a duplicitous way to break new Beatles singles on the air before the competition could—by making a contact in the London recording studio.
The trickery didn’t stop there. When Ringo Starr’s Saint Christopher medal was snatched away by a female fan, WABC mounted a campaign to recover it. The girl’s mother returned the medal to Muni within hours as Scottso promised the girl that she would get to actually meet and hug Ringo and receive tickets to the concert. But Sklar withheld news of the medal’s return from the public for an entire day until they’d milked every last drop of publicity from it. It was then presented to Ringo on the air. Bruce Morrow was an emcee at the August 1964 concert at Shea Stadium and presented the boys with a trumped-up medal, “The Order of the All-Americans.” Although all three rock stations benefited from the British invasion, WABC was the clear winner in attaching their name to that of the Beatles.
In 1965, WINS decided that the Top Forty competition was too fierce and dropped out to become one of the first all-news outlets in the country. WMCA lasted a few more years before going all talk in 1969. Rick Sklar and WABC ruled the roost as their AM competitors fell by the wayside. Ratings shares were high and revenue rolled in at unprecedented levels. But Sklar’s shabby treatment of one of his own stars helped spawn a movement that was to cost WABC dearly—the rise of FM.
Crown of Creation
For most of the sixties, it was much easier to get a job at an FM station than at a successful AM one. FM was still viewed as AAA ball, not the big leagues, even in larger markets. Most operators of duopolies were looking to keep costs low, so hiring an inexperienced disc jockey who was thrilled just to have a job was preferable to paying a high ticket for an AM has-been. It’s how I got my first professional job.
A few months into my apprenticeship at WALI, I still wanted to be an actor. Through the Adelphi University theater group, I’d become friends with a tall, slender man named Robert Wynn Jackson. A native of Virginia’s Tidewater region, he came north on a music scholarship and directed many of the light operas and musical comedies we staged. Bob was an unconventional combination of black, Jewish, and gay. His extensive knowledge of classical music won him the Sunday afternoon slot on WALI. He crafted a highly produced show opening that painted an aural picture of Robert Wynn Jackson as conductor, complete with white tie and tails, the audience bursting into applause as he mounted the podium. He tapped his baton and began to conduct works by the great masters. Of course, he was merely playing records, but his creation was so vivid that one could imagine him extravagantly decked out—a rapier-slim black Bernstein, passionately leading a magnificent symphony orchestra.
Ted Webb served as general manager of WALI to supplement his income while working professionally as chief announcer at WLIR, which, like Adelphi University, was also based in Garden City, New York. A part-timer had left WLIR in a pay dispute so Webb left a note for Jackson that the station had an opening for an announcer trained in the great works. Robert was intrigued by the possibility of taking his program to the next level and asked me if I’d like to tag along with him. I suspect his real reason for asking was that I had access to a car and he didn’t, but I was happy to go along. Although he assumed the audition was strictly pro forma and that he’d already gotten the job, I think he wanted company for reassurance, too. Part of him had to be nervous, considering the grandiose future a
real
FM station might promise. We were also curious to see what a professional station looked like, certain that any commercial facility would make our campus station seem dreary by comparison.
Broadcasting from the opulent Garden City Hotel, the high tone of WLIR’s programming conjured images of stately men in dinner jackets
The trickery didn’t stop there. When Ringo Starr’s Saint Christopher medal was snatched away by a female fan, WABC mounted a campaign to recover it. The girl’s mother returned the medal to Muni within hours as Scottso promised the girl that she would get to actually meet and hug Ringo and receive tickets to the concert. But Sklar withheld news of the medal’s return from the public for an entire day until they’d milked every last drop of publicity from it. It was then presented to Ringo on the air. Bruce Morrow was an emcee at the August 1964 concert at Shea Stadium and presented the boys with a trumped-up medal, “The Order of the All-Americans.” Although all three rock stations benefited from the British invasion, WABC was the clear winner in attaching their name to that of the Beatles.
In 1965, WINS decided that the Top Forty competition was too fierce and dropped out to become one of the first all-news outlets in the country. WMCA lasted a few more years before going all talk in 1969. Rick Sklar and WABC ruled the roost as their AM competitors fell by the wayside. Ratings shares were high and revenue rolled in at unprecedented levels. But Sklar’s shabby treatment of one of his own stars helped spawn a movement that was to cost WABC dearly—the rise of FM.
Crown of Creation
For most of the sixties, it was much easier to get a job at an FM station than at a successful AM one. FM was still viewed as AAA ball, not the big leagues, even in larger markets. Most operators of duopolies were looking to keep costs low, so hiring an inexperienced disc jockey who was thrilled just to have a job was preferable to paying a high ticket for an AM has-been. It’s how I got my first professional job.
A few months into my apprenticeship at WALI, I still wanted to be an actor. Through the Adelphi University theater group, I’d become friends with a tall, slender man named Robert Wynn Jackson. A native of Virginia’s Tidewater region, he came north on a music scholarship and directed many of the light operas and musical comedies we staged. Bob was an unconventional combination of black, Jewish, and gay. His extensive knowledge of classical music won him the Sunday afternoon slot on WALI. He crafted a highly produced show opening that painted an aural picture of Robert Wynn Jackson as conductor, complete with white tie and tails, the audience bursting into applause as he mounted the podium. He tapped his baton and began to conduct works by the great masters. Of course, he was merely playing records, but his creation was so vivid that one could imagine him extravagantly decked out—a rapier-slim black Bernstein, passionately leading a magnificent symphony orchestra.
Ted Webb served as general manager of WALI to supplement his income while working professionally as chief announcer at WLIR, which, like Adelphi University, was also based in Garden City, New York. A part-timer had left WLIR in a pay dispute so Webb left a note for Jackson that the station had an opening for an announcer trained in the great works. Robert was intrigued by the possibility of taking his program to the next level and asked me if I’d like to tag along with him. I suspect his real reason for asking was that I had access to a car and he didn’t, but I was happy to go along. Although he assumed the audition was strictly pro forma and that he’d already gotten the job, I think he wanted company for reassurance, too. Part of him had to be nervous, considering the grandiose future a
real
FM station might promise. We were also curious to see what a professional station looked like, certain that any commercial facility would make our campus station seem dreary by comparison.
Broadcasting from the opulent Garden City Hotel, the high tone of WLIR’s programming conjured images of stately men in dinner jackets
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