Re: Globe on John Garabedian

["Kevin Vahey" <k-vahey@attbi.com>]

Arnie Ginsburg had a nice chunk of 66 as well didn't he?




On Fri, 31 Jan 2003 11:42PM -0500, DonKelley@aol.com wrote:
> Ok - here's the actual story on John Garabedian.  He started at WMRC 
> (1490) in Milford in 1958.  Moved on to WORC as Johnny Gardner in the 
> early 60's. By 1964 he was at WMEX as Johnny Gardner, doing 1-5AM.  He 
> followed Jerry Williams and switched off with Fenway (Jack Gale, I 
> believe, was Fenway at that time).
>
> In 1965 he left to go to WPTR in Albany.  By 1969 he was back at WMEX 
> doing afternoon drive as John H. Garabedian.  Dick Summer, I believe, 
> was PD at the time.  WMEX called itself "The Human Thing."
>
> By 1971 John had become PD at WMEX.  The ID featured "Also Sprach 
> Zarathustra" from the "2001: A Sapce Odyssey" soundtrack with John's VO 
> "Changes...and you have found the new....music!"  WMEX either beat or 
> put a big dent in WRKO that year.
>
> Mac Richmond died, and Bob Howard came up from WPGC to run WMEX.  It 
> was Bob who fired John in late 1971.
>
> In early 1972 John became National PD (there's a title you never hear 
> anymore!) for Knight Quality Stations.  He was simultaneously working 
> on the launch of his own station, WGTR (1060) in Natick.
>
> WGTR went on in November, 1972.  The call letters were inspired by a 
> combination of WPTR (he always liked those calls) and a billboard on 
> Route 9 in Southboro for a tire made by General Tire & Rubber called 
> the GTR Grabber.
>
> John ran WGTR from 1972 until 1982, when he sold it to Pat Whitley. He 
> had also put on an FM station on Nantucket, and got a CP for a UHF TV 
> station in Marlboro.
>
> He did some part-time on-air work at Kiss 108 and WBCN.  During that 
> period he sold the Nantucket station for a big profit and went to work 
> on launching V66.
>
> When Pat Paxton came along looking for a local outlet for Home Shopping 
> Network he paid big bucks for V66.  John used that money to launch City 
> FM and SuperRadio.  I go could on for another five pages.
>
> One of these days I'll share the story of how John Gareabedian had a 
> national copyright on the phrase "on-line" back in 1973.