I'm Still Here
It's been a long while since I wrote anything, and probably not a bad thing. I am officially out of radio and glad that I am. Radio is a very fickle and self serving business. Anyone who tells you that they are in radio to "make a difference" or to "serve the community" please take it with a grain of salt.
I got into radio because I had been told since high school that I have a good voice for it. I loved music, I am a musician and thought "Why not." I got a gig at K-105 WQXK/ AM600 WSOM. It was a part time gig on weekends only, and I got it through my good friend Gary Rhamy. He did the morning show on AM600 and did a polka show on the weekends. I LOVED IT THERE!!
As fate would have it, I ended up getting a full time job at Beacon Broadcasting working at the now defuncted 1570am WANR. I also became the program director at Freq 107 WEXC in Pennsylvania. Well, things really started happening then, and not in a good way. After some successful programing decisions and scoring Donnie Osmond to do our morning show, and also the biggest concert event in the companies history; the owner had suddenly passed away.
At that point things took a strange turn, a letter was sent out to all of the employees by the former owners son (who inherited the stations) stating that the radio stations would be sold but all employees jobs would be safe. It was also told to us that the stations would be sold as a "group". That's not what happened, the stations were all split up.
1570am and 1540am was sold to a radio tycoon, who flipped the formats from Fox Sports 1570 and Fox Sports 1540, to a classic hits and classic country format. Not a bad thing, but here is where it gets weird. The new owner of 1570 and 1540 had all of the staff help disconnect and load all of the equipment and office things to another studio location that the company owned, which is not so weird. But, after we moved all of the equipment and hooked it all back up. We were told that there were big plans for the studios and everyone would be very happy in the near future. Well, one by one they were all let go and my hours were cut down to only weekends. This was after I was told that I would remain on staff as Program Director. It should be made clear that I was also not paid for the last 2 weeks as the new owner said he didn't have the money to pay me. I did end up getting paid.
Well, I ended up leaving at that point. And they called me and expected me to do a board op job for a local high school game that weekend. Um, no. The stations GM at the time proceeded to call me on the phone and cuss me out. At that point I drove to the studio and put my key in the door and locked it behind me as I left not looking back.
The way Freq107 was bought was much stranger. I was board opping a game on the weekend, and had some equipment there that belonged to me. I was told that the station was sold to K-Love and would be flipping after the game. I promised to help with the flip. As the game was on the air, K-Love sent out one of their engineers to flip the format. He seemed like a nice guy, we spoke of faith and the business, but things took another strange turn as he said that we could not remove anything from the studio. Well, with some push back, we were able to take the things that belonged to us. I spoke to the engineer about my continuing as an employee at K-Love, but he told me it was syndicated and my services would no longer be needed. After the close of the game, the new station went on the air, he told me God bless you and that ended my career in radio. This all happened in 2010. At that point, I started an internet radio station that did okay. We sponsored several concert events and aired lot's of very cool faith based shows. It lasted till about 2015 (I think).
I still have some friends in the business, but trust me when I tell you it is a total self serving business. There is a lot of back stabbing by on air personalities too. I still respect those that can continue in the business and stomach the hypocrisy. Okay, it sounds like I'm being harsh, or wining. But, these are just my memories of how things went down. It all left a very bad taste in my mouth.
Listen I know that all business's have their quarks and problems. But I have a long life of experiences in retail, service, logistics, and entertainment. And only radio effected me in a very negative way. I played as a professional musician touring from 1985 - 1998, and that was a GREAT experience. I'll do another blog about that experience later.
I have a great job now in an industry that I love. I still play music, (mostly in Church). And I continue to thank God for all of His faithfulness. And I will continue forward.
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