Re: Globe on John Garabedian

[SteveOrdinetz <steveord@bit-net.com>]

  Joseph Pappalardo wrote:
>Here's what I read into the John H beating RKO story.  (I'm just speculating
>on some possible scenarios.)
>
>Dick Summer is PD of WMEX....He makes it into a 'touchy feely'
>station...gab, gab, gab..and the station starts to go into the toilet.
>
>John H becomes PD and plays the HITS...and the station bounces back.
>
>Now, as an aside, people always look to that year and that book as an
>indicator that 'MEX musta been doing some GREAT programming.  Maybe...but
>something inside wonders if WRKO was doing some HORRIBLE programming at that
>time in order for MEX to make some inroads.
>
>You can have a great team...and a great product.....but usually you need the
>other guy to drop the ball and give you an opportunity to show yourself.

And WRKO obliged.  As I recall, they removed their hitline and really 
tightened the playlist and presentation around that time.  The music scene 
was changing in 1971, WBCN was beginning to be a factor and John H. 
realized that there was a lot of good stuff out there that wasn't getting 
played on AM.  Bill Drake had a fairly heavy hand in WRKO's programming and 
Mel Phillips didn't have much freedom to adapt to a changing market.  WMEX 
took advantage of that.  Dunno what happened politically, but around Labor 
Day '71 WRKO made a lot of changes...some for the better, some not (imho, 
both stations went a bit overboard with AOR-ish stuff).  No telling where 
things would have gone had Mac not died.  WRKO remained very rock-leaning 
for a couple years, but sometime in 1973 rather quickly dumped most of that 
stuff along with PD Scotty Brink.  Have heard a couple explanations...one 
was that ratings weren't very good with the rock-ish format, another was 
that corporate management put their foot down and insisted on a more 
traditional Top 40 format.

Gotta admit, WMEX was pretty lame with Dick Summer as PD.  Thought he was 
great as a jock when he was on WBZ, but as PD he just didn't get it.  I 
think there was another PD between Dick S. and John at WMEX though...the 
"Human Thing" was gone by early '70, don't think John H became PD until 
sometime in 1971.