Top 40 on WGVA 1240 and WACK 1420

[thebeach33445]

Hey Guys:

Does anybody remember when the top 40 formats started on WGVA 1240 and WACK 1420? I can't find any info in the broadcasting yearbooks.

Thanks

T.J.

 

[JIBGUY]

Both were very successful stations. WACK hadto have been top 40 at least back to 1963. I remember seeing their logo...(on their music street sheets)... a boxing glove colliding with the call letters.... as in WHACK!

 

[Mark Giardina]

What I remember about WGVA is that Jerry Sherwin had been with the station for a number of years; mostly morning drive during the 1990s. I heard that Jerry "retired" a few years ago.

When I briefly worked there in the 1970s, WGVA was a top 40 station with a two person news department.( I was the second newsman). Later on someone purchased an FM station and WGVA; remodeled the building, and both stations were located there.

Now I hear they are separately owned entities again.

Once in a while I can pick up WGVA in my car radio. The station now features a talk format.

 

[Bob1370]

In 'GVA's case it had to be back around 1960 or even sooner. That was informally WBBF's farm team, and IIRC one of their early "callups" around that time was Jack Palvino. They were formatically a lot like WMCA in New York...no surprise since R. Peter Strauss, the owner of WMCA, also owned WGVA from the early 60s onward. I think Strauss may have even bought it from Maurice Forman's Star Broadcasting Company, which I believe originally built WGVA in '47 and owned WBBF from the early 50s until they sold out to LIN broadcasting in '66 or so. (LIN used to be big in large and major market radio--now they just do TV.)

WACK was certainly top 40 at the same time--an easy and inexpensive format to do for a small town 500 watt daytimer which was the only game in town, and facing little format competition during daylight hours (WBBF nulled out to the east and WNDR from Syracuse didn't quite get there reliably enough to compete even on day pattern).

 

[therealjm12]

R. Peter Strauss, the owner of WMCA, also owned WGVA from the early 60s onward. I think Strauss may have even bought it from Maurice Forman's Star Broadcasting Company, which I believe originally built WGVA in '47 and owned WBBF from the early 50s until they sold out to LIN broadcasting in '66 or so.

You sir, are correct. I believe R. Peter Strauss bought WGVA and WTLB in 1964 or so from Star. WGVA, also served as a farm team for WTLB. Several jocks and salespeople moved from Geneva to Utica. Among them Matt Rinaldi. Some part timers at WTLB eneded up as full timers at WGVA. There was actually a phone line from Geneva and Utica from the stations so the big wigs at the Strauss Broadcasting Co. could listen to their stations 24/7 in the pre Internet days of the 1960's.

 

[Savage]

WACK went on the air in 1958, and its primary founder was Judge Arthur C. Kyle, hence the callsign. Judge Kyle was an original investor in WNDR Syracuse, and WACK was programmed as a kind of imitation

 

[Savage]

....#!!x@x* !! Sometimes my computer just does this "auto-post" thing while I'm typing. Anyway:

WACK was a kind of imitation WNDR or WNDR-lite well into the late 1960s with many of the same Gwinsound jingles and "Action Central" news. WACK's majority owner Bud Sova, owner pre-Pembrook Pines, and longtime PD Gary Van (Vechten) were WNDR alums as well.

When I worked at WACK in 1968 the station still was in very nice storefront studios at 110 East Union Street. It had typical equipment for the era, quite well maintained and professional. I found it impressive that WACK had THREE cart playback machines in the control room (most small stations of that era got by with two - or, in some cases, none.)

Some of the programming was dated - for example WACK still aired hourly recorded "Jimmie Fidler In Hollywood" showbiz updates - but OTOH also featured Dick Orkin's very-hip-for-then "Chickenman" and was affiliated with the brand-new ABC Contemporary News. (I believe that Fidler was some kind of trade penance for some product the station didn't want to pay for, but after 40 years I've forgotten just what the booty was.)

When I put WYSL on the air in 1987 I made the mistake of buying some used equipment from Pfuntner which of course didn't work, so I was told to take it out to Terry Mueller at WACK to have it patched up. There was Terry - looking much as he did 19 years earlier. And: so did the WACK control room, even though it had been moved out to the new transmitter site. I was amazed to see the same Gatesway console, the same Tapecasters, the same "suitcase-Samsonite" Ampex 601s in use that were there - and by no means new - when I used them as a fresh high-school graduate in '68.

 

[aaronread]

I found it impressive that WACK had THREE cart playback machines in the control room (most small stations of that era got by with two - or, in some cases, none.)

You always needed at least three cart machines. That way when one misbehaved, you could pick up one of the other two so's to bash the "bad" one into the dirt, and still have at least one functioning cart machine left over!

Man, I dig broadcast history but carts are something I'll never miss...

 

[heydaybegone]

When I put WYSL on the air in 1987 I made the mistake of buying some used equipment from Pfuntner which of course didn't work, so I was told to take it out to Terry Mueller at WACK to have it patched up. There was Terry - looking much as he did 19 years earlier. And: so did the WACK control room, even though it had been moved out to the new transmitter site. I was amazed to see the same Gatesway console, the same Tapecasters, the same "suitcase-Samsonite" Ampex 601s in use that were there - and by no means new - when I used them as a fresh high-school graduate in '68.

So Terry's still holding court out there? Keeping the same machines churning that I was using there about 1979!! (And Savage is trumped by Pfuntner ) I 'spect we'll hear from Paul Warren soon also. His fingerprints are ALL OVER that equipment (maybe even some of his gum underneath that was never found!)

 

[yugoidar]

Bob Savage, not sure, but if I recall correctly, those Suitcase Ampex 601s were supplied to the station in exchange for running those "Jimmy Fidler in Hollywood" vignettes.

You are also correct about WACK being WNDR-lite back then. I remember as a young teen listening to WNDR in Syracuse and traveling with my father through Newark from time to time and noticing how much WACK sounded like 1260 in Syracuse.

 

[JIBGUY]

I wonder why 1420 had to be a daytimer. That frequency is commonly a full-timers' frequency. Many 'regional' stations are on 1420. Gotta pull out my "White's Radio Log" from 1963 and see how many 1420's were daytimers. The world needs to know this kinda stuff!

 

[therealjm12]

I wonder why 1420 had to be a daytimer. That frequency is commonly a full-timers' frequency. Many 'regional' stations are on 1420.

There is a 1420 in Herkimer, the old WALY don't know what the calls are now. Back in the day, they could have gone 24 hours but just didn't want to put the investment into putting up more towers for a nightime directional pattern for maybe , 500 watts. I think they are on now at night, at like 20 watts. 1420 is a regional frequency.

 

[Savage]

AHA! Thanks for yugoidar, the memories flood back "like the hot kiss at the end of a wet fist..."

Yes, indeedy, the Ampex 601s - I recall WACK had three - were traded from the Jimmie Fidler features. Right you are.

WACK 1420 could have gone on 24-7 whenever it wanted to but Bud Sova and Judge Kyle didn't want to spend the dough for a multi-tower directional system which nighttime operation would have required. That they could have done so is demonstrated by how that's precisely what Pfuntner eventually did - first with 4 towers, then 6....sheesh....

Aaron's right. Tapecasters often benefited from a little "percussive maintenance." Somewhat off-topic, but once a KDWB jock who was enraged over a chonically malfunctioning Collins ATC cart machine the engineers could never figure out how to fix, gave it away on air to the 9th caller one day.

 

[qman]

Would that jock have been you, Savage? LOL

 

[Savage]

Nope. I'd like to take credit for that one, but I can't.

The story as told to me by the CE was, the GM confidently predicted "he'd handle it" when the 13 year old winner came to the station to pick up her prize. She was first offered concert tickets and her choice of LPs from the station stash. She said no sir, thank you. How about we sweeten it with a gift certificate? Nope. How about all of the above, plus a nice crisp C-note? That would buy a LOT of nice clothes. (I don't think so, thanks. I want that cart machine. Nobody at school believes I actually won it.) Mom shrugged: hey, she was told on your station, she won that piece of equipment. She wants it. She should get it.

The girl was last seen with her mom lugging the ATC, trailing cables and connectors, towards the station wagon in the parking lot. The GM was apoplectic.

 

[yugoidar]

A side note-

Funny what the mind recalls.  Whether before or after Judge Kyle, WACK was owned at one time by a guy named Bud Paxson. 

As a teenager, Bud’s first job was retrieving records and delivering coffee for disc jockeys. During his four years at Syracuse University he was a radio announcer at several local stations. In 1956 he bought his first radio station, WACK in Newark, New York. In 1977 he began selling merchandise on a Florida AM radio station. That experience led him to the founding of the Home Shopping Network which has changed the way America buys merchandise.

He's also founded PAX-TV, one of many American TV networks.

 

[Play Freebird]

(I want that cart machine. Nobody at school believes I actually won it.) Mom shrugged: hey, she was told on your station, she won that piece of equipment. She wants it. She should get it.

The girl was last seen with her mom lugging the ATC, trailing cables and connectors, towards the station wagon in the parking lot. The GM was apoplectic.

Mom probably wanted it to throw in the trunk of her car to improve its traction during the winter.

 

[cee]

As a teenager, Bud’s first job was retrieving records and delivering coffee for disc jockeys. During his four years at Syracuse University he was a radio announcer at several local stations. In 1956 he bought his first radio station, WACK in Newark, New York. In 1977 he began selling merchandise on a Florida AM radio station. That experience led him to the founding of the Home Shopping Network which has changed the way America buys merchandise.

He's also founded PAX-TV, one of many American TV networks.

I read once he was from upstate NY, but didn't know he owned WACK.

Yes, indeedy, the Ampex 601s - I recall WACK had three - were traded from the Jimmie Fidler features.

Jimmy Fidler - There's a name I haven't thought of in a long time. Wasn't he sort of a second rate Walter Winchell - with that rapid fire daily celebrity gossip thing? IIRC, they would run little morse code type sounds in between each story, eg - "Looks like it's splitsville for Zsa Zsa and hubby #5 - inside sources say divorce proceedings are underway..dee dee dee dee dee...I'm told Jerry Lewis bumped into Dean Martin at the Copa last week and nary a word between these former comedy partners...dee dee dee deee dee."

IIRC, I heard him on WJJL back in the day. If you could barter for equipment for running Jimmy, that would explain why WJJL was running it.

 

[Savage]

Jimmie Fidler was Mr. Hot Stuff in Hollywood in the golden age of movie contract players in the 1940s...he was kind of a radio version of Inside Edition or Extra. Contemporary reports had it Jimmie had all the smokin' sexy babes back-in-the-day.

By 1968 he was a creaky-sounding curiosity, still gossiping between CW intro/outros (as excellently recounted by cee) about equally ancient film and big-band stars completely alien to Woodstock-era Top 40 radio listeners. I recall segueing from Status Quo's "Pictures of Matchstick Men" to a breathless Jimmie bulletin about somebody like Martha Raye or Freddie Martin (one of 'em had gotten a new dog or something.)

Ahhh....WACK. Home of Bud-and-Gary spots for Warner's Supply-U-Meats, Graybills', and Breen's IGA. Pepper-Tanner music library. And slapback echo from one of those Fidler 601's.

 

[tnxscoop]

I can help out from August of '81. Dan Gordon, from Fishers Island, NY bought WGVA in the summer of '81 and hired a number of SJFC grads right out of college. Sal Colatarcci, Todd Blide and Terry Clifford, if I remember correctly. Dan owned and operated a very successful run for that station, selling it in 1983 to Lou Schwartz, also a native of NYC. During that period of time, Diane Vang (Scott and Diane, WPXY Morning Show), Laura Saxby, Tom Messner ("Major Tom", WMJQ, current Meteorologist in Plattsburgh, NY) launched their carriers there. I am sure there were many others. During that span of time the station played a "hybrid" Top 40 mix. There was country and some soft AC in there as well.