NOT....Re: [BC] Clear Channel Wants More?

[harold stanton]

Wow, have I been holding on to my fingertips...........
I hardly EVER post, but like many othe lurkers I read the "mail'  just to 
see the general flow of comments.
Mike,
When I started in Meridian (and this does go back 40 years, and I AM THE ONE 
THAT TURNED WDAL which spawned the "Q" to rock and roll) and was the nite 
jock and ENGINEER for WMOX and the ACE during the build of Channel 24 at the 
same time driving an ambulance and working the morning shift at then WDAL 
(all to say I know that market DAMN well). I started this career at WMOX....
That market had FIVE well run radio stations and TWO well run TV's... all 
had a minunm of two "first phones" as TV had to have seven and WMOX had 
seven.At WDAL we had four even tho it was a daytime non-d.
And evry damn one of 'em could fix something......work a board shift and got 
paid pretty damn well for the market size.
When "small market EDDIE'" became the head of the NAB he ran a bunch of CRAP 
operations in north MS and being that he couldn't find help to work for 45's 
and trade out gas that was the beginning of the end of respectable 
engineering and the reqiurements of same.
Sure, at WMOX and even the WOKK they had a couple of "ELkin'S" GRADUATES, 
BUT WHEN THEY CAME BACK FROM "SCHOOL" THEY COULD ACTUALLY READ A METER!
The current wave of consolidation has given us fifty signals with CRAP on 
every one and nobody home on the weekends.

Your guys and gals did do a magnificent job in 
Hattiesburg.................and I ain't suckin' up there as I helped to 
contribute to their effort, but not that many years ago there would have 
been REAL people in the news booth and some adult supervision of the kids.

My business success has been mainly on the missing "backs" of the engineers 
that are no longer there, and again I ain't bitchin' cause I work for 
myself, but having worked for "managers" like Dana had 1 time too many I 
decided I would put up with the crap no more.

if you can justify what the "consolidators" have done as a good thing then 
you aren't old enogh to have known any better, I wasn't able to judge your 
age when we met but you are younger than me, believe me the business was 
better off with five good, locally owned signals that each owner had to go 
on the street to sell time and face the same people in church every Sunday.

That very thing would probably cut out the "offensive" stuff all by itself.



>Must have been Q. We added some turds to that one. Plenty of junk to go 
>with them
>
>

>
>>>Rewind 20 years, those markets didn't have much more
>>technical manpower than they do now, and they were maintaining analog tape
>>and the typical small market junk throughout.
>>
>>Not entirely true.  Rewind to 1980 and the Meridian stations (then just an
>>AM/FM
>>combo, had a fulltime chief and a parttime assistant.  And we had much
>>better
>>than typical "small market junk".  I know - I was there.
>>
>>LF
>>
>>
>>