WSBA MYTHS AND LEGENDS

[fryman]

Does anyone remember Commander Burns (Tim) or know what became of him. He was morning man on WINK for years and had earlier worked in the Lancaster/Lebannon market. Did all nights at WVAM/Altoona in the late 60's.

[bossjock 56]

One name to add to my 60's list would be Al Wolfe.  Very funny guy!  Oh....and Fryman...Tim Burns is retired from WINK 104.

[bl40modulimiter2]

Add to the list---Mike McKay, Rick Burton, Bill Bradley, and Harry West.  Also PD during the shift to really soft in the late '70's I believe was Dave Pennington. 

As for Burnsy, after he retired from WINK he disappeared.  I heard he was in real estate, but he is absolutely unGoogleable.  Tried to find him a couple times. 

[bossjock 56]

That's right.  Dave Pennington became PD when Johnny Andrews was bumped up to Ops Manager.  Add to the 70's jock list Steve Cannon, Joe Columbo, Johnny Knight, Jack Armstong, Stan Douglas (Craig Senior), Phil Sargant, Brad Flick, Wayne Gracey, Bob Brooks, Kevin O'Conner, and Lou Rogers.

[caj012885]

does anyone have a radio listings section from the early 70s Lancaster Sunday News, i remember they listed WSBA's full schedule.

[ratingsgeek]

Back in the late sixties--1967 or 1968--when WSBA was hitting on all fours I contacted the PD at the time seeking some basic information about the station for a term paper for a college course I was taking, and you would have thought I had asked the CIA for top-secret code-breaking formulas. Like it all wasn't out there on the radio for anyone to hear! Anyway, the guy was a complete A-hole, going so far as to write me a letter threatening to sue if I featured his damn station in a damn term paper. I'm not making this up.

WSBA did a great job marketing itself as a regional player, generating TV-type money and providing a top-flight product so obviously superior to anything else in the market that if Susquehanna had understood the AM to FM transition--and had simply shifted WSBA's programming from 910 to 103.3 at the right time--we'd still be playing catch-up 40 years later. But, of course, they screwed it up.

I've often wondered whether the arrogance that the A-hole PD showed me was related... that maybe the guys running the ship back then just thought they were indestructable... and didn't need that FM in the closet down the hall to stay on top...

[bossjock 56]

Let's see '67 or '68.....could have been Bob Janis or Bob Harper...who knows?  I never met either of these guys but I did meet Bob Shipley and he, being the nice person he always was, wouldn't have treated anyone, especially a college student, that way.  Then again, he probably wouldn't have given out too much information.  I called WSBA one time around this same period and asked for a request.  I was told...."sorry, we don't take requests.  At least they were honest.  Another time I called and asked to speak to their program director.  They said "we have several program directors....which one do you want."  That person then told me that Bob Shipley was the main program director.  This was in the late 60's.  I'll admit, I was a pest and used to call serveral radio stations and they would always talk to me and were happy to answer the questions of a kid who was interested in radio.  At WSBA...you never got to talk to the on air personality.   

[John-Summers]

The on-air personality was never to answer the phone, under any circumstances.  That was a long-standing rule that was still in effect when I worked there.  The idea was that you had to concentrate on being a personality and should not be wasting your time on the phone.  It's true that with the enormous spot load and all the elements you had to juggle, plus time into newscasts twice an hour and play a little music here and there, you really had no time to socialize with listeners. 

One Sunday evening in the early 80s I was working 6-9pm.  The late Bob Markham was in the newsroom, on the phone getting an actuality.  Nobody was at the sports desk.  The phone lit up, and rang and rang and rang.  I had a song playing and thought it was stupid to let the phone ring when I could answer it.  I did.  It was General Manager Phil Eberly on the other end.  He asked who he was speaking to.  I answered.  He said "Aren't you on the air?  The air personality is never to answer the phone!"  He asked to be transferred to Markham, to whom he read the riot act.  The next day Rod Burnham called me at my regular job and said "John, just a reminder.  Do not, ever, under any circumstances, no matter how long it's been ringing, answer the phone while you are on the air."  I said OK and that was that.  Of all times to try and help out, it would be the time the GM called.  And Mr. Eberly knew all the rules and was a stickler about them.

They had rules, and rules about rules, in a packet about 80 pages long.  It was really intimidating.   

[bossjock 56]

I think the same could be said about many major market stations at that time.  In all fairness....WSBA was more "big market" than many other Central Pa stations at the time.

[oaktree]

If radio would follow similar plans - not merely from upper management, but through the ranks, with PD's who are in charge, personalities / jocks who don't have to prove they are "stars" or better than anything a radio station has to offer, and if people were more than card-reader idiots with rules that required that they follow the rules, no matter how much they "hate" following the rules, the better radio would be.

Plus, there would be fewer phone jammers, contest whores and "would you play so-and so, like, in a minute for my boyfriend?" then, maybe, there wuld be competition, instead of ego inflated laziness in markets from York to San Diego and back. Sometimes, we just know too much for our own good.