I really miss WNIA and WSAY

[raymond_shaw]

..and they were years ahead of modern corporate 'casters in paying rock bottom wages and having "multi-tasking" skeleton airstaffs.

Can you imagine what Gordon P. Brown could have done with modern voice tracking. Tom Thomas, Jerry Jack, Mike Melody, etc. could have always been the same voices year after year(even if the person supplying the voice had passed on). In reality, sometimes a guy would be "Jerry Jack" on saturday and on monday he would become Tom Thomas.

Did you know Gordon P. actually had those names copywritten(like somebody else would want to use them)?

 

[SirRoxalot]

Gordon P. was big. He was a builder.

 

[SpareChange]

Can you imagine what Gordon P. Brown could have done with modern voice tracking. Tom Thomas, Jerry Jack, Mike Melody, etc. could have always been the same voices year after year(even if the person supplying the voice had passed on). In reality, sometimes a guy would be "Jerry Jack" on Saturday and on Monday he would become Tom Thomas. Did you know Gordon P. actually had those names copywritten (like somebody else would want to use them)?

Not to be a know-it-all-wise-ass, but the correct term is copyrighted. Still, you made your point.

Gordon P. Brown securing copyrights to the names is nearly as funny as his stations were in using them. A few months ago I ran across some guy in Lockport who called himself Mike Melody, doing a throwback show that probably appealed to eight listeners, all over the age of 65... not that there's anything wrong with that.

The WNIA-WSAY house-names were always synonymous with yuckers and pukers. Even though many of the guys who used those names weren't that sort, they kind of got branded as guys who were most apt to introduce themselves, do the time, temp and ask "how's it goin' everybody?" every other song.

Come to think of it, only last week I heard a veteran news anchor on WBEN say "good morning everybody!" And you can hear the local TV talking heads do this every night. What, like we're listening as a group in an auditorium? Is this A Prairie Home Companion? There's nobody in the car or house but me and the dog!

Isn't radio (now more than ever) a one-on-one listening experience? Aren't we supposed to relate to listeners as individual... as if we're having a one-on-one conversation? Still, we hear veterans who should know better on radio and TV saying things like "we'll see you again tomorrow..." No you WON'T. I'll see or hear YOU (if you're lucky enough to get me back to your station or channel.) Besides, I hope you don't SEE me because I'm not dressed to be seen!

WNIA and WSAY have been described by posters on this board as stations that were "sh*thouses with transmitters and towers, nothing more than toilets that just flushed differently." Nonetheless, most of the guys who worked at those dumps many years ago appear to be grateful for the opportunity to have had the experience and moved on to better things.

Maybe if I had a low power FM license (throwing up all kinds of interference on a second adjacency) I'd give newbies and rookies a chance to learn the business through real-world on-the-air experience as jocks, writers, producers and news people. But isn't that what college radio is SUPPOSED to be all about? One thing's for sure, I sure as hell wouldn't require them to use those hideous house-names... although Gerald J. Jack, Michael L. Melody or Thomas B. Thomas might be funny spoofs on April 1st every year. Then again, only 55+ radio junkies would get the joke.

 

[raymond_shaw]

For those younger readers of this board, yes there were two really hokey Top 40 stations in the 50s, 60s and 70s where every DJ had one of those hokey names. If you did mornings, for instance, you were Tom Thomas. Afternoons you were Jerry Jack and evenings you were Mike Melody(the host of Melody Corner). If you were on the weekends, at WNIA in Cheektowaga you were Mac Maguire and I think at WSAY you would have been Glenn Bell(but I grew up in Buffalo and could be wrong). I always wondered if the reason they signed off at 12:30am was because they were at 1230 on the AM Dial(if so, thank goodness Brown didn't own WGR).

Actually Gordon P. Brown put WSAY on the air in the early days of radio and WNIA went in the mid 50s(I think). I think they both went Top 40 in the early days of rock n roll. In his younger years, he was quite the technical wiz and Brown sold a patent for a radio tube to (I think) RCA and was loaded with dough. These stations had sales people at one time, but slowly evolved into tax write offs for Gordon. WNIA rarely ever ran a commecial and had no news department. I don't think they even covered the assasination of President Kennedy in 1963(except for maybe a few announcements). I remember as a little kid, they were the station to go to for music when WKBW would be in one of their twice an hour 5 minutes newscasts. We also listened to them on sunday nights when KB would be running their Panorama News and Public Affairs show. WNIA dj's used to read tons of public service announcements(it seemed between almost every song) and there were those constant reminders to "Be Big, Be a Builder" - as a kid I never understood what that meant - I'm supposed to be a construction worker when I grow up or something???

WNIA was also easy to find on the old AM radios - they were right next to the little circle on the dial where you were supposed to turn to in case of a enemy attack(weren't there two such circles on the old am radios?)....my guess is NIA's listenership may have gone up a little during the Cuban Missile Crisis as a few nervous folks may have been poking around the EBS site just to be on the safe side. I wonder if they sent Khrushchev a thank you note

 

[Mark_Giardina]

Give Gordon Brown Some Credit

It if wasn't for Gordon Brown a number of later well-known Rochester radio announcers( Ferdinand J. Smith, Gary Smith, Jack Palvino to name a few) would have never got the break into broadcasting had there not been WSAY.

Sure the names, Tommy Thomas and Jerry Jack were hokey and Brown ran the station on a shoe-string budget. But give the old guy credit for something, even though he kept the first dollar he ever owned.

I remember once interviewing at WSAY's main office at 250 State Street in Rochester. At first I thought the offices were being remodeled. It was later that I learned that Brown had started the project years ago but never finished it.

Gordon Brown may have been cheap, but at least one knew what they were getting into when hired at WSAY. One can not say the same thing about the man who later purchased the station in 1980. At least the Brown kept away the bill collectors.