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WPEZ PD

P

Parttimer

On the front page of the site today there 's a story about Rob Sisco stepping down at Neilsen. Rob was the last PD at WPEZ; at the time he was a "boy wonder" in his early 20's, brought in from San Diego. He created "Radio that's happenin' in the City of Champions" and brought in John DeBella and Kelly Randall.

Had Shamrock not pulled the plug and created 3WS, Pittsburgh radio history might have been quite different.
 
I remember WPEZ and it sounded good. I wondered why they flipped and allowed B94 to get that audience. As a parent of a young child, these stations were always on when we were in Pittsburgh.
 
The story I heard was that EZ Communications, who owned what was then WJOI, a beautiful-music competitor to WSHH, had heard that the flip might be coming and waited a year until it actually happened. They didn't want to launch the B against what PEZ had on the air.
 
WPEZ was getting beaten pretty handily by 96KX when it was a CHR. In fact, R & R dropped WPEZ to a Parallel 2 reporting station. In the production room at 96KX, they had a WPEZ logo hanging on the wall in which someone had reworked the Z into a 2 to mock their diminished status.
 
Loved WPEZ as a 13-14 year old back in the 'burgh. Didn't understand radio or the business of radio back then, but started to get the bug. As a kid, I was shocked when they were making some sort of announcement that they were a radio station for the new decade (the 80's ouch), to announcing that it was coming to an end. If I remember correctly, it wasn't an overnight switch. ???
 
It wasn't the typical "surprise" format change. They got to say goodbye... the last song on PEZ by the way was Chris Thompson's "If You Remember Me."
 
Boss-Would you be kind enough to let me know what a Parallel 2 reporting station is/was?

And what is it opposed to? Parallel 1? Three?
 
Boss Radio said:
In the production room at 96KX, they had a WPEZ logo hanging on the wall in which someone had reworked the Z into a 2 to mock their diminished status.
Click to expand...

Not quite true. WPEZ was heading upward under Rob Sisco (their last book, if memory serves, was a 3.3) and while we had a little fun at PEZ's expense, it was 3WS (which promptly went back down) that we truly abused.

When the first ratings came out, someone took the 3WS logo and re-worked it to read "2.7WS."

(Dear reader, that someone was me.)

Of course 96KX is long gone and 3WS, albeit in several different forms, has endured to this day.

C.
 
Don't know precisely what timeframe we're talking about, Clarke, but I distinctly remember the WPE-2 logo on the wall. I initially thought it was the standard WPEZ until someone pointed out the subtle change and explained what it meant. This was when Mike McGann was with 96KX, if that helps placing it. Bobby Christian was still the PD with his call-out music research program, and 96KX was riding high with some of their best ratings. Bobby's research system was a big deal that got a lot of press in the trade publications.

Perhaps vandalizing the logos of competitors was an ongoing sport at Ardmore Blvd?
 
Boss Radio said:
Don't know precisely what timeframe we're talking about, Clarke, but I distinctly remember the WPE-2 logo on the wall. I initially thought it was the standard WPEZ until someone pointed out the subtle change and explained what it meant. This was when Mike McGann was with 96KX, if that helps placing it. Bobby Christian was still the PD with his call-out music research program, and 96KX was riding high with some of their best ratings. Bobby's research system was a big deal that got a lot of press in the trade publications.
Click to expand...

Might have been before I got there (fall 1978). I honestly don't remember it, but thirty years leaves holes in one's memory. I do remember working with those huge ADP computer printouts from the music research (first as MD, then as Assistant PD) and making the weekly callout tapes.

Perhaps vandalizing the logos of competitors was an ongoing sport at Ardmore Blvd?
Click to expand...

Oh, of course it was. We made quite a bit of fun of 13Q/WKTQ in its dying days, back when they were playing "Tales of Brave Ulysses" with a straight face.

C.
 
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