. Synthetic eggs he said. What? Yeah we thaw them out and then slice them up for use in salads. So whenever you see one of those perfectly sliced hard boiled eggs don't assume it was the work of some contentious chicken.
This work continued throughout the winter and when the weather got better I started working with my brothers other business. I became a truck driver. Hauling sand and gravel for small construction projects. This appeared to be the direction my career was going for the time being. I had had little chance to prepare tapes and resumes from Oneonta and hadn't sent out any. I was continuing to look at the trade magazines for openings, but it seemed pretty bleak. That's the way it feels now, but again I don't remember feeling that way at the time. We were basically happy. Erin was a great kid and fun to play with and growing and learning all the time. We were close to family and I actually enjoyed the work with my brother.
Often during this period I would find myself listening to the radio. Critiquing, questioning, wondering and most of all wishing.
Even after the bad situation in Kentucky and the unfortunate turn of events in Oneonta my folks never once said anything about me choosing a different type of profession. They encouraged and helped us and I think that is pretty amazing. At least as I think back about it now.
I often recall those events when talking to young people who say they want to get into the business. I counsel
them about the importance of being ready to move and how important support from your family can be. I know many people in this business who did not have that kind of support from family and in many cases spouses. That's tough. I'm lucky, even with all the ups and downs Vicky has always treated each mishap and move as just another adventure and that is one of the reasons we are going on 33 years.
Character building. That's what I call these early years. Lasalle- Peru, Manchester, Oneonta. Tough, yes, but I wouldn't change them. They helped make me who I am. They helped shape my radio IQ and taught me that how you treat people really matters. People are the only resource radio has. Radio stations exist only on the air, in people's radio's. The building, transmitter and equipment are not really worth much without people to make it go.
The people who fired John and I in Oneonta, just a week before Thanksgiving gave no thought to our welfare. We had moved our families, worked incredible hours and taken a piece of crap radio station and set it on the right course. What did we get for it?
More than you think as it turns out. We got a lesson in character and doing the right thing. And both John and I got the opportunity to work with a guy who would become a mentor and friend.
Dave Weinfeld never forgot what happened to us. In early August of that year Dave called me and said. Hey, my PD just got a job in Trenton NJ, how would you like to come and program CQ 102 for me?
Once again I heard that little voice in my head. My mom saying "things have a way of working out for the best". The older I get the smarter my parents are. Isn't it the truth?
Of course I accepted and arrived in Geneva on Labor Day weekend to start. Dave showed me into my office and said, you have to share with the sales manager. I said, that's fine who is it?
I saw for myself as John Hogan stood up to shake my hand. No beer glasses this time he said and I can assure you we have plenty of cart machines, reel to reel machines and commercials.
No, Dave didn't forget what happened to us.
That day was the beginning of a four year run that would shape and influence the rest of my career.
Next time: How many people in the country actually do a Dave Weinfeld impression?
After the fiasco in Oneonta we moved back home again. Once again my mom and dad to the rescue. My grandmother had just died around the same time and she was living in a house in downtown Rushford that my folks still owned. So it was proposed that we stay with them thru the Holidays and then move into my gramma's house after the first of the year. One positive we have experienced in Oneonta, in the trailer, was that Erin had started walking. She was only about 11 months which is pretty early. But if you know Erin, not surprising.
What to do about a job? Clearly there were no radio opportunities in Rushford, or the surrounding area. Once again my brother lent a helping hand. He and my cousin had just started a new venture that involved a new technology. This new system helped large consumers of electricty lower their electric bills. Mostly designed for Restaurants and other businesses of that size. It was a computer unit that was installed and connected to all the cooling units and walk in freezers. This computer controlled how many of the units could switch on at any given time, there bye limiting the demand charges that businesses have to deal with.
They had sold the system to a chain of restaurants in Buffalo and they offered me the chance to work with the install crew to put these systems in. So we drove to Buffalo each day and spent time in the kitchen area of these fine eating establishments. What we all learned about what goes in kitchens has given us all pause ever since. One day while installing a thermostat inside a walk in freezer, we notice a stack of what looked like fluorescent lights stacked up. They were about 2 feet long and when we enquired about what they were doing in the freezer, one of the cooks explained. Synthetic eggs he said. What? Yeah we thaw them out and then slice them up for use in salads. So whenever you see one of those perfectly sliced hard boiled eggs don't assume it was the work of some contentious chicken.
This work continued throughout the winter and when the weather got better I started working with my brothers other business. I became a truck driver. Hauling sand and gravel for small construction projects. This appeared to be the direction my career was going for the time being. I had had little chance to prepare tapes and resumes from Oneonta and hadn't sent out any. I was continuing to look at the trade magazines for openings, but it seemed pretty bleak. That's the way it feels now, but again I don't remember feeling that way at the time. We were basically happy. Erin was a great kid and fun to play with and growing and learning all the time. We were close to family and I actually enjoyed the work with my brother.
Often during this period I would find myself listening to the radio. Critiquing, questioning, wondering and most of all wishing.
Even after the bad situation in Kentucky and the unfortunate turn of events in Oneonta my folks never once said anything about me choosing a different type of profession. They encouraged and helped us and I think that is pretty amazing. At least as I think back about it now.
I often recall those events when talking to young people who say they want to get into the business. I counsel
them about the importance of being ready to move and how important support from your family can be. I know many people in this business who did not have that kind of support from family and in many cases spouses. That's tough. I'm lucky, even with all the ups and downs Vicky has always treated each mishap and move as just another adventure and that is one of the reasons we are going on 33 years.
Character building. That's what I call these early years. Lasalle- Peru, Manchester, Oneonta. Tough, yes, but I wouldn't change them. They helped make me who I am. They helped shape my radio IQ and taught me that how you treat people really matters. People are the only resource radio has. Radio stations exist only on the air, in people's radio's. The building, transmitter and equipment are not really worth much without people to make it go.
The people who fired John and I in Oneonta, just a week before Thanksgiving gave no thought to our welfare. We had moved our families, worked incredible hours and taken a piece of crap radio station and set it on the right course. What did we get for it?
More than you think as it turns out. We got a lesson in character and doing the right thing. And both John and I got the opportunity to work with a guy who would become a mentor and friend.
Dave Weinfeld never forgot what happened to us. In early August of that year Dave called me and said. Hey, my PD just got a job in Trenton NJ, how would you like to come and program CQ 102 for me?
Once again I heard that little voice in my head. My mom saying "things have a way of working out for the best". The older I get the smarter my parents are. Isn't it the truth?
Of course I accepted and arrived in Geneva on Labor Day weekend to start. Dave showed me into my office and said, you have to share with the sales manager. I said, that's fine who is it?
I saw for myself as John Hogan stood up to shake my hand. No beer glasses this time he said and I can assure you we have plenty of cart machines, reel to reel machines and commercials.
No, Dave didn't forget what happened to us.
That day was the beginning of a four year run that would shape and influence the rest of my career.
Next time: How many people in the country actually do a Dave Weinfeld impression?
Monday, March 14, 2011
WE DIDN'T KNOW YOU GUYS WERE LIVING ON GREEN BEAN AND POTATO SOUP
After leaving Kentucky under a hail of gunfire, we returned to Rushford and moved in with my folks. Throughout my bumpy ride in radio my folks have always been there to help and support us. Plus they have always encourage me and reminded me many times that "things have a way of working out for the best:". Of course they are right, but it doesn't always feel that way when bad things happen.
Anyway we licked our wounds in Rushford for the summer, played with Erin, who was just a few months old, and waited for the phone to ring with another radio opportunity. I had spent the final month in Kentucky furiously sending out resumes and air check tapes hoping that the nightmare in Appalachia wouldn't be the end of my radio career.
I spent the summer working for my brother and his contracting business and I'll always be grateful for the job. It wouldn't be the last time he offered my work in between radio jobs.
In mid August I got a phone call from David Weinfeld. He said he got my package, liked my stuff and wanted to meet and talk about a potential Program Director job.
Vicky and I drove to Geneva NY a couple days later, on a Sunday, and meet with David at his radio station. WECQ was located in a Quonset hut building in Geneva. We listened to the station on the drive in and I was very impressed. It was a great sounding station for such a small market and I began to get a real good feeling about our meeting.
David greeted us and took us into the station and into his office. It was cluttered and small. Stacks of papers littered his desk. The walls were cork board and were covered with papers held in place by stick pins. We sat on a small love seat just inches from the front of his desk and he began telling us about a radio station he was planning to buy. WIEZ was in Oneonta NY, a small college town about midway between Binghampton and Albany. David said the station was in bad shape and the owners wanted him to recommend some people who could run the station while the sale was completed.
David told me he had already recommended a man named John Hogan to be the General manager and after a couple of hours of discussion he offered me the job, pending approval of the actual owners.
Vicky and I drove back to Rushford with the happy news and began preparing for another radio adventure. I left for Oneonta in the last week of September with a plan to get set up, find us a place to live and then get Vicky and Erin to join me as soon as possible.
What I found in Oneonta is hard to describe. WIEZ was a FM station at 103 and was truly in bad shape. The facility was located on the second floor of a building in downtown. There was a college bar on the first floor and apartments on the third floor. I met the new General Manger and he began the tour. There was an on air control room with a console and two turntables. No cart machines or reel to reel tape machines, no production room. How to we play commercials I asked John? We don't have any he said.
John then explained that the station had been a wedding present to the daughter of the family that owned the station. She and her new husband were going to move to Oneonta from NY City and run it. Quickly the daughter realized she didn't want to live in Oneonta, or be married to her new husband. His name was Oscar and he decided to station and run the station. He did. He ran it into the ground. Oscar new nothing about radio except that you could get pretty good money for a lot of the equipment in the station. So he began selling off equipment and letting employees go. Soon is was down to Oscar and three part time announcers and that was it. No commercial were sold, Oscar maintained by selling equipment off.
Oscar also discovered that college co eds were intrigued by the line "would you like to go upstairs and see my radio station". Delivered of course on the ground floor in the college hang out. We knew this because there were at least one hundred beer glasses from the bar sitting on every table, window sill and level surface in the station when we walked in.
Oscar had taken up residence in apartment directly above the station. The apartment was part of the station's lease. The power had been shut off, so Oscar had knocked a hole in the wall into the adjacent apartment and run extension cords into his room so he would have electricity. Thankfully the next door apartment was vacant. This apartment was of course the final desination for the radio station tour's Oscar was running.
At some point the family had caught on and booted Oscar. They were in the process of selling the station to David, but wanted to get the station back up and running in the interim.
So, John and I rode to the rescue. As we sat in his office trying to formulate a plan, one of the college students came into the office and notified us that he and his two co workers were starting class on Monday and would no longer be available to work. Our entire air staff gone, just like that. They had each been working 6 hour shifts seven days a week. 6am to Noon, Noon to 6pm and 6 to midnight.
This was on a Wednesday, which meant we needed to get something together by Monday or we would be off the air.
John and I had both come into town without our families and decided we would move into the apartment above the station, sleep on the floor and get to work.
Our initial plan went like this.
John would get up each morning and sign the station on at 5:30. He would work on air until 9. Then he would go upstairs, take a shower put on a shirt and tie and hit the streets to sell commercials. I would take over and work 9 to 4pm. John would then work 4 to 7 and I came back and worked 7pm to 2 am. We wanted to keep the station on until 2am because the other FM station in town stayed on as well.
The format was Top 40 and we immediately got some attention in town. Hey we were commercial free and playing a lot better music selection that Oscar had put together. John was getting some interest and began selling some commercials, which we had to do live of course since we had no way to record anything.
We worked this unbelievable schedule for the first month. Eventually we got some old equipment in and could record and play back commercials and as John began to put some money on the books we got permission to hire one more person. We hired a guy from the other FM station and added him to the on air line up. John still signed the station on, the new guy worked 9-3, I worked 3-8 and he came back to work 8 to 2am. We also added a receptionist slash sales person along the way. The four of us worked our butts off
to make this station happen.
At this point I had found a trailer to rent just outside of town and Vicky and Erin joined me. We moved our meager collection of furniture into the single wide and began to settle into life in Oneonta. It was nice to sleep in a real bed, rather than a sleeping bag on the floor above the station.
Johns was having some real success putting money on the station. Let's face it, it was generating zero dollars when we took over. Within about six weeks we were actually making a few thousand dollars and things began to look up.
I certainly wasn't making much money, but we got by. We met some nice folks in the trailer park who invited us to dinner often and that helped. It was a very lean time however and I remember digging through the car seats to find enough change to by milk for Erin a few times.
In October my folks came to visit and brought us some items out of the garden including fresh green beans and potatoes. After they left Vicky made a big batch of soup out of this stuff and we lived on it for a couple of weeks. Years later I told my mom and dad that story and my mom almost started crying. She said, we never knew things were that bad.
Despite the scrimping to get along I felt like John and I made a good team and that once the sale was done and David was in charge we were going to make a go of the station and perhaps be able to sell it in a few years for a lot of money.
By the time November rolled along we were actually selling a reasonable number of spots and it was beginning to feel like a real radio station. I was having a blast and things were improving almost daily.
I guess that was our fatal mistake.
Our quick turnaround of the station caused the owners to decide that maybe they would keep the station instead of selling. They further decided that John and I couldn't be trusted, since David had recommend us and one week before Thanksgiving they fired us both.
Welcome to the world of idiot radio station owners. High and dry again. At least no gunfire was involved this time.
Next time, The Job that changed my career forever, in a good way.
Anyway we licked our wounds in Rushford for the summer, played with Erin, who was just a few months old, and waited for the phone to ring with another radio opportunity. I had spent the final month in Kentucky furiously sending out resumes and air check tapes hoping that the nightmare in Appalachia wouldn't be the end of my radio career.
I spent the summer working for my brother and his contracting business and I'll always be grateful for the job. It wouldn't be the last time he offered my work in between radio jobs.
In mid August I got a phone call from David Weinfeld. He said he got my package, liked my stuff and wanted to meet and talk about a potential Program Director job.
Vicky and I drove to Geneva NY a couple days later, on a Sunday, and meet with David at his radio station. WECQ was located in a Quonset hut building in Geneva. We listened to the station on the drive in and I was very impressed. It was a great sounding station for such a small market and I began to get a real good feeling about our meeting.
David greeted us and took us into the station and into his office. It was cluttered and small. Stacks of papers littered his desk. The walls were cork board and were covered with papers held in place by stick pins. We sat on a small love seat just inches from the front of his desk and he began telling us about a radio station he was planning to buy. WIEZ was in Oneonta NY, a small college town about midway between Binghampton and Albany. David said the station was in bad shape and the owners wanted him to recommend some people who could run the station while the sale was completed.
David told me he had already recommended a man named John Hogan to be the General manager and after a couple of hours of discussion he offered me the job, pending approval of the actual owners.
Vicky and I drove back to Rushford with the happy news and began preparing for another radio adventure. I left for Oneonta in the last week of September with a plan to get set up, find us a place to live and then get Vicky and Erin to join me as soon as possible.
What I found in Oneonta is hard to describe. WIEZ was a FM station at 103 and was truly in bad shape. The facility was located on the second floor of a building in downtown. There was a college bar on the first floor and apartments on the third floor. I met the new General Manger and he began the tour. There was an on air control room with a console and two turntables. No cart machines or reel to reel tape machines, no production room. How to we play commercials I asked John? We don't have any he said.
John then explained that the station had been a wedding present to the daughter of the family that owned the station. She and her new husband were going to move to Oneonta from NY City and run it. Quickly the daughter realized she didn't want to live in Oneonta, or be married to her new husband. His name was Oscar and he decided to station and run the station. He did. He ran it into the ground. Oscar new nothing about radio except that you could get pretty good money for a lot of the equipment in the station. So he began selling off equipment and letting employees go. Soon is was down to Oscar and three part time announcers and that was it. No commercial were sold, Oscar maintained by selling equipment off.
Oscar also discovered that college co eds were intrigued by the line "would you like to go upstairs and see my radio station". Delivered of course on the ground floor in the college hang out. We knew this because there were at least one hundred beer glasses from the bar sitting on every table, window sill and level surface in the station when we walked in.
Oscar had taken up residence in apartment directly above the station. The apartment was part of the station's lease. The power had been shut off, so Oscar had knocked a hole in the wall into the adjacent apartment and run extension cords into his room so he would have electricity. Thankfully the next door apartment was vacant. This apartment was of course the final desination for the radio station tour's Oscar was running.
At some point the family had caught on and booted Oscar. They were in the process of selling the station to David, but wanted to get the station back up and running in the interim.
So, John and I rode to the rescue. As we sat in his office trying to formulate a plan, one of the college students came into the office and notified us that he and his two co workers were starting class on Monday and would no longer be available to work. Our entire air staff gone, just like that. They had each been working 6 hour shifts seven days a week. 6am to Noon, Noon to 6pm and 6 to midnight.
This was on a Wednesday, which meant we needed to get something together by Monday or we would be off the air.
John and I had both come into town without our families and decided we would move into the apartment above the station, sleep on the floor and get to work.
Our initial plan went like this.
John would get up each morning and sign the station on at 5:30. He would work on air until 9. Then he would go upstairs, take a shower put on a shirt and tie and hit the streets to sell commercials. I would take over and work 9 to 4pm. John would then work 4 to 7 and I came back and worked 7pm to 2 am. We wanted to keep the station on until 2am because the other FM station in town stayed on as well.
The format was Top 40 and we immediately got some attention in town. Hey we were commercial free and playing a lot better music selection that Oscar had put together. John was getting some interest and began selling some commercials, which we had to do live of course since we had no way to record anything.
We worked this unbelievable schedule for the first month. Eventually we got some old equipment in and could record and play back commercials and as John began to put some money on the books we got permission to hire one more person. We hired a guy from the other FM station and added him to the on air line up. John still signed the station on, the new guy worked 9-3, I worked 3-8 and he came back to work 8 to 2am. We also added a receptionist slash sales person along the way. The four of us worked our butts off
to make this station happen.
At this point I had found a trailer to rent just outside of town and Vicky and Erin joined me. We moved our meager collection of furniture into the single wide and began to settle into life in Oneonta. It was nice to sleep in a real bed, rather than a sleeping bag on the floor above the station.
Johns was having some real success putting money on the station. Let's face it, it was generating zero dollars when we took over. Within about six weeks we were actually making a few thousand dollars and things began to look up.
I certainly wasn't making much money, but we got by. We met some nice folks in the trailer park who invited us to dinner often and that helped. It was a very lean time however and I remember digging through the car seats to find enough change to by milk for Erin a few times.
In October my folks came to visit and brought us some items out of the garden including fresh green beans and potatoes. After they left Vicky made a big batch of soup out of this stuff and we lived on it for a couple of weeks. Years later I told my mom and dad that story and my mom almost started crying. She said, we never knew things were that bad.
Despite the scrimping to get along I felt like John and I made a good team and that once the sale was done and David was in charge we were going to make a go of the station and perhaps be able to sell it in a few years for a lot of money.
By the time November rolled along we were actually selling a reasonable number of spots and it was beginning to feel like a real radio station. I was having a blast and things were improving almost daily.
I guess that was our fatal mistake.
Our quick turnaround of the station caused the owners to decide that maybe they would keep the station instead of selling. They further decided that John and I couldn't be trusted, since David had recommend us and one week before Thanksgiving they fired us both.
Welcome to the world of idiot radio station owners. High and dry again. At least no gunfire was involved this time.
Next time, The Job that changed my career forever, in a good way.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
No way in hell am I spending the night here...
Manchester Ky turned out to be a tough place to live. Nice people for the most part, but very isolated and backwards in many ways. I hired quite a few "outsiders" to work at the radio station and we all had a tough time getting used to the way things were. A very poor place, with not much middle class. Lots of poor people and plenty of quite well off folks who had made money in coal or oil. Manchester was the only
real population center for Clay county so everyone in the county came to town to shop and take care of all their business. I guess when you live in an isolated place you come to accept some things that others mind find hard. There was lots of open corruption in the local government, sheriff's department, school system and elections.
Vicky had also told me about a get together she had with some women she met through one of our neighbors. At some point all these ladies began comparing their handguns they had in their purses. They kept asking Vicky, what kind of gun she had. Of course Vicky had no gun to show these ladies and they were quite upset and surprised. They advised her that in Kentucky, a woman needed a gun, cause if you caught your man cheating, you could kill him and it was legal!!
Uh, Vicky is still un-armed. As far as I know.
Election night 1980. We were all excited because we had prepared what we thought was going to be an outstanding night of coverage. All hands on deck. Sales folks, office workers, everybody was working
either in the station answering phones or stationed at a local precinct ready to call in reports.
I have always loved putting together election coverage on the radio, but it's a wonder based on how things went in 1980 in Manchester.
We began the evening, covering all the local races with reports from the field. Very detailed reports that included vote counts from each precinct for all the local races. As the night wore on I asked one
of my guys about something I had seen on the way into the station that evening. I told him that I saw
an RV camper parked near the high school and their was a long line of coal miners standing in line by the front door of the camper. At the rear door a steady stream of miners coming out. What was up with that?'
He smiled and said, look, the high school is a polling place and that's just Jimmy (remember Jimmy) paying for votes. I said what! Yeah, he went on, the go in the front door, get a twenty and he tells them who to vote for and they come out the back. Then they go in and vote. That's just the way it works 'round here.
I was floored. Meantime things were heating up with our coverage. More reports coming in, plus national action on the presidential race. So we made the decision to cut back a little on the vote totals from each precinct to allow more time for other matters. This went on for about an hour when one of
our phone folks found me and said, Uh, Jimmy is on the phone for you. Of course I said, you mean that Jimmy? yup.
I went into my office and picked up the phone and said Hello. Jimmy said, you the manager up there? I said yes sir I am, what can I do for you? I'll tell you what you can do, you can put those precinct totals back
on the G.D. radio!! I paid good money for those votes and I want to hear the totals in every single precinct or I'm gonna be paying your and your family a visit.
After all these years when I think about this, sometimes I wish I had told him to go F*** himself. But I didn't. We put the reports back on the air, but it was very discouraging for my staff for sure.
In addition to these scrapes with the local gun toting crooks, I had other negative experiences in Manchester, due mostly to my in-experience. I was determine to make both radio stations sound great and do good work in the community and I had the full backing of the two Williams.
But a lot of the changes we made upset some people. Like changing the times we aired the obituaries. Seems ironic I know. They went crazy about that.
Then I had to have a meeting with a local baptist minister to try and get him to tone down his remarks during his sermon, that we carried live each Sunday morning. He was always attacking the Catholics during his sermon and the local Priest got pretty upset. So I met with the good Reverend. He did not take kindly to
my suggestions that maybe he could ease up on the brothers and sisters down the road.
Once news of my visit with the man of the cloth got out we encountered an advertiser boycott, organized by you know who of course. Plus I was starting to get personal threats, both on the phone and mail.
Then one morning a found a note on my car as I got ready to leave for work. The note said :
gee wouldn't it be too bad if something happened to that new baby of yours
Erin was just a few months old at that point and of course this infuriated me and scared the heck out of Vicky. I went to the owners with this and their solution was to rush through a conceal/carry permit and give me a .32 revolver with a really nice holster that I wore in the small of my back.
I'm very passionate about what I do, but I am not a crusader. It was clear that Manchester was not a fit for me or my family. Most of the folks I had hired from the outside to come and work had already left because they couldn't deal with the culture shock of Manchester.
I talked to my folks back in Rushford and I remember my dad saying : you need to get the hell out of there.
He said, move back home, don't worry that you don't have a job, we'll figure something out.
I began updating my resume, making tapes and sending them out furiously before I resigned, hoping that
this wasn't going to be the end of my radio career.
Meanwhile my dad, my brother Denny and his wife Pam were on their way to Manchester with a pickup truck and U haul trailer so we could get the hell out of dodge.
We had manged to last just a year and although it was not a great personal experience, professionally it was. I made a lot mistakes, learned from them and got to do a lot of things as a General manger that would
give me excellent perspective in years to come.
On the day of our departure it was hot and our second floor apartment presented a challenge with the furniture and all our stuff. By early evening we were loaded up and ready to go and resting in the apartment, drinking water.
I looked around and said, well guys, we're all really tired do you want to get the air mattress out and spend the night and get a fresh start in the morning?
My brother who had been quiet the whole time looked me square in the eye and said, no way in hell am I spending the night here! I've had the creeps ever since we rolled into town.
We got into our vehicles and headed for home.
Next time: You guys were actually living on Potato and green bean soup?
real population center for Clay county so everyone in the county came to town to shop and take care of all their business. I guess when you live in an isolated place you come to accept some things that others mind find hard. There was lots of open corruption in the local government, sheriff's department, school system and elections.
Vicky had also told me about a get together she had with some women she met through one of our neighbors. At some point all these ladies began comparing their handguns they had in their purses. They kept asking Vicky, what kind of gun she had. Of course Vicky had no gun to show these ladies and they were quite upset and surprised. They advised her that in Kentucky, a woman needed a gun, cause if you caught your man cheating, you could kill him and it was legal!!
Uh, Vicky is still un-armed. As far as I know.
Election night 1980. We were all excited because we had prepared what we thought was going to be an outstanding night of coverage. All hands on deck. Sales folks, office workers, everybody was working
either in the station answering phones or stationed at a local precinct ready to call in reports.
I have always loved putting together election coverage on the radio, but it's a wonder based on how things went in 1980 in Manchester.
We began the evening, covering all the local races with reports from the field. Very detailed reports that included vote counts from each precinct for all the local races. As the night wore on I asked one
of my guys about something I had seen on the way into the station that evening. I told him that I saw
an RV camper parked near the high school and their was a long line of coal miners standing in line by the front door of the camper. At the rear door a steady stream of miners coming out. What was up with that?'
He smiled and said, look, the high school is a polling place and that's just Jimmy (remember Jimmy) paying for votes. I said what! Yeah, he went on, the go in the front door, get a twenty and he tells them who to vote for and they come out the back. Then they go in and vote. That's just the way it works 'round here.
I was floored. Meantime things were heating up with our coverage. More reports coming in, plus national action on the presidential race. So we made the decision to cut back a little on the vote totals from each precinct to allow more time for other matters. This went on for about an hour when one of
our phone folks found me and said, Uh, Jimmy is on the phone for you. Of course I said, you mean that Jimmy? yup.
I went into my office and picked up the phone and said Hello. Jimmy said, you the manager up there? I said yes sir I am, what can I do for you? I'll tell you what you can do, you can put those precinct totals back
on the G.D. radio!! I paid good money for those votes and I want to hear the totals in every single precinct or I'm gonna be paying your and your family a visit.
After all these years when I think about this, sometimes I wish I had told him to go F*** himself. But I didn't. We put the reports back on the air, but it was very discouraging for my staff for sure.
In addition to these scrapes with the local gun toting crooks, I had other negative experiences in Manchester, due mostly to my in-experience. I was determine to make both radio stations sound great and do good work in the community and I had the full backing of the two Williams.
But a lot of the changes we made upset some people. Like changing the times we aired the obituaries. Seems ironic I know. They went crazy about that.
Then I had to have a meeting with a local baptist minister to try and get him to tone down his remarks during his sermon, that we carried live each Sunday morning. He was always attacking the Catholics during his sermon and the local Priest got pretty upset. So I met with the good Reverend. He did not take kindly to
my suggestions that maybe he could ease up on the brothers and sisters down the road.
Once news of my visit with the man of the cloth got out we encountered an advertiser boycott, organized by you know who of course. Plus I was starting to get personal threats, both on the phone and mail.
Then one morning a found a note on my car as I got ready to leave for work. The note said :
gee wouldn't it be too bad if something happened to that new baby of yours
Erin was just a few months old at that point and of course this infuriated me and scared the heck out of Vicky. I went to the owners with this and their solution was to rush through a conceal/carry permit and give me a .32 revolver with a really nice holster that I wore in the small of my back.
I'm very passionate about what I do, but I am not a crusader. It was clear that Manchester was not a fit for me or my family. Most of the folks I had hired from the outside to come and work had already left because they couldn't deal with the culture shock of Manchester.
I talked to my folks back in Rushford and I remember my dad saying : you need to get the hell out of there.
He said, move back home, don't worry that you don't have a job, we'll figure something out.
I began updating my resume, making tapes and sending them out furiously before I resigned, hoping that
this wasn't going to be the end of my radio career.
Meanwhile my dad, my brother Denny and his wife Pam were on their way to Manchester with a pickup truck and U haul trailer so we could get the hell out of dodge.
We had manged to last just a year and although it was not a great personal experience, professionally it was. I made a lot mistakes, learned from them and got to do a lot of things as a General manger that would
give me excellent perspective in years to come.
On the day of our departure it was hot and our second floor apartment presented a challenge with the furniture and all our stuff. By early evening we were loaded up and ready to go and resting in the apartment, drinking water.
I looked around and said, well guys, we're all really tired do you want to get the air mattress out and spend the night and get a fresh start in the morning?
My brother who had been quiet the whole time looked me square in the eye and said, no way in hell am I spending the night here! I've had the creeps ever since we rolled into town.
We got into our vehicles and headed for home.
Next time: You guys were actually living on Potato and green bean soup?
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
If you air that story one more time, I'm gonna fire bomb your radio station!
So my engineer friend hooked me up with the new owners of WWXL AM/FM in Manchester Kentucky. They didn't know much about radio and wanted a young manager to get the station up and operating like a
real radio station. William Allen Hensley and William Hugh Bishop both local businessmen bought the station mainly because they wanted one problem fixed immediately. William Allen had built a new house up on the side of the same mountain that the station's studio's were located. His new house had all the bells and whistles including a fancy intercom system that allowed conversations room to room throughout the entire house. But since the house was fairly close to the radio station and the AM ground system was old and in need of repair, the only thing you could hear on the intercom system was WWXL AM, blasting in every room. He was upset and after numerous calls to the station owners, he determined the best way to fix the problem was to simply buy the station. So he and his buddy William Hugh did just that.
My job, was to modernize the station. While William Hugh and William Allen didn't know a lot about radio, they did know that the station didn't sound good, was a mess and needed a lot of work. They were willing to invest in new equipment and construction to improve the place and I got to do some cool stuff. I bought a new FM transmitter, an automation system for the AM, designed and built a new FM studio and totally revamped the production rooms. It was a blast. Here I was 23 years old, writing checks to equipment suppliers for $30,000.
WWXL was basically a simulcast situation, sort of. They broadcast live on the AM a mix country and pop music with live DJ"s working shifts from 5am to midnight. The FM consisted of two Auto Reversing Reel to Reel tape decks. They had two 12 hour tapes featuring elevator music. Each day they would start one of the tapes at 6am, it would play to the end and auto reverse playing another 12 hours of Montavani and the Twin Piano's of Ferrante and Tiesher. They the next day they would use the other tape and so on and so on. There was NO FM studio and no way to play commercials, so they simply rigged up the AM studio so that anytime they played commercials on the AM, it would also play them on the FM, even though it would be in the middle of a song. This way they could charge advertisers more for getting the FM coverage. I've never run across another scheme as dumb as this.
So after fixing the ground system and making William Allen happy with his WWXL free intercom system, we built a new FM studio, hired some folks and put on a Top 40 station. We automated the AM and did country plus local news and of course the all important Obituaries. Sponsored by one of the 9 local funeral homes. God forbid you leave out any kin when reading the obituaries.
Lots of folks in area listened to a Knoxville Tn. station WOKI which featured a very popular night time DJ who called himself Brother John. Everyone in town seemed to know about him, so what did William Allen and William Hugh do? They hired him. The promised he would be the morning man and PD of the FM station and promised him the world plus a piece of the station. I didn't find out about this until after the deal was done. One Monday morning Brother John showed up at the radio station wearing dirty jeans, a t shirt and sandals. He had a sleazy looking girl with him who he introduced as his girlfriend/co host. I was dumbfounded. I guess the 2 Williams thought they had pulled a real big time play, but after meeting with this guy for about an hour I think we mutually decided that we would not be working together.
So, Brother John and has co host headed back for Knoxville. I called William Allen and told him the meeting didn't go well, and to his credit he supported me and said it was my call. That night Brother John went back on the air at WOKI like nothing ever happened.
Oops, he had signed a contract with us that included a non compete, meaning he couldn't work in radio in a 100 mile radius for one year if he left WWXL. So even though he quit after only one day, the non compete was in full effect. We ended up in Federal court in Knoxville and we won the case and Brother John had to leave WOKI and sit out working int he market for one year. While on the stand in Federal court I got the worst case of dry mouth of my life. It's very intimidating.
I assembled a staff that included some local folks but also some folks from outside Ky. To say that living there was a culture shock is a understatement. My news director was a young guy right out of college who was eager to make a name for himself. He worked hard to cover local news and was doing a good job. Everything seems to be fine until one day we got wind of a murder in town. Some local truck drivers had organized a strike for better wagers from a local Coal company. They had parked their trucks in a sort of blockade in from of the company headquarters. The guys who ran the company, I'll call him Jimmy (since I'm now sure if he is still alive) came out the main gate to confront the truckers. He never said a word, he simply walked up the first drive standing by his truck and shot him in the head. According to witnesses he them calmly walked back in to his office. The rest of the truckers got into their trucks and left. The strike was over.
I learned shortly after this that this guy had been up on murder charges a couple times before, but a jury never convicted him. The word was that he would either buy the jury or intimidate them and that, that was likely to happen this time. We had a young prosecutor in town who decided he was finally going to "get" Jimmy. He petitioned the court for a change of venue to another city. My news director came to my office to let me know he had just gotten the word on change of venue story and that he was going to break into programming on both stations with the bulletin. I told him to go ahead.
Within minutes the phone rang, the receptionist buzzed me and said "Jimmy" is on the phone for you.
That Jimmy? I said. She confirmed and put him through. It was a short conversation. He simply said
"If you air that change of venue story one more time, I'm gonna fire bomb your radio station"
And with that our days as crusading news reporters came to a screeching halt. I was assured by everyone in the building that he would indeed make good on his threat. I decided I would do everything in my power to avoid any more phone calls from "Jimmy".
That was not to be the case, details in my next time.
real radio station. William Allen Hensley and William Hugh Bishop both local businessmen bought the station mainly because they wanted one problem fixed immediately. William Allen had built a new house up on the side of the same mountain that the station's studio's were located. His new house had all the bells and whistles including a fancy intercom system that allowed conversations room to room throughout the entire house. But since the house was fairly close to the radio station and the AM ground system was old and in need of repair, the only thing you could hear on the intercom system was WWXL AM, blasting in every room. He was upset and after numerous calls to the station owners, he determined the best way to fix the problem was to simply buy the station. So he and his buddy William Hugh did just that.
My job, was to modernize the station. While William Hugh and William Allen didn't know a lot about radio, they did know that the station didn't sound good, was a mess and needed a lot of work. They were willing to invest in new equipment and construction to improve the place and I got to do some cool stuff. I bought a new FM transmitter, an automation system for the AM, designed and built a new FM studio and totally revamped the production rooms. It was a blast. Here I was 23 years old, writing checks to equipment suppliers for $30,000.
WWXL was basically a simulcast situation, sort of. They broadcast live on the AM a mix country and pop music with live DJ"s working shifts from 5am to midnight. The FM consisted of two Auto Reversing Reel to Reel tape decks. They had two 12 hour tapes featuring elevator music. Each day they would start one of the tapes at 6am, it would play to the end and auto reverse playing another 12 hours of Montavani and the Twin Piano's of Ferrante and Tiesher. They the next day they would use the other tape and so on and so on. There was NO FM studio and no way to play commercials, so they simply rigged up the AM studio so that anytime they played commercials on the AM, it would also play them on the FM, even though it would be in the middle of a song. This way they could charge advertisers more for getting the FM coverage. I've never run across another scheme as dumb as this.
So after fixing the ground system and making William Allen happy with his WWXL free intercom system, we built a new FM studio, hired some folks and put on a Top 40 station. We automated the AM and did country plus local news and of course the all important Obituaries. Sponsored by one of the 9 local funeral homes. God forbid you leave out any kin when reading the obituaries.
Lots of folks in area listened to a Knoxville Tn. station WOKI which featured a very popular night time DJ who called himself Brother John. Everyone in town seemed to know about him, so what did William Allen and William Hugh do? They hired him. The promised he would be the morning man and PD of the FM station and promised him the world plus a piece of the station. I didn't find out about this until after the deal was done. One Monday morning Brother John showed up at the radio station wearing dirty jeans, a t shirt and sandals. He had a sleazy looking girl with him who he introduced as his girlfriend/co host. I was dumbfounded. I guess the 2 Williams thought they had pulled a real big time play, but after meeting with this guy for about an hour I think we mutually decided that we would not be working together.
So, Brother John and has co host headed back for Knoxville. I called William Allen and told him the meeting didn't go well, and to his credit he supported me and said it was my call. That night Brother John went back on the air at WOKI like nothing ever happened.
Oops, he had signed a contract with us that included a non compete, meaning he couldn't work in radio in a 100 mile radius for one year if he left WWXL. So even though he quit after only one day, the non compete was in full effect. We ended up in Federal court in Knoxville and we won the case and Brother John had to leave WOKI and sit out working int he market for one year. While on the stand in Federal court I got the worst case of dry mouth of my life. It's very intimidating.
I assembled a staff that included some local folks but also some folks from outside Ky. To say that living there was a culture shock is a understatement. My news director was a young guy right out of college who was eager to make a name for himself. He worked hard to cover local news and was doing a good job. Everything seems to be fine until one day we got wind of a murder in town. Some local truck drivers had organized a strike for better wagers from a local Coal company. They had parked their trucks in a sort of blockade in from of the company headquarters. The guys who ran the company, I'll call him Jimmy (since I'm now sure if he is still alive) came out the main gate to confront the truckers. He never said a word, he simply walked up the first drive standing by his truck and shot him in the head. According to witnesses he them calmly walked back in to his office. The rest of the truckers got into their trucks and left. The strike was over.
I learned shortly after this that this guy had been up on murder charges a couple times before, but a jury never convicted him. The word was that he would either buy the jury or intimidate them and that, that was likely to happen this time. We had a young prosecutor in town who decided he was finally going to "get" Jimmy. He petitioned the court for a change of venue to another city. My news director came to my office to let me know he had just gotten the word on change of venue story and that he was going to break into programming on both stations with the bulletin. I told him to go ahead.
Within minutes the phone rang, the receptionist buzzed me and said "Jimmy" is on the phone for you.
That Jimmy? I said. She confirmed and put him through. It was a short conversation. He simply said
"If you air that change of venue story one more time, I'm gonna fire bomb your radio station"
And with that our days as crusading news reporters came to a screeching halt. I was assured by everyone in the building that he would indeed make good on his threat. I decided I would do everything in my power to avoid any more phone calls from "Jimmy".
That was not to be the case, details in my next time.
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