I bumped into Mr. Smidt one time at a station, and let me tell you, that one time was plenty enough. Dude made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
He should go flush himself.
He should go flush himself.
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Donna Halper mistreated on WCAP
- Thread starter paulfromlowell
- Start date
I need to get a copy of that book and soon I think.
Donna do you think if the sales are good enough for the current tome, you could get them to do another 128 pages, a Volume II of the series?
Donna do you think if the sales are good enough for the current tome, you could get them to do another 128 pages, a Volume II of the series?
MRBIboredop said:
I absolutely do wanna write volume 2. Arcadia was aware there was a lot that couldn't be included, but I figured it would at least be a start.
And I am still sorry about the guy who had problems with our music software-- honestly, we really did have hundreds of users and we put out 5 updates of it, and lots of people praised it. I also would like to believe my work as a radio consultant was received positively during the 26 years I did it-- but I know not everyone likes consultants. Anyway, that's neither here nor there. I expected that some folks would be unhappy with the book, but I hope they will at least understand I was just trying to make a good start and remember the folks who inspired me in my career, as well as telling the stories of some people I researched.
Oh and it needs to be said (again): I put out numerous calls for photos. Some folks never replied. Others sent photos that were not large enough. Others said they'd said but never did. So, I tried to mention as many people as I can, and G-d willing, I'll get more into a second volume one day.
Ms. Halper:
I met you one day during a taping of "Let's Talk About Radio" that was taped in Cambridge for air on WJIB in the early 2000's. You would not remember me, but Scott Fybush invited me.
I just bought and looked through your book. To me this book gathered a wide range of personalities that made radio in Boston what it was (and my memories of my limited work at WBZ and WODS were re-kindled). I also know you have been doing serious research on Boston radio over the years that would fill up a good sized book in itself. Books take more effort than most folk realize.
So do not worry about those people who "diss" you. There are ten more who appreciate your efforts to promote radio history....like myself.
Thank you!
Dan
I met you one day during a taping of "Let's Talk About Radio" that was taped in Cambridge for air on WJIB in the early 2000's. You would not remember me, but Scott Fybush invited me.
I just bought and looked through your book. To me this book gathered a wide range of personalities that made radio in Boston what it was (and my memories of my limited work at WBZ and WODS were re-kindled). I also know you have been doing serious research on Boston radio over the years that would fill up a good sized book in itself. Books take more effort than most folk realize.
So do not worry about those people who "diss" you. There are ten more who appreciate your efforts to promote radio history....like myself.
Thank you!
Dan
1. I am looking forward to reading Prof. Halper's book, however in interviews and commentary she does appear to me to give far too much credit, in the historic context, to WMEX in general and Woo-woo in particular for rock music taking hold on the radio in Boston. There seems to be a vision that Boston radio is WMEX, WBZ and WRKO with relatively little attention to: a) the historic position of WHDH in driving the very competitive local news component in the market with its affiliation with the Herald and Traveler, especially in its "Voice of the City" days; b) the role of the 5K and less AMs, such as WROL/WRYT/WORL, WCOP, WEZE, WVDA, WILD, WHIL and WUNR/WBOS; c) the importance of WJIB in popularizing the FM band; d) the impact of chain broadcasting and corporate direction of local radio, especially as seen in such chains as RKO General, Westinghouse, CBS, RCA, Kaiser and Plough; and e) the impact of the migration of business from downtowns to the shopping centers and the resulting regionalization of advertising which allowed suburban "hometown" station owners to eventually evolve that FM stick that was losing money in the back yard into a major-market flame-throwers as the once-profitable AMs withered and all but died (cf. WHIL-WXKS, Medford; WLLH-WSSH/WKLB/WCRB, Lowell; WCCM-WCGY/WMKK, Lawrence; WKOX-WVBF/WKLB/WROR, Framingham; WHAV-WLYT/WXRV, Haverhill among others)
2. Mr. Schmidt appears to be in panic mode up there at WCAP. They had relatively little equity in the station, Cohen took some back paper that became due, and one could argue that they overpaid. Check the debt that the company took on in buying the station, including the bank loan and the Cohen debt and figure out how much they need in hourly revenue to just meet the debt service, then figure out how little they appear to bill in non-drive hours and tell me how they can possibly bill enough in drive times to survive. Mr. Schmidt's bio is amusing, to say the least, I seem to recall WBZ-FM as an automated music box with little actual programming other than calls from kids eternally debating whether "the Beatles will get back together" and an automation system so shoddy it would miss the join to AM news, go silent, repeat stuff and suffer an assortment of other maladies so bad that listeners were driven away to the point where Group W practically gave the frequency away to a newspaper group; WEEI-FM played what Mr. Schmidt apparently dubbed "softrock" long before he arrived, evolving from the CBS "Young Sound" to what they called "mellow" and yes he took some chances with the playlist and polished the marketing, but he didn't invent the format; WCOZ was irrelevant until Tommy "Mr. Robin Young" Hadges and then John Sebastian took over; and we won't even get into the colossal flop that was the album-oriented WEZE.
3. With respect to Prof. Halper, I would submit that her pursuit of history is hampered by the presence in Boston's radio history of the idiots who ran Atlantic/American radio. Clearly they didn't preserve much in the way of historic artifacts; these clowns clearly had no respect for the histories of three of the major AM signals in town, WLAW/WNAC/WRKO, WHDH and WEEI, to say nothing of WROR, and viewed radio stations as valuable only for their cash flows which enabled them to leverage other acquisitions and ultimately get rich off deregulation while deciding that the money was in owning the antennas rather than in being a radio station operator, a role for which management was clearly unqualified. Just today I heard that Bob Wilson's retirement as voice of the Bruins was prompted by mistreatment by that crew, which comes as no surprise as they also cashiered Ken Coleman and left us with the absurdly untalented Castiglione for no other reason that he was cheaper, leaving the best baseball market in the country to suffer under his minor-league quality play-calling and desperate, but failing, attempts to come up with a catch-phrase,
2. Mr. Schmidt appears to be in panic mode up there at WCAP. They had relatively little equity in the station, Cohen took some back paper that became due, and one could argue that they overpaid. Check the debt that the company took on in buying the station, including the bank loan and the Cohen debt and figure out how much they need in hourly revenue to just meet the debt service, then figure out how little they appear to bill in non-drive hours and tell me how they can possibly bill enough in drive times to survive. Mr. Schmidt's bio is amusing, to say the least, I seem to recall WBZ-FM as an automated music box with little actual programming other than calls from kids eternally debating whether "the Beatles will get back together" and an automation system so shoddy it would miss the join to AM news, go silent, repeat stuff and suffer an assortment of other maladies so bad that listeners were driven away to the point where Group W practically gave the frequency away to a newspaper group; WEEI-FM played what Mr. Schmidt apparently dubbed "softrock" long before he arrived, evolving from the CBS "Young Sound" to what they called "mellow" and yes he took some chances with the playlist and polished the marketing, but he didn't invent the format; WCOZ was irrelevant until Tommy "Mr. Robin Young" Hadges and then John Sebastian took over; and we won't even get into the colossal flop that was the album-oriented WEZE.
3. With respect to Prof. Halper, I would submit that her pursuit of history is hampered by the presence in Boston's radio history of the idiots who ran Atlantic/American radio. Clearly they didn't preserve much in the way of historic artifacts; these clowns clearly had no respect for the histories of three of the major AM signals in town, WLAW/WNAC/WRKO, WHDH and WEEI, to say nothing of WROR, and viewed radio stations as valuable only for their cash flows which enabled them to leverage other acquisitions and ultimately get rich off deregulation while deciding that the money was in owning the antennas rather than in being a radio station operator, a role for which management was clearly unqualified. Just today I heard that Bob Wilson's retirement as voice of the Bruins was prompted by mistreatment by that crew, which comes as no surprise as they also cashiered Ken Coleman and left us with the absurdly untalented Castiglione for no other reason that he was cheaper, leaving the best baseball market in the country to suffer under his minor-league quality play-calling and desperate, but failing, attempts to come up with a catch-phrase,
Hi Thirdendorsed:
Interesting and good information you provide.
I agree there is much more to Boston Radio history than what is in Professor Halper's book. In writing, one must determine where to start, where to stop and what the publisher is willing to accept.
I would guess that she could not sell a deeper diatribe to a publisher. I bet she has much of the research already though....
Dan
Interesting and good information you provide.
I agree there is much more to Boston Radio history than what is in Professor Halper's book. In writing, one must determine where to start, where to stop and what the publisher is willing to accept.
I would guess that she could not sell a deeper diatribe to a publisher. I bet she has much of the research already though....
Dan
L
Laurence Glavin
Guest
Several months ago, a reporter/historian who wrote a book about Frances Perkins, the first woman to head the labor department (she was in labor for 12 years) and one of the architects of The New Deal, appeared on C-Span 2, also known as Book TV. During her talk, she mentioned that when she turned in her manuscript, it would have led to a book of some 900 pages. The editors a her publisher winnowed it down (Amazon doesn't seem to display the number of pages in a book, so I don't know how many wound up in the final product), and the author said during her presentation that it's easy to write a LONG book, but it takes work to get the right length.
I have known Clark and Donna for decades. My relationship with both of them has been mostly social, so I cannot say that I have ever experienced the things that Clark has been criticized for. Donna was my client for a while when I was at R&R, and we've met several times, but not really close.
I have read many of Donna's history of Boston radio in the past, and I've always been impressed. Her history of WBZ...which was the most important station to me as a kid....was first rate. I bought her recent book, and read it the other night. It was exactly what I expected. Nothing more...nothing less. I worked at WVBF for years, but there was little mention of it. But I wasn't disappointed. I did not expect this book to be the definitive history of Boston radio. I have a feeling that if someone had provided Donna with a picture of Bud Ballou, then WVBF would have gotten more of a mention.
I did not hear the on air event that we're discussing, but if it's true, I feel sorry that Clark took Donna to task on the air. Her replies in this forum have been calm and collected, so thank God this has not turned into a public pissing contest. I think it's pretty clear that Donna Halper is the only person who would even take on the task of writing this book. Maybe it's not perfect, but it sure was an interesting read.
I have read many of Donna's history of Boston radio in the past, and I've always been impressed. Her history of WBZ...which was the most important station to me as a kid....was first rate. I bought her recent book, and read it the other night. It was exactly what I expected. Nothing more...nothing less. I worked at WVBF for years, but there was little mention of it. But I wasn't disappointed. I did not expect this book to be the definitive history of Boston radio. I have a feeling that if someone had provided Donna with a picture of Bud Ballou, then WVBF would have gotten more of a mention.
I did not hear the on air event that we're discussing, but if it's true, I feel sorry that Clark took Donna to task on the air. Her replies in this forum have been calm and collected, so thank God this has not turned into a public pissing contest. I think it's pretty clear that Donna Halper is the only person who would even take on the task of writing this book. Maybe it's not perfect, but it sure was an interesting read.
thirdendorsed said:
Automation systems were like that back then. Until the advent of PC's and music on hard drive, broadcast automation was notoriously unreliable. Carts blew by their stop tones; reel-to-reel tapes got out of synch; carousels and other mechanical contrivances jammed; and the damned things were ridiculously expensive to boot. If you were automated back then, you couldn't help sounding like it.
My brother tells a story of a station where he was working where the cart that announced the time suddenly stopped responding to stop cues, and the recorded voice told listeners: "it's 2:14... it's 2:15... it's 2:16... it's 2:17..." and so on.
4CX1000A said:
That often happened if the playback heads in the units collected just a little bit of oxidation or tarnish. Time to get out the Q-tips and rubbing alcohol.
The Arcadia Publishing books vary tremendously in quality within the format. Some are amazing. Some are of most questionable value, even for pictures alone. One can determine which kind you have -- most of the time -- by browsing the book at the store for about a minute.
I've been a mostly silent participant in the Boston Radio Interest mailing list for years. I've read what Ms. Halper's written over the years.
I don't need to browse this book. I know I can assume it's worth it. I just bought it on Amazon (not available locally where I am).
I've been a mostly silent participant in the Boston Radio Interest mailing list for years. I've read what Ms. Halper's written over the years.
I don't need to browse this book. I know I can assume it's worth it. I just bought it on Amazon (not available locally where I am).
I know Donna would never use this kind of language, so I'll do it for her. Kick some ass, Donna! These schmucks are all ego-maniacs, living in the past, who got their feelings hurt because they weren't important enough to be included in your excellent work. To those who have said nice things, you may disregard.
Schmit, IMHO, has always been a self-absorbed fringe player who never could make it in the big city. I will give him credit for being a skilled engineer, but his programming and management skills are indeed as otherwise described on this board.
Donna demonstrates her class, even after being trashed, by trying to reach out to a former client and is genuinely distressed that this customer was unhappy with her product; to the point of virtually asking why he/she didn't go to the top (her) for help once it manifested itself.
Arcadia serves its purpose and doesn't try to be anything other than what they are - a specialty publisher; and a successful one. Big difference between that and a vanity house.
Donna will probably be upset with me for being as candid as I've been in this post and insist she can defend herself thank-you-very-much, and she can, but I wanted to speak out on this subject because of the unfair treatment to which this brilliant lady has been subjected.
Schmit, IMHO, has always been a self-absorbed fringe player who never could make it in the big city. I will give him credit for being a skilled engineer, but his programming and management skills are indeed as otherwise described on this board.
Donna demonstrates her class, even after being trashed, by trying to reach out to a former client and is genuinely distressed that this customer was unhappy with her product; to the point of virtually asking why he/she didn't go to the top (her) for help once it manifested itself.
Arcadia serves its purpose and doesn't try to be anything other than what they are - a specialty publisher; and a successful one. Big difference between that and a vanity house.
Donna will probably be upset with me for being as candid as I've been in this post and insist she can defend herself thank-you-very-much, and she can, but I wanted to speak out on this subject because of the unfair treatment to which this brilliant lady has been subjected.
J
Jimc
Guest
Like Choo-Choo Charlie (you gotta be an old bastard to remember)?
chuga chugga.....
chuga chugga.....
J
Jimc
Guest
Namjock:
"Schmit, IMHO, has always been a self-absorbed fringe player who never could make it in the big city. I will give him credit for being a skilled engineer, but his programming and management skills are indeed as otherwise described on this board."
WHOOO WOOOO!
"Schmit, IMHO, has always been a self-absorbed fringe player who never could make it in the big city. I will give him credit for being a skilled engineer, but his programming and management skills are indeed as otherwise described on this board."
WHOOO WOOOO!
Not every market is as fortunate as Boston to have a radio historian in-residence. Donna Halper has been as constant as the Customs House on The Hub radio skyline.
Donna I am saddened to hear about your exposure to CS gas. It is toxic but far from lethal. I look forward to reading the book as well as the sequel.
Donna I am saddened to hear about your exposure to CS gas. It is toxic but far from lethal. I look forward to reading the book as well as the sequel.
My copy arrived earlier this week (Monday) and I can honestly say it is very well done. It's well written, succint and thankfully for those of us who have labored in radio for 30 years, it has very nice photos which make it easy to ask "why the hell doesn't Dave Maynard age???"
well done & kudos, Auntie Donna! you deserve far better than the bitterness of a peer who never quite attained what you have.
well done & kudos, Auntie Donna! you deserve far better than the bitterness of a peer who never quite attained what you have.
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