WBZ legend Dave Maynard dies at 82

[ArtSpooner]

No disrespect, just a factual reference. It was the turning point in his career.
When a station puts its highest salaried talent on in the overnight it's a request to leave. David made the most of it and survived.

Perhaps you could have left out the remark about how big Dave "thought he was". How do you know how big Dave thought he was? Did he walk around saying "I'm big"?

 

[hasbeendj]

The PD who put Dave on overnights at WBZ was Chris Cross. As I understand it, he was an egotistical maniac who was disliked by almost everybdy at BZ at the time. Dave had the last laugh though when Chris Cross was let go, and the new PD put Dave on mornings which proved to be incredibly successful for Dave and WBZ.

 

[thirdendorsed]

Maynard was one of the all time great performers on Boston radio. But let us clear up a few things.

First, no program director assigned Maynard to the overnight. At the time, WBZ was running behind WHDH in the ratings. It was soon after WHDH had switched from MOR to AC, livened up its news, broomed the old style talent in favor of jocks with Top 40 experience. added the 'HDH Payphone diary reminder promotion, and bent over backwards to hold its core in Boston and the inner suburbs -- capitalizing on its Voice of the City legacy. Blair even bought a full page ad in the Globe a few weeks after the '78 blizzard to tout that its Accu-weather had been alone in the market in forecasting that an expected major storm would be a bust.

Westinghouse Chairman Don McGannon decided to make a change in Boston for business and personal reasons. He broomed the general manager and installed Bill Hartman. Hartman immediately ripped into the complacent attitude, telling the staff they had better quit walking around like they were number one in the market because they weren't. As much to hammer the point home as anything, Hartman, not some program director, moved Maynard to overnights. David was not pleased. If there are any tapes of his first shift, they are a classic because he spent the night ripping management. Maynard was told he'd be pulled off the air for his contract and his non-compete and "we'll see how hot you are when nobody's heard you for a few years." Things settled down and Hartman brought the station back to No. 1.

If you think program directors decided who is going to be the morning drive talent at a 50-clear in the 7-7-7 era, you are out of your mind. Those decisions were make a lot higher in the food chain.

 

[navygal]

I was a big fan of Dave's both on the radio and Community Auditions. I do remember when he was on midnights and thought on the first night (not sure about this) he had trouble with the phones and could not hear the callers or something like that. He was not at all happy about the situation. I still listen to WBZ but liked it better when it was not all news. Condolences to his family.

 

[RickStarr]

Maynard was one of the all time great performers on Boston radio. But let us clear up a few things.

First, no program director assigned Maynard to the overnight. At the time, WBZ was running behind WHDH in the ratings. It was soon after WHDH had switched from MOR to AC, livened up its news, broomed the old style talent in favor of jocks with Top 40 experience. added the 'HDH Payphone diary reminder promotion, and bent over backwards to hold its core in Boston and the inner suburbs -- capitalizing on its Voice of the City legacy. Blair even bought a full page ad in the Globe a few weeks after the '78 blizzard to tout that its Accu-weather had been alone in the market in forecasting that an expected major storm would be a bust.

Westinghouse Chairman Don McGannon decided to make a change in Boston for business and personal reasons. He broomed the general manager and installed Bill Hartman. Hartman immediately ripped into the complacent attitude, telling the staff they had better quit walking around like they were number one in the market because they weren't. As much to hammer the point home as anything, Hartman, not some program director, moved Maynard to overnights. David was not pleased. If there are any tapes of his first shift, they are a classic because he spent the night ripping management. Maynard was told he'd be pulled off the air for his contract and his non-compete and "we'll see how hot you are when nobody's heard you for a few years." Things settled down and Hartman brought the station back to No. 1.

If you think program directors decided who is going to be the morning drive talent at a 50-clear in the 7-7-7 era, you are out of your mind. Those decisions were make a lot higher in the food chain.

Wow, so much misinformation in this thread. Let's start with "as big as he thought he was." Maynard was one of the nicest guys on the station, and by far the nicest morning show host I ever dealt with. His ego was far less than most, and I know because I dealt with him daily.

Chris Cross had nothing to do with putting Maynard on the overnight, he wasn't even there at the time. And he wasn't "let go", I asked for him to be transferred to KDKA, where I was moved as GM after serving as WBZ's program director during the DeSuze/Maynard transition. (It may be true that Chris wasn't well liked; he was the disciplinarian in the management ranks, a thankless job without which we would not have succeeded. I give him a large measure of credit for handling the talk shows, producers, and various other jobs behind the scenes, as well as doing quite creditable fill in talk show duties for both Dave Finnegan and Larry Glick.)

Last, Maynard was moved to the overnight because Bill Hartmann was trying to cut costs. The AFTRA contract required a 'buy out' if you were letting someone of long tenure go (IIRC it would have been around $50k) and Hartman didn't want to pay it. Someone else left (voluntarily, no payout), I forget who, and Hartman stretched the shifts to eliminate one shift. That left DeSuze in the morning, Bob Raleigh in Midday, and Bruce Bradley in the overnight. Maynard was the logical one to do a talk show, because he COULD. (Raleigh did, and was OK, Bruce was talented but he was a bit too rapid and spicy for overnight.) I followed that PD (Dave Martin) but yes, Hartmann made the change, not because "McGannon wanted to shake things up" but because the station was faltering, the ratings were slipping and the profitability plummeting. That's what a GM is supposed to do.

Changing the morning man is one of the biggest moves you can make on one of these heritage AM's, and corporate (New York) was terrified of the prospect. So were we. If you lose the morning you've lost the whole station, plus Hartman didn't want to have to pay off DeSuze. (When we finally made the change he forced me to move him to midday and save that payout, which was a disaster.)

Anyway, our choices for a DeSuze replacement were Bruce Bradley or Dave Maynard. I voted 50/50, either guy, Hartmann wanted Maynard. He was right, Maynard was great, worked hard, came to work with a day's full of "quips" written on several pages of a legal, yellow lined pad, and worked them into the show - along with the banter of the rest of the team, notably Gary LaPierre and Gil Santos. (Joe Green and Don Kent were also great in their roles, but not in the kibbitzing department.)

Few people remember, but Dave was not successful for the first 18 months; an agency did a TV spot which fell flat, and with DeSuze as his lead out the show barely improved over DeSuze's numbers, and the midday sank, so overall we were not really better. It wasn't until the "Maynard In The Morning" TV spots came about, and Carl was moved to a desk job and replaced by Ron Robin that the station took off. Dave's numbers increased aplenty, middays came back, and the station rose from a weak #3 to a strong #1, eclipsing the rise of Jess Cain and WHDH, where the exceptional GM and PD (Dave Croninger and Al Brady) had put together a well oiled machine and were on track to take over the "heritage" mantle from the faltering WBZ.

Thank goodness for those TV spots, they really did the trick. Maybe someday I'll tell the story, but it will likely take even longer than this!

 

[ArtSpooner]

Thanks for all of that information. I'd love to hear the rest of the story. Tell the seven cats to talk among themselves for a while (I googled you). I had forgotten that Bruce Bradley returned to BZ. He couldn't have hung around for long. He was my all time favorite DJ. I listened to his top 15 every night in the 60s. When he left in the 60s, I pretty much stopped listening to BZ (a hitch in the Army also had something to do with it). I started listening again when Dave Maynard took over mornings, by then I was in my 30s. I can't quite picture "Juicy Brucie" as a morning show type. I guess, of course, that I measure all morning show hosts against Dave Maynard. I remember as a teenager, cracking up at some of the remarks Bruce would make during his show. I can't imagine him doing "Test the Teams" or no school reports.

Thanks again for your insights. I'm glad to hear that I didn't misjudge Dave Maynard. I had a few brief conversations with him and he seemed pretty genuine.

 

[RickStarr]

Thanks for all of that information. I'd love to hear the rest of the story. Tell the seven cats to talk among themselves for a while (I googled you). I had forgotten that Bruce Bradley returned to BZ. He couldn't have hung around for long. He was my all time favorite DJ. I listened to his top 15 every night in the 60s. When he left in the 60s, I pretty much stopped listening to BZ (a hitch in the Army also had something to do with it). I started listening again when Dave Maynard took over mornings, by then I was in my 30s. I can't quite picture "Juicy Brucie" as a morning show type. I guess, of course, that I measure all morning show hosts against Dave Maynard. I remember as a teenager, cracking up at some of the remarks Bruce would make during his show. I can't imagine him doing "Test the Teams" or no school reports.

Thanks again for your insights. I'm glad to hear that I didn't misjudge Dave Maynard. I had a few brief conversations with him and he seemed pretty genuine.

Well, I wrote a piece about Maynard. Actually it turned out to be less about Maynard than about the making of the tv spots, but that's what happens sometimes: you try to write something about this and it turns it to be about that. Ah well.

Since I don't Facebook at all (but at with wife's insistence have an account) I have put it there, assuming people can get to it since it is marked "public". If that doesn't work, tell me and I'll figure out some other way. I don't know what the length limits are here, but I didn't want to test it out and find it that only half of it made it.
http://www.facebook.com/notes/rick-starr/maynard-me/10150602796223431
[/quote]

 

[Blackroc]

Bruce Bradley in the overnight

If Bruce did overnights it was v.v. brief: days not weeks.

DeSuze as his lead out the show

Carl struggled, no question.

I've heard the logbook incident wasn't a small one in management's mind.
What that had to do with the move to overnight
I don't know? The other matters were likely a greater factor.

Overnight order: If I'm remembering correctly, was Glick to Raleigh, Jagalian, Maynard, Raleigh, to Steve/Morgan.

 

[ArtSpooner]

Well, I wrote a piece about Maynard. Actually it turned out to be less about Maynard than about the making of the tv spots, but that's what happens sometimes: you try to write something about this and it turns it to be about that. Ah well.

Since I don't Facebook at all (but at with wife's insistence have an account) I have put it there, assuming people can get to it since it is marked "public". If that doesn't work, tell me and I'll figure out some other way. I don't know what the length limits are here, but I didn't want to test it out and find it that only half of it made it.
http://www.facebook.com/notes/rick-starr/maynard-me/10150602796223431

Thanks again. One question:Why did you cancel Calling all Sports, if as you say they were the highest rated show on the station?

 

[vmorrison]

Actually Lou Marcell did overnights between Maynard and Raleigh. After working for years at WCCM in Lawrence, Marcell was hired to replace David Finnegan in the early evening talk slot.Not long after maybe a year or so, Marcell was replaced in the 6 to 10 time period by Peter Meade and BZ moved Marcell to overnights. Part of the problem with Marcell is that he dared to consistently take on the Boston Catholic Archdiocese. Back in the early 80's, that was not a popular position to take.

Marcell died about a year later from Cancer and Raleigh moved to overnights. Management wanted Raleigh out and for a short time after finishing his overnight shift Raleigh had to drive over to the John Hancock building where he supplemented Joe Green's traffic reports with additional roadway information from the top of the Hancock Tower.

Raliegh told me he had so much invested in the Westinghouse pension plan that there was no way he was going to go easily. He hung in there and had a long run in the overnight shift

 

[CAPECRUSADER]

Does anyone have any BZ air checks to share....or how to access them?

 

[Blackroc]

He hung in there and had a long run in the overnight shift

I forgot Lou: I remember his illness and how Norm Nathan visited him near the end after he was moved to weekends I believe.

There was Raleigh 1 and Raleigh 2 in overnight but it is funny to think (not to him) that management would ask him to do a traffic report after his long shift (he may have been starting at 2 Am then)?

I think that was the period where the hosts were working a 6 day week. Peter was coming in on Sunday mornings, Brudnoy working Sat. evenings.

 

[RickStarr]

"Calling All Sports" was cancelled because it was an island. While it did well in and of itself (extremely well, actually), it drew its own audience to the station which departed at 8PM sharp. We used to joke you could go deaf from the thunder of clicks of radios being shut off when the program ended. So *by itself* it was great. But at 8:00 we started with a big zero (exaggeration) and had to rebuild, which took until around 10PM. If you looked just at 6-8pm, it was terrific. If you looked at 6-10pm, it was awful.

That's the small bore, the large is even more abstruse. Men are (or at least were, I don't know what's going on today) more active on the radio button. Women tend to linger longer, which builds up ratings. (The important ratings are not "people", they are "volume of listening." One listener for 10 hours is identical to 10 listeners for 1 hour, and if you get listeners who stay with you, you win. WJIB was master at that; people turned on the radio at work and never changed it. They did well with smaller numbers of listeners but huge listening spans. Likewise, WHDH was killing us with women; even though we had more listenERS, they had more listenING. We felt we had to break their hold on the female audience, and a sports talk show is a guaranteed loser with women. [Play by play football and baseball, not so much, almost 50/50. Sports talk show: 80/20.]

Anyway, we dumped Calling All Sports for both the roadblock problem and the larger female problem. Bob Lobell was a good guy, and we frog marched him down the hall and got Sy Yanoff to pick him up for weekend sports on TV. Upton Bell and the radio GM, Bill Hartmann about hated each other, and he was unceremoniously let go.

It goes without saying, I hope, that these moves are not things a Program Director does in a vacuum; indeed, most of these were instituted by the GM - but who wants/needs the blessing of the PD when presenting these sorts of major programming shifts to corporate. Hartmann wanted to get rid of Calling All Sports and I agreed. Hartmann wanted Maynard, I was about 50/50 between Maynard and Bradley and could have gone either way. Here Hartmann was right; Maynard was the better choice, at least for us.

[Quickly reply to the poster talking about Bob Raleigh doing the traffic report. Hartmann wanted Raleigh to quit so he wouldn't have to pay him the AFTRA termination fee. Therefore he was told, as part of his 8 hour shift, to do the overnight show then to go to the Hancock building and sit around and deliver one traffic report at 7 hours, 45 minutes into his shift. It was us being asses to him, and it was shameful. I should not have done it, but then I usually did what I was told, and this is what I was told. It was Bill's bad management, and it was me delivering the orders, so I was complicit. I learned.]

 

[vmorrison]

Raleigh made no secret of his disdain for management (especially Bill Hartman) to his fellow employees. And Hartman stuck it to Raleigh every time he could. At one time the new Independent UHF station Ch 68 wanted to hire Raleigh to introduce afternoon movies like the old Dialing for Dollars show. Raleigh needed BZ's permission to do the show and Hartman would not allow it.

When his contract was up Raleigh was looking for more money, I don't know if he got but he did get one of his demands. His own office. I don't think any other air personality had an office. I don't even remember Maynard having an office. Most of the announcers used an empty cubical in the newsroom if they needed a desk or make a phone call.

They cleared out an old equipment room that the Chief Engineer had a desk in and gave it to Raleigh. He would arrive an hour before his shift dressed in his 3 piece suit and sit in his office and autograph the picture post cards he sent to listeners. That office that had a hi step to climb before you walked into it and was more of a storage closet than an office but that office made Raleigh very happy.

We often thought about putting a big star on the door for him.


The other odd thing I remember about those days was after Carl Desueze was taken off the air he was given the title of New England Regional Director. I don't know what he was actually supposed to do but he was kind of BZ Ambassador to Business and Organizations. He would come in around 9am and would want to read the Globe. But the time he got in all the papers in the newsroom were cut up and sections were scattered all over the newsroom. Carl asked for his own subscription but they would pay for an additional paper for him. So when I would arrive in the early in the morning I would grab a Globe out of the newsroom when when no one was looking and hide for Carl. He would walk into Master Control and I would slip it to him like were doing some kind of drug deal.

 

[TSBench]

Carl Desuze was taken off the air he was given the title of New England Regional Director. I don't know what he was actually supposed to do but he was kind of BZ Ambassador to Business and Organizations0

Carl's job was to drum up corporate sponsorship for a series of investigative and advocacy projects that he would write, voice, and produce. I got along with Carl so I was the salesman assigned to work with Carl and put the dollars to the deals that Carl originated. Carl may have been passe with the youngsters at the station, but his name was magic to the group we were targeting. We'd book a room at the Hampshire House for a luncheon and we'd pack it with Boston's top business leaders. We'd have 20 folks in that room, and the lowest ranking would be some senior VP from a major bank or advertising agency. Carl was sort of high maintenance, but he gave me the best Rolodex in town, put a new car in my driveway and it was a pretty heady experience for a 30-something year old time-schlepper.

Regards,
TSB

 

[RickStarr]

<<That left DeSuze in the morning, Bob Raleigh in Midday, and Bruce Bradley in the overnight. Maynard was the logical one to do a talk show, because he COULD. (Raleigh did, and was OK, Bruce was talented but he was a bit too rapid and spicy for overnight.) >>

Wow, did I mess up. In post #24 in this thread I used the word "overnight" incorrectly.

OCD: Should be "DeSuze in the morning, Bob Raleigh in Midday, and Bruce Bradley in the AFTERNOON."

(FWIW, the post just above has it exactly right. Carl was moved off the air and into the Community liason job, which had been pioneered elsewhere in the Group W chain as a way to get non-traditional advertising revenue for the station. You couldn't get certain advertisers to give a fig about radio advertising (IBM, Exxon, and all the PBS types) because they only engaged in "corporate" image building, which radio didn't do well. But put a celebrity in the room, allow them to think they are contributing to the public good, and suddenly they'll drop a few tens-of-thousands into the pot. We allowed them to decide on "topics" to be covered (from a pre-selected list which was already harmonized with the station's mission), and the resulting documentary (and news features) were produced by the news department and broadcast - and of course billed - by the station. It was a successful program, gave Carl a new mission, gave the news department something "in depth" to do, and put lots of money in the bank for us, and gave the advertisers something to talk about in their Community Cred pages.)

 

[raccoonradio]

Info via WBZ radio and Auntie Donna/boston-radio-interest:

>>The family of long time WBZ Radio and TV personality Dave Maynard would like to invite the public to a celebration of Dave's life at 11am on Wednesday February 29th, at Saint Cecilia's Parish, 18 Belvidere Street in Boston's Back Bay. Listeners, co-workers and well-wishers can pay their last respects at the celebratory mass.

The Veteran Boston broadcaster and member of the Massachusetts Broadcasters Hall of Fame, passed away Feb. 9 in Citrus Hills, Florida after a long fight with Parkinson's Disease.

Donations may be made in memory of Dave to the Parkinson's Disease Foundation (http://www.pdf.org/). If you would like to send Dave's family a note, mail it to Mike Maynard, 69 Summit Avenue, Winthrop, MA 02152.

 

[thirdendorsed]

So is the tale of Maynard's first overnight shift ( I heard it) and management's response true or legend? Was the forgotten guy who left WBZ in late-70s Dick Pace off to practice law or Len Thomas, off to be the new Lindy Miller?

 

[Blackroc]

Dick Pace

He had about a four year run (10-2pm). Lot of talent in that shift (Bradley, Jeffords, Justice, Raleigh, Stevens, Maynard et. al)

 

[DG02816]

Was this the Dick Pace from 920, then WJAR?