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Whereabouts of Original WEHM Staff?

A

actixguy

Guest
Does anyone know what happened to the original staff of WEHM?
PD Steve Richards , MD Peter Elia, Morning Guy Gary Wright and sidekick Andy Peters(?), Margie Burkett was the news director. Also GM Paul Conroy, Chief Engineer Aaron Brodbar(?). I knew the owner and was reading an old newspaper clip from when they launched with the staff names on it. I dont hear any of them or know of any of them working on the east end or Long Island any longer, so I am curious to know what became of them all. Anyone?

When they launched it was really a good station, sounded great, beautiful studios....than they messed with the format, and it went down the toilet after that....
 
Isles22 said:
I know Steve Richards is the OM at the Clear Channel cluster in Savannah, GA.
Click to expand...

Wow, that doesnt say much for Clearchannel. He wasnt the brightest bulb in the drawer...
 
Steve moved around a bit after 'EHM. I think he worked at WMGK in Philly & one of the Tennessee markets.. (maybe Memphis?)... Paul Conroy went to work for Mal Kahn, when the "Beach" people took over WEHM. (Mal owned 101.7 & 102.5 at the time). The Beach/'EHM thing was "officially" a merger, but one-by-one, the 4 people left @ WEHM removed themselves from the new entity... The original WEHM fell apart kinda quickly once the Sony $$$ they were getting from their owners in the form of 5-minute infomercials for Sony/Columbia Pictures dried-up. Once that happened, it was only a matter of time for them... They held out for a while with the format change from AC to AAA.There were like 74 AC stations in the market @ that time, so the change gave them a somewhat unique music position as finances forced them to cut staff...
 
EastEnda said:
Steve moved around a bit after 'EHM. I think he worked at WMGK in Philly & one of the Tennessee markets.. (maybe Memphis?)... Paul Conroy went to work for Mal Kahn, when the "Beach" people took over WEHM. (Mal owned 101.7 & 102.5 at the time). The Beach/'EHM thing was "officially" a merger, but one-by-one, the 4 people left @ WEHM removed themselves from the new entity... The original WEHM fell apart kinda quickly once the Sony $$$ they were getting from their owners in the form of 5-minute infomercials for Sony/Columbia Pictures dried-up. Once that happened, it was only a matter of time for them... They held out for a while with the format change from AC to AAA.There were like 74 AC stations in the market @ that time, so the change gave them a somewhat unique music position as finances forced them to cut staff...
Click to expand...

Actually your facts are a bit, well, wrong. The station was doing well until Richards convinced the station mgmt and owners that they shoudl change format to AAA. They had already managed to secure a large east end listnership and advertisers, when Richards hoodwinked the owners into believing that they needed to change formats...so they did. The result was advertisers dropping like flies and revenues drying up. The heart of the station staff left for other jobs or quit outright rather than take pay cuts and the station deteriorated. There was a reason Richards couldnt get hired anywhere anyone knew his name, they knew he didnt know what he was doing. The fact that he is still working is more a testament to the lack of talent in radio today more than anything else.
 
Nothing "wrong" with my facts. Trust me; I was very close to the situation... A little background: Both 96.7 WEHM & "Beach 104.7" were made up from remnants of the old ""Live 95" WHFM in Southampton. (Now WBAB) After the LMA began with WBAB, the GM, PD, & Consultant for WHFM went to Amagansett to put "Beach" on the air. (At launch it was a conservative Hot AC) Meanwhile, Steve Richards, who had been WHFM's Music Director & Paul Conroy got involved with the group who were putting WEHM on. Both stations hit the air in Q1 of 1993. The initial 'EHM strategy to be an "Upscale WLNG" was all wrong. Especially, when another station with a similar music format launched a week earlier. WEHM launched with a lot of hype. They spent a couple million dollars to put that station on the air, and launched with a HUGE staff for a start-up in s small market like that. Not surprising that they couldn't deliver the revenue to support it. Meanwhile, "Beach" had a more primitive start: a much-smaller staff, and start-up costs under a million, including the construction of their tower. The move to AAA was made to be different from "Beach". Unfortunately, for them, that move back-fired as the Hot AC format evolved in the mid 90's towards Modern AC, which meant "Beach" was still sharing a lot of titles with WEHM. After the merger, it became easier for the new management team to separate the stations musically...
 
EastEnda said:
Nothing "wrong" with my facts. Trust me; I was very close to the situation... A little background: Both 96.7 WEHM & "Beach 104.7" were made up from remnants of the old ""Live 95" WHFM in Southampton. (Now WBAB) After the LMA began with WBAB, the GM, PD, & Consultant for WHFM went to Amagansett to put "Beach" on the air. (At launch it was a conservative Hot AC) Meanwhile, Steve Richards, who had been WHFM's Music Director & Paul Conroy got involved with the group who were putting WEHM on. Both stations hit the air in Q1 of 1993. The initial 'EHM strategy to be an "Upscale WLNG" was all wrong. Especially, when another station with a similar music format launched a week earlier. WEHM launched with a lot of hype. They spent a couple million dollars to put that station on the air, and launched with a HUGE staff for a start-up in s small market like that. Not surprising that they couldn't deliver the revenue to support it. Meanwhile, "Beach" had a more primitive start: a much-smaller staff, and start-up costs under a million, including the construction of their tower. The move to AAA was made to be different from "Beach". Unfortunately, for them, that move back-fired as the Hot AC format evolved in the mid 90's towards Modern AC, which meant "Beach" was still sharing a lot of titles with WEHM. After the merger, it became easier for the new management team to separate the stations musically...
Click to expand...
East Enda, define close to the situation? Did you work there?
 
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