Re: Globe on John Garabedian

[Ron Bello <RBello@BelloAssoc.com>]

>
>>To me one of the great mysteries is how Westinghouse had no clue what to 
>>do with 106.7.
>
>Yeah, it was understandable in 1971, but by the late 70s the writing was 
>clearly on the wall, but WBZ-FM was still just a boring automated 
>jukebox.  From what I heard, no one at 1170 SFR cared.

I was at SFR in 75-76.  By that time Clark Smidt, Ken Shelton and intern 
Vinnie Perruzzi
had quite a following with little / no support from management.  The 
automation unit,
Bozo, was located in the back of AM master control.  No one from 
engineering paid any
attention to Bozo short of smoke coming from it.  It was not unusual for 
the punch cards
that determined the programing sequence to get stuck in the card 
reader.  Only when the
alarm sounded and the default tape started playing would someone look over 
to see the problem.
They fixed the problem when it was convenient but not to soon.  Rarely if 
ever was Bozo cleaned.
Many slots in the cart rack did not work.  Norm Graham, the CE, didn't 
care.  There was no
cash flow from BZ-FM.  Part of the disconnect was that the TV techs watched 
the transmitter
in Needham.  The FM could be off the air and no one would know as Needham 
was watching
TV and AM master control was on WBZ 103 (as it was known in those 
days).  When some of
the young techs would start to clean Bozo's carts, the old techs would give 
us a hard time.

What is really sad is that even in 1981 when Westinghouse sold 106.7, they 
still did not
see the direction of radio listeners.