Tim:
I forgot Paul Wensko worked at WTHT. Now that I think about it, I believe Joyce Steinman, who years later was the GM at WQEQ, got her start in radio there as well. And I forgot to mention something else I have from WTHT – about which you may know something. It’s a big wooden sign which reads, “Hilltop Road, Operation Rescue, WTHT ¼ mile.” I think it had something to do with the Sheppton Mine Disaster in 1963, though I’m not certain. But, if you left in ’64, you were probably there for “Operation Rescue,” whatever it was. I have the sign on display in my hall and anyone who visits looks at it and inevitably says, “What the heck is that?”
Sword told me years ago there were constant engineering problems and the FCC was always around the corner. I wouldn’t doubt for a second it was prompted by Diehm.
Those jingles and airchecks you have! I would love to hear them and/or buy them from you!!! One of the few airchecks I heard from WTHT is Leo Valovich on the air the afternoon JFK was assassinated.
As for WAZL, I don’t want to speak out of turn. I worked there for five years (in fact, I was the PD who first added several news additional daily newscasts, then eventually turned it N/T in the ‘90s), but have had no ties to it whatsoever since. However, three very good friends of mine worked there until about two weeks ago, when everyone was let go. I really haven’t asked them much about what happened, and they haven’t really said. The station is all automated/voicetracked. To me, its future seems murky, and that’s being positive.
Ownership has changed several times the last few years, and appears to be in a state of flux right now. Citadel owned it for a while and turned it into a WARM translator in the days when WARM was N/T. Then it was bought by a firm called Route 81 Broadcasting, which also owned WCOJ in Coatesville. But there was a major internal upheaval within the firm, and the man who I’m told founded it – a guy named Lloyd Roach – was booted from it. Roach had brought Pat Ward back as GM and the station appeared to be doing fairly well. But there were a succession of changes since. A friend of mine tried to buy it, and in fact, was operating it, but the deal fell through. Recently, a group with two “radio guys” from New Jersey was planning on buying it and had taken over operation. But that too fell through. Right now, it’s owned by Lex Sloot and is housed in his Printmark building on Poplar Street in the Heights. But Lex isn’t operating it; he has someone whom I do not know, though who’s said to be a computer genius, running the station. Steve Green above mentioned the music mix. It’s the one put together by Tony Pacelli, an oldies pro who really knows what he’s doing. But I suspect there will be changes; at least in the mix and the size of the playlist, if not a full format change. Supposedly, there is a major announcement planned for September 1st. No idea what it will be.
You’re quite right about WAZL in the past – it had more than its share of talent. In addition to the Titos, whom you mentioned, Paul Cerula and Bill Graham were two of the greatest newsmen to ever work in NEPA. Graham, I was told, turned down a network job offer from Mutual, because he didn’t want to move to DC. And I believe that. Later, he moved to TV and was a weekend anchor for Channel 28, and also worked at WBRE radio. Guy Randall, who made a name for himself years later at WBAX and WEJL worked at WAZL. Al Donati, who as Al Dee later worked in the New York market. Hank Reynolds (Levandowski was his real name) was a terrific morning man for years. There was also Jim Boyle, Joe Kayley, Ken Jefferies (who’s now in LA), Terry Moran, and the list goes on. It includes four people with whom I still work, Bill Waschko, Lisa Ragazzi (Schugardt), Pacelli and Mike Moran, and Scott McAndrews, with whom I worked for years at two stations. WAZL had many, many talented employees over the years.
It’s also worth noting that Vic Diehm was quite an innovator. He put WAZL-FM (97.9) on the air in, I believe, 1947, making it the first FM in this market. By the way, he was also talking to NBC about putting the market’s first TV station on the air here in 1951. When I worked at WAZL and it was being sold by Ohio real estate magnate Frank Mangano to 4-M Broadcasting, Waschko and I had to clean out the transmitter building and we found all the original paper work. I later asked Kitty Kahler what happened and she told me, in effect, Vic just didn’t believe TV would ever take off and thought it would drain the radio station. So, at the last minute, he pulled out, NBC went to the Baltimores and WBRE was born two years later. But the original script had NEPA’s first TV station in Hazleton, on Channel 35 (or was it 56, I forget), as WAZL-TV. Imagine how different this entire market is if that had happened!
But you know what Tim, today WAZL’s a stand-alone 1,000 watt station at the bottom of the market. Two of the counties it clearly reaches, Carbon and Schuylkill, don’t count with Abritron. That makes it a less than top-shelf property in today’s market.
Years ago when I was PD and it was owned by 4-M Broadcasting, I tried to sell management on the idea of claiming two dark frequencies – 1340 AM in Wilkes-Barre (the old WBRE) and 1320 AM in Scranton (the old WSCR); doing, in effect, what WILK later did when it took over the old WGBI (910 AM) and WTHT/WHZN/WWKC/WXPX (1300 AM). I wanted to simulcast our talk format from WAZL on those two other frequencies and take the then-two other N/T stations in the market, WILK and WARM, head-on in all three cities. We had a corporate sales manager named Tom Harpster (who came from Z-95 in Allentown and later worked at Rock 107) who agreed with me and tried to sell management on the idea – making the point that the AM would likely be profitable in a couple of years and that the heritage call letters, WAZL, would be known marketwide. (the FM at the time was WZMT, the original “Mountain”). Ownership wouldn’t budge. WAZL’s “dark days” came soon thereafter. I still think that was the thing to do.
Sorry I babbled on so long. Sometimes I talk too much.
