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Channel 4 Reports: WRKO Will Not Rehire John DePetro

Radiodouble, can you back your "facts" up?

From what they told me Gary Guthrie was a consultant. He was not P.D. when Harv was there.
If so, he wasn't visible.

Bill Smith was hired, fired and re-hired. They had Billboards with the words:
BILL SMITH'S BACK with his back to the Billboard but his smiling face looking over the freeway over his shoulder.

Bill Smith is the dude who sought out Harvey and convinced him to come back. I think Bill Smith also
produced the band Fox Pass/Macey's Parade in his home studio. Without Bill Smith there is no
way Harvey would've even considered WZLX at that point in time, according to what Harv told me.

Cliff Blake was the P.D., followed by Mike Harrison of Talkers Magazine, followed by John Shomby at WZLX.
Got it. Bill Smith was the morning guy and was most likely p.d. prior to Cliff Blake who went on to program the New Hampshire Country station for quite awhile.

I found it really odd that Mike Harrison was doing radio specials for Infinity the same week he was being
hired at WZLX. My thoughts were that Mike was potentially a "mole" that WBCN sent over to wreck the
ratings so they could knock their main competition out. Lo and behold, Mike started adding new songs like
Def Leppard to the WZLX playlist which really made it sound awful, not "classic rock" of the day.
I think Mike Harrison was axed at that point for John Shomby. Lo and behold Infinity bought WZLX from a group of investors which may have included Eskimos. Eli might have more insight on that.

I had dinner with Guthrie; remember him telling me he would add more Bob Seger to the playlist because
he saw him in Texas or somewhere and the audience was swaying to his music. What people in a Texas concert hall have in common with the Boston area is anyone's guess.

If you've got a P.D. and an M.D. and they have any talent, the trade papers can be their "consultant".
Or maybe a little intuition.

That being said, Harv went to WCGY from 1991-1994 or 5; I produced from 1991-1993 while developing
"Visual Radio". VR launched in 1995 but was in development from 1992 on.

Check your facts on how long Harvey was at CGY and ZLX. Hardly "short lived". He probably spent four years or so at each station. Have you been on the air, drive time, for 8 years or more on two 50,000 watt stations?
I didn't think so.

Gary Guthrie P.D. Can you find that in Google? Please.

RADIODOUBLE WROTE:
so i remember all the players at other stations. the guy who hired and fired smith was gary guthrie(or maybe gathrie). he was an innovative pd they brought in from corproate offices to program classic rock at wzlx.
============================================================

Varulven sayeth:
And Prior to Bill Smith coming onboard at WZLX a great guy named Jimmy Mack (no relation to WBCN's Jimmy Mack, who is terribly missed) took me to lunch to talk about raiding my extensive record collection for the WZLX library. That was waaaay back in the 1980s, Radiodouble. Bill Smith was in touch with me then looking for Moby Grape and esoteric stuff like that. I believe the discussions Jimmy Mack & I were in the very early early days of WZLX. Clearly as they needed to build their library and fast.

This is all from memory, so, I reserve the right to have Eli or another credible person add or subtract to this.
 
Varulven said:
It is called giving DePetro a taste of his own medicine.
Click to expand...

It's also called lowering yourself to his level.

It also demonstrates quite clearly that you can dish it out, but you can't take it.
 
You know, Varulven is my dot.com. Who are you?

DePetro was not entertaining in the least. If he called Doug Goudie a "f.. lesbian" it would've been funny.
Doug would've laughed, and he would still have his job.

Put your name on the list and debate me mano y mano. Otherwise, you lose four credits in the credibility department. You certainly have a right to privacy, and if you don't want to say who you are, consider that discretion is the better part of valor.
 
Varulven said:
You know, Varulven is my dot.com. Who are you?
Click to expand...

NOYB.

Varulven said:
Put your name on the list and debate me mano y mano. Otherwise, you lose four credits in the credibility department. You certainly have a right to privacy, and if you don't want to say who you are, consider that discretion is the better part of valor.
Click to expand...

1) Not everyone knows...or cares...who you are.

2) I have no need to stoop to your level.
 
Varulven said:
Radiodouble, can you back your "facts" up?

From what they told me Gary Guthrie was a consultant. He was not P.D. when Harv was there.
If so, he wasn't visible.

Bill Smith was hired, fired and re-hired. They had Billboards with the words:
BILL SMITH'S BACK with his back to the Billboard but his smiling face looking over the freeway over his shoulder.

Bill Smith is the dude who sought out Harvey and convinced him to come back. I think Bill Smith also
produced the band Fox Pass/Macey's Parade in his home studio. Without Bill Smith there is no
way Harvey would've even considered WZLX at that point in time, according to what Harv told me.

Cliff Blake was the P.D., followed by Mike Harrison of Talkers Magazine, followed by John Shomby at WZLX.
Got it. Bill Smith was the morning guy and was most likely p.d. prior to Cliff Blake who went on to program the New Hampshire Country station for quite awhile.

I found it really odd that Mike Harrison was doing radio specials for Infinity the same week he was being
hired at WZLX. My thoughts were that Mike was potentially a "mole" that WBCN sent over to wreck the
ratings so they could knock their main competition out. Lo and behold, Mike started adding new songs like
Def Leppard to the WZLX playlist which really made it sound awful, not "classic rock" of the day.
I think Mike Harrison was axed at that point for John Shomby. Lo and behold Infinity bought WZLX from a group of investors which may have included Eskimos. Eli might have more insight on that.

I had dinner with Guthrie; remember him telling me he would add more Bob Seger to the playlist because
he saw him in Texas or somewhere and the audience was swaying to his music. What people in a Texas concert hall have in common with the Boston area is anyone's guess.

If you've got a P.D. and an M.D. and they have any talent, the trade papers can be their "consultant".
Or maybe a little intuition.

That being said, Harv went to WCGY from 1991-1994 or 5; I produced from 1991-1993 while developing
"Visual Radio". VR launched in 1995 but was in development from 1992 on.

Check your facts on how long Harvey was at CGY and ZLX. Hardly "short lived". He probably spent four years or so at each station. Have you been on the air, drive time, for 8 years or more on two 50,000 watt stations?
I didn't think so.

Gary Guthrie P.D. Can you find that in Google? Please.

RADIODOUBLE WROTE:
so i remember all the players at other stations. the guy who hired and fired smith was gary guthrie(or maybe gathrie). he was an innovative pd they brought in from corproate offices to program classic rock at wzlx.
============================================================

Varulven sayeth:
And Prior to Bill Smith coming onboard at WZLX a great guy named Jimmy Mack (no relation to WBCN's Jimmy Mack, who is terribly missed) took me to lunch to talk about raiding my extensive record collection for the WZLX library. That was waaaay back in the 1980s, Radiodouble. Bill Smith was in touch with me then looking for Moby Grape and esoteric stuff like that. I believe the discussions Jimmy Mack & I were in the very early early days of WZLX. Clearly as they needed to build their library and fast.

This is all from memory, so, I reserve the right to have Eli or another credible person add or subtract to this.
Click to expand...

your memory is failing you.

i looked it up in wikipedia and i am right and you're wrong.
guthrie was their first pd. like i said.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WZLX

take it easy there, mr take-me-out-to-lunch history buff. yes, blake brought smith back but your buddy mike harrison fired him and jim popovich as soon as he walked into the studio. besides, gonzer and alan colmes were so much better back then.

no, i wasn't on the air for 8 years, not even a minute, but i made a lot of money working for a 50,000 watt station for more than 8 years that paid big radio talent salaries. never saw your name or heard of you in radio before finding this board a year ago. from the sounds of you, you're a pretty irrelavant character who pushes gargbage back and forth. it's not an attack. just a personal observation.

harvey was never in drive-time on a 50,000watt station in boston or anywhere else for that matter. that's your bs coming thru again. wzlx, wcgy, waaf, wcoz or wvbf are not 50,000 watts. never were.

eskimos didn't own wzlx. native americans from one particular region in alaska were investors/shareholders of a company that owned wzlx amongst other businesses but they never actually ran the station or had any direct involvement with the the radio business operations. eskimos are not native americans, eskimo joe. now, go have your eskimo pie.
 
Wikipedia, where they make it up as they go along.

If you noticed, I chose my words carefully, unlike you. It doesn't say P.D. I was told that
Gary Guthrie was a consultant. Here's what "Wikipedia" says: "hired Gary Guthrie to design and implement a format aimed at people who experienced adolescence in either the 1960s and 1970s and enjoyed the music of those eras, but did not care for the then current heavy metal or top 40 'hot hits' of the 1980s."

So did they hire him as P.D. or as consultant? If Wikipedia is correct I got the spelling of his name right,
you were confused about it. Also, when having had dinner with the man, he was introduced to me as consultant, not program director.

Also, you are waaaaay off base here.

Mike Harrison did not "fire" Harvey Wharfield. I saw the note where they wanted to re-hire
Harvey. Mike Harrison didn't do the firing & hiring, nor did Gurthrie, to my knowledge.

Mike Harrison spoke the keynote speech at my FALL MUSIC CONFERENCE at the World Trade Center.
I liked Mike as a person, but not as a programmer.

It was GM Jerry Charm who left WZLX for WBIX that made Harvey the offer to stay.
Harvey decided to go test the waters. It was he and Jerry Charm who couldn't come to terms.

Harvey retained an attorney and "shopped around" - he officially gave his notice by
asking for something like the famous cliche "800 Large" because he seemed unhappy with WZLX.
(OK, seemed is a euphemism).

You can ask him.

WCGY gave him a company car, a salary and a lucrative incentive package. He also got the opportunity to
play local music during the day a la Charles Laquidara's big mattress. Harvey liked the freedom at WCGY.
You have to be happy in life.

There was also the 4 hours of airtime to do the Boston Music Showcase from 6 AM to 10 PM. This was unheard of in 1991 - to get 4 hours to play local music - starting at 6 PM. The show was a hit right out of the box - Trevor Gowdy was blown away by the thousands of cards and letters. We were smart enough to sprinkle Aerosmith, Cars, Cindy Bullens, Jonathan Richman, J Geils, and hit artists (the "Dreams" live cut by RTZ was available ONLY on our show, and was our
#1 request. It was a live version of the minor hit from the Barry Goudreau album that allegedly had to be pulled off the market because it sounded like Boston.) We did some significant work, and all but two of the interviews are on tape. I have hundreds of hours of aircheck on DAT and on cassette.

"Radiodouble" - your posts are snippy and like Ad hominem attacks. Get your facts straight if you want to play in the big leagues. I saw the note, WZLX wanted to retain the services of Harvey Wharfield. They did get Chuck Nowlin probably because he followed Harv at WAAF. I don't know, I wasn't there, maybe Wikipedia can help you sort that one out.
 
Are you guys sure harvey (if you mean warfield, i didn't scroll that far back) didn't work in drive time? I interned with him for a few months at 'ZLX and I seem to remember it was in PM drive, somewhere in between 3 and 7p.
 
Varulven said:
Wikipedia, where they make it up as they go along.

If you noticed, I chose my words carefully, unlike you. It doesn't say P.D. I was told that
Gary Guthrie was a consultant. Here's what "Wikipedia" says: "hired Gary Guthrie to design and implement a format aimed at people who experienced adolescence in either the 1960s and 1970s and enjoyed the music of those eras, but did not care for the then current heavy metal or top 40 'hot hits' of the 1980s."

So did they hire him as P.D. or as consultant? If Wikipedia is correct I got the spelling of his name right,
you were confused about it. Also, when having had dinner with the man, he was introduced to me as consultant, not program director.

Also, you are waaaaay off base here.

Mike Harrison did not "fire" Harvey Wharfield. I saw the note where they wanted to re-hire
Harvey. Mike Harrison didn't do the firing & hiring, nor did Gurthrie, to my knowledge.

Mike Harrison spoke the keynote speech at my FALL MUSIC CONFERENCE at the World Trade Center.
I liked Mike as a person, but not as a programmer.

It was GM Jerry Charm who left WZLX for WBIX that made Harvey the offer to stay.
Harvey decided to go test the waters. It was he and Jerry Charm who couldn't come to terms.

Harvey retained an attorney and "shopped around" - he officially gave his notice by
asking for something like the famous cliche "800 Large" because he seemed unhappy with WZLX.
(OK, seemed is a euphemism).

You can ask him.

WCGY gave him a company car, a salary and a lucrative incentive package. He also got the opportunity to
play local music during the day a la Charles Laquidara's big mattress. Harvey liked the freedom at WCGY.
You have to be happy in life.

There was also the 4 hours of airtime to do the Boston Music Showcase from 6 AM to 10 PM. This was unheard of in 1991 - to get 4 hours to play local music - starting at 6 PM. The show was a hit right out of the box - Trevor Gowdy was blown away by the thousands of cards and letters. We were smart enough to sprinkle Aerosmith, Cars, Cindy Bullens, Jonathan Richman, J Geils, and hit artists (the "Dreams" live cut by RTZ was available ONLY on our show, and was our
#1 request. It was a live version of the minor hit from the Barry Goudreau album that allegedly had to be pulled off the market because it sounded like Boston.) We did some significant work, and all but two of the interviews are on tape. I have hundreds of hours of aircheck on DAT and on cassette.

"Radiodouble" - your posts are snippy and like Ad hominem attacks. Get your facts straight if you want to play in the big leagues. I saw the note, WZLX wanted to retain the services of Harvey Wharfield. They did get Chuck Nowlin probably because he followed Harv at WAAF. I don't know, I wasn't there, maybe Wikipedia can help you sort that one out.
Click to expand...

i didn't write that harrison fired your boy harvey. read my post. harrison fired smith.

guthrie came in and staffed the air talent their first year, not bill smith as you said.
he worked for the company that owned wzlx. he wasn't an outside consultant.
whatever his title was, he came from their corporate office and programmed wzlx for
their first year. end of story. whether you agree or disagree, it's irrelavant because you're irrelavant.

you take everything and turn it around the way you want it to be. your 'facts' are just your 'facts'.
 
Excuse me,but what do these posts have to do with the original threat on John DePetro. Wouldn't it be better to start a separate thread. Hate to keep scrolling through your posts which are not relevant to the topic.
 
Excuse me,but what do these posts have to do with the original threat on John DePetro. Wouldn't it be better to start a separate thread. Hate to keep scrolling through your posts which are not relevant to the topic.

Oops! This word processor types errors.... ;)

Sorry :)
 
radiodouble said:
TowerBuzz said:
WCGY? :D how many years ago was that?. Meaningless. How is that for "punctuation"?.
Click to expand...

granted, they were a fringe station, but meaningless? i dunno. all i know from sales side, they made money for gowdy before he cashed out. he got somewhere around 12 mill. that was pretty big money back in the day for a non-Boston signal.
Click to expand...

No, Radio I was not saying wcgy the station was meaningless, what I meant was to say that he worked at WCGY after wzlx as a way of trying to say that his opinion about radio is somehow relevant today is meaningless considering that wcgy has not existed for what? 15 years?. That is pre internet for god's sake. In other words quotiing somebody who has been on the bench that long, meaningless. Sorry for the mix up.
 
I dont know who you think you are talking about but I will point out to the moderator that this was just another attack from this 'writer" that nobody has ever heard of. You didn't disprove my argument by the way either.
 
hey, i'm more than happy to post this week's resume This is about RKO not re-hiring John DePetro, not the fact that WRKO is not hiring you.

Even Parenteau got to go to WRKO after he left WBCN. WRKO would certainly get ink by putting
Parenteau on 9 AM to Noon.

Think of How How Howie will go mental if that were to happen!
 
When in doubt, make attacks, that is your mantra. You can't accept that someone else could have a valid point that differs from your invalid points so you insult. Of course WRKO is not hiring me, I have no desire to work for them, so they obviously cannot hire those who dont have any interest. Maybe I'll go to Woburn cable access since they hire anyone who can sign their name, and talent or sanity are obviously not pre requisites.
 
I moved out of Woburn long ago; I can accept various points of view and still not agree with them - there are some interesting people on this board. You aren't one of them.
 
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