VIDEO:

Here's a piece from the 6 pm news on WPVI-TV on Tuesday, April 27, 1976. It was primary election day in Pennsylvania and residents were selecting the GOP candidate for United States Senator. The winner the Republican nomination from John Heinz who was elected to the Senate that November. His main rival was Arlen Specter who would win the GOP nomination for Pennsylvania's other Senate seat in 1980. Heinz' wife at that time was Teresa. Teresa is currently married to former U.S. Senator John Kerry. The Action News anchor is Broadcast Pioneers member Larry Kane.

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AUDIO:

On Thursday, July 24, 1969, the Apollo 11 astronauts were returning from the first manned moon landing and they were getting ready to land in the Pacific Ocean. KYW Newsradio had been "All News" for a little less than four years.

Cut one is about a minute long and takes us from one anchor to the other. Bob Conville, formerly at WPBS, takes over from Don Budd, one of the station's original news anchors. It's 11 am.

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Cut two is 55 and a half minutes long. It starts about 30 seconds before 11:30 am and continues to about 12:25 pm. Art Lane is the station's news anchor. Normally, anchors change every half-hour. However, on this cut, the anchors don't switch until 12:18 pm, after the sports. At that point, Bill Gregory takes over. Note that Bill will be inducted posthumously into our Hall of Fame this November.

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Cut three is 38 and a half minutes long and starts at 12:26 pm. Why is there one minute missing between the end of cut two and the beginning of cut three? That's the point when the tape was flipped over to the other side to continue recording and thus that minute wasn't recorded. This cut features a report by KYW Newsradio's Andrea Mitchell.

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These cuts were mastered off our original tape recorded in 1969. This is the best quality tape of this broadcast material known to exist today. In fact, it's the only known copy. This is why our DAP, Digital Archival Project is so important!

Today's News Becomes Tomorrow's History!
(This is what our Digital Archival Project, DAP, is all about!)

A LITTLE BIT OF BROADCAST HISTORY!

IN TOUCH WITH OUR MEMBERS:

Put it on your calendar. Our September luncheon is a week earlier than normal. It is on the SECOND Wednesday of the month, September 12th. Why? Our usual third Wednesday is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement and the holiest day of the year for the Jewish people. During this 24-hour fast, many Jews spend all day in the synagogue with intensive prayer.

Broadcast Pioneers wants everyone to be able to come and enjoy the meal at our September meeting, so we've changed the date. Our special luncheon is a "Tribute to Vince Leonard." Make plans to be with us for this very special luncheon. Mark your schedule. The Vince Leonard Tribute is on Wednesday, September 12th.

We welcome new member Sheri Jane Lincul. She's been involved in broadcasting since 1966. While she lives in Tennessee, she traveled all the way to Philly to be at our June luncheon. Why? Because it was about WIBG, Radio 99. She was the lead dancer for the Hy Lit TV Show on WKBS, Channel 48. She danced with many of the groups that performed on the telecast. She also danced at many WIBG events and at Hy's live concerts. Afterwards, she started teaching ballroom dancing and has a catalog of dance videos for her clients worldwide.

Beasley Media Group announced that 102.9 WMGK-FM’s 13th Annual John DeBella Veterans Radiothon raised over $143,000 to benefit local veterans via the Veterans Multi-Service Center (VMC). The event took place several weeks ago. John DeBella is a member of Broadcast Pioneers.

David Oh, the only veteran on Philadelphia City Council, who stopped by DeBella’s live broadcast to encourage listeners to make donations.

Another new member this month is Diane Cameron Feinberg. Diane Cameron Feinberg, a trailblazer for women who sought careers in the technical realm of the television industry, joined CBS 3 on August 23, 1973 doing vacation relief and became a permanent employee two years later. In her career she has held numerous positions including stage manager, studio camera operator, film editor, make-up artist and set builder. Diane made history in 1976 as the first female stage manager, camera operator, and back stage manager for the nationally-syndicated Michael Douglas Show. Diane will be inducted into our Hall of Fame this November.

Joe Piscopo and member Harry Hurley
Talkers Magazine Event
Friday evening, June 8, 2018
(Joe was on Saturday Night Live in the 80s & now a NYC Radio Talk Show Host)

We heard from member Harry Hurley. He says: "We have raised more than $ 80,000 between our April 6th Charity Dinner with Brian Kilmeade and our 11th Annual Hurley in the Morning Golf Open in June 2018. We have now passed the $750,000 mark in the 11-year history of our “Hurley in the Morning” charity."

Harry was inducted into our Hall of Fame in 2013. Harry and his charity have included Broadcast Pioneers in their lists of charities throughout this decade. At our April luncheon, Harry Hurley presented Broadcast Pioneers CEO Gerry Wilkinson with a check for $2,000. That's for underwriting a 1,000 scholarship for 2019 (and they have been doing so for many years) and one thousand dollars for our archival project to preserve the broadcast history of our region including South Jersey.

CBS 3 ‘s 12th annual Alex Scott Telethon, a 14-hour on-air benefit for the Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation, raised more than $7 million ($7,071,819) for pediatric cancer research, a record for the fundraiser which began in 2007. Over its 12 years on-air, the event has raised nearly $32 million for the cause. The event took place several weeks ago.

CBS 3’s Jim Donovan and Stephanie Stahl (both members of Broadcast Pioneers) were involved in the 14-hour effort along with special guest Pat Ciarrocchi (also a member of this organization), and Alex’s parents, Liz and Jay Scott.

ALSF emerged from the front yard lemonade stand of cancer patient Alexandra “Alex” Scott. In 2000, 4-year-old Alex announced she wanted to hold a lemonade stand to raise money to help find a cure for all children with cancer. Since Alex held that first stand, the Foundation bearing her name has evolved into a national fundraising movement. Alex died in 2004 but the little girl left a big legacy proving how one idea can make a huge difference.

Member Sheree Goldflies had Marc Taub contact us. For 43 years, he saved a letter he received from Broadcast Pioneers member John Facenda, who was our Person of the Year in 1971. Here's what Marc said:

The back story is that my Grandfather and John Facenda worked together when they were kids in a South Philly pawn shop. In 1975 when I started to show an interest in getting into broadcasting, my grandfather said to write to John and see if he could help out.

I was only in 10th grade but I wrote and he wrote back. I never made it to TV but spent 31 years in Philadelphia radio starting as one of the original four salespeople at Kiss-100 in 1982 for 9 years, 15 years at Greater Media mostly as Sales Manager for WPEN but also some time at WMGK, MIX 95.7 & BEN-FM.

I ended my radio career in 2013 after spending seven years as General Manager of Davidson Media Group's La Mega. This all started after I put a simple post on Facebook showing a Kiss-100 and WPEN coffee mug with the caption "great stations, great memories" and it snowballed from there. (See the letter. We have technically augmented the letter for appearance sake, like darkening Facenda's signature, and other features.)

We received word that the premier publisher of biography profiles, Marquis Who's Who, presented Broadcast Pioneers Board Member Kal Rudman with the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. What an honor!

Kal has served on our Board of Directors for decades and has served as Vice-President of our organization for seven one-year terms, longer than anyone else. Rudman was inducted into our Hall of Fame in 1998 and was our Person of the Year in 2007.

Kal also underwrites five scholarships each year for us to award to best Temple University broadcast majors. Over the years, these scholarships have totaled almost 100 scholarships.

(Left to right) Myer Barr and Judy Lee
WPTZ, Channel 3
1955

On left is Myer Barr of Barr's Jewelers, a well known shop in Center City Philadelphia. On the right is Channel 3 TV Personality, Judy Lee. Among other things, Judy did the weather on Channel 3 and Barr's Jewelers was one of her sponsors. Myer passed away in 2011 at the age of 98. He operated 13 jeweler shops with the main one in Center City. The Barr chain was sold in 1971 to Zales. Barr was a graduate of Penn and held a law degree from Harvard. His son, Stephen, has joined Broadcast Pioneers as a member.

Today's News Becomes Tomorrow's History!
(This is what our Digital Archival Project, DAP, is all about!)

Note that during that time, only three programs were broadcast in color. Two were NBC-TV and broadcast on Channel 3 and the other was a local program, Sally Starr, on Channel 6. You can see that "Who Do You Trust" aired here in Philadelphia at 1:30 pm on a week's delay (via kinescope). Why? WFIL-TV was carrying a 30 minute local segment of Bandstand when the ABC network was airing "Who Do You Trust" at 3:30 pm.

The FM Dial Card!

This was written by Broadcast Pioneers member Marlin Taylor and originally appeared on his website. Marlin was the original Program Director and Station Manager for WDVR Radio (today known as More FM). Taylor was inducted into our Hall of Fame in 2015. We'll be running the WDVR story in three parts. The first ran last month, and the second part is in this issue. The third episode runs in September. This is even more special because of More FM being sold to Entercom, just a couple weeks ago. In the article Marlin Taylor refers to WPVR broadcast cards, a promotional item designed to be displayed on store counters, to enable listeners to readily find the station on their radio dials. Here's Marlin's second installment.

One key to the effective success of the card placement was Jerry Lee having the printer design a cardboard holder which would hold 125 cards. Without such a holder, the cards would quickly get knocked off of the store counter and end up in the trash.

Neither Jerry or I have one of these original card holders, nor can we locate any photos which show the holder. So, the best I have is this artful drawing of the holder and cards, which appeared on a station promotional sheet.

Even after the station left the Germantown section of the city, moving to the City Line Avenue area where it’s still located today, albeit in different quarters, along with two of the market’s major TV stations and several other radio stations … and had gained a significant audience, making it a major factor in the ratings … it continued to print and place the cards in stores throughout the region.

About the same time as the studios and offices were moved, its transmitting facility was able to re-locate to the TV antenna farm in the Roxborough section of Philadelphia, greatly improving its signal and coverage area. This meant it made sense to place cards in stores further removed from the heart of the market.

One thing you’ll note from card to card is that most owners had not yet begun to secure separate call letters for their co-owned FM stations … the only one having done so by 1968 was WIP-FM being changed to WMMR.

Here in 2018, if you were to create an FM dial card for the market, the only station outside of the two non-commercial stations, the University of Pennsylvania’s WXPN and Temple University’s WRTI, is WDAS-FM.

Yes, there is one note: WIP-FM is again an active set of call letters … however, they live at 94.1, the former address for WIBG-FM, later WYSP.

Any number of other stations around the country did print FM dial cards in the following years. But, I never saw any station beyond WDVR and what we later did at WRFM in New York City – in both cases, printing and distributing well over a million cards – make dial cards a major on-going promotional endeavor, most not printing more than a few thousand cards.

If you haven’t read my memoir, RADIO, My Love, My Passion, which is the basis for many of these Musings … I hope you’ll do so soon. If you’ve been waiting for the Kindle Edition, it’s now finally available.

Next month, we'll conclude our story.

Broadcast Pioneers member George Michael
Broadcast Pioneers Banquet
Friday, November 21, 2008
(George's acceptance speech upon being inducted into our Hall of Fame)
© 2008, Jerry Klein