Purty pictures and sick sound files below.
Are you as tired as I am hearing the Internet abuzz with ‘radio stations’? Radio is a medium it is NOT a…. well… never mind…. the radio I knew is DEAD!
But it was fun when it existed.
I got into the radio industry after the big boss radio signals debuted on the coasts. Got to know quite a few really big names in the industry. Almost all of those I admired. Some.. not so much. Actually there are a few I detested and would never work for again, but we’ve all had those experiences.
Over the years I moved from newscaster at 700 WLW Cincinnati (started there under Randy Michaels) to news at WHIO and WING in Dayton Ohio, then to WHIO Dayton, then it started state jumping.
Ohio, Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina, Texas, Montana, Arkansas, Mississippi , the list goes on… stations everywhere.. sometimes more than one station in a state.
It was horrible. Moving everywhere. Working for sales people who exceeded their Peter Principal allotments and had become General Managers with power and attitude and a tenth of the common sense of a snail slug. A GM; I can only remember his first name, Hal… in Fort Smith at KZOU was the best General Manager I ever worked for.
Michael Lee Scott of KEYI Austin Texas comes in a very close second but I worked for him before he became a GM , as a PD and that is hands down HIS DOMAIN.
Michael Lee Scott was the best program director I ever knew. Bar none. Hands down. No competition. THE BEST! He moved to TV sales years later and I lost touch. Super nice guy too. Some may not agree but I knew the real Fred. A gem of a man and the deepest human music library in history.
Got to Know Ron Jacobs pretty well (KHJ Los Angeles) when we both sort of fell into each other seeking to do something to protect the radio industry we both loved from being literally destroyed by sales people running companies their should never have been hired for. We started a website to promote personality radio. It died before radio did. Ron died in 2016. Shame too. He was a character and the first kick ass CHR programmer in radio history. MY MAN! Get the whole Ron Deal!
During the run in radio I wound up selling voice over services and was the first person to place a VO Station Image Voice AD in the industry rag RADIO and RECORDS (defunct.)
At KZOU in Little Rock I was just the production director. I made commercials, did a weekend shift.. etc…. fantastic GM… absolutely insane program directory (Peter of Peter and the Butler) click this to listen to them from October 23, 1989. Peter was a funny guy. The Butler was amazingly hilarious. This was after I was gone from there and moved on to KEYI in Austin and was at a station in North Carolina.
Get your head outta bed and your rear in gear.
Yes I was programming then. Wish a had the aircheck from that. It was slick.
Then mornings.
Mornings and Programming. With a cast of characters. These are the original sketches for those characters shown above.
Then in Mississippi……..
Surely there is more somewhere…. perhaps in boxes unopened in years.
Someday.
Now for the sound.
Now found on its own page.