"Because they think it will get them laid," replied Laura Wilkenson when I queried aloud about the seeming preponderance of dumb bastards who owned radio stations. Laura was not only a talented radio personality she was also someone to count on for a non-PC, BS-free analysis of almost any subject. She went on to expand on her theory by explaining that "guys with money know they can pick-up more women by telling them they own radio stations than they could by bragging about their chain of nursing homes." As I mentioned, she never pulled her punches and was wicked smart. I'll always be grateful to Laura and her then husband, "Fuzz", for getting me back to San Diego after spending five years surfing the dial on my "West Coast Tour" of radio stations.
The Communications Act of 1996 ushered in an era of massive consolidation of radio and television companies that effectively drove a stake through the heart of the smaller broadcast operators who owned only a few properties. Today only three or four outfits own most all of the radio stations and the emphasis has shifted from SHOW business to BUSINESS. Where once the lunatics ran the asylum, the accountants now hold sway. At the time, I actually thought things would be better. If you've listened lately, you know they're not.
Ah, but let's get back to my story from the days when an insane person could be a radio ringmaster.
At the time Laura and I were working together, the station, an oldies formatted AM & FM, had just been purchased by a chain headquartered out of Phoenix. The company had several stations located in good quality major media markets and the owner was the son of a man who had been a huge radio celebrity in Minneapolis/ St. Paul. He had made his fortune in the soft drink bottling business but, probably for the precise reason Laura described earlier, wanted to be in broadcasting. Okay, that's fine.
Here's where he F' ed up: He turned the operation of the company over to one of the most incompetent nincompoops ever to darken the door of a radio station. This clown, we'll call him "Jimmy", had been running the Phoenix operation for awhile and somehow convinced the "Big Guy" to let him run the entire corporation. Naturally, once he got the owner drunk enough to hand him the keys to the kingdom, Jimmy moved the company headquarters to San Diego. As near as anyone can tell, that was the last smart decision he ever made.
Jimmy arrived in San Diego with an entourage of desert rats that included several drinking buddies, more than a few hookers, an engineer sporting a sub 100 IQ and a GED in electricity, and his coke dealer. It was a circus of horrors. Within a few weeks he was well on his way to demolishing both the AM and the FM. The man meddled in everything from sales to engineering and programing with a tsunami of ludicrous ideas. One of his promotional "strokes of genius" that initially looked like a fairly good idea turned into merely a stroke thanks to Jimmy's hands-on oversight. The "Mustangs or Money" promotion involved those of us on the air soliciting phone calls and inviting listeners to, by hitting a number on their touch tone phone, win their choice of either cash or a classic Ford Mustang. The cars had supposedly been secured from a reputable auction house in Phoenix and initially looked like dandy rides when they were unloaded and displayed in front of the radio station. Things went downhill from there. Because we were an "oldies" station which featured mostly 1960's hit music, most contest winners were claiming the dream 1960's era Mustangs as a prize. So far, so good.
The trouble began as winners drove these newly won treasures off the lot. Brakes often failed at the first intersection, lights didn't work, convertible tops flapped in the wind and--biggest problem of all--when listeners attempted to register the cars at the California DMV, they discovered that the cars were HOT. Most of the vehicles had either been reported stolen in Arizona or had been relieved of their serial numbers by a chop shop. WAY TO GO JIMMY!!
Within a year most of us on the air had been fired to make way for cheaper help as Mr. Wonderful continued to work his Midas touch in reverse and, not by coincidence, had implemented his genius on company properties in Seattle, St. Louis, Denver and other cities as well. The man had managed to wreck the entire stable of stations and was finally shown the door. While most all of the folks he fired wound up with better jobs at other places on the dial, a few of us at a competing station that demolished Jimmy's masterpiece in less than six months, the last report I had on "the Jimster" he was reputed to be doing termite inspections in Phoenix. It makes me smile to picture the good-for-nothing bastard covered in dust on his belly in a crawlspace looking for insects not unlike himself.
By the way, if you were lucky enough to have been a winner of one of those "classic" HOT Mustangs, you might want to get that transmission checked.
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