[BC] Country Music plight in top towns

[Bob Tarsio]

Grady:

Bill Figenshu was the national program director for Viacom Radio when I
arrived in NY in 1982. He later became the president of the division. As it
turns out he was the last Viacom Radio president as Sumner Redstone sold the
group to what would become Clear Channel in 1996. Bill lives not too far
from me today. He runs an Internet company that specializes in brokering
spots for radio stations. It's a neat concept. Stations sign up for the
service and can put their excess inventory up on the site. Paying agencies
then have access to the spots at various stations in various markets. It's
ingenious because they collect on both sides of the transaction. They
collect from the agencies and take a commission on the spots sold. 

I last talked to Frank about three years ago. He's out of the business now.
He bought an ISP and I believe continues to run it at present. Frank was a
smart guy and while I didn't always see eye to eye with him on engineering
he was still a great guy to work with. He was completely self taught and
knew what the hell he was talking about. He was an especially good audio
designer. We would often debate the characteristics of this or that op amp
or how best to design a telephone line driver. 

I miss the days that you refer to. We also did a lot of building of custom
stuff at WKHK/WLTW. I was down there for a visit last week and pleased to
see along with some current BDI gear in the rack there was still an audio
router that we designed and built still on line after 17 years. We made a
few of these and they all ended up in our NY stations. I sent one of these
to Frank and he proofed it for us as he had better test equipment than we
did. This was a totally active switcher that used a now obsolete Burr Brown
high voltage multiplexer chip. You could run line level through it and it
would swing nearly to the rails of a +/-15 V supply. Alas, those days are
gone. Management would frown on building anything from scratch fearing that
you would walk out with the documentation under your arm. I left schematics
and documentation behind. It's a good thing as a few years ago the CE from
WAXQ sent me one of the units for repair. I told him you better send the doc
along with it because I didn't have it!  

Bob Tarsio
President

Broadcast Devices, Inc. 
5 Crestview Avenue
Cortlandt Manor, NY 10567

www.Broadcast-Devices.com


Tel. (914) 737-5032
Fax (914) 736-6916
 


-----Original Message-----
From: broadcast-bounces at radiolists.net
[mailto:broadcast-bounces at radiolists.net] On Behalf Of Grady
Sent: Thursday, September 28, 2006 20:19
To: Broadcasters' Mailing List
Subject: Re: [BC] Country Music plight in top towns

    I worked for Frank Kramer for three years.  It was the last time
I worked under a more senior engineer.  It was the best three years
of my career.  When I went there, I transferred from KIKK in Houston,
also a Sonderling property.  Viacom bought the place while I was
at WOL - WMZQ.

    Frank was a great guy to work for, and I learned a lot of
stuff during those years.  He basically gave me a budget to buy
parts to "just get things done".  We split the day up, with Frank
working 8 AM to 4 PM, and me working 3 PM to 11 pm, so we
had an hour of overlap each day.  I loved working those hours
back then.  He'd give me a list of things to do, I had a list of
standard maintenance things that got done regularly, and
he didn't care what I did with the rest of my time, as long as
the station got some benefit from it.

    I built a lot of custom stuff, and learned a lot of component-
level tech in the school of "build something and make it work".
Mistakes are the best teacher.

    Frank gave me a free hand with the AM, and I developed
a lot of AM transmitter mods (that I've put in a hundred AM
transmitters since) while working on the old WOL Gates
BC1G.  I did lots of console mods, too.

    Bill Figenshu was the PD for much of the time that I was
there. . . he was great to work with, too; always had a healthy
attitude toward the tech side of the biz, and saw us as a
source of solutions.  I miss those guys.

Grady



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bob Tarsio" <Bob at Broadcast-Devices.com>
To: "'Broadcasters' Mailing List'" <broadcast at radiolists.net>
Sent: Thursday, September 28, 2006 11:50 AM
Subject: RE: [BC] Country Music plight in top towns


> Grady:
>
> Did you work for Frank Kramer at WMZQ? He was our DOE for Viacom
> Broadcasting which bought the old Sonderling group which WMZQ was part of.

> I
> was CE of the New York City station which was country when I got there in
> 1982. That lasted but two more years when it switched to Lite FM a runaway
> success and continues to be 23 years later!
>
> We had a lot of fun with the country format though. We did all the same
> stuff that WMZQ did in those days. We had a lot of country artists in for
> guest DJ spots. They were all pretty regular folks.
>
> Ah, the good old days!
>
> Bob Tarsio
> President
>
> Broadcast Devices, Inc.
> 5 Crestview Avenue
> Cortlandt Manor, NY 10567
>
> www.Broadcast-Devices.com
>
>
> Tel. (914) 737-5032
> Fax (914) 736-6916
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: broadcast-bounces at radiolists.net
> [mailto:broadcast-bounces at radiolists.net] On Behalf Of gRAdy Moates
> Sent: Thursday, September 28, 2006 11:20
> To: Broadcasters' Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [BC] Country Music plight in top towns
>
>    Ah, memories. . .
>
>    I worked for WMZQ in the beginning. . .
>
>    I remember distributing balloons at the Waylon & Willie
> concert (promoted by the competition) that had, "I MZQ'd
> at Waylon & Willie" in bright green ink on yellow balloon
> stock.
>
>    I still have a pair of shorts that we used to wear when
> the MZQ softball team would play, that trumped, "I MZQ'd
> in my pants!"  I can't fit into them anymore.
>
>    When was that, 1979?  Before 'MZQ it was WMOD.
>
>> What WMZQ offers to counter the appeal of the thinly sliced niches
>> on satellite radio is local deejays, news and traffic -- and the sense
>> of being part of a community based where listeners live. The
>> station's programming is all local except for the overnight show,
>> which is syndicated fare from Los Angeles.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> The BROADCAST [BC] list is sponsored by SystemsStore On-Line Sales
> Cable-Connectors-Blocks-Racks-Wire Management-Test Gear-Tools and More!
> www.SystemsStore.com       Tel: 407-656-3719    Sales at SystemsStore.com
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> The BROADCAST [BC] list is sponsored by SystemsStore On-Line Sales
> Cable-Connectors-Blocks-Racks-Wire Management-Test Gear-Tools and More!
> www.SystemsStore.com       Tel: 407-656-3719    Sales at SystemsStore.com
> 


_______________________________________________

The BROADCAST [BC] list is sponsored by SystemsStore On-Line Sales
Cable-Connectors-Blocks-Racks-Wire Management-Test Gear-Tools and More! 
www.SystemsStore.com       Tel: 407-656-3719    Sales at SystemsStore.com