• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

"No school Fawsta Glawsta"

S

stevebousquet

Guest
The old WPRO was, as I recall, the last radio station in the Providence market to do dual-anchor 5-minute newscasts. They would team up George Norton with Bill Northup or Bud Toevs with Barry Parker, etc. This was in the studio downtown at 24 Mason Street, back when 'PRO practiced a primitive form of checkbook journalism: "Six dollars and 30 cents for the best story of the week! Roseanne Costa of Bristol won six-thirty for last week's best news tip; you can, too." (I can hear the reverb now).
 
Yes, remember those days well, also include the booming voice of news director Tom Black. They did the 2 man newscasts in Morning drive, Noon time, and again afternoon drive, all on mason street. Can remember when hired as a jock in 1969, the PD, Al Herskovitz said to me.."There's nothing better than turning on the 6am news & hearing the lead story about a Mafia shooting, it'll carry listernship all day." And back then there were lots of them. When PRO moved out to the Wampanoag Trail, other than morning drive, it was the end of dual newscasters. Then GM, Warren Potash, to say the least, kind of slashed budgets. One example would be...News department would say we need a new tape recorder. His response would be, can't the old one be fixed?......2 years later, Dick Rakovan became gm. Same scene....we need a new tape recorder for the news-room....reply, can you do a better job if I gave you TWO new recorders? Funny story about checkbook journalism. One day while living in Riverside, I slipped & fell in the backyard, hurting my back. 3 hours later I couldn't move and my wife called the rescue to take me to the hospital. 8 year old next door called the newsroom for the $6.30, and Dave Fallon told him, I don't think that qualifies for the best news ttip of the week. An hour later, same kid calls back and says he heard I died at the hospital, is that big enough news? As Mary Ann Faithful sang..."Those were the Days".....JG
 
jimmyone said:
Opps!....uh...correct....guess doing all those drugs with mick jaggar confused me....
Click to expand...

OK name-dropper. Providence radio in the 70s & you'd be lucky to have had a beer with Cal Raye.
 
Quite the opposite runrigger, (although jagger line was levity)but believe what you must. And by the way Cal "Jerry" Raye would never buy a beer.
 
He's actually still around. I know I see signs for him doing dances somewhere but can't recall where I see them.
 
Does it seem people who worked in radio in the 70s and 80s have better memories or is it all relative in terms of what people consider good times?
 
I knew my ears were burning. Steve--Jimmy--Holland. Hellooooo. Here's another news tip story. After finishing an early Sunday morning WPRO newscast---ending with the "best news tip" promo--I received a phone call from a very blunt-speaking fellow who said: I've got a #%* news tip for you." He graphically suggested that I call a certain police department to see if anything was happening. When I suggested to the caller that he was a good candidate for best news tip--and would he want to leave his name and phone number--he hung up after a response worthy of a "Sopranos" character. I called the police, just as they were discovering the victim of a high-profile, very public Mob hit. Aahh, the memories of my youth.
 
Well since my little show (Juke Box Gold) is relegated to Sundays on WINY, I've not been able to make mention of the Foster/Gloucester closings...but we're very much heard there at full power (some spots better than others of course). During our younger days I was very in the thick of it, in downtown Bristol... home of so many of the 'names' which would pop up on those news tips. Listening in at nights now on PRO's 99.7 signal from my CT roost and hearing the Anonke/Accuweather announcements, it just doesn't seem to carry the same 'juiced' excitement as PRO's old 'news tip of the week'. Maybe if Bud were doing that voice-over...?
 
Like CLOCKWORK...

Every year, right-around-now, our late, great Providence Postmaster Harry Kazirian would visit Salty's show to say "Mail early!"
 
I'm glad WINY is still in A.M. stereo! I can pick them up, weak, in East Providence. I've held them on 195E to ~x.2-3 in Swansea. By x.4, WSAR is too close for that radio.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom