"JUST REWIND THE TAPE!"
A MOST MEMORABLE MEMORIAL WEEKEND
If anything went wrong in automation, it would most likely be on the weekend
-- and especially on a holiday weekend when the regular staff is gone. One
fateful weekend over Memorial Day in 1973, took the prize for tape mishap.
The AM combo newsman/board operator had the added responsibility of changing
and cueing up the FM CM automation tapes, which were on special mammoth-sized,
14-inch tapes. Following the age-old pre-recorded program norm, the tapes
were wound "tails out."
That's a key phrase! "Tails out" means the tape has to be rewound before
it's played. This custom was carried over from the days when magnetic tape
would tend to print-through the next layer of tape, if not rewound. Then
the tape would have a weird-sounding pre-echo on music or a person's voice,
that could be so distracting that the tape would be unplayable for broadcast.
That rule certainly applied to the ancient, syndicated tapes we still used.
We had been slowly phasing out these (gasp!) monaural tapes. After this weekend,
no more of the syndicated programs ever ran again on weekends! And they were
all very simply "heads out." Just thread up and play.
But back to this fateful weekend. Enter a new AM news/board op, who had never
encountered the norm of rewinding "tails out" automation tapes. His experience
was entirely with tapes wound "heads out," ready to instantly play. So, he
threaded the tapes without rewinding them.
The result was some very interesting music -- all played backwards. Not only
that, the usually 50 Hz inaudible cue tone imbedded on the right track, which
switched the big tape deck to the cart machine, was now quite audible. What
did it sound like? Well, this normally inaudible very low tone sounded like
flatulence, the "Bronx cheer, the "raspberry" over the air.
Manager Ray Ose had anticipated problems with a new AM board op, so I was
summoned to "keep an ear" on the FM. I'd been invited to a golf tournament
and was mainly enjoying the weekend over beverages in the club house. I had
a portable radio kept low.
Sure enough, the tapes were running backwards. I frantically dialed the unlisted
AM station number. An equally frantic news/board op answered the phone. I
told him to "just rewind the tape," which he did -- over the air! "Whirl,"
(flatulence), "whirl," (flatulence) went the gigantic tape.
"Jimmy, the cart machine is going nuts!"
"Forget that. Just get a tape rolling the right way." He finally got a tape
on the air. I ran to my car and drove through red lights to the station.
Fortunately, the police were out on the highway trying to catch speeders
drunks on Memorial Day weekend.
I laboriously re-loaded the carousel cart machine, which was jam-packed with
spots for this memorable weekend, then made sure all the spots that were
missed were re-run and logged as "make goods," since the paperwork for missing
these many spots was akin to filling out an accident report for the government!
Sure enough next weekend, all the automation music tapes were heads out and
ready to play.
FUN & GAMES
On the evenings when I missed supper, I'd take a supper run to Zapata's,
the closest fast food eatery which was two blocks up the hill. It was a bit
tricky in that it was best to make a mad dash out the door right after I
introduced the long work on the Northern States Power Company show. I'd make
a deal to bring something back for the AM DJ, if he'd look in on my record.
There was always the danger that the record would skip or catch in a groove
and no-one would attend to it. And I'd time myself, to see if I could surpass
my speed record. Try as I might, I never made it up and back in less than
10 minutes. And I never had a stuck record!
One of my most embarrassing misadventures in radio was on a Sunday morning
several years earlier at another station when "The Lutheran Hour" program
electrical transcription (phonograph record) stuck on the phrase, "go to
hell." I was dozing at the console and wasn't aware of the sticky message
until the phones started ringing!
Then there was the ongoing "we hear next" inside joke. That came from Ray's
catch phrase in introducing records in automation, "We hear next." Within
the monitoring technology of the automation equipment, his disembodied voice
coming out of a pre-recorded commercial cart would fill the AM control room.
This was the rather jarring signal for the engineer running the console in
the control room to log the time and the spots, since AM kept track of the
FM program log during the weekdays, as well as on the weekends.
Thus, our AM colleagues adapted "we hear next" as a running gag. I can hear
it now. Long after the rest of the staff left the building, the AM announcer
would sometimes wait by the door of the FM control room and sneak in behind
me when I was on the air, whispering, "We hear next," imitating Ray's Minnesota
nasal baritone. It invariably made me laugh, since I have no composure for
jokes.
HARBINGERS OF CHANGE
Things were going well for WLOL-FM during 1974. It was going so well that
we showed up quite well in the Arbitron listener ratings in the second quarter
for the first time. Ray was able to sell more time, and we all sounded a
little happier on the air. In the next Arbitron, we slipped a bit, but it
was all right, going into Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Then around the middle of January, 1975; Ray told me, most seriously and
cryptically, "If I were able to sell out all the time on all the breaks inside
all the hours, we would still only gross (he gives a $ amount here, which
I figured was rather respectable.) However, I was not actively involved in
sales. He repeated what he had just said. I shrugged and we both went back
to work.
It wasn't until I sold radio time several years later did I know what he
meant. Grave concern for sales after the first of the year might well spell
"format change" or "station sale." By summer of '75 when a consultant was
hired and thereafter when new automation decks were installed, was I finally
told that the FM format was changing. By then, I finally connected-the-dots
from all the hints given me!
A CHANGING MARKET
Thus one of the oldest FM stations in Minneapolis/St. Paul, and the first
commercial all-classical FM station in the area, would change its format
to beautiful music. Why?
FM radio ownership was no longer a matter of a breaking even or just making
it in sales. FM had matured to a viable commercial radio enterprise. Adding
to the mix was the competition. Previously the only heads-on competition
was St. Olaf College's WCAL AM & FM, later WCAL-FM, Northfield, Minnesota,
which broadcast a combination of classics and public affairs. KUSD-AM, the
University of Minnesota, broadcast even fewer classics, in their mission
to provide a mix of public affairs, education, and classics.
But the most formidable force was KSJN, St. Paul, the flagship station of
MPR (Minnesota Public Radio), which was expanding their radio empire via
additional stations around the state. Their bulwark was the classics network
feed, which originated at KSJN. In fact, if you're driving around the U.S.
today, you may very well tune in the vast MPR network affiliates, carrying
classics originating at KSJN.
The other factor that spelled format change for WLOL-FM were the aggressive
promotion and fund raising tactics of MPR, which built a massive listener
loyalty. MPR listeners felt they were a fundamental part of this public radio
service. And they were treated to discount tickets to concerts and retail
stores.
WLOL-FM had only the free listeners program guide, and there was no talk
about any other business tie-in, promotions, T-shirts, or coffee mugs!
And what of the beautiful music that replaced two full-time employees and
one part-timer? Well, that lasted several years, after which, WLOL-FM was
sold. And the irony! What goes around, comes around -- as the old saying
goes. For today, the same old 99.5 MHZ WLOL-FM spot on the dial is now KSJN,
the home base of Minnesota Public Radio! And sister station WLOL-AM, 1330
on the dial? It's now WMIN-AM, the all-news station of MPR.
ON COLD WINTER NIGHTS
Sometimes on cold winter nights, when I miss working at the little cubbyhole
studio where we worked so hard to keep a good on-air classics sound, I wonder
whatever happened to all those ancient memos, sales contracts, equipment,
and tapes? Perhaps one of those old tapes, still tucked away in a corner,
was an audition tape from Jim Stokes or Ray Ose?
WANT TO KNOW MORE?
This account of what it was like to work at WLOL-FM classics is one of several
adventures I had in radio before and after this station. In fact two years
later, I joined Ray at KTWN-FM for our last go-around in Twin Cities classical
music radio. If you enjoyed my adventures at WLOL, KTWN had its own quirky
milieu of a radio tower in a swamp, snowed-in roads, strange listeners, stranger
music requests, bizarre sales calls, and great expectations at the last Twin
Cities commercial classical station. And like WLOL's sister AM operation,
KANO-AM was the kibitzer of KTWN!
That account, along with my other adventures in radio from the 60s through
the mid-70s is in "A Radio DJ Life." Here are only some of the bizarre and
hilarious happenings, including "the record that would not die," "the snarling
tiger in the sales office," and "the falling tape machines."
My years spent in radio (and television) were unlike any other work. It's
not so much a job, as a lifestyle. There were times when it was if I were
in a movie, but it was real life!
Speaking of movies, I've also written/directed/produced "Beethoven's Tenth,"
an action/drama about two musical sleuths who find the lost Tenth Symphony
of Beethoven. It has an original score in the style of Beethoven's music.
Copies are available.
For details on all of the above, please E-mail me at
"jstokes@mninter.net".
Return to Part 1 Part
2
