the old days: Jess Cain

[Dan Strassberg]

The Richmonds had a second station in the DC area--an FM almost two decades
before FMs became successful and profitable--WRNC (FM) licensed to Oakland
MD. Maybe WRNC eventually became WPGC-FM. Since Infinity now owns WPGC (AM),
I doubt that there is a WPGC-FM anymore; the calls have doubtless been
changed. But back then, WPGC (AM) was a daytimer and it probably made sense
to have the same calls on a station that was on the air at night. I also
don't know whether WPGC's increase to 50 kW-D happened during the Richmond's
ownership, but before the increase, WPGC was a 10-kW daytimer. It was and
still is licensed to Morningside MD. When the requirements for protecting
Canadian clear channels were changed, WPGC added night service with 300W or
something like that. Reportedly, a number of consulting engineers had said
that adding night service would take at least two more towers than the four
that the station already had. Glenn Clark of the Carl Smith Engineers in
Cleveland was allegedly the hero who came to the rescue. He designed a night
array that worked well from the existing four towers.

--
Dan Strassberg, dan.strassberg@att.net
eFax 707-215-6367

----- Original Message -----
From: "Donna Halper" <dlh@donnahalper.com>
To: "Doug Drown" <revdoug1@verizon.net>;
<boston-radio-interest@rolinin.BostonRadio.org>
Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2005 7:55 PM
Subject: Re: the old days: Jess Cain


> At 05:22 PM 8/27/2005 -0400, Doug Drown wrote:
> >While we're on the subject of the Richmond brothers (of WMEX), I've long
> >been curious as to who they were and how they got into the radio
business.
> >Donna, can you help me out?
>
> Maxwell (Mac) and Richard (Dick) owned WPGC in Washington DC back in the
AM
> top 40 era.  (If you are from greater DC, you recall that WPGC was
jokingly
> called the Pig and the other major top 40, WCAO in Baltimore, was called
> the Cow.) I believe Dick Richmond had a legal background.  Mac was a
> businessman.  He was also notoriously cheap, as many who worked for him
> will attest.  They bought WMEX from the Poté brothers in the summer of
1957
> and proceeded to turn it into a major force in top 40, home of Arnie "Woo
> Woo" Ginsburg and many other famous (and nearly famous) jocks.  The place
> was a revolving door-- low pay and Mac meddled in everything-- but for a
> time, it was quite influential in breaking new music.  (It also got
accused
> of taking payola-- the Gold Platter show, it turned out, really did expect
> record companies to pay if they wanted their song to be the Gold Platter
> that week-- the song that was chosen by the staff to be destined for
> stardom...)  So what do you wanna know about the Richmond brothers?  I've
> got all sorts of articles about them...
>
>