Burns and Jackson

[Bud Yacomb]

Burns came to WEEI  Boston from WBAL in approximately 1967-68, lasted one
year and was not renewed. He replaced Benzaquin who went to Chicago.
Benzaquin came back to his old afternoon shift on WEEI and eventually copped
a TV gig on WNAC, which I recall correctly was after the failure of Dave
Garroway's Tempo:Boston.  The program manager of WEEI wnen Burns was hired
was Daniel Griffin who was also general manager of WRKO when  Burns landed
there.

Burns did the elements with fairly good precision, although he would
sometimes break format for dramatic effect, on one occasion delaying the
news by close to a  half hour to keep an argument going.

He was pretty good at milking quarter hours, although not as good as Whitley
who has to be among the best at using formatics for its intended purpose
than anyone. When it comes to dragging an audience for "one more" quarter
hour and hitting the calls hard right at :14, ;29, :44 and :59 when diaries
are supposed to be recorded, Whitley was an absolute master  (and yeah, most
diary-keeepers filled them out the night before they mailed them back, but
any who played by the rules got a reminder every quarter hour, just before
the quarter hour about what and to whom they were listening, usually
accompanied with a teasing though or two designed to drag them into another
quarter hour.)  The only thing that came close to working the format the way
it was designed in Boston was Dave Supple hard-selling the cash-call amount
with calls and exhortation to "write it down" at the precise  right times to
jar the contentious diary-keeper to do the right thing and write down WHDH
in the book.