That is NO surprise.
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Audacy Deals Imminent In Phoenix
- Thread starter TheBigA
- Start date
Sure.Is there a "postable" synopsis of that? đ or
I may have told @johndavis this story when we worked together in Phoenix...25-ish years ago.
Some background:
That's Bill Close on the right. The guy on the left is helicopter pilot Jerry Foster, and he's another encyclopedia of stories for another day.
That bola tie that Bill's wearing? He wore those on the air when he anchored the news every night on KOOL-TV (later KTSP) from 1964 to 1993. Before that, he was at KOY radio, which is how he wound up at the reunion that John attended.
Anyway, in the fall of 1985, I was trying to get some photographer friends I worked with in Las Vegas better gigs, so I sent a reel of their stuff to a guy I'd worked with in Reno who was by then producing the noon show at KTSP in Phoenix. The easiest thing to send was stories they'd shot with me as the reporter. Gary showed it to the bosses, who liked the photogs' work, but also asked me to fly down, have lunch and talk with them about a reporter opening they had.
After lunch, the Assistant News Director asks me if I'd like to meet Bill Close. I said sure. All I knew was that he'd been their anchor since 1964 and that he had, four years before, survived an on-air hostage incident in the studio.
The Asst. ND takes me to Bill's office, says "Bill, this is Mike Hagerty. He's here to talk to us about our reporter opening"---and I hear the door close behind me.
The KTSP newsroom was (still is) in an old car dealer showroom---it's just been so thoroughly remodeled now that the bones of the place aren't as obvious. Bill's office was the owner's old office. No windows...the only source of light in a dark-paneled room was a green-shaded desk lamp throwing shadows everywhere. The only thing missing are gargoyles.
I'm a 29-year-old TV guy dressed for a job interview 1985 style...blue pinstripe suit, white shirt, yellow power tie. I go to shake Bill's hand.
"Take that jacket off, boy! This is PHOENIX."
I look. There's a coat rack in the corner. I hang up my jacket.
"Siddown!"
I sit---and immediately notice that Bill's got the guest chairs set up so that you have to crane your neck and look up at him.
Swell.
"I'm havin' some trouble with my math."
"Bill?" I look---he's got a copy of my resume'. This is a setup.
"Says here you were born in 1956?"
"Yes."
"Started radio in 1971?"
"Yes."
"15 years old?"
"That's right."
He comes across the desk at me, screaming:
"BOY, YOU WERE BARELY IN THE BEATIN' OFF STAGES! WHAT THE HELL BUSINESS YOU HAVE IN A RADIO STATION???"
The next ten minutes pretty much went along those lines.
"You a fa**ot?"
"You do drugs?"
Bill asks every question you can't ask in a job interview because he has no hiring authority---and they didn't have an HR department.
Finally, he goes with:
"Any of these questions I'm asking embarrass you?"
And I said:
"No, Bill. In fact, some of them sound like a lot of fun. I've been busy focusing on my career trying to get to a big market like Phoenix, but depending on how generous your vacation policy is, who knows? I might just try some of them."
Bill sits back and says:
"I like you."
And I said:
"That's one of us, Bill. We done here?"
I got up without waiting for an answer, grabbed my jacket and headed for the NDs office to thank him for lunch. He wasn't available, nor was the Asst. ND, nor the Executive Producer, so their Administrative Assistant took me into the newsroom and introduced me to their newest hire---he'd been there about six weeks. He reeled off what my last four hours had been like, told me it meant that I had the gig and they just wanted to see if I rattled.
I couldn't get out of my contract to accept the offer. That management team crossed the street to KTVK three months later, and when my contract was up 90 days after they arrived, they made another offer---better than the one from KTSP.
I accepted, but only after making sure that SOB Close wasn't coming over, too.
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Sounds like my first encounter with Don Burden, famous for bribing congressmen and losing licenses. Looked at me and asked, "who's that little **********? Get him out of here."
I see Hubbard or Bonneville buying the Audacy FMs in Phoenix
Except Burden didn't pay to fly you to town and take you to lunch, or expect to offer you a gig at the end of the day.
But that was Close. He was infamous (I found out later) for his mistreatment of colleagues---and his women co-anchors by far got the worst of it.
Really? I see EMF wanting to move K-Love off 89.1 in Fountain Hills, and they probably wouldn't mind upgrading Air 1 from 105.5, either.
And Family Radio might want a full signal in Phoenix 24/7 for the first time.
They picked up a translator (and an HD Radio subchannel of KVCP, which is now the sole station on 88.3) in a deal with VCY.
I'm a Phoenix native and was a teen back in the 80's. Refresh my memory, wasn't Bill Close the anchor that got held at gun point live at the news studio?
Yes, 1982. I mentioned it in my post.
When Mary Jo West was subjected to a Bill Close 'interview' for a co-anchor position, one of her questions was, "What is your bra size?". She got the job but was subjected to sexual verbal abuse from Close and other men, and put thru hell for a few years. She made it through all that, and led the way for other women to join the news room, which in the late 70's was a 'man's dominion back then. Eventually West earned the respect of Close, and even helped guide her TV news career.
He always came across to me as a grouchy version of Ted Knight-as-Ted Baxter. Stiff, pompous, and couldn't read copy to save his life. Although he did earn my respect for the way he handled that d!ckhead with the gun (not that he had any options).
But overall, as far as the "elder statesmen" of Phoenix news went, Ray Thompson was far better than Close.
From the time he was a 16 y.o. Bill Close was in a lot of physical pain for the rest of his life. He lost both of his legs from being run over by a train. Some attribute his meanness as a way he dealt with the pain Not an excuse for his behavior, but maybe it explains some of it
I worked with Mary Jo at KTVK for a couple of years. Just a wonderful person.
The fact that she gives Close a redemption arc in her telling of the story speaks to her decency.
He went well beyond questions about bra size, with more than just Mary Jo, and as my meeting with him almost five years after he first worked with Mary Jo shows, he was beyond teachable moments.
Wow! That's something I didn't know. People handle tragedy in different ways (see: ex-Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley, who lost both legs in Vietnam and it never stopped him).
I was aware of it.
Physical pain doesnât buy you the right to say âyou worthless c***â to your co-anchor three seconds before the camera goes hot at the beginning of a newscast.
Too bad there wasnât a robust HR department at KOOL in those days.
Absolutely agree about Mary Jo, she is great! Her post TV career even included a few years working at Sky Harbor airport at the information counter greeting and helping passengers, many of whom of course recognized her. I don't if she is fully retired, but had a business doing video production and making documentaries. Something she absolutely loved to do.
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