Re: NYTimes article on John R. Gambling

[dan.strassberg@att.net]

I think the possibilities for Gambling come down to WABC 
(yeah, right), WEVD, WBBR, and WNSW. I don't know Bill 
Mazur's age and whether he is a WEVD employee or if he 
leases and resells the time. If he's an employee and is 
ready to pack it in, Gambling would be a natural 
replacement--assuming that WEVD could come to terms with 
him. If Mazur leases the time, I guess that all Gambling 
would have to do is make WEVD a better offer.

I'm sure that if Gambling wanted to lease AM drive on 
WNSW, Arthur Liu would listen attentively to an offer. I 
suspect that WNSW is just a drain on the profits from 
Liu's leased-ethnic stations. Leasing out AM drive to 
a "general audience" program could be a way of appearing 
to keep the faith with the audience he is allegedly 
courting while making a buck at the talent's expense.

However, until I hear something different, I'm going to 
keep my money on WBBR.

As for WOR's frankness in discussing the reason for 
Gambling's departure, I'd call it either dumb or 
disingenuous. If the plan is to hang onto the existing 
audience and try to use it as a base to build on, the 
statement was dumb because it antagonizes the 
listenership--not just to what was Gambling's program 
but to the whole lineup.

You can bet that in the cutthroat New York market, a 
station that senses that WOR's audience is up for grabs 
will close in for the kill. #13 may not sound great, 
especially when the demos are wrong, but it probably 
sounds like heaven to WEVD, WBBR, and WNSW.

If WNSW would proceed with its plans (currently at least 
on hold) to move to the WPAT site and increase to 50 kW, 
they might even have a competitive signal. Of course, 
for that plan to work, the upgrade would have to be 
completed sometime before the end of the third 
millennium. I wouldn't hold my breath.

On the other hand, the statement might have been a 
disingenuous attempt to badmouth Gambling to prevent 
some other station from picking him up and attempting to 
compete with WOR. If so, why would another station care 
what WOR said?

I sure wish that Gene Burns weren't on vacation. He left 
WOR in a huff 10 years or so ago and made his way to San 
Francisco. I can't imagine that Burns has much love for 
certain individuals at WOR, especially our newsgroup 
buddy, Rich (that's how it's gotta be because that's how 
it is and it wouldn't be that way if it didn't have to 
be) Wood. Wood seems fixated on the idea that whoever it 
was who had the last good idea had that idea well over 
50 years ago. It would be interesting to get Burns's 
take on the goings on at WOR.

>         I am intrigued by what Mr. Gambling will do now, as well as about
> what WOR will do now. The way radio has changed, even in the #1 market,
> there seem to be limited possibilities for him. Time will tell. He really
> was the last show in NY that more or less resembled the old-time morning
> shows, although, of course, he had stopped playing music. IMO, you can make
> a general analogy that the last vestige of that sort of show on a major
> station in Boston ended when Dave Maynard retired from WBZ. And it ain't
> coming back.