I was born in a great Radio Town; Jacksonville Florida. So it was only natural that I joined WUSC (AM at the time) in my first semester 1963. I went on to a career in commercial radio and television in Columbia, WCOS AM & FM, WIS-TV, WIS Radio, SCETV and PBS. I'm retired now, giving back since 2010 to the station that started my career, WUSC-FM. If you did the math you will know that I celebrated the 60th anniversary of my first radio show ever in November 2023.
Television is Different When I walked into WIS-TV’s Studio Facilities I recognized two old friends, Master Control sported a Gates board almost identical to the one we had at WUSC. The other audio board down in the production suite was also an old friend of the Altec knockoff the WUSC had of the ...
On to Television When I was just a tyke, I had an interest in everything electronic. If I came across some abandoned electronic device, I’d take it apart to see the components. This was before the days of circuit boards and underneath the metal plates upon which the tubes were mounted, I discovered ...
Let’s Get The News GuyWCOS, like many Top 40 stations in small and medium-sized markets did not have a dedicated news department. Each DJ read the news at 5 minutes until the hour and a half past the hour that the Associated Press wire service provided via a teletype machine (TTY). At about 15 minutes ...
Some Old Radio Gear This chapter is about some radio gear that was commonly used in the 60s but is rarely seen in radio control rooms today. These machines were the bridge between reel-to-reel tape machines and vinyl records and the computer-based audio files we use today. We’ll take them in chronological ...
The End of the Cruzin’ Era April 4, 1968, was a typical Thursday, but the world changed that day. I had distributed the paper copies of the WCOS Top 40, no longer the “Top 60 in Dixie” to the record and drug stores where they were ready to be picked up. I spent a few extra minutes talking shop ...
Friends and Competitors In 1965, besides WUSC the USC operated Carrier Current station on 730, there were only 6 AM stations in Columbia; WIS – 560 (Middle of the Road), WCAY 620 (Country), WNOK 1230 (Top 40), WOIC 1320 (R&B), WCOS 1400 (Top 40) and WQXL 1470 (CountryPolitan.) Two of those; WCAY ...
Records and Contests One of the hallmarks of Top 40 radio was getting the audience involved through contests, and boy, did we have contests at WCOS. But before you had contests you had to have prizes. The value of these prizes ran the gamut from “three records from the “WCOS grab bag” to a single ...
Old School Radio One of the hallmarks of medium and small market radio in the early 60s was small block programming elements. Typically these consisted of News, Weather, Sports, Lost Pets, Police Reports, and a “Swap and Shop” block. By the time I started at WCOS, the Police Reports, normally ...
The Cruizers The Nightbeat Show audience was a motley three groups, and I had to be careful to pay attention to all of them. There was the onsite audience, the customers sitting in their cars in the packed rows of teletrays. They were sending in their requests scribbled on pieces of paper, sometimes ...
Car Hops and BouncersLike so many other drive-ins, Doug Broome's had its own eco-culture, and I soon became a part of it. The two largest groups were carhops and customers. Smaller groups were managers and bouncers, and finally, there was me, who at first didn’t fit into any of them. The first ...
