[BC] The craziest radio person I've heard about

[Thomas G. Osenkowsky]

>         Some time ago, someone mentioned a station
>         where the engineer was paid in drugs...

I did contract work for a station that paid the morning man with
trade at a local supermarket. The man had to leave his wife and
was on welfare so he couldn't accept a paycheck. His wife went
off her meds and attacked him with a butcher knife in his sleep.
He was OK, but had to leave the environment. When the store
manager found out that the arrangement, he cancelled the trade.
Sadly, I learned this man died in an auto accident last year.

How I got my job as a GM........
Around 1985 I was doing contract work for the first station I became CE at
in 1976. The GM at that time had dictated a letter to a friend at an ad
agency quoting Arbitron numbers but warning not to use the info because
the station could get sued as it was not an Arbitron subscriber. Seems
like this GM was not popular with the staff as someone sent a copy of the
letter to Arbitron and the owner had to pay up. I had told this GM the tx
needed new tubes on several occasions.

After this GM was fired, I called the owner and told him that we needed
new tubes ASAP. He wrote me a letter saying he just hired a new GM
(I'll call him Johnny) with NYC radio experience. Johnny invested $10K
of his own money in the station as did two of his associates ($30K total)
and that he was paying Johnny $30k/year to be GM. The tubes would be
purchased shortly. The owner sent me a copy of a letter he sent to Johnny
informing him I was a great asset to the station, know the market and could
be instrumental in getting the station profitable.

I met Johnny one evening. He fired two DJ's who were good guys but had
problems changing power/pattern. He also got rid of Erbo Renzullo, the
cat we all adopted off the street. (Yeah, you want to know about the name.
One of the fired DJ's said we needed a name for the cat. He picked a
page out of the phone book and his finger landed on Erbo. The cat even
began to respond to the name. This former DJ is now an airline pilot and
adopted Erbo).

The morning man was a great guy, a Tony Orlando lookalike. He was also
the PD. Everything with Johnny was WYNY, NY then programmed by Pete
(Stone) Salant. The PD did everything he could to please Johnny but it
wasn't happening. He added so many AC stiffs, anything to get Johnny off
his back. Johnny finally fired him and I proposed to Johnny that I take over
as full-time Operations Manager. He accepted the offer and I revamped the
format and added many selections from my personal collection. I took
exception to the WYNY clone since we had a class B FM in the market
doing the same format.

One day Johnny came storming into the station. He was fuming over the
Three Dog Night song "Celebrate" which he heard on the way up from NYC.
He smashed the cart underfoot and put it in my hand. I dropped it and
walked away. It was becoming evident that Johnny wasn't a GM but rather
a little boy who never grew up and was reliving the days when he did a
part time gig on WEVD-FM in NYC. He brought the morale of the staff to
zero, the secretary/traffic mgr/bookkeeper to tears and had one of the
p/t DJ's call him using the station's telephone credit card to play the
station
down the phone so he could listen in NYC and call the DJ's and argue with
them over how WYNY doesn't do it this way, etc.

One Thursday evening I went to a festival in town because we were supposed
to do a remoter from there. The telco line was not set up at the prescribed
location. I was driven there, got the broadcast on the air then Johnny
showed
up. I told the morning man I wouldn't be back until Monday. Johnny said
"Who's
not coming in tomorrow?" I said I wasn't as it was already 10 o'clock and I
was tired. He told me if I didn't come in on Friday I would be fired. I
calmly
said "OK. The station owes me $5K in trade, have a check for $5K ready
for me and that will settle everything." Johnny took exception to this and
again
I calmly replied "You have a lawyer, ***** (station owner) has lawyers and
so
do I. They will argue this, not me." I started to walk towards my ride back
to
the station. Johnny follows me and yells "You better come in tomorrow,
Tommy.
You better come in."

Johnny didn't realize his childlike behavior attracted the attention of a
group
of bikers who were friends of the station. I knew the leader. These guys
filed in line behind Johnny also yelling "You better come in Tommy". When
Johnny saw them behind him, he took off. The owner called me on Saturday
asking what was going on. I told him Johnny wasn't a GM, but a frustrated
PD. How does it make ANY business sense for a GM to be involved in the
playlist and programming when I was being paid to do that?

I sat in Johnny's chair the following Monday morning. But wait, there's
more!
I was doing a job at a station where one of Johnny's friends was an evening
DJ. Johnny showed up and he and I had a little chat. I closed the
conversation
by pointing out that if WYNY was such a model why didn't their GM tell Pete
Salant what to play, etc. Prosecution rests, Your Honor.

Tom Osenkowsky, CPBE