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BIG APE

M

MsMusicRadio

Guest
Boy am I dumb. I had no idea that Jshirah was the mastermind at the "Mighty 690". That was a great station and it was great company when travelling on the East Coast. I also remember WVOK on my trips to New Orleans, Meridan, and Hattiesburg. Good job. Joe Rumore was not was I was used to at KQV back home
 
Hi MsMusic...This is Jim Shirah, and yes, I had the honor of programmng The Big Ape from 1967=1971. What a great place to work. I was just a kid of 23 when Ike Lee and the Brennans turned the reins over to me. Jeez. If I owned a 50k flamethrower today, would I turn it over to a kid to run? Probably not. I went to WAE from WIRK in West Palm as the 10a-3p jock. I always thought (growing up in Daytona Beach) that everybody in Jax listened to WAPE. Found out when I went to work there that WPDQ was strong no. 1. WAPE was 16th in the market. After I got there, my midday show came out number one in the next book and they asked me to become PD. I brought in Alan Sands from WIRK, Honest John Ferree from WMFJ in Daytona and Tom Clark from WLOF in Orlando and we took off. Stayed strong number one 4 years until Stan Kaplan bought station and fired everybody. I did mornings, did my show Mon-Tues after Kaplan took over, Tues nite new PD called me at home and told me not to come in Wed a.m. since I'd been fired. What a class act Kaplan was...low class. I recently found out the Brennans had seriously considered going country since they couldn't make any headway against WPDQ and the ratings surge changed their minds. I had some GREAT years at the Ape. Totally carte blanche from the owners. Anything I wanted to do they let me. They had never had 'real' jingles and agreed to shell out fifteen hundred bucks for the PAMS series 18 package, which I dearly love. I'm afraid that type radio is gone forever. We were totally personality driven and I pretty much let the jocks do what they wanted too. Fond memories of a great radio station. LONG LIVE THE BIG APE! Thanks for listening when you did.
 
WOW----------all I can say " Like wow man, grooovey!" It was a fabulous station with a fantastic signal. Kaplans kinda sound like CBS today. But when I lived in Morganton NC , I always listened to BIG WAYS--------had no clue that they were modern forebearers to CBS and CC.

Thanks
 
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