There may have been days when one particular New York newsman had to check the mirror, his driver’s license and the flag on his microphone to confirm who he was that day and who would sign his check.
Read more by clicking below on the Voice of NC.
http://voiceofmoorecounty.com/2013/02/07/dealing-with-unexpected-on-air-comments/
Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch (1978-1989) died Friday, Feb. 1 at age 88. An appraisal by Andy Fisher, posted on the New York Broadcasting History Board, appears below.
Ed Koch never worked for WNEW, but in the 1970s and 1980s, he might as well have.
Ed Koch certainly had a face for radio, and from sound-bite to talk show, he was always entertaining on the air. He presided over New York City’s financial and psychological comeback from chaos in the late 1970s, so he was a pretty good mayor by anyone’s standards, although for a long time, as someone pointed out this morning, he did seem to have a “tin ear” when it came to the subject of race relations.
My first interview with Ed Koch was on primary night in 1974. Howard Samuels, the choice of the Democratic organization, was supposed to win an easy gubernatorial nomination, so WNEW assigned first-string reporter Mike Eisgrau to Samuels headquarters. I was sent to the headquarters of underdog Brooklyn congressman Hugh Carey. Carey headquarters was a pretty quiet place, and I was getting set for a long wait until his concession speech, but shortly after the polls closed, Ed Koch showed up. He was the congressman from the “silk stocking” district, and he clearly knew that something extraordinary was happening. Sure enough, Carey upset Samuels, and Ed Koch was almost a play-by-play announcer for us!
The other time I interviewed him was July 4, 1986, during Liberty Weekend, when President Reagan came to town to re-dedicate the renovated Statue of Liberty. I was a radio correspondent for NBC News, and Mayor Koch came to the press compound on the landfill for Battery Park City. I needled him about Liberty Island really being in New Jersey, and about his own origins in Newark, and, of course, he gave as good as he got. I tend to judge people by their senses of humor, and on that basis, I regard Ed Koch as the greatest New York mayor I can remember.
I can’t conceive of Michael Bloomberg standing on the Brooklyn Bridge asking, “How’m I doing?” I can remember John Lindsay getting huffy when he was reminded about calling New York “Fun City.” You wouldn’t dare try to have fun with Rudy Giuliani.
Ed Koch was a gift to radio, to politics, and, most of all, to New York
A.F.
Photos added by WNEW1130
Early in 1935, recordings by the Clyde McCoy orchestra were being played repeatedly over WNEW by staff announcer Martin Block, who was filling time between news reports from the Lindbergh baby kidnapping trial in Flemington, 
New Jersey. Accounts of what followed say that Block bought those recordings at a Manhattan music store with his own money because WNEW didn’t have any phonograph records, and because station manager Bernice Judas, who had conceded reluctantly to Block’s notion that playing recorded music between news reports would keep listeners tuned-in, would not put up any cash. Block was earning $25 a week, which was about the average weekly pay in the mid 1930’s among those Americans fortunate enough to be employed.
Block’s recorded music segments proved popular, and became regularly scheduled. He called his program the “Make Believe Ballroom,” One of those oft-repeated Clyde McCoy recordings, “Sugar Blues” became the “Ballroom.” theme.
Clyde McCoy “Sugar Blues” http://wnew1130com.web.siteprotect.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/sugar-blues.mp3]
The “Make Believe Ballroom” title and format were introduced to Block in 1932 when he found non-announcing work at radio station KFWB Los Angeles. Announcer Al Jarvis was becoming a star on KFWB at that time, 
hosting a program called “The World’s Largest Make-Believe Ballroom,” which was divided into segments during which he would play a few recordings by one artist fostering the illusion that the performer was live on stage.
In an interview years later with the Canadian publication OC Register (Jarvis was born in Winnipeg) he was quoted as saying, “A few weeks after I got the job at KELW (which became KFWB) in 1932, I was hounding the owner-manager to let me air pop records instead of those electrical transcriptions. By using commercial records, I figured, I would not only have a more diversified program, but I could present some of the world’s great stars…that’s how the ‘Make Believe Ballroom’ was born.”
According to radio programmer and historian, Chuck Blore, and other accounts, Jarvis got the job on KELW by answering a newspaper ad: “Wanted. Man to talk on radio.” It’s said he talked four hours a day, reading from newspapers mostly and playing recordings on a wind-up phonograph, whose speaker he positioned in front of a microphone.
“Sugar Blues” lasted less than a year as the theme music for Martin Block’s “Ballroom.” In 1936, Charlie Barnet and his “Barnet Modern-Aires” recorded “Make Believe Ballroom,” composed especially for Block. Barnet recalled that his “Ballroom” recording helped the band make a lot of friends in New York. Out in Los Angeles, on KFWB, Al Jarvis quickly started using the “Ballroom” theme for his own show.
As “The Ballroom” on WNEW grew in popularity, Block continued to use the Charlie Barnet “Ballroom” recording as his theme. But, in October, 1940, about two years after Barnet had created “Stay Up Stan, the All Night Record Man” as a theme for Stan Shaw on WNEW’s “Milkman”s Matinee,” his “Make Believe Ballroom” theme, was dropped by Block who reportedly wanted a new theme to reflect the changing pop chart sounds of the day. He got it from Glenn Miller, who even hired away Barnet’s singing group, the renamed “Modernaires.”
Words by Martin Block and Mickey Stoner, music by Harold Green.
Make Believe Ballroom Time – Glenn Miller Orch, Modernaires
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6VrtmJHGMM
Throughout WWII, Martin Block enjoyed unprecedented success with WNEW, but in 1946 moved to Los Angeles and originated his three hour “Ballroom” on KFWB, with one of those hours being fed to Mutual for network syndication. Al Jarvis had since moved to KLAC. But, by October, 1947, according to “Billboard,” the deal between Martin Block and KFWB fell apart, because Block was unhappy with KFWB management which, in turn, complained that Block was “uncooperative” and too busy with his “other deals.” LA listeners, according to the ratings, were also unhappy with Block who sounded to some critics like a “know-it-all smart-alec New Yorker. Block returned to WNEW’s studios early in 1948 and hosted The Ballroom until in 1954, when contract talks failed, he departed WNEW’s studios a second and final time, and moved to ABC.
E.C.B.
It’s Make-Believe Ballroom Time
Put all your cares away
All the bands are here to bring a cheer your way
It’s Make-Believe Ballroom Time
And free to everyone
It’s no time to fret
Your dial is set for fun
Just close your eyes and visualize in your solitude
Your favorite bands are on the stands
And Mr. Miller puts you in the mood
It’s Make-Believe Ballroom Time
The hour of sweet romance
Here’s your make-believe ballroom
Come on, children, let’s dance!
It’s Make-Believe Ballroom Time
The hour of sweet romance
Here’s your make-believe ballroom
Come on, children, let’s dance!
Come on children, let’s dance
Photo credits
Martin Block: WNEW files
Al Jarvis: www.geocities.ws
Clyde McCoy: www.jazzagemusic.blogspot.com
Charlie Barnet Ballroom CD: www.oldies.com
Most of you will recognize the studio in the picture on the front of my new book, “Staying Happy, Healthy, And Hot.” Some of you will remember when the guy in the picture looked like that. But only if you remember WNEW from when “head shots” were all black and white, 8 x 10 glossies. It was an appropriate picture for the front of a fun book about being happy, because there was never a happier time in my life than the night that picture was taken.
Let me explain: I’m from Bay Ridge. My folks gave me a “portable” radio for Christmas when I was about 8. I don’t think I turned it off ‘till Easter. It was a magic box full of music and voices. The music was made by people with names like Frank, and Ella, and “The Count,” and “The Singing Rage.” The voices belonged to people named Gene Klavan, Dee Finch, William B. Williams, Ted Brown, Al Collins, and Art Ford.
The magic box immediately spoke to me. “Shazam!” it said. And instantly, I changed from a stickball kid dreaming of playing in Dodger Blue, to a disc jockey in training. The training went on for quite a while. About 30 years to be fairly exact.
I was on the air at one of America’s premier radio stations, WBZ in Boston, when the studio phone lit, and the station’s receptionist said, “Somebody by the name of Nat Asch wants to talk to you.” Nat was the Program Director at WNEW-FM. I heard him say, “George Duncan and I would like you to come down and do an audition for us.” I grabbed both eyelids and finally got them pulled down, forced my voice down an octave, and with my most professional diction, I think I said something like, “Gezornenplatz.”
The audition must have gone well, because I became the first morning man on WNEW-FM. And I will never forget that first morning. 6:30 AM – the studio door opens, and Gene Klavan walks in. “Welcome to the staff” he says. I find myself shaking the hand of one of the guys who shook me out of bed each morning since I was a kid. 7:00 AM – the studio door opens, and Dee Finch walks in. “Welcome and lots of luck, kid” he says. I am semi ready for that, and I manage to say something terribly clever : “Thank you Sir…Mr. Finch… Dee… lighted to meet you.”
At 9:30 AM – the studio door opens, a bright golden light shines down from heaven, a Norman Luboff choir sings, the tectonic plate under Fifth Avenue shifts, and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a vision that looks exactly like what God would look like if he were a disc jockey. William B. Williams. He strides in, sticks out his hand to shake mine, and in that crackly bass-baritone rumble that he uses all the time except when he’s doing national TV commercials, he says, “Hi kid. Welcome to the staff. You sound fine.” I am not ready for that. But I am determined that I’m not going to fall back on my Gezornenplatz again either. I immediately engage my sub-conscious editor, which is able to make some kind of actual human verbal response the substance of which has, in the intervening decades, faded quietly into literary oblivion.
It really was a reasonable response, although I must admit that I was momentarily confused at the time as to whether the appropriate ritual was to shake Willie’s hand, or just kiss his ring. As I recall I said something like “Thank you.” But then my sub-conscious editor went into shock and off line, and I think I kept saying, “Oh thank you. Oh thank you” for the next five or six minutes.
I don’t know when the all female lineup ended. When I got to WNEW-FM the station had been into the “Classic Rock” format for a while. All except for Klavan and Finch. I suspect the all female cast went out. . . except for Alison, who moved from mornings to all nights. . .and then they got around to hiring me to do mornings. I only did the morning show for a few months. Zacherly replaced me.
Dave Croniger had asked me if I wanted to move over to AM and do the Milkman’s Matinee. Me…the Bay Ridge Stick Ball Kid, was going to try to follow the vocal chords of the smoothest ad lib air personality on the planet. . . Art Ford. . . I don’t remember him ever bruising his phrasing. It was amazing phrasing. (Editor’s note: Art Ford hosted the Matinee between 1942 and 1954. Dick Summer’s immediate predecessor in 1968 was Marty O’Hara.) It was shortly after that when Newsday sent a reporter and photographer to do a story on me, and the picture on the front of the book was taken. So now you know why an old black and white picture is on the front cover of my new book, called “Staying Happy, Healthy And Hot.” There was never a happier time in my life than the night that picture was taken.
About three weeks after the article was published, Billboard Magazine reported that I had “resigned.” I didn’t resign. Julius LaRosa was hired to do afternoons, and the station moved the entire lineup back one shift. There wasn’t any place to move me, except to weekends. And I had a family to support. That wasn’t going to work financially.
I had a good reputation in Boston from my time at WBZ, so Mac Richmond hired me to program his station, WMEX. That lasted two years. I’m not an office/executive kind of guy. And I wanted to come home to New York again. The morning show at WPLJ opened up, and they were kind enough to hire me. Some folks at NBC Network took an interest, and offered me a slot on Monitor. Another offer I couldn’t refuse. But WPLJ was owned by ABC, and they weren’t having any of it. NBC understood the financial problem, and gave me the overnight slot on WNBC to go along with Monitor.
I was fired from WNBC in a purge that replaced the entire staff. I did a few years as the morning drive guy at WPIX during the “Love Songs” era. Then they went fake jazz, and they told me they “didn’t want any Dick Summer radio.” I don’t know how to do any other kind of radio. So when Harry and Charles Binder offered me the Communications Director job with their Social Security Disability practice, I signed up. It has been a hugely successful venture.
Along with the 9 to 5, I’ve been producing spoken word CD’s, doing a weekly blog and podcast and now we’ve got the book. It has been a wonderful run…this radio thing…a long and very satisfying career. WNEW was probably the shortest part of it. But WNEW was my station growing up in Bay Ridge. And having the honor of saying those call letters on the air was, as the song says, “The thrill of it all.”
Dick Summer
Editor’s Note: wnew1130.com is not affiliated with other websites whose links may appear here.
Bob Jones, New York D.J. Heard on ‘Milkman’s Matinee,’ Dies at 70
The story below about Marty Wilson’s turn as the Matinee Milkman, was due to be posted on this site next Sunday, January 6, 2013. But the publication date has been advanced because the piece contains references to Bob Jones when he hosted the “Ballroom,” and “Matinee” and for a few years shared the Matinee marque with Marty in the early 80’s. Bob died yesterday, Sunday, Deccember 30. See the “Bob Jones Passes” post directly below this one and the “Comments” note Marty sent about their years of friendship.
Recognizing, as the 1970’s drew near to closing, that it had been on a failed mission trying to appeal to all listeners of all ages and all tastes in popular music, WNEW sought to restore itself as the great conservator of the Great American Song Book.
In 1979, George Duncan, head of Metromedia’s Radio Division, appointed Jack Thayer as General Manager. Thayer had joined WNEW in sales in 1959. By 1974 he was President of NBC Radio. Now returned, Thayer’s task was to reverse WNEW’s ratings, revenue and reputation decline, and to make the diminished Big “W” big again.
Thayer revived the “Make Believe Ballroom” (the progrsm title and theme music had been retired in 1972) on October 6, 1979, with William B. Williams hosting the morning edition and Bob Jones presiding over the evening version. The “Milkman’s Matinee” was put on the schedule seven overnights a week with Al ‘Jazzbeaux’ Collins hosting five of them. Ted Brown was on in the morning. Other shows were hosted by Marty O’Hara, Jonathan Schwartz, Ray Otis, Bob Haymes and Jim Lowe, who would become Program Director in 1982. It was early in this retro revamp that Marty Wilson came along. Here, below, is a note he sent when we asked Marty to tell us more about the time he became part of the Milkman’s DNA.
“I think I did my first weekend Matinee in the Spring of 1980. I was on a week- to-week basis through the end of May. Then it was ‘It’s yours unless we tell you otherwise.’ ‘Jazzbeaux’ was the weeknight Milkman at the time. Toward the end of June he went on vacation for a couple of weeks and I was filling in doing the show 7 days a week.”
When the world should all be sleepin’
Then the melody comes creepin’
Till you want to sway
It’s the milkman’s matinee
“By the middle of July, ‘Jazzbeaux’ left WNEW and I was offered the position of Milkman working Mon-Fri nights (technically Tues – Sat). That lasted until GM Jack Thayer left Metromedia. (editor’s note: Jack Thayer, in 1985, joined Gear Broadcasting as COO and Exec. VP) Shift changes were made. Bob Jones was back as the Milkman, and I was back as the Weekend Milkman, Sunday and Monday nights. I was also given the Saturday 6-10 AM shift as well as “Jukebox Saturday Night” from 7-Midnight.”
If you hear a band a-swingin’
And you hear somebody singin’
It’s no cabaret
It’s the Milkman’s Matinee
“On “Jukebox Saturday Night” I introduced a request format where I recorded telephone requests from listeners and played back the phone calls and played the records they asked for. During that time Bob Jones left the station. There was also a brief period of time when Gene Klaven returned to do Saturday Mornings from 8-12 and I worked Friday night from 2-8.”
That’s the time the sandman hasn’t got a chance
Although, baby it’s late
Cupid looks around for new romance
While the milkman syncopates.
“That lasted until 1987 when I left for good. I will say this, Jack Thayer presided 
over a time when the station was in a new age of popularity. After the era of “Chicken Rock,” Jack “put it back the way it was.” There were people who said that the music was for old and dead people, but I always countered with, “How many 400-year old people are lining up to see the Mona Lisa at the Louvre? Classics are classics.”
It’s a shame that in the #1 radio market in the country, you can’t hear Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra on the radio.”
Marty Wilson
Cast away your cares till dawnin’
Every thing’s Grade A
The Modernaires are singin’
And Les Brown’s swingin’
At the Milkman’s
The Milkman’s Matinee
But, it became darker with the dawnin.’ In the mid 80’s, Metromedia Chairman, John Kluge, started selling his radio and television stations. WNEW-TV became WNYW-TV flagship station for Rupert Murdock’s Fox Television Network. WNEW-AM was bought and sold a couple of times, and in 1992 became WBBR, home for Michael Bloomberg’s Bloomberg Business News.
Came the time the milkman didn’t have a chance
Oh woe, it was too late
E.C.B.
Hi Ed,
I’m sorry to have to end the year on a very sad note, but I wanted to let you know that Bob Jones passed away yesterday.
He had been battling non-hodgkins lymphoma for awhile.
I thought you might want to put something up on the WNEW AM 1130 web site about Bob’s passing.
Hope all is well with you & best wishes for the new year.
Jeffrey Williams 12-30-12
Milkman’s Matinee Opening with Bob Jon es. Click on link below
Rudy Ruderman, during his more than 20 years at WNEW, held quite a few different jobs, sometimes a few of them at the same time. NY Daily News Radio & TV writer Val Adams took note of this in an April 29, 1973 column, (below) prompting from WNEW GM George Duncan, a note to Rudy that years later would surface when R.R. rescued files from some cardboard boxes that had been sent adrift in a basement flood.
Those fuzzy lines cut and pasted from Adams’ column read as follows: “Rudy Ruderman, already financial editor and drama critic for WNEW, received a new appointment as news director. Maybe triple threat Rudy can give lessons to poor George Duncan, whose only title at WNEW is general manager.”
But, what did GM Duncan mean by “Goodbye”? Was Ruderman fired? No, that would come later. Rudy would be fired about eleven months later on April Fools’ Day, 1974. His successor, Dick Stapleton, would be fired a year later on April Fools’ Day, 1975. Now, back to the memo . . .as Rudy explains.
“I think all Duncan (left) meant was a cute response to Val Adams’ ‘triple threat Rudy’ line. Not only did he not imply a threat to me by saying “goodbye,” but a year later, after (new GM Carl) Brazell told me to fire and not replace all the editors, I resigned in protest. Then George, who was Metromedia President by that time, called me to say “Don’t quit, Rudy! Wait a week, and we’ll fire you, so you can get severance pay and qualify for unemployment insurance.”
George Duncan had been promoted to President of Metromedia Radio Division, after about two years as GM of WNEW-AM, following his immensely successful turn as GM of WNEW-FM between 1968 and 1971. He was replaced as the AM GM by Carl Brazell, (right) who was replaced as News Director by Ruderman, which gets us back to the memo one more time. Rudy R. goes on to say he was out of work for four months, then . . .
“. . .then, suddenly, my successor, Dick Stapleton, hired me to replace the vacationing Andy Fisher on the overnight newscaster shift Christmas week, then to do weekend mornings, and Bill Scott gave me weekend overnights at WINS, and Bob Kimmel hired me as a producer at NBC Radio net. From there, as you know, I moved over to NBC’s NIS (News and Information Service) as Business Correspondent when Bob Dallos left. Among my most satisfying memories there was working with you and Cameron Swayze. I also remember getting a heart attack on Ash Wednesday in ’77, a couple of months before the all-news network went kaput.”
NBC’s NIS, sadly, did go kaput, but R.R., happily, did not. E.C.B.
George Duncan photo by Claude Hall
Carl Brazell photo by Dan Barrett
The anniversary this month of the un-plugging of WNEW AM in December, 1992, brought this add from Bill Diehl. (WNEW 1967-1971)
“The 20th WNEW anniversary reminded me of my 45th anniversary. It was my debut on WNEW on a cold January night (can’t remember the exact day) in January 1967. My last cast on the overnight was at 6:00 a.m., when I turned things over to Klavan and Finch. Quite a proud moment to say those words, along with saying those famous call letters. I really felt I’d made it in New York and Gene confirmed it when he gave me a copy of his 1964 book “We Die At Dawn,” and autographed it too.
The Modernaires, over the years, certainly got a lot of air-play on WNEW. Beginning in the 1930’s, the group recorded under different names with several orchestras, and were featured on three recorded versions of “The Milkman’s Matinee” (two with Charlie Barnet and one with Les Brown) and two versions of the “Make Believe Ballroom” (Charlie Barnet and Glenn Miller.) Here’s when and how they got to be the Matinee’s signature voices.
On All Night
It doesn’t seem to be recorded anywhere what theme music was first used by the original WNEW Milkman, Stan Shaw, when he went on the air in 1935, (2:00 a.m.-7:00 a.m.) but within a few months he was opening with a Charlie Barnet original, “Milkman’s Matinee,” released in 1936, with the vocal by the Barnet Modern-Aires.
Milkman’s Matinee – Charlie Barnet Orch. Modern-Aires-RCA Bluebird http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyZqL5WchvA
Barnet wrote in his autobiography that he hired the singers away from the Ozzie Nelson Band when they were still a trio known as “The Wizards of Ozzie.” Before that, the group, with a fondness for puns, was known as “Don Juan, Two and Three,” and before that, when Harold Dickinson (lead and second tenor), Bill Conway (baritone) and Chuck Goldstein (tenor) were Buffalo high school buddies, they called themselves “The Three Weary Willies.” Ralph Brewster joined the group in 1937, and Paula Kelly in 1941. By then, they’d been singing for a couple years, with the Glenn Miller band.
In 1937, Tommy Dorsey’s Clambake Seven came out with a new version of “Milkman’s Matinee with a vocal by Edith Wright, and featuring solos by Pee Wee Erwin and Johnny Mince.
Tommy Dorsey Clambake Seven-MCA Coral Records http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4DDR9Ypxqw
Stan Shaw must have made good use of the Dorsey recording, because in 1939, Barnet was back with a new customized theme, “Stay Up Stan, The All-Night Record Man.”
Stay Up Stan, The All Night Record Man – Charlie Barnet Orch. Modern-Aires – Bluebird RCA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OukDF-eCOes
When Art Ford took over the Matinee in 1942, he played the Charlie Barnet “Matinee” theme, but switched in 1944 to Woody Herman’s recording of “Milkman, Keep Those Bottle Quiet,” from the movie “Broadway Rhythm,” returning later to the Barnet recording. When Ford left the show in 1954 to do daytime duty on WNEW and was succeeded overnight by Jack Lazare, the Matinee show had still another version of the theme music, this one by the Les Brown band, with vocal by the renamed Modernaires. When Al Jazzbeaux Collins played Milkman, during the 1970’s, the second recording he played every night, right after the opening theme, in order to establish the show’s jazz credentials, was Count Basie’s “Blues In Hoss’ Flat.” The Les Brown theme lasted through the remainder of the Matinee’s on-and-off-again life.
E.C.B.
The Newsday story posted below, published on Dec. 2, 1992 was made available to WNEW1130.com by former CNN Anchor, Dave Michaels.
By Paul D. Colford
NEWSDAY STAFF WRITER
New York, Dec. 2 —WNEW-AM / 1130 the 58-year old outlet for the music of Frank Sinatra, Lena Horne, Mel Torme and America’s greatest songwriters, died today after a long illness marked by financial losses, anemic rating, schizophrenic programming and the dismissal of practically every personality who made it special.
The end for the long-deposed monarch of New York stations came at 10 a.m. when singer Tony Bennett was to help The New York Times Co. convert WQEW, at 1560 AM, into a new haven for pop standards.
TO BE FAIR, the ghost of WNEW will limp along for another week or so with music-by-day and Larry-King-by-night before a new owner completes its purchase of the station and launches a 24-hour business format on 1130 AM. But the death watch that continued through management twists and ownership turns in recent years effectively ended this morning with the sign-on of its successor.
The startup of WQEW is a happy ending for those New York listeners who would have lacked an outlet for Gershwin and Bennett. At the same time, the demise of WNEW-AM has prompted wistful recollections of a once-great station.
“There’s been a great deal of gnashing of teeth in recent years because WNEW really occupied a special place in people’s psyche,” said WOR general manager Bob Bruno, who was WNEW’s program director in the mid-1970’s. “This wasn’t just another radio station. It represented culture, sophistication, and people felt like they were with the stars when they listened to the personalities who played the music. As a listener, you got to be on the inside.”
Generations of listeners got their first taste of the great composers, bands and vocalists from WNEW-AM. Indeed, they were hooked on the station’s sounds even after television became the dominant entertainment medium.
Bloomberg Communications Inc., the buyer that will install the business format, is paying nearly $13.6 million for what was worth an estimated $25 million in 1962. In that year, the station raked in more than $7.1 million in advertising, tops in the nation, and took the unprecedented step of dropping its national ad representative. Instead, the story goes, the station’s own sales people would come in, hang up their coats and simply start taking sponsors’ calls at 9:00 am.
WNEW hatched the idea of a disc jockey when staff announcer Martin Block started to play records during breaks in the station’s 1935 coverage of the Lindberg-kidnapping trial of Bruno Hauptman. Soon afterward, he presented records in an afternoon theater of the mind that was called “The Make-Believe Ballroom.” This writer’s mother recalls coming home from high school with her girlfriends, pushing the dining-room table against the well and dancing to the tunes of Glenn Miller and Sammy Kaye that Block had on his turntables. His style at the microphone was so warm and intimate that my grandfather, a hard-to-impress Irish railroad man, would say, “Open up the door because that fella’s coming right in.”
From 1946 to 1963, Dee Finch and Gene Rayburn enlivened mornings with “Anything Goes,” poking fun at their commercials from time to time. Gene Klavan, a master of voices and inspired anarchy, then worked alongside Finch before going it alone in 1969. The popular William B. Williams, who sounded so casual that he might have been hosting “The Make Believe Ballroom” stretched out in bed, was champion and pal of the singer he called “Francis” and “Chairman of the board.” Ted Brown, he of the cornball jokes and insatiable girl hunger, stood in amusing contrast to the intellectual Jonathan Schwartz, a former rock jock, who brought a freewheeling FM sensibility to the AM station, when he started doing weekend shows in 1971 — shows that he will now host on WQEW.
In news coverage, too, WNEW set the standard. In 1942, WNEW was believed to be the first station to break for hourly newscasts as prepared by the broadcast desk of the Daily News. In 1958, the station ended its association with the tabloid and spent lavishly to staff a homegrown news department with 13 reporters and rewrite men — a number that would more than double in time and seem all the more remarkable when viewed in today’s news-stingy radio times. WNEW’s own reporters went to Africa to interview Albert Schweitzer, they roamed the South to size up the civil rights movement, they broadcast from Vatican Square and Cape Canaveral. Reid Collins, Ike Pappas, Edward Brown and Jim Gordon were among those who told their stories on the hour and half-hour.
As late as the mid-1980’s, a listener could still sample the sophistication that was WNEW’s trademark. Ratings had declined from the glory years, as they had for all AM music stations, but WNEW averaged a respectable 3 share (percent) of the New York audience by remaining true to the American songbook. At no cost, a listener could relax in the lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel at midday and watch Williams do live broadcasts alongside Keely Smith and other great singers who weren’t born yesterday. If it was Matinee Day, a visit to Charley O’s at Shubert Alley would find “Mr. Broadway,” afternoon disc jockey Jim Lowe, chatting it up with Cleo Laine and other performers, or persuading the great Sylvia Syms to get up and hush the house with her songs. Schwartz and resident pianist Tony Money would bring Julie Wilson, Helen Merrill, Maureen McGovern and other cabaret stars into the studio for still more conversation and live vocals.
But the mid-80’s also was the beginning of the end. In 1986, billionaire John W. Kluge sold WNEW and eight other radio stations owned by his Metromedia Inc. for $285 million. Almost immediately afterward, the buyers, burdened with debt, slashed all but the morning newscasts, canceled the live shows and broke up the music late at night with a syndicated talk program featuring psychologist Toni Grant. An evening sports program seemed even more glaringly out of place, and Steve Allen was paid a pile to do a talkative daytime broadcast that evolved into an inside joke among him and his friends.
Lowe, who was dismissed in 1987 after a total of two decades with WNEW, said from his home in the Hamptons that the new management was unwilling to enhance and protect the station’s 3 share and created the hodgepodge in a bid for revenues that alienated the core audience. “If you’re going to play Chinese bells on the air, that’s fine, but you’ve got to do it for twenty four hours,” he said.
Ratings weakened and WNEW was acquired in 1988 by investor Robert f. X. Sillerman, who then sold half to Westwood One Inc., based in Culver City, Calif. With an aging audience and meager ad revenues outside of the station’s New York Giants broadcasts, Westwood management became little more than a caretaker. It fired supervisors, disc jockeys and, finally, Mike Eisgrau, the last newsman, in what seemed an obvious effort to stem losses and make the payroll lean enough to attract a buyer. The spring rating ranked WNEW a dismal 20th with a 2 share, so that the August announcement of Bloomberg’s purchase signaled an end to the patient’s misery. Sillerman conceded that WNEW was not making money. He added, “It was acquired when there was a little more optimism about its future.”
In the end, The New York Times Co., which owns WQEW, wanted nothing from the “estate” of WNEW. No records, no call letters, no jingles. Only Schwartz. “It really is an American radio tragedy, because it’s symptomatic of what has happened to the industry over the last two decades,” Bruno, of WOR, said: “The owner-operators have gotten out of the business and a lot of the product is slowly being eaten alive…Now, this thing is being buried.”
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Editor’s Note: Here is Wikipedia’s account of how the end came.
WNEW was put up for sale in `99`, and Bloomberg L.P. purchased station for $13.5 million shortly after. In the period before the format change, the airstaff was given an opportunity to say goodbye, culminating on December 10 and December 11, 1992, when the station had one big farewell show. During this farewell show, the airstaff reflected and talked very deeply about the loss of WNEW. The show would end at about a quarter after 8 p.m. on the 11th, as Mark Simone signed off for the last time with the entire current and many living former airstaffers at his side. WNEW joined NBC Talknet in progress followed by Larry King as usual.
Then after Larry King, beginning at 2 a.m. Saturday morning and throughout that day WNEW would simulcast WYNY, and would continue for the next three days. The station broke away for Giants’ Football, Talknet, and Larry King. On December 15, the sale of WNEW to Bloomberg became final, and the station continued simulcasting WYNY until 4 p.m. Then, after airing the Perry Como Christmas Special, shows from Talk Net, and the first hour of Larry King (cutting it off a few minutes before midnight), the station would sign off forever at 11:59 p.m. As the station signed off, they abruptly ended Larry King and the pre-recorded voice of Director of Engineering Alan Kirschner went on and stated “At this time 1130 WNEW New York will leave the air forever…Thanks for your support over the years…This is WNEW, New York”. At the transmitter site, engineer Rene Tetro then turned off the transmitter for two minutes, changing the program feed during that period to the new feed from the Bloomberg offices. The station signed back on the air at 12:01 a.m. with the callsign WBBR. The station would then simulcast WQEW, which was a standards station that had just signed on some two weeks earlier. The simulcast would continue until January 4, 1993, when WBBR’s business news format debuted.