FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PAB SUNGENIS’ STATEMENT ON HIS RELEASE FROM WXMT/WAGL/WVTT
Last week I was hired by Colonial Media to be the Assistant Operations Manager for their stations in Olean, NY, and Bradford, PA. In addition to the various management duties I was going to be tasked with revitalizing the cluster, improving its presence in the community, and boosting the cluster’s ratings and revenue.
Having fallen in love with Olean during my time at St. Bonaventure and during visits to my mother who moved to the area after I had gone back home to New Jersey to pursue my career, I was thrilled to be working in the area. And having been absent from the local airwaves for 26 years after my last morning shift at WSBU, I was looking forward to reconnecting with local listeners, who I’ve always thought were the greatest audience a person could ever ask for.
After two days on the job, I was abruptly let go, and from the circumstances of my dismissal and what happened around that time, I can only assume that I was let go because I am gay.
On Tuesday, the station owner engaged me in conversation about the blog I had maintained as a Young Adult author. Unbeknownst to me one of the pages he read was my official biography, which I had not yet had a chance to update. The last line of my biography is "he lives in New Jersey" (I haven't updated it yet) "with his husband Bryan and far too many cats."
The next morning the owner's wife came in, told me that she had "pulled the trigger too early" in advertising the position, and had hired me for a position that there really wasn't a budget for due to the state of the cluster. (Mind you, my job was to turn that cluster around and improve its billings!) No offense, no mark on my work, etc., just there was not going to be a job at all to hire me for. She then handed me $240.00 under the table for three days work and all but ushered me out of the building.
On my way back to my car (the "employee parking" was actually in a Tops Market lot three blocks and a five minute walk away) I took out my phone and out of habit went to look the “Broadcast Jobs Available” message board at the broadcasting forum All Access.
They were advertising looking for someone for my job. The job that a few minutes before I had been told did not exist.
The ad had been posted ten minutes after the station’s owner discovered that I am gay.
I walked back, returned the $240.00 and went home.
I came out back in 1991. I've never looked back, even as an Operations Manager in Atlantic City threatened to have me do remotes from a strip club as the "only guy he could trust around the girls" and referring to me as a "chickenshit little ******" he couldn't trust. I handed in my keys and left and never looked back. Years later when we were doing airshifts back to back on another station in town he apologized and we reconciled, but it still convinced me of the importance of staying out.
I've never discussed my home life on the air, let alone my sex life or marital status. I don't even discuss the far too many cats. That side of my life is for me, my husband, my cats, and us alone. That is not what the listeners are interested in and I don't force it on them. About the most personal thing I discussed on my one shift on WXMT was how great it was to be back in the town where I started my career 30 years ago and to be spending the afternoon "trapped inside your radio" again.
But at the same time, my orientation is a very important part of my life. And with the high suicide rates among LGBT youth I've always felt it was important to show a role model in my careers as cartoonist and author. And except for these two incidents, I have never encountered anyone in my professional lives who was anything other than kind, accepting, and professional with me.
I guess I could say I'm lucky having lost only two jobs in 26 years due to my orientation. There are many who have suffered a lot worse. But it still stings. It's worse than being told you're a lousy worker. It's being told your fundamental being isn't worth it. Thank you again to the listeners who have told me how great it was to hear me again after all these years, and to everyone who has ever listened to me anywhere over the past 30 years. I have no idea where (or if) I go professionally in broadcasting from here, but I hope to be able to stay in the area that I consider my “heart town” if not my home town, the place that took me in and made me feel like part of the family.
PAB SUNGENIS’ STATEMENT ON HIS RELEASE FROM WXMT/WAGL/WVTT
Last week I was hired by Colonial Media to be the Assistant Operations Manager for their stations in Olean, NY, and Bradford, PA. In addition to the various management duties I was going to be tasked with revitalizing the cluster, improving its presence in the community, and boosting the cluster’s ratings and revenue.
Having fallen in love with Olean during my time at St. Bonaventure and during visits to my mother who moved to the area after I had gone back home to New Jersey to pursue my career, I was thrilled to be working in the area. And having been absent from the local airwaves for 26 years after my last morning shift at WSBU, I was looking forward to reconnecting with local listeners, who I’ve always thought were the greatest audience a person could ever ask for.
After two days on the job, I was abruptly let go, and from the circumstances of my dismissal and what happened around that time, I can only assume that I was let go because I am gay.
On Tuesday, the station owner engaged me in conversation about the blog I had maintained as a Young Adult author. Unbeknownst to me one of the pages he read was my official biography, which I had not yet had a chance to update. The last line of my biography is "he lives in New Jersey" (I haven't updated it yet) "with his husband Bryan and far too many cats."
The next morning the owner's wife came in, told me that she had "pulled the trigger too early" in advertising the position, and had hired me for a position that there really wasn't a budget for due to the state of the cluster. (Mind you, my job was to turn that cluster around and improve its billings!) No offense, no mark on my work, etc., just there was not going to be a job at all to hire me for. She then handed me $240.00 under the table for three days work and all but ushered me out of the building.
On my way back to my car (the "employee parking" was actually in a Tops Market lot three blocks and a five minute walk away) I took out my phone and out of habit went to look the “Broadcast Jobs Available” message board at the broadcasting forum All Access.
They were advertising looking for someone for my job. The job that a few minutes before I had been told did not exist.
The ad had been posted ten minutes after the station’s owner discovered that I am gay.
I walked back, returned the $240.00 and went home.
I came out back in 1991. I've never looked back, even as an Operations Manager in Atlantic City threatened to have me do remotes from a strip club as the "only guy he could trust around the girls" and referring to me as a "chickenshit little ******" he couldn't trust. I handed in my keys and left and never looked back. Years later when we were doing airshifts back to back on another station in town he apologized and we reconciled, but it still convinced me of the importance of staying out.
I've never discussed my home life on the air, let alone my sex life or marital status. I don't even discuss the far too many cats. That side of my life is for me, my husband, my cats, and us alone. That is not what the listeners are interested in and I don't force it on them. About the most personal thing I discussed on my one shift on WXMT was how great it was to be back in the town where I started my career 30 years ago and to be spending the afternoon "trapped inside your radio" again.
But at the same time, my orientation is a very important part of my life. And with the high suicide rates among LGBT youth I've always felt it was important to show a role model in my careers as cartoonist and author. And except for these two incidents, I have never encountered anyone in my professional lives who was anything other than kind, accepting, and professional with me.
I guess I could say I'm lucky having lost only two jobs in 26 years due to my orientation. There are many who have suffered a lot worse. But it still stings. It's worse than being told you're a lousy worker. It's being told your fundamental being isn't worth it. Thank you again to the listeners who have told me how great it was to hear me again after all these years, and to everyone who has ever listened to me anywhere over the past 30 years. I have no idea where (or if) I go professionally in broadcasting from here, but I hope to be able to stay in the area that I consider my “heart town” if not my home town, the place that took me in and made me feel like part of the family.
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