Re: WIRY and WENT

["Peter Ferrand" <pete@vermontel.com>]

Gavin Burt writes:
- -
>Burlington, Vt.  One station that really reminds me of WIRY is WENT (AM
1340
>Gloversville, N.Y.).  WENT is all live and local, still uses records, and

Been a long time since anyone mentioned WENT. I used to work there in the
mid 70's and though the ownership has changed, and probably nearly
everything else except the equipment (!) I'm glad it's still doing its
thing.

WENT was the prototypical small local MOR/CBS affiliate back then, with its
little art deco era building and transmitter in a little house in the back.
One production room, one control room, a newsroom and a closet for the wire
machine. Gear was all Collins, a nice touch in an area where GE
predominated.

There was lots of local sports and coverage of the parades and Polish
programming on Sundays. The station had an extremely high allegiance in the
town, and a good relationship with the advertisers - even regional discount
stores would run schedules and regular promotions.

I enjoyed working there because the co-owner/manager, Larry Peck, knew what
wanted to do and treated everyone decently and in a straightforward manner.
He took over the station as an amateurish, disorganized operation and
completely cleaned it up, and not just by putting me on the air....

It was 1KW day / 250 night back then, too. Whenever I drove away I had the
feeling I actually had had an audience and had made a difference to them,
which has not been the case in too many situations before and since.

One odd note - since the Albany ratings were pretty much meaningless to
local advertisers, the station paid a ratings company just to do ratings in
the Gloversville-Johnstown area. It came back with WENT having an audience
share of something like 80%, WGY with 10-15% and the rest scattered. Larry
was *really* upset, he told me "I paid thousands of dollars for this and now
I can't use it, 'cause nobody will believe us."


- -Pete

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