Yes, this is another Encore of a Musings first posted more than five years ago.
Using that old phrase … ” in spite of the best-laid plans of mice and men,” what I had planned for this space today did not come together as needed.
Hence, I turn to another WRFM-related story, which follows the one titled “55 years ago” by about 18 months, placing it in the Fall of 1970.
In that span of time, WRFM had moved up the ratings ladder from being virtually at the bottom among the 25 or so stations being included at the time in the Arbitron ratings report to where the station sat regularly among the top five in rankings.
Ads and imaging phrases like this one were meant to seal and solidify WRFM’s place within the minds of greater New York radio listeners and music lovers.
Before I leave this part of the story … of the six gentlemen appearing in this subway car ad, four are no longer with us. I last saw Jim Aylward a few years ago after he had retired to Florida. I attended Ken Lamb’s memorial service in northern New Jersey just a few years ago. That’s where I saw Mitch Lebe, who is still active in radio, being heard on an irregular schedule on New York’s all-news stations, WINS and WCBS-AM. The remaining one, Murray Roberts, I’ve totally lost track is spite of extensive searches.
Not more than a few more months would pass before Arch L. Madsen, the President of WRFM’s parent, Bonneville International Corporation, would ask me to give up the managership of the station to take on a “bigger and better” role. While my musical programming and philosophy would remain in place on the station, Bonneville owned several additional FM’s in other large markets … all of them needing help. In conversations, considering what was needed in added staffing and facilities … it simply made sense to offer our programming and consulting services to stations that did not compete with Bonneville-owned stations. As time went by, our list of client stations approached nearly 200!
I arrived at WRFM in late March 1969 as its new manager … at a time when the station desperately needed help. The “stars” I refer to are the people who made the station run, including the six shown in this 1970 poster ad, which appeared in New York subway system cars. Their stern looks are due, as the headline “The Radio Pollution Fighters” states, to the job they do.
These six weren’t the only ones, we had several others as well … most of whom I inherited, so can’t claim that I found them or discovered them “hiding out” at a small station in some rural community. Yet, they all played a notable role in the station’s success … which I was brought to the Big Apple to accomplish.
Ken Lamb, Jim Aylward, Murray Roberts,
Bill Calvert, and Mitch Lebe.
Let me identify this group: Clockwise from the left is Joe Losgar, who was the station’s chief engineer and had been since its beginnings in 1953. Joe was highly respected within the New York City radio engineering community … and the station was respected for having outstanding audio quality, which is to Joe’s credit. Joe is also remembered for giving many young folks a helping hand in getting a start in the radio engineering field.
Next is Ken Lamb, who was the popular afternoon host. His easy-going, relaxed style pretty much set the “tone” for the air staff’s presentation. One thing that always amazed me about Ken is how he could do voice breaks sounding so great while having a pipe in the other side of his mouth. He has since wisely quit smoking and is now an outspoken anti-smoking person. Over the years, Ken’s voice would be heard doing breaks on many of our Bonneville-formatted “beautiful music” stations across the nation, which did not have their own announcing staff. Later, Ken joined the announcing staff at ABC and, for many years, heard on various ABC TV shows.
Jim Aylward is up there in the back … if you missed the Musings devoted to Jim which appeared here a few weeks back, read it here.
On the right is Murray Roberts, who held down the position of afternoon news reporter at the time of my arrival at the third floor of 485 Madison Avenue, the famed address in the annals of radio history that now housed the studios of WRFM and its sister shortwave station, WNYW. However, under my re-structured format, having a news reporter on duty during these hours was a waste of great journalistic talent. As I wrote in my memoir, RADIO … My Love, My Passion, we transitioned Murray to the new position of Community Affairs Director, where it became his job to discern issues and problems within the Greater New York region that needed and deserved to be exposed and addressed, then to create brief reports which we aired several times each day — a position in which he excelled.
Next is the last to join the group, the gentleman with the glasses, Bill Calvert. When I arrived, the station had just one advertising salesman … and he primarily called on small businesses in Brooklyn, where he lived. As for securing advertising dollars from larger businesses with advertising agencies, WRFM wasn’t even considered, as the station’s listenership was minimal. However, as the end of 1969 arrived and we suddenly blasted into the Top 10 among all stations in the ratings, we needed to harvest the dollars that were becoming available to us. While corporate management put a number of restrictions on who I could hire, we were able to bring on Bill as sales manager. In previous years, he had been in management at our prime format competitor, WPAT, so had a good understanding of our format and knew his way around the ad agencies in New York.
Finally, there’s Mitch Lebe. I don’t remember all the details of Mitch’s hiring or how much experience he’d had prior, but — if I remember correctly — he came to me with the recommendation of another staffer at just the time we needed an all-night person who could handle news … I think we still had the Dolly Holiday program (read that story in the book, page 109) at the time. Today, Mitch’s voice is still heard on New York radio as a newscaster at WINS “10-10 Wins.”
& Mitch Lebe
This photo, taken sometime in the mid-1970s by Greg Katkowski, a Bonneville Broadcast Consultants employee for several years, shows two of the above individuals along with Joe Roberts, who was the morning host on WRFM during the time I was manager. Two things I remember about Joe is that when we began airing our music from tape rather than directly from LPs, I’d walk into the studio and find his cereal bowl sitting on one of the turntables. Secondly, Joe always took off Columbus Day. Since his real last name is Caputo, he had a regular date that day as one of the commentators covering the New York Columbus Day Parade, which was broadcast on WPIX Channel 11.
Just one more of my stories related to WRFM … the station that brought “true” beautiful music to New York City!
Marlin,
I was a fan of WRFM as a kid growing up on Long Island in the ’70’s, especially the Christmas Music they played. It’s almost impossible to hear great instrumental Christmas Music today. Its all vocal on the radio today, and most of it is pretty bad.
Thank you for writing, Louis – I suggest you go go Jibontheweb.com. It’s a fairly good replication of WRFM and similar stations from that era. This one is based on WJIB in Boston, where I was the founding music director before coming to WRFM in 1969. Marlin
Many thanks for any info you can give me
Wow WJIB FM in Boston I listened to WJIB back in the day Beautiful music D.J. Warren Schroger as well as WWEL and WSRS to name a few back in the 70’s era.
Good to hear from you, Stephen. I was WJIB’s first music director – setting the tone and structure of its sound – but departed in less than a year. However, when you listened to WWEL a few years later, that was my musical programming as well. By the way, Warren is doing a great job with his recreation of the WJIB “Marlin Taylor-inspired” sound on “Jibontheweb.com!
While in College I worked part time for WWEL at the studio with the green shag carpeting in Medford. Arnie GInsberg (the great Arnie) was the SM and due to staff shortages I worked 30 consecutive all night shifts including 8 hour shifts on the weekends. After doing that I vowed to never work at a BM station again but the memories were awesome for a Kid at Curry College– Chris Hall Engineer, Announcers Dan Leblanc, Mike Cahill, Quinton Migliore, are the one's I remember. "Transmitting from the Top of Prudential Tower to the Top of your Dial FM 108 WWEL.. Thank God I got back jocking in top 40 and CHR stations. I almost forgot how to do it after playing Bonneville reels of Percy Faith and Montovanni for a year!! Also Im scared to admit it but but after the first few live five minute newscasts at 1255, 155, (well you know the rest- and thank goodness the production room wasnt locked).
Sad to report that Ken Lamb passed away late 2021 in New Jersey
I worked at WRFM from 1970 to 1973. I remember everyone in these photos. I loved working there. Most fun I ever had. My office mates were Barbara Bowser and Delores. We were the billing and traffic department. So glad I found this article. I am so sad to hear that Ken Lamb passed away.
So nice to hear from you, Helene! Yes, those were great days, the station was riding high … in many ways, I consider this a true highlight in my radio career!
What happened to the beautiful easy listening music station of WRFM Stereo 105,in New York City-It was the nicest and the best radio station for easy listening music in New York City-I and my mother used to listen to the Jim Aylward show every weekday morning,from 6am to 9am – It was very very nice!
Benito,
Sadly, WRFM and most other stations across the nation which aired the format, between advertisers not wanting to by ad time on stations which appealed to older listeners along with station management which didn’t particularly care for the style of music being played, decisions were made to change to a different type of programming.
It’s my opinion that WRFM could have carried on for several more years and remained successful if there had been committed and competent management in control and there had been some content adjustments made that would have brought the sound in better alignment with changing audience tastes, which I believe could have been made without alienating the listenship.
Were the WRFM/WNYW studios at 485 some of the same ones that CBS used before they moved?
While the stations occupied pretty much the entire 3rd floor of 485 Madison – and did so, at least WNYW, a good three years prior to my arrival … I’m pretty certain the entire building was gutted after CBS moved out and sold the building. Plus, there were no other broadcast-related entities in the building during my time there.
Our space on the 3rd floor was laid out not as part of a larger operation, but for the needs of just two stations. As I remember, we only had three control rooms and a couple of small adjoining studios.
I would say that the reason the stations ended up at 485 Madison – other than there being space available at the time needed – was that Arch Madsen, the President of parent-company Bonneville International, had great admiration for the CBS organization and management + the Company’s AM and TV stations in Seattle and Salt Lake City were longtime CBS affiliates.