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Inqlings: WPHT yanks Frank from Friday

M

MattParker

Michael Klein in this morning's Inquirer:
Sid Mark, who's been ring-a-ding-dinging the sounds of Frank Sinatra for 55 years, has learned that WPHT-AM will eliminate his Friday radio program.

Read more: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/20101212_Inqlings__WPHT_yanks_Frank_from_Friday.html#ixzz17u9JrW2D
Click to expand...

I can't get too sad about this. Sid has had a long run. I like Sinatra's stuff and admire him as performer (not necessarily as a person) but all Sinatra for all those hours is way too much of a good thing. Besides Sinatra was not the only popular singer of the Great American Songbook era and I never got all this obsession with Frank and only Frank. He may have been the chairman but he wasn't the entire board.

Besides, this show never belonged on a talk station, any more than Missy belonged on WHAT. There is something to be said for maintaining the integrity of a format.
 
MattParker said:
Sid has had a long run.
Click to expand...
And although the long-running Friday show is going away, apparently he'll continue his five hours of Sinatra on Sundays including an airing of his syndicated show on 1210. Since most talk stations don't run their format on weekends opting for brokered crap or at best reruns of weekday fare, having actual entertainment programming on 1210 weekends, talk or not, is a plus. And the show reportedly sells well.
 
WPHT **does** run tons of brokered crap on the weekends. Some of it is more listenable than the rest. I'm not criticizing the station (all that much, relatively speaking) for doing this, but let's get real. Outside of a few scattered shows that are pretty decent, 1210 may as well not even exist in my home on the weekends.

This is not the first time Sid Mark has lost his "Friday With Frank."

WWDB canceled it outright around 1997-98, though Sid did get a Saturday night show. (Then he'd come back a few hours later for the Sunday morning.) When "Francis Albert" passed on a Thursday night in May of '98 WWDB asked Sid to do a "special" broadcast in his old "Friday With Frank" slot the following day.

CBS Radio (still the second "Infinity" at the time?) yanked Sid's Friday show a few years back so the station could clear that syndicated night show of Jay Severin's. "Friday With Frank" was so important to WPHT just a year earlier that the Phillies had to be moved to 610 on Saturdays-- but it wasn't important at all when it came to clearing a satellite night show that had no significance to the market whatsoever (and not surprisingly, didn't last-- though it wasn't **that** bad of a show).

Both times, "Friday With Frank" was brought back.
 
Sid Mark

I thought it was on Christmas Day.

Happy 10th! Get out...

This is somewhat sad, with the constant interruptions-- and considering "Friday With Frank" was pretty much wiped out all through the spring, summer, and early fall for the Phillies-- really not that big of a deal.

Plus, half the time I did tune in it was the pre-recorded Orange syndicated show being run. If I were living a thousand miles away, and the syndicated show were all I could get-- it would be nice. But I'm kind of spoiled, having heard Sid's live Philly show for pretty much my entire life. The music is quite different too; much more from the Capitol years.

When WWDB ran the show for four-and-a-half (later five) hours every Friday evening, the program had a nice "stop the world for a break" feel to it-- as did its place on the station. Now it just seems to be "in the way." Note I'm only talking about the Friday show. The Sunday morning one more closely resembles the old days, in my opinion.
 
WWDB

Incidentally, I'm just realizing today would have been Sinatra's 95th.

I was just last night listening to some old tapes of 'DB I found from twenty years ago. No flashy production whatsoever. No smartass liners. Just great content.

Watching 'DB trying to be "hip" (while holding on to the past at the same time) in its final couple of years was just plain sad, however.

The comment above about Sinatra sounding as out of place on a Talk station as Missy did on WHAT sadly now is kind of true-- but it wasn't in the 'DB era. Back then the demos matched. Now they don't.
 
Maybe Sid will broker time elsewhere. There are a few stations that will play anything if you pay them enough.
 
It's sad that there is no place for the Great American Songbook in radio. The former Nostalgia stations, those that are left, are pretty much AC Oldies (from Dial Global or MOYL) - elevator music with singers. And besides Sid Mark, there are few weekend All-Frank-All-The-Time shows, with other great artists of the era pretty much ignored. Bing Crosby was arguably the greatest entertainer of the 20 Century: For close to 30 years he was at the top of the record charts, movie box-office rankings and prime-time broadcast ratings - a true "king of all media." Now he only gets heard at Christmas. The Martini/Red formats tried to make the Songbook music hip with a Las Vegas - Rat Pack edge; that bombed (and it deserved to).

Maybe it's an oxymoron to call this music classic popular music (or popular classics) but that what it is.

This is actually music public radio should be playing (at least on HD2 or HD3). The people who love it are the kind who would and could come through with donations. IMHO it's a lot more worthwhile than what the AAA public stations are playing (of course these stations have shoved aside true folk music for AAA but that's another rant).
 
Re: Sid Mark

it was on christmas day i messed up sorry



and that WWDB morning show never got a chance liners where made and everything for the show then bam beasley comes in and fires everyone when they thought they came to talk about the new morning show they showed people the door
 
The Jay and Hilarie Show was slated to BE the new morning show, replacing Gil Gross and Pat Farnack doing that GREAT news-block. But it was local management's decision to do that. The Beasley's had OTHER plans and never TOLD the local management they were going to blow up the talk format!!! But dwelling on what COULD have been doesn't get us anywhere.

I would have ENJOYED the challenge...and, indeed, the station WAS trying to "modern" things up a bit...nothing wrong with that. But after Rush and Dr. Laura were gone, and some of the hosts being up there in age didn't gel with the slightly younger---to hip for the room-types like us and Kent Voss. But I give an "A" for effort by Jeff Hillery the last PD who at least tried to liven things up. I am NOT taking anything away from the extremely talented staff who remained including Irv, and the rest of the older-school gang there. They were VERY good talkers!!! I enjoyed them...and I think that station wasn't given a chance to KEEP on that "newer" approach.

BE BIG!
 
WWDB

Big Jay-- I know we talked about this a few years ago, but for the benefit of others' reading this-- I thought the idea of using an AM facility to "migrate" the heritage personalities was a genius one. It would have worked if the Beasleys had a viable, full-time signal. And even with WTEL's signal limitations, the execution was terrible and quite confusing. I remember on this and other boards, folks were ripping Beasley for "competing with itself" and for daring to move the legends off the FM. But the old-guard hosts just seemed to clash with the hipper ones, and the result was a bizarre-sounding "block time-like" kind of station with mismatched imaging and a terribly confused audience. Senior citizens were sitting through the Kent Voss Show's over-use of the Homer Simpson "doh" SFX knowing that in less than 48 hours they'd be able to hear "Realtor Russ Miller" and the Jelineks. The Jelineks!

As soon as you two started doing your show in the afternoons there toward the end, many of us thought you were being wasted with that proven program "shoehorned" into an early PM drive two-hour slot. I remember wondering if I were the only one who was equally enjoying Irv Homer and J&H. While I agree the 'DB morning newsblock was amazing (and superior to KYW), I like others knew it would never work. It was filling a need that simply didn't exist. Having you guys take over morning drive made a ton of sense, and it's a shame the move was never given a chance.
 
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