In this edition of the Picture Show, I am going to follow through on something I promised eons ago … to show you larger and/or color images of the pictures that appear in my radio career memoir.
The one-and-only Ernie Kovacs grew up in Trenton, New Jersey, and gained his first radio job at his hometown station, WTTM. Soon after I received my first radio in the mid-1940s, I would discover that during the run of the New Jersey State Fair each year, WTTM would originate all of its programming from a booth at the Fair.
The stunt that likely put Ernie on the road to success was that during the Fair of 1949, Ernie would handle all of the programming originating from their booth throughout the eight-day period, Sunday through Sunday … meaning he “supposedly” would be awake for more than 168 continuous hours! However, WTTM was an NBC Radio Network affiliate, which meant that during much of the extensive schedule, which in those days was many soap operas through the day, along with all of the evening shows, during which Ernie was able to catch many cat-naps through many hours … although it can’t be denied, it was quite a feat!
Soon after this time, he caught the attention of the folks at Channel 3 in Philadelphia and began his successful career in television, first locally in Philadelphia and then nationally.
Although I have no photos from that era, Marlin’s career in radio also began in Trenton … not in Trenton as such, but with a Trenton radio station, WTNJ, engineering a multi-hour, two DJ Saturday afternoon show which lasted for the better part of a year, first from a car dealership, later from poolside at a swim club – both across the River from Trenton in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. I stayed with the station in various weekend positions until Uncle Sam came calling in the Spring of 1958.
When my Army service finished in 1961 … as detailed in my book and on this page, I was fortunate to secure my first full-time employment in the radio industry at a new FM in Bethesda, Maryland, WHFS. After two years, I saw a need for change and found another new FM that was awaiting someone to launch it, this one was WDVR in Philadelphia!
I became its first employee after seeking out the station’s owner, David L. Kurtz. After accidentally meeting Jerry Lee and learning where I was headed, he became
employee #2, the sales manager. Jerry proved to be very creative on that side of the fence as I was blessed to be in the programming area.
Jerry quickly signed a couple of advertisers, who, after a few months, one became nervous about his investing in this new station, as “he didn’t see the station having much visibility,” so a billboard campaign was launched!
As we needed to operate on a rather low budget, so we hired a group of young gentlemen who had a desire to be in radio as “board operators” – they would play the recordings and the recorded commercials and station IDs, but would initially do no announcing.
In Joaquin’s photo, if you wonder why the Mormon Tabernacle Choir recording of the Lord’s Prayer sits up on the control console … the answer is: In the early 1960’s, there were still stations which did not operate 24 hours day and the tradition was, going back to the early days of radio, that at sign off the National Anthem would be played. While we did not sign off, Dave Kurtz decided that he wanted the Lord’s Prayer to begin each new day, which we did just before 6 AM.
After three successful years, Marlin got itchy and sought out another opportunity … which proved to be one of my dumber moves – I responded to a classified ad and moved my family to Boston to work for this gentleman, T. Mitchell Hastings.
Upon arrival, I quickly learned that Mitch changed the game plan every other day, which was disastrous for everyone. After a year-plus of attempting to create some positive success, I was invited to join another FM, which was being re-launched as WJIB, as its Music Programming Director after being recommended by my longtime friend, Bob Richer, who was to be their national sales representative in New York.
Several years later, my wife and I would be back in Boston, likely to attend a Boston Pops concert – on the spur of the moment, I decided to visit WJIB and was welcomed in. Someone got the idea that there should be a photo taken of me sitting at my old desk, with General Manager Chuck Pickering and Operations Manager Don Nutting standing behind me.
My stay at WJIB was less than a year, for reasons I won’t get into, when Jerry Lee came calling, asking me to return to WDVR. As this would be beneficial for more than one personal reason, I chose to do so. Old itchy Marlin, after making quick work of cleaning up the issues for which Jerry needed me, it was time to again search the landscape for who could benefit from Marlin’s experience/expertise?
After reviewing the Arbitron ratings reports for New York City and Los Angeles, I chose two stations in each market, to which I wrote to the corporate heads of each station’s owner … telling them it was obvious their station needed help and I was the one who could get it done.
This led to one result and, after discussions and visits to the station, come the end of March 1969, I came on board as the Manager of WRFM in New York City and walked in the door of radio’s most historic address, 485 Madison Avenue.
You see, it had been the home of the Columbia Broadcasting System going back to its earliest days. Come the early 1960’s, CBS built a new headquarters elsewhere in the City. After the building was refurbished, Bonneville International, which had just become the owner of international shortwave station WRUL and WRFM, needed a NYC location for the two stations’ studios, and this building seemed perfect.
Of the four stations I targeted, WRFM really was the easiest one to fix … it was already airing a format within the realm of what I planned; it simply needed to be “cleaned up” and enhanced, plus some promotion. To make sure I was fully acclimated and that format changes and initial promotional plans were in place, we set the beginning of July for the launch.
One thing I discovered was that the station had a ton of advertising trade with publishers of industry/union and neighborhood publications – this led to instantly using this credit for this ad:
Quickly following was our dial card campaign … which we did in three different versions – NYC/Westchester County, New Jersey, and Long Island, as the two suburban areas had stations which were local to them and made no sense listing for the other areas. And, the introduction of the phrase, “Begin to like radio again.”
And, here’s how the backs of the cards looked:
Here are three of our on-air staffers: Joe Roberts Caputo, Murray Roberts, and Mitch Lebe.
Joe was in place as the morning hours host when I arrived and he stayed in that role, Murray Roberts was the afternoon newscaster which, under my re-structuring, we no longer needed; however, ownership had promised the Federal Communication Commission they would air a huge amount of news and public affairs programming, so I appointed Murray as our Community Affairs Director, for which he was supremely qualified and did an excellent job. Mitch Lebe was a new hire, as the station had been automated overnight, but with my changes, we needed a live host, which Mitch fulfilled.
At some point, I had a reason to hang around in the building’s lobby … so, while waiting, I looked at the building’s office directory. Lo and behold, what did I discover was that Mad Magazine had its offices in our building. Plus, the one-and-only Alfred E. Neuman had his own office! (If one were to investigate, they’d find that the number listed as his office did not exist!)
That’s all for now, folks! I have a couple more photos and stories from the WRFM era, but I’ll pick up with them when I share the second part, showing larger and/or color photos of those shown in my memoir.
Thanks for reading!
Image Credits: Ernie Kovacs courtesy of KYW-TV/WPTZ Philadelphia, Mitch Hastings courtest of Sam Kopper collection, Alfred E. Neuman courtesy of © TM – E. C. Publications, Inc.
