Legendary General Managers

[Tim Coco]

I worked for Ed Cetlin from 1978-1980 and he was, um, eccentric shall we
say. Many years after‹and, perhaps, because time does heal all wounds‹I
came to better respect and understand him. He managed to make what was
then a 1,000-watt day/250-watt night MOR station profitable. It was a feat
the original owner, the Haverhill Gazette could not accomplish. To this
day, Tom Bergeron, who received his start at WHAV, almost perfectly
impersonates Cetlin¹s voice and mannerisms. Bergeron tells the story of
how Cetlin chewed on the end of his glasses and then said, ³Tommy, that
was the worst thing I have ever heard in all my years in radio.²




On 5/30/14, 11:38 AM, "Linc Reed-Nickerson" <linc45r-n@lincster.com> wrote:

>In the northeast we had some legendary general managers.... I guess that's
>both good and bad.
>
>Three that come to mind are: J. Thomas (Joe) Mathers of WNBP, Newburyport,
>Ed Cetlin of WHAV in Haverhill, and James F. O'Grady of WALL in
>Middletown,
>NY.  There were others I'm sure... These guys were "characters, to say the
>least.
>
>On the other hand there were some really good managers like Irv Kaizer,
>who
>replaced Mathers at WNBP, I knew him there and at WEMJ.  Ralph Gottlieb at
>WKBR, willing to help those who wanted to get into the business... and so
>on.
>
>I'm sure we all have tales, both good and bad that might be fun to
>share....
>
>Best Joe Mathers story.  I got a call one day about going to the
>transmitter
>and getting the cows out of the field... what cows.  I call Gene Gerry who
>was the announcer at the time.  He says, yes, listen... he had one of
>those
>devices that when you tipped over it would moo.  When Mathers had called
>to
>ask why he was hearing cows, Gene told him he had driven by the
>transmitter
>and seen cows in the field.  To the best of my knowledge there were never
>any cows grazed there... ever.  But I took the call, went to the
>transmitter, and got paid for the "emergency call' for disbursing the
>imaginary cows.  I think it was $20 I was paid for a call in. This
>happened
>several times in the summer of 1964... damn was that really 50 years ago!
>  
>
>There have got to be some other great stories out there, and some, I'm
>sure,
>have Tom Shovan somehow involved.  Then there was the prank we pulled on
>WLNH...
>
>Linc  
>
>