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.