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We've lost a giant, Tom Snyder.

H

Holland Cooke

Good morning from sweltering Washington DC.

If you haven't bookmarked it already, which you should, hit www.washingtonpost.com

Read Tom Shales' piece on the passing of television talk giant Tom Snyder.
Shales writes-about-television as well as as the Post's gifted Thomas Boswell writes-about-baseball.
You want to clip-out the columns and save 'em somewhere.

Shales quoted Snyder's executive producer Peter Lassally, who worked with greats like Johnny Carson and David Letterman:

"Tom did what a true broadcaster can do: He made the camera disappear and talke directly to the viewer, and it was just 'conversation.'"

This is THE OPPOSITE OF Rush Limbaugh saying "you people."
Or self-centered local blowhards who feel important talking to their producer on-air.

See also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXnCpz5DdCQ

If the-show-after-Johnny was after-your-bedtime in the 70s, poke-around YouTube for clips from a rich archive.
His Howard Stern interview was electric.
He got John Lennon to open-up like few other interviewers.
Charles Manson!
What was YOUR most memorable Tomorrow Show?
If you watched it, you can quote one.

The Ron Burgundy-style helmet-shaped haircut, the smoldering cigarette, the unguarded staccato "HA-HA-HA-HA" laugh.
THIS was appointment television, before VCRs.

I'd get home from playing "Rock The Boat" and "Moonlight Feels Right" 7-midnight on an AM top 40 station, and sit rapt as he brought ME into the conversation. Imagine being able to do THAT on the radio, I thought.

Shales rightfully called Snyder part of "a vanishing breed, especially as narrowcasting replaces broadcasting, 'online' replaces 'on the air,' and any Tom, Dick, or Mary can be a monarch of a desktop domain."

At the beginning of the show, Tom Snyder would invite you to "fire up a colortini and watch the pictures fly through the air." At the end, he'd not-always-smile, look you right in the eye, and say good night "from all of us on the late, late shift here in New York."

I met Snyder at a convention when he was doing a late-night show on ABC Radio in the 80s, and told him "I must've seen most of those Tomorrow Shows." He did That Laugh, then deadpanned, "you really should get out more." "Get out?" I replied; "I was just getting home!"

Imagine how big The Tomorrow Show would be in the TiVo era.
With NO home timeshifting, it still managed to air at 1AM and be topic du jour the next day.

Holland Cooke
News/Talk Specialist
McVay Media
www.HollandCooke.com
 
Holland,

Excellent post. Tom was great - truly one of a kind. I remember those classic interviews with John Lennon, Charles Manson and so many others.

I used to enjoy coming home from my late shift as a DJ in the 90s and watching his second show(after Letterman) on CBS. I was heartbroken when I heard he was being replaced by a new, more demographically desirable talk show(hosted by Craig Kilborn). Those final weeks on CBS were precious - you didn't want think they would end, but you knew he would soon be gone from TV forever. Resenting a favorite late night host from my era being replaced by a younger demo guy was a real reminder that I was getting older and not really what advertisers were looking for anymore.

Chuck
Displaced DJ/Embittered Loner :)
 
Includes clips from the AMAZING John Lennon and Charles Manson shows:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiSEbyhAR0k

HC
www.HollandCooke.com

PS: Speaking of YouTube, someone messaged me asking about putting-stuff-on-YouTube, specifically camera/hardware/software, "How complicated is it?"

NOT!
You can even feed YouTube from your cameraphone now.
Instructions @ YouTube.com

The camera I use for most-of-what-I've-put-there costs $120-something, fits right in your pocket, and you don't even have to read the dang manual: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTm43scvkks
 
Beyond the sadness of losing a great broadcaster is the realization there are no up-and-comming Tom Snyders.

The era of smart people asking good questions and also being entertaining is either dead or dying.

And in its place we have?
 
He was truely an artist of his craft. A void that will be impossible to fill. God speed Tom and to his family!
 
justareporter said:
Beyond the sadness of losing a great broadcaster is the realization there are no up-and-comming Tom Snyders.

The era of smart people asking good questions and also being entertaining is either dead or dying.

And in its place we have?
Click to expand...


This is a REAL issue.
The farm team has been depleted by automation/syndication/consolidation.
That station where Wolfman Jack tried to give Richard Dreyfus the melting popsicle? Now voicetracked.

Stations often ask me to recommend candidates for on-air and PD openings.
And whenever I return home from travel, it takes three kicks to get the door open. Aircheck-and-resume manila envelopes.
Yet stations-looking-for-talent and talent-looking-for-stations have never had a tougher time finding-each-other.

Snyder's gift for dialogue, and the unguarded way he shared-just-enough-of-himself so you bonded with him, were a dang clinic.
A better example than the "I," "I," "I," "ME," "ME," "ME," and self-important talking to unheard entourage that Rush wanna-be's are aping.

Like Larry King, our reigning King-of-Talk, Snyder got guests to say-things-they-didn't-say-elsewhere via civility and LISTENING.

HC
www.HollandCooke.com
 
"Ditto" (yikes!) Holland Cooke and add the following: What made Tom Snyder and Larry King (mores o in radio than TV) interesting to listen to was genuine curosity.

Snyder didn't ask questions just to hear himself talk or look for a particular answer, he was curious...like any good newsman he wanted to "know."

I interviewed Larry King a short lifetime ago while both of us were still in radio and during a break he looked straight at me and allowed that I was doing a good job...I was actually listening to his answers before I asked the next question.

To watch Snyder do an intereview was a joy. Smart, articulate, worldly and thoughful. In his place we have.....
 
Snyder was indeed a giant. We owe him for giving us all something to aspire to.

Would Tom Snyder make it in the biz today?

Actually, I think he would...despite the enshrinement of mediocrity that prevails in the biz these days, a guy like Snyder (like Joe Pyne and Rush and a handful of others) was an original. Originals have a way of bustin' though...eventually... ;D
 
Tom Snyder did hold forth on ABC Radio with some pretty good signals including WLS and maybe even WABC. He could have fit in today, somewhere. Its interesting that at my local library a few DVDs have surfaced of Tom Snyder's original show, one of him interviewing punk stars. I did enjoy his CBS show.
 
cee said:
Holland,

Excellent post. Tom was great - truly one of a kind. I remember those classic interviews with John Lennon, Charles Manson and so many others.

I used to enjoy coming home from my late shift as a DJ in the 90s and watching his second show(after Letterman) on CBS. I was heartbroken when I heard he was being replaced by a new, more demographically desirable talk show(hosted by Craig Kilborn). Those final weeks on CBS were precious - you didn't want think they would end, but you knew he would soon be gone from TV forever. Resenting a favorite late night host from my era being replaced by a younger demo guy was a real reminder that I was getting older and not really what advertisers were looking for anymore.

Chuck
Displaced DJ/Embittered Loner :)
Click to expand...
Yup. The illness that's inflicted this sorry industry.
Didn't something similar almost result in the canning of Nightline? The viewers were getting too much gray hair for Madison Ave.?
Boy, what tolerance in the admen and people running broadcasting.

Look what the industry has done to "oldies" radio which today isn't in any way anything like oldies radio. Alll because some industry dictates radio must do such-and-such.

"We don't have any room to program to those listeners. They don't count. They're unimportant. No greay allowed here. Oldsters need not apply. Or use our water faucets."

What a bunch of lackeys.
 
Some posts in this topic have been moved to Take It Outside.

[iurl=http://www.radio-info.com/smf/index.php?topic=77968.0]http://www.radio-info.com/smf/index.php?topic=77968.0[/iurl]
 
Tom Snyder was the best interviewer I've ever heard. Made Costas look like a little kid. And Tom made you, the listener/viewer, feel like he was obligated by your participation to act on your behalf and enjoyed doing so.

The NBC knuckleheads that destroyed "Tomorrow" surely must be in hell by now.

And, although my personal opinion of Dave is pretty low, kudos to Letterman for bringing him back to CBS. That was a really classy thing for him to do...after all, it was Tom's firing at NBC that made way for Dave in late night.

We will miss you, Tom. We already did.
 
Cary Pall said:
The NBC knuckleheads that destroyed "Tomorrow" surely must be in hell by now.
Click to expand...

...well, close. One of them was Roger Ailes, who now runs the Fox Noise Channel, a video equivalent of Hell if ever there was one ;-) ...
 
Tom Snyder did a great job with his radio talk show in the late-80's/early 90's after "Tomorrow" was cancelled by NBC in '82. After that, the closest to Snyder who can keep the TSL's up on most news/talk stations at night was Gil Gross on CBS. Hasn't been the same since. That shuffling noise you hear on the News/Talk airwaves nowadays is the rearranging of the deckchairs on the Titanic.
 
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