As a companion to the broadcast school thread, who (names optional) taught you the least, or set your career track back the most?

I had a PD who got pissed when I pointed out that, in a spot for a hardware store, he talked about a 'veritable speed drill' on sale. He couldn't get his mouth around 'variable.'

One guy I didn't work for put his name on everything -- including the sign off.

Another guy didn't believe in VU meters, saying the limiter would take care of it. Only trouble was, this was in the production room where he would pin the needle into distoration, and cart it up that way.

The PD who would pray for parking spaces when we drove to lunch.

I'm sure we got a million of 'em...

At my very first station we had to rip and read our own news...you put your newscast together while you were doing your show. Here's the topper: When you read the news you had to open the door to the room behind you so that the sounds of the AP and UPI wire machines could be heard during your newscast. When the news was over you closed the door until your next newscast.

I'll bite. I've been lucky but there were a few.

Had a 50KW AM station mgr in a top-10 market who thought the sound of the pattern change was a splice on a cart, and reamed out the morning drive air staff on the hotline--even though, either way, they didn't have anything to do with it.

Had a news director who was also the airborne traffic reporter who would lose his temper and chew out staff members--on the actual air.

Had a GM who made a point of blowing cigarette smoke at employees, including one who'd just been discharged from a week in the hospital with pneumonia (namely me).

The worst managers I've had are invariably rookie managers, drunk on power, and intent on flexing their newly-erected muscle. The good ones listen, give you help and guidance when needed, and let you do your job. That's mostly what I've had.

Everyone has so far avoided naming names. I think this is a VERY good idea!

Not too terribly long ago a major company RVP complained that, when listening to one of the Portland stations online, all of the commercial stopsets were filled with psa's. He raged at the GM that "someone was asleep at the switch!" We then politely informed him that all online stopsets were controlled by corporate. He never apologized.
When I was starting out a few years ago, one of my production assignments was to sit in a studio with Tom Shane while he extemporized about the jewelry business. We'd use up at least a ten inch reel of tape. Then he'd leave and I'd edit three or four spots out of the mess and add the location tags and make 12 dubs for distribution around town. I made $3 an hour at that time. I have never worn jewelry to this day!

At the university station where I started, we had a volunteer who had a reputation for being mentally unstable. I believe that he might have suffered from a paranoid personality disorder. He would almost randomly blow up at people, accusing them of trying to sabotage him or that they were laughing at him behind his back. He had a seeming inability to understand the consequences for his actions. For instance, he once told me that he had been put on suspension at work because he threw a cup of coffee at his boss. However, he couldn't understand why he was being treated so severely, as the coffee he threw wasn't hot.

Once upon a time I worked for a station cluster where there was an internal political controversy that developed amongst the administrative staff from the General MGR to the Engineer to the PDs. It polariized much of the other staff including yours truly. I was in one camp and the Chief engineer was in the other. I was just in programming at that time, didnt do any tech work then.

The "Chief" thought it was great fun there for a few months ( BEFORE he got FIRED BTW. ) to sit at home and dial his phone , access the transmitter remote control, bring up the Plate V and hit "# 12 #" and off the air I went. And he liked to do this when I was in a live break of course.

Unprofessional BUTTPIPE !

I thought I had heard all the engineering pranks but that one was the best.

That's not an engineering prank, that's just counter productive to the whole situation. Engineers like that give a bad name to a group that is ever shrinking due to consolidation of ownership.
It's bad enough when you really get knocked off the air and the xmtr won't easily reset and the site is 30 minutes away.

I was doing a proof of performance once at 3 in the morning, and the all night jock asked if he could go nap in the huge office supply closet. I said sure, I'll wake you when I'm close to being done. I was measuring AM noise on a dual cabinet FM RCA, standard fare for full power FM's at that time. I was doing a proof at the studio, having already done one at the transmitter site (taking the best numbers of course). You can't really measure some things on a remote mod monitor, and AM noise is one of them, but anyway I was proving that to myself. The AM noise numbers were way high but I was almost done and had otherwise good numbers (OK OK, usable numbers) from the xmtr site proof ...so I woke up the all night jock and said it's almost time, but I need your help first.
"Can't I get some coffee" he asked. I said, no, this first, so I can disconnect all this stuff (the audio set was plugged into the mic input anyway). I gave him a hunk of coax that was connected to the gear and said "Watch that meter there, and wiggle the coax until the reading is as low as possible and when you get there, hold it, and yell to me at the rack. I'll go put up a fresh pot." "Can't you do that?" he chimed. "No, I have to go watch another meter in the rack and I'll put up the coffee on the way back." So a full 5 minutes later I came back in and he had taped the cable to the upper cabinet and fallen back asleep in the chair. So I plugged in and cracked the mic, did an ID and rolled a tune and woke him up and said "You're On."

Yes younguns, there used to be a (semi)warm body in that room 24/7. I know, hard to believe.

I have plenty of war stories, but none that I felt taught me nothing or hindered my career. Congress and the President have done way more to stifle my career in broadcasting than any one working in the industry. Radio people are for the most part good folks. Even the occasional clueless manager or the jock that couldn't care less except for the sound of his own voice never really got in the way of doing my job. Now, TV, that's another story.

Well, the Govt was probably the most hindering factor of my career, setting the stage for the one and only time I lost a job in radio! It was a budget "realignment". My salary was to be used to restart a news department that corporate had killed two years earlier. It fizzled after a few months, and I presume, corporate kept the money after that.

That's business, I guess...

Then there was the GM that couldn't write ad copy to :30 or :60. Everything was :45, regardless of how much time was paid for.

Some years ago, a participant on rec.radio.broadcasting had a funny engineering story about the loudness wars on WLS when that station was Top-40. I can't locate this old post, so I will try to relate what I remember of the story.

The program director continually nagged the engineer, asking him to tweak the station's audio to make it sound louder than that of competing stations. The engineer came up with an idea that he thought might shut the program director up...he opened up one of the modulation monitors, disconnected the meter movement and connected the meter to a potentiometer and battery. He set the potentiometer to get a reading of 100%.

After doing this, he approached the program director and said something like, "I've been working on the station audio, and I think that now it would be hard for any of our competitors to sound louder than we do." He then showed the program director the modulation monitor, with the needle steadily pointing to 100%. According to the story, this kept the program director happy for quite some time!!

For a while in the 80's, KRCK was so overprocessed, their mod monitor looked just like that. Sounded like a stick in the mud, but all they played was nonstop buzz saw anyway.

In the fall of 1978 I got a very valuable lesson about how its better to be lucky than good. We had been on the air at KITI-AM in Chelalis for about a year when we got a call late in the afternoon from a woman who asked for someone we didn't know. She explained that he was the Seattle FCC field agent. She quickly hung up when she realized he wasn't there and that she had given us a heads up about an impending inspection. Apparently he got delayed at a stop in Olympia. We were going to be in deep trouble because since we signed on the station we had not done one single log correction and don't even ask about our public file! I along with Derek Shannon, Roger Dale, and Joe Fiala spent all night getting things straightened out. When the inspector arrived the next day he seemed very surprised that he could find nothing wrong. I'll always wonder if the secretary who called ever told him about her mistake.

The posts about Dr Swenson at KBPS reminds me of the time in the early 80's when the local FCC inspector stopped by the Benson studios. The good Dr's right hand man, Darrell Conser, was off that day and she could not tell the inspector where the station's public file was. To try and ease the situation Dr Swenson sent a student down to the Benson cafeteria to get one of the big chocolate chip cookies they baked every day. She offered it to the inspector, who accused her of trying to bribe him! He wrote up a whole laundry list of infractions with fines totally thousands of dollars.

Dr Swenson didn't think she had done anything wrong and so she called her good friend Senator Bob Packwood, who at the time sat on the committee overseeing the FCC. She said, and I quote "Bob, can you help a damsel in distress?". Packwood called Mark Fowler, the chairman of the FCC and told him in no uncertain terms to "leave that poor lady alone." Fowler in turn called the Portland field office and told the inspector to tear up the citations he had issued. The poor guy just didn't know what hit him!

And we wonder why the FCC lost so much of their clout over the last 30 years ?

-As a companion to the broadcast school thread, who (names optional) taught you the least, or set your career track back the most?-

Two PD's that led me to believe that I was a key player on the team, but in reality, I was a huge threat! Heck, I had no idea I was being deceived by them, as I was always the most requested by sales and clients for remotes, all of the promotional ideas I implemented were STILL in use for years after I was forced out of each station, plus excellent ratings. I used to keep those handy for answering questions when it was brought up.

I actually left the radio business a few times due to the frustration of not getting work. See, I didn't know that they still continued the deception as they were constantly black balling me. However, thanks to a few VERY RELIABLE buddies still in radio, I eventually was informed of the "real" motive by those superiors and a couple of co-workers, since I was a real threat.

Half of them are out of the business now, and one I could have actually filed sexual harassement charges due to their verbal actions, which were documented, but I'm not the take 'em to court type. I did want to take 'em out back and beat the crap out of 'em, as I figured it would be a better way to save taxpayers any court costs. Unfortunately, they never joined me, probably because they heard about what happened to the guy who pulled a gun on me in downtown Portland and the guy who tried to knife me in Moskva after the fall of the wall. It also helps when you can't get that request on for the irritated listener.

A policeman actually asked me that one time after I had a guy held for ten minutes who had an arrest warrant for some serious violence. He said, "Did they teach you that in radio school?" I laughed and said, "Yes, Keith Allen had more radio street smarts than anyone really knew."

After realizing it wasn't me, and some encouragement from previous co-workers, other PD's, clients and listeners I would run into, I jumped back into the radio and TV game.

Having learned all the warning signs of those from the dark side, I only align myself with "key" energetic team players who realize the WHOLE team makes us all get farther. From the understanding GM, qualified engineer, eager salesperson, to the dedicated traffic director, imaginative production person or one shift a weekend part timer. ALL need to be eager to be part of the win, that's how you get to the Big Sunday, Series Playoffs, or WIN in your market book!

It's also nice to know I don't have to stay in radio, as I've been offered other greater positions in the world, but as we all know...

It's GREAT to work at something you really enjoy, especially when the environment is full of positive people, than to drudge along on something that just kills ya!

Even more coming back to me now...

Going for an interview in Medford and hearing a totally off-the-books live read for a Stingray for sale -- the GM's.

The GM/PD/jock/janitor coming in on Saturday to do live reads twice an hour for a local cheap sleazy furniture store.. and seeing some new furniture in his house a week later.

The PD who showed me the thick pack of nude photos of his girlfriend... with instruction to break into his office and get 'em if he's ever hurt in an accident.

Used to work under a PD that would call you in the middle of your shift and say "I NEED TO TALK TO YOU IN THE MORNING, THINGS ARE CHANGING AND I HAVE TO GET SOME THINGS CLEARED UP." Of course that kind of comment messes with your AIR-HEAD and you goof up, stumble etc.

The next day you would go into his office and he would chuckle and say "WE ARE CHANGING OUT THE PAPER TOWELS TO BRAWNY, ARE YOU ON BOARD?" A-hole!

After about the third time it would not work anymore, but what a joik! His initials are BL!

He sells Real Estate now.

I have heard some really nasty stories about the PD at NC 93. Its just hearsay. I remember hearing about how Matt James left due to some unfortunate run ins with Jim (weasal)Davis. Also read where the PD just signed a new contract that will keep him at McKenzie River until 2010. How unfortunate for everyone except for the morning show, which he doesnt control anyway.

HMM, the nameless PD who took a pocket knife and scratched it across the grooves of The Who's "The Acid Queen" cut on an EP they'd released, just to make sure none of the jocks played it by accident.

Thanks for that vote of confidence.

Almost forgot about the new PD I met while working some years back, who immediately upon meeting, informed me (he/she) was going to blow out four of the five on air staff. Yeah, mine was safe, and did manage to talk (him/her) out of not firing one of them. So just three were tossed.

Little did I know that (he/she) wanted to learn morning tactics so that eventually when (he/she) received all the info they needed, this person then used a lame back door intimidation factor with the GM, OM and DHR on a possible lawsuit threat if they didn't let me go. It was after (he/she) wanted some payroll information that (he/she) already knew about, but played the old "I'm your PD and need to know this information!"

You got it, after I told (he/she) with much hesitation, my paperwork was pulled out and that was the ONLY grounds for my departure. Had it all done before the owner showed up back in town. He found out when he was looking for me that morning to invite me golf and dinner that evening.

Eventually I learned this person was pretty much busted by the cops a few years later for some, well illegal thangs. Unfortunately, (he/she) is working again, but in a market farther away and will not leave that market, so... THE REST OF US ARE SAFE... FOR NOW?!

I'll be bold and name two:

Joe Nasty at KARO/KAAR in 1980. What a waste of breathable air!

And Mikel will like this one:

John Shay at KHSN in Coos Bay in the late '80s. No one could ever figure out just how much of his pay check ended up his nose. (Throw in Craig the cane=spanked GM as an dishonorable mention, right Mikel?!?!)

LOL Outsider - Yea, no kidding! I always wondered why he sniffed all the time. Sounded like he had a constant cold. I always thought it was the crappy dust filled carpet on the walls.

I remember I was on the board the day of the Indy 500. Panick was setting in as it was getting ridiculously close to broadcast time and I could not get the IMS Radio Network tuned in. So, I called Shay and he came in. Freshly showered, wearing a gallon of deoderant, but still looking like he hadn't slept in a week. He finally got the sat receiver set up properly less than five minutes before the race coverage was to start. The one and only time that butt head ever saved the day!

Imagine my surprise when I quickly became the 14th or 15th full or part time announcer in and out the door in ten months there, the day I walked into the studio while he was one the air and in sign language, indicated to him what I thought our position in the ratings should be.

I can't understand how they could have ever misinterperated that to mean anything else. Oh and to top it off, Finley, complete with cane and someone else, followed me all the way from the station to my apartment, to collect the station jacket I had, before they would give me my last check. I yanked the check out of his hand and threw the jacket at him. Definately a chapter of my broadcast career I wasn't sad to see end.

P.S.
I talked to Mike Royer on the phone last night. He says hi.

I was at a small town station and had to do a sunday morning show, and a client called up and said that he had spots that were supposed to go on that day. The problem is that I did not have the client listed on the stopset list that I was given, so I told him he needed to contact his salesperson about it.

The next day, I got reamed out by the Program Director because I was supposed to do something that he never told me to do. The guy is still the program director at this station, and he effectively killed my radio career.

That was a case of crap flows real fast downhill...and you find that malarkey in real small markets sometimes ...goddamned clients run the radio station , right down to the programming and whats on the station logs.

Whats the old chestnut...'small minds in small markets'..the trick is, most of us have spent time in small markets ...so its kind of like shooting yourself in the foot ever saying this one out loud ...

outsider:
in reference to John Shay.
In the short couple months I was at KHSN, JJ Jensen was pd and I was midday, john was pm drive.
I got a call from another station's owner offering me the PD job. It was a great chance and the best move of my career.
Mr. Shay was pissed for the entire time I was there finishing out my week. His jealousy was smokin! I felt sorry for him. So I never heard what happened to him, and now I assume from your post he became pd at some point?
Ya, the sniffing was always a weird thing wasn't it.

JJ Jensen was long gone before I ever arrived at KHSN. Shay (I once yelled out the studio window "JOHN SHAY IS GENDER NEUTRAL!" Afternoon guy Mike Royer was in the parking lot, trying to signal me that Shay was around the corner.)was p.d. when I was there.

Calling Shay "Mr." is being much nicer than he deserves. One of the things he did to me, was he kept leaving catalogs from the Hemlock society on my desk, even after I asked him not to. He was the equivalent of a human piece of crap.

The combination of Craig Finley and John Shay drove 14-15 full or part time announcers in and out the door in the 10 months I was there. When I was fired, I was the only air staff member still on the payroll from when I started the previous December. Even the Mike Symons-owned KBCH/KCRF (Which I left to go to KHSH/KOOS)wasn't as screwed up as things were in Coos-F***ing-Bay.