RADIO LIVES

[Donna Halper <dlh@donnahalper.com>]

Well, WBZ Radio was in commercials up to 30 seconds before the new year, 
but just in time, they got in there and wished everybody a happy new 
year... live.  It was so cool to hear real live announcers-- no offence to 
Bob Raleigh or Steve Leveille or Jordan Rich who have done a great job in 
that shift-- but I mean, there was an actual NEWS team on the air in the 
overnight.  It has been a long time since radio paid so much attention to 
overnights... but for this one night, radio was important, as important as 
TV, with the "big guns", the big names, the stars who report the news all 
the time.  I am sure Anthony Silva (and Jack too) would rather have been 
out enjoying the party, but as a radio person, I must say it was wonderful 
to hear them both.  It's always  great to hear Jack Williams (who sounds 
like he was born to do radio... that friendly, natural style so reminiscent 
of Larry Glick or Norm Nathan... and it was great to hear an overnight 
shift  with actualities, with up to the minute coverage of the non-event of 
Y2K... it was like going back in time to a world where radio really was the 
centre of it all and people couldn't wait to listen in.   I used to work 
every overnight of every major holiday-- Xmas, New Year, Easter, you name 
it-- and hearing these friendly voices made me proud that some Program 
Directors still understand how vital radio can be.   If only we could hang 
on to this-- if only we wouldn't go back to a world of satellite and voice 
tracking and the impersonal way of doing things that has hurt our industry 
during this decade.  Tonight, everything was local, and it 
worked.  Tonight, we heard radio the way it can be.  No, I don't expect a 
Jack Williams or an Anthony Silva every night, but at one time not that 
many years ago, the big names WERE on the air even during the overnights, 
and local stations competed for news and for whatever big events might 
occur.   I hear even WBZ's PD Peter Casey was there, holding down the fort 
with everybody else, in a who's who seldom seen late nights at a radio 
station... and somewhere, the late great John Shepard the 3rd is smiling, 
because perhaps in some small way, the concept of radio as your best friend 
has been re-asserted...  Happy 2000 and good health to all on the list.