The BAX building was the coolest, and I imagine one of the newest. Their studio sat atop the building, overlooking Route 11.
It is the Enterprise Car Rental place now. At one point, they had a window where you could see the guys broadcasting from the highway but then they blocked the window. Urban legend has it that the Edwardsville police were getting too many fender benders or that the guys had too much sun in their eyes. Don’t know if either is true. The famous flood story of 1972 is of Sam Laqourri beating a hasty retreat from the building just as the river started coming onto Route 11.
Krz was never in the Hotel Sterling. It was moved out of the BRE building in a rush across the street. The building is no longer there.
I worked at 15 South Franklin Street when they made the move. I could peer out an upstairs window and see them moving in. It seemed like Tommy Sommers was on the air constantly. He was a WBRE TV and Radio engineer who helped put the thing together. He also did some news on the old WBRE All News Radio too.
WBAX, before it moved out of its COL, was located on the King's College campus on West Union Street in what appeared to be a magnificent old mansion. In reality, the place was held together by ivy roots and termites holding hands.
Now I remember fondly that building. Big red brick building, station was on the top floor I believe. It was the first radio station my dad ever saw in his life and he was blown away by the tour given to us by the Program Director at the time. (I interviewed the PD for a newspaper column I did when I was a teenager).
WYZZ was in the owner's home (first floor, later the basement) on Prospect Street in the Heights section of WB.
Yep, that was pretty strange. There was Mrs. Evans with cookies and milk and Spike the cat roaming the basement.
WBAX did have one shining "moment," perhaps lasting a year or two. When it was Big-X Radio, maybe 73-74, the place was cooking, people were paying attention. But a poor signal and a lack of funds, leading to hitting the wall with forward momentum, just put an end to it. My opinion, of course.
That shining moment came when Merv Griffen bought the station and moved it into its new building in Edwardsville. Merv came to the Valley, spoke at a United Way dinner and wowed them. Jim Ward was the GM and hired away a bunch of guys from WSCR. He had Bill Stuart from WARM, Scotty Young, Sam Laqourri and Ron Berry doing overnight. Remember the tag, “Call for Ron Berrryyyyyy”!!!! They even had survey sheets with the photos on them modeled after the WFIL sheets. I think they were gold and referred to themselves as “Bold Gold”. The late Johnny Margas had an airshift too but I don’t remember the exact line up.
The owner of WYZZ was Richard Evans Sr. An odd duck, to be sure, and I'm not sure how much I can write here, all of it true, without being sued by the family for whatever -- libel, slander, blasphemy, sacrilege.
It was a family operation. They had a few part time sales people, his son was the business manager,his wife was the traffic coordinator and mrs. Evans fed everyone.
the studio was up on Prospect Street with an STL going to what may still be the Magic tower on Penobscot. For all I know, Magic may have their own antenna now.
When I worked at Citadel, I got great joy taking new sales managers and reps up to that Prospect street house to see where “it all began”. The female reps would get nervous saying, “David, where are you taking me?” You could see them reaching for the pepper spray. Nervous nellies! When they saw the building, they were amazed.
He had some kind of screwy copyrighted music format during the day which he ]Anyway, he ran 4500w TPO, with an ERP of 7500w and told everyone it was 50kw. When I was teaching communications at King's, I used to refer to the difference as "WYZZ Watts."
For a while, he ran some sort of broadcasting school; apparently, you paid him to work there, or something like that. He also wanted people to send him their records as, he said over the air, it made more sense for him to have them than you.was not able to explain to me, but said even an accidental violation would be deliberate.[/color]
Yeah, he said it was a patented formula. But truth be told all it consisted of was a huge album collection where the deepest, obscure cuts were played. If you had the original “Witchcraft”, they’d find a version by the Akron County trio doing that version. The biggest advertiser was Harry Hollock’s Trucksville Pharmacy. You want to talk about theatre of the mind, the spots made it sound like it was Walgreen’s when in fact it was a modest little business with everything. You know how the Cracker Barrel store looks? Well that was what his drug store was like except it was dumpy, unlit and the merchandise was scattered. But dammit, he had everything.
Come to think of it, are any radio stations around here really nice? Entercom and Citadel seem to be in cramped quarters. The Times~Shamrock properties seem rather old.
The Times Shamrock properties came with the building. I always loved the facility. You had the old time radio theatre there, the rich polished wood, the rooftop, the nooks and crannies where you could stash a girlfriend (not that I ever did that!) I just loved the layout and the place. Citadel and Entercom seemed cramped because they have so many stations and so many people. You should have seen some of the mom and pop facilities in the 60s.
WPTS was located in Pittston, in the building on the corner where you would turn for the firehouse or the Pittston Tomato Festival site.
It was called The New Rose Building. Pink and black art deco.
When did they move out of downtown Pittston? I know they were up on that coal land by the late '60s/early '70s.
I think they moved in early 1960. That was a family business too. Mr and Mrs Fioranni were the bosses, he the President, she the Vice President, son in law Al Castelli, the GM, daughter Eleanor the business manager. Mylan Krupa was the engineer, staffers were Jerry Gilroy, Paul Grimes, Rick Shannon and before he joined WBAX, Sam Laqourri. Jim Ward later added a modular unit at that 83 Foote Ave facility for a sales office.
While working at Channel 28, I was told the old WBRE-AM & FM were in the current WBRE-TV building at 62 South Franklin Street...next to Boscov's. If I remember my information correctly, the current WBRE-TV control room (not master control) is the old WBRE-FM on-air studio.
The old WBRE AM and FM silmulcast and were in the Hotel Strerling. You could see the guy broadcasting from there. THe Hotel Sterling had these Sunday brunches and on your way to the big dining room, you'd see either Guy Randell or Bill Guest or Bob Rexroad doing an airshift. Fascinating. But when the station went all news, they moved into S. Franklin. As I recall, (I did an internship there) they shared resources with TV but had a few news booths and a board. Nothing spectacular but functional. Surprsingly, there was no great overlap between TV and Radio. Bud Brown anchored the morning news, Bill Graham was on, Guy Randell, Tommy Sommers, a woman with the last name Delano, and Joe Gries was the GM for both sales and programming.
Yonkstur
