John Leslie: Talking About Radio

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  0:02  
The sound of podcast. The show about podcast and broadcast starts now.

Matt Cundill  0:13  
I had the joy this summer of discovering a new podcast called talking about radio with John Leslie. He spent 66 minutes talking to radio's best friend, art volo about radio, which is the exact same amount of time my episode with art volo went back in 2017

John has a remarkable radio story. Without giving it all away, you're about to hear from someone who was successful on the air and built a business through using the power of radio to build an incredible brand before we get underway. A reminder to pull up John's podcast talking about radio on your favorite podcast app right now and give it a follow. And now. John Leslie joins me from Winter Haven, Florida. Well, we always start with one question I think off the top, John, where does your radio story begin? It starts in about 1963 1964

John Leslie  1:05  
you know, like 80 million people who were listening to this right now, I always was interested in that the magic of listening to those far away stations, listening to WLS in Chicago, WBZ in Boston, you name it. Whoa in Fort. Wayne, that was all magic to me, and I don't know how many times I said to myself or even out loud, one of these days that's going to be me and I built a little three watt transmitter in my bedroom. It was not my intention to broadcast to the whole community. I only wanted to broadcast to Jackie sharp, who lived three doors up, and I'm not sure if she ever heard any of my broadcasts, at least you never mentioned it, but we did that. Anyhow, I didn't know what steps to take to get my foot in the door. Then magic happened. I went to a Catholic High School, and we were having a pep rally for football the beginning of the season.

And I was up in the bleachers during my high school years. Whenever there was MC work to be done on stage, I was always the guy, because I had the voice to do that. So anyhow, I'm up in the in the bleachers with everybody else, and here comes the principal walking over to me, and I thought, Here comes another Saturday detention. And she walked up to me and she said, the local radio station needs a spotter for the broadcast team for the football broadcasts. Would you be interested in doing that? I said, Would I and so that was my in. And I got in the door, and not only did I spot for our high school team, they also had me spot for the public school on the broadcast. And I hung around and hung around and got thrown out. And they told me, you know, the season is over, there's no reason for you to come back in. But they couldn't get rid of me, and eventually, after about a year, a year and a half of hanging around, they had an opening on Sunday, and we all started on Sunday afternoon playing the religious tapes. And I rode the board for Mike center, croppies, Neapolitan serenade. He played Italian music, and he would read a spot in Italian, and then I would read the spot in English, and that's what I did. And the only, the only real live work I got to do a sportscast, you know, later in the afternoon, and a little call out thing for a $5 prize for the steel mill. We had a big steel mill in our town, and I would call it random, and if they knew the safety slogan, they would win five bucks, and I'd worry about that for an hour, you know what? And as soon as I graduated from high school, I was a program director. Your first radio job was program director after high school, once I graduated and they hired me full time, they made me program director. What were the call letters? What was the station? It was W E, I R, in Weirton, W E, I R, T O, N, West Virginia. The city was named after Ernest T we're the founder of the steel mill, which employed 28,000 people. We were in the shadow of Pittsburgh, and it was just a great company, and they made specialty steel, and the workers were also very proud of the product that they made. They were instrumental in the war effort during World War Two. They made specialized cannon shells that landed on the spot they wanted it to land, let's say two and a half miles. Well, in order for it to land, two and a half miles, half miles, it had to weigh a certain amount. And the Defense Department would tell the mill, we need 100,000 shells that weigh this amount. And they were so pleased to be able to do that.

Matt Cundill  4:58  
I know people are listening to this and saying. Saying, How does this guy know so much about this? But you've done and been involved with the United States Marine Corps?

Unknown Speaker  5:06  
I was, yeah, I was a draft age. And during those years there was a draft the Vietnam war was going on. So a lot of my friends joined the Marine Corps. I don't know why. You know, maybe it was that steel mill mentality that they were stronger and ready to fight, you know, that kind of deal. And so I just followed the suit, and I knew that I was going to be drafted because I had a low number. So I went and I enlisted in the Marine Corps, and that was the biggest mistake I ever made in my life. As soon as I stepped off the bus at the training center in South Carolina, I said, Whoever thought this was a good idea, and I was injured during advanced infantry training, I had my orders for Vietnam when I stepped off the bus at Parris Island, they said, Welcome to the Marine Corps. Here are your Westpac orders. And so that meant that as soon as I graduated and went to advanced infantry training, that I would be shipped off to Vietnam, and I was injured, a piece of bone in my knee broke off, and so I was honorably discharged, and I am a disabled veteran, and that was like 20% so it's not that big a deal. I mean, there are guys that have far worse problems than me, so I did my thing, and then when I came back, I was very fortunate that I got a job immediately in radio. West Virginia is an interesting state. There are really some very good radio markets there, one of which is wheeling and with the famous wwva, 50,000 watt country music station. You could order your baby chicks to be shipped to you, and they would send you. If you ordered a dozen, they would send two dozen, because a dozen of them would be dead by the time they got to your house, you know. But I didn't, I didn't get a job at wwva. I was offered a job there at one time, but I went to work at a station, 500 watt day timer, WBZ E, not WBZ in Boston, but WBZ e in Wheeling West Virginia. And I was doing afternoon drive, and I was, you know, I was still like 18, right? And 19 years old. And my birth first name is Jan, J, a n, and I used Jan and my middle name Leslie. Jan Leslie for about eight or nine years, until I went to work up in New York, and they made me change it. But when I was at WBC, doing afternoons, traditionally, afternoon drive, guy had to use the name Mr. Busy. And boy, that was tough coming out of my mouth. Well, good afternoon, folks. This is Mr. Busy. And the music was not to my liking. It was an album oriented station. You know, we played Henry Mancini and Nelson Riddle and some Sinatra, but not very much, mostly instrumentals and and then I left there, and I went to WB, VP in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. Stop me anytime you're getting bored. This is a long story. It's totally

Matt Cundill  8:09  
fine. This is exactly the trajectory I wanted to take. But how did you go from a place that I know about, wheeling West Virginia to Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania that I've never heard

Unknown Speaker  8:17  
of before? Well, it was a step up, and I had made some friends around the Ohio Valley. And I called a friend of mine in Steubenville, Ohio, at ws TV, and I said, you know of any openings? And he said, Yes, a friend of mine in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. They're a regional station, but they're a big operation. They have a lot of people. They're a full service station, am FM, they're in the northern shadow of Pittsburgh, and they're looking for somebody. And so I went up to Beaver Falls, that is where NFL quarterback Joe Namath was born, and I walked in and I got the job. Apparently, it wasn't easy in those days to find somebody with experience who apparently sounded okay and working in the shadow of Pittsburgh required that we compete with those Pittsburgh stations. If we were going to get any listeners in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, we had to be at least as good as the Pittsburgh stations. And we actually got talent fees like the guys in Pittsburgh did. I'm sure it wasn't the same amount, but everything we did, if we hosted an afternoon show, or if we were the host of a syndicated not hosted it, but announced and produced this syndicated program, we got a talent fee for it. And I don't know whether you remember, but you probably do. When UPI and AP would deliver the newsprint downstairs, there were 150 boxes of that yellow and white folded thing, and we were on the third floor, and when we came to work, they asked each of us to carry a box upstairs. Yes, and they paid us 25 cents for every box that we carried upstairs. 99% of radio stations would have said, carry those boxes up. But they actually paid us for that. And so it was a great training ground. And it was a radio station that, you know, we did the birth announcements, we did the funeral announcements. We had a lady who did a cooking show. She was the most popular person on the air. Marge Mariner was her name. She would do every year. She had a big deal at the hotel. 1000 women would come to this to get their free spatula, you know, their plastic spatula. Marge Mariner cooking show, right? And Marge, she was a better chef or cooking host than she was a broadcaster. She had this little nasal problem, and she didn't know how to use the cough button, the big hack, you know, she'd be going along, you know, she'd say, okay, take two tablespoons of sugar, and then you could hear it coming. She'd get rid of it, and we'd all be out in the newsroom or whatever, and say, Oh, here it comes, I was

Matt Cundill  11:00  
going to suggest, I mean, you, you went to Youngstown in Ohio next, and there's television involved. Any fear in going on television, none

Unknown Speaker  11:09  
whatsoever. And there's a reason for that, and that is because, as I mentioned, I was in a Catholic high school, and my senior year, they opened a new public school. And in those days, it was thought that television could be a profession of your future open to a lot of people. So they had a full television station at the high school. And so I transferred from the Catholic school over to the public school to join that television curriculum, and I became the anchor, and every day, at noon, I would do a live newscast to all of the schools in the county, and we would do school news, local news, some national news, and whatever else. But I was the guy, and every cafeteria and every classroom had a TV in it, and so my fear of the lens was gone by the time I went to Youngstown, and to be very honest with you, that was back in my slender, better looking days, and I was really very good at it. I got all of the plum assignments. The news director told me that I was the guy of the whole staff, and he was constantly encouraging me, but tell them, have you done television at all?

Matt Cundill  12:24  
I've done some YouTube. I've done very, very little. I've been a guest on a few shows, and nothing of note.

Unknown Speaker  12:33  
Well, television, I was anchoring. I anchored the six and 11 o'clock news at age 21 I live near Tampa, now in or near Orlando, and I see these young kids on there, you know. And I say, How in the hell can they put those young kids on there? And then I realize that was me 50 years ago, and it's hard television to do a good story, to put together a good package, is difficult. And I convinced myself that my love was radio, and that I really and maybe it was the lazy part of me that said on radio, you know, you're you're left to your own devices. You don't have to worry about directors and producers and floor directors and a roll and B roll and all of that. And so I decided, if I was going to make a move, a big move. This was the time to do it. I was 21 single, and I spent four years as a sheriff's deputy too. While I was in Youngstown, I would finish up anchoring the 11 o'clock news, go next door, put my uniform on, and patrol all night, go home, sleep for about six hours, and then go down to the TV station and do that. And so I decided, and like everybody did in those days, they looked in broadcasting magazine for available openings. And there was an opening in Binghamton, New York. It was triangle broadcasting that was a big operation. It was owned by Walter Annenberg, who was the US Ambassador to England. He owned W, f, i, L, in Philadelphia, he owned American Bandstand. He employed Dick Clark. He owned 17 Magazine, TV Guide and groups of stations all over the country. It was one of the biggest operations of its time. And so I got the job as news director of wnbf, am and FM in Binghamton, New York, and so I did news there for a couple of years. And eventually, I guess I'm not even aware how long we're supposed to be going with this. How long does your podcast normally

Matt Cundill  14:34  
as long as it needs to be, but never longer.

Unknown Speaker  14:37  
I understand there was a whole lot went on. Matt during that time in my life, I got married. Triangle sold the stations. By that time, I had been promoted to operations manager, and I was married, and stoner broadcasting, who purchased the station, decided that I needed to be on the air as a morning show. Guy you look like you want to say something.

Matt Cundill  14:59  
Me, nope, but I am interested to know how you got a 38 chair in Binghamton. Well,

Unknown Speaker  15:05  
that was my first book there. Yeah. Stoner said, you know you're, you're a good news guy, you're a good Operations Manager. Well, I wasn't a good operations manager because they didn't know what one did. I just got thrown into that job, and they said, We think you have what it takes to be a good morning guy. And I said, Well, I've never done that. I really have it. And I, you know, gee, Liz, I'm I don't know whether I want to be in a studio for four hours. So they said, do it. And I went in and I started, and I just was me. I just did the radio version of what I did on television back in Youngstown, all of these interesting features and human interest stuff, and the world was a much bigger place then. There was no internet. There was no way to get to places we had only heard about in school. And so I I did things that people never heard on the radio before, like and I called around London until I found somebody who would hold the phone out the window so we could hear a Big Ben ring. And there was a fellow by the name of Aristotle Onassis who married Jackie Kennedy, and so she became Jackie Onassis. And I saw something on the wire that Aristotle Onassis was on his yacht, the Christina, somewhere in the Mediterranean. And so I picked up the phone, live on the air, called the High Seas operator, and I asked her to page Christina in the Mediterranean. And click, click, buzz, buzz, ring, ring. The radio operator of the Christina answered the call, and I said, is Aristotle Onassis, available to the phone, please. And sure enough, he gets on the phone with me, and I had absolutely no idea what to ask him. I never thought that I was going to get through to him. It was funny because I thought that I had handled it okay, you know? I thought, Well, somehow I've managed to salvage this bit. And I said, well, thank you very much. Mr. Analysis, it was nice talking. You hung up, went into a stop set, and I looked up, and my newsman, Carl wall, is standing there with his fists on his hips, his sleeves rolled up. He says, we'll never do that again, will we? No So anyhow, I did stuff like that, took my show out onto the street, went to people's houses, did my show at people's houses, and radio listeners had apparently never heard that, and they embraced it. I had no way of knowing that we were sweeping together a 38 share of the audience, and when the first Arbitron book came out, everybody was, you know, what the sales department's like when the book comes out, right? They're all on the waiting for it to come, pins and needles, yeah, and it didn't come. It was supposed to be there that day, like delivered, you know, whatever the courier service was, and it didn't come. And they called belts film, Maryland, where the Arbitron is compiled, and said, where's our book? And they said, Well, apparently there's some Something must have happened. There's apparently a problem, because your morning guy got 38 share, and that just doesn't happen after a nine share in the last sweep. And they have, apparently were convinced then that that was, in fact, the case. So the book comes in. It didn't take a week before I started getting offers from other stations. And we have just gotten married. We just bought a house. Our daughter was in middle school, in like, seventh, eighth grade, something like that. And I was not used to that routine of going that fast, you know, get a call, get an offer and go. And I got a job offer in Syracuse from a guy that I knew, Matt. They were putting together a station of all new talent. They fired everybody, and they were bringing in hand picked people to build a new sound, wfbl, super radio, 14. FBl, and I was one of those guys that they brought in, and I worked with the most fantastic Air Staff that you could ever imagine. We loved each other. We were each other's biggest fans. We listened to each other and laughed at each other, and we hung out together, you know? And I taught I had on my show John land Decker from W, l, s. I said, You know what? How are you guys so good? He said, We just loved each other. We hung out together. And so I thought, man, shades of wfbl.

Matt Cundill  19:41  
Can I ask when you know you did go to Syracuse, and then you went to Des Moines, Iowa and Kansas City. I mean, working for a Danny Kaye owned operation. What was that like?

Unknown Speaker  19:55  
Danny Kaye was kind of in the shadows. I had my work cut out for me. This. Was the first time, after I had a lot of success at wnbf, wfbl, KSO in Des Moines, I had a 27 share in the first book there. And so by that time, I had a real reputation. I had offers in Chicago and New Orleans and but by that time, I was very careful, and I could pretty much control my own destiny. So I had my work cut out for me. I went, I went to work at KC can in Kansas City, country music station doing mornings, but the big dog in town was W, D, A, F, 61 country, and they were at 610, on the dial. Great dial position, great signal. And we were an FM station, and FM and we were FM, and with a small am and 78 FM had not yet earned its stripes. And so every time the book came in, we were just W DAF was just killing us. And I was doing good stuff. I was getting and I was a lot of newspaper. I was getting a lot of TV. But the listeners weren't there. They were. They were listening to 61 country and Danny Kaye one day, he also owned the Seattle Mariners at that time, and a lot of the money, whatever money we made the station, that is, I was paid my salary that that was never any shortage there. But whatever is, whatever money the station made was sent out to Seattle and was used to pay those huge salaries that the players got. And that was a very uncomfortable kind of deal. And one day they said, you know, Danny Kaye is coming to town. Danny Kaye is coming Well, I had met every celebrity walking around on the face of the earth, so that didn't bother me. But they said, All right, now, just leave him alone when he comes in here, you know, let him do he's just going to come in and talk business and look at his property, and don't be asking for his autograph and, you know, all that crap. Ola, okay, fine. So I'm in doing my morning show, and I heard the studio door Creek open, and I turned around. It was Danny Kaye, and he said, Good morning, my friend, good morning. And he said, May I come in and be a guest on your program? Certainly. So he came in and sat down, and he was just the most delightful guy. He was. There was a thing called the year of the child. Every year there's a year of something, and this was the year of the child, and he was the chairman of the year of the child committee, or whatever organization it was. And so I gave him a chance to talk about that, and I was pleased to let him do it. And he was so kind, so gentle. I, in fact, I'm getting little chills here thinking about how kind and gentle he was when I compare him to a lot of the other stars that I had on, you know, Sony, how he did that? And they they went out, looked at the tower. Yes, my God, that's a tower, all right, and off he went. And I knew the writing was on the wall. They weren't going to continue to pay me what they were paying with those kinds of ratings. And that's when I I was offered three jobs, one in Tampa, one in Huntington, West Virginia, and w, G, y in Albany. Yeah.

Matt Cundill  23:16  
And I'm excited for this part, because this is a signal that I listened to growing up. I could listen to it at night. It at night. I wouldn't be able to hear you because you were on, you were doing the morning show. But in terms of, you know, power and size, this is a signal that could reach Montreal, which is where I grew up, and driving through New York, you would listen to the station W, G, y in Albany, and I'm familiar with the area, I made an unsuccessful attempt to go to union, yeah, I did. I did. I really wanted to go there, and I didn't get in, unfortunately. But I love the area. But in terms of a blowtorch, this is, like, America's, like, 20th biggest radio station at the time when you were there, which was 1980 and I know one big moment, of course, it took place way north of that in Lake Placid, was the Miracle on Ice. But you know, what a time to be alive in Albany?

Unknown Speaker  24:08  
Yes, you know, of course, that took up a lot of our broadcast time and and it gave me opportunities to call and feel like I was part of it, because I talked to the participants, the principals of it, you know, and got them on the air. And there was another thing that happened during that time. It was the Canadian ice hockey. I don't remember what two teams that played, but it was right after Canada expedited the rescue of some American hostages in Iran, yeah. So that

Matt Cundill  24:39  
was Ken Taylor, who facilitated the rescue of six hostages with Canadian passports in a movie that has been sort of recreated, I think, called Argo. All I can remember was Argo. F yourself.

Unknown Speaker  24:51  
I got a chance when that happened, I called radio station up. It was in Montreal, wasn't it? Where that happened? Or.

Matt Cundill  24:59  
Or, yeah, the plane, I believe, came into Montreal, yeah,

Unknown Speaker  25:03  
yeah. So I got already, I got some of the morning guy up in Montreal, and we talked on the air about it, you know, and I, like, I had some authority of thanking him. So that was fun. That gave me a chance to do that, and that, that was another one, Matt, where I went in to that, W, G, y, they had something like a seven share when I took over the morning show. And in the first book, I had a 22 which was I was at that time, it was the 21st highest rated morning show in the country, W, G, y, at that time, was owned by General Electric, so it was equivalent to, it was the twin brother of k, d, K, in Pittsburgh, which is where I wanted to work. I wanted to do mornings at KDK. That was my goal from the time I was in high school, grade school, working at WG, y was the same thing, and it was the first time I worked for a company that did not pinch pennies when they needed to buy something. They bought it. When they needed new jingles. They got them when they needed a new station vehicle. They went out and bought a big GMC motor home. So I wasn't used to that. I was always used to guys, you know, the general manager saying, well, we can't afford that. That's not in the budget. So that was, I was kind of cool. And one of the things I did before, before, I tell you why I left there. Now, why would you leave W, G, why all of us had to work six day weeks? I mean, every radio station you me, everybody had to work a six day week. It was no different at W, G, y, but I had to work Sunday mornings, and they signed off for a few hours during the night on Sunday, Saturday night into Sunday to do maintenance, and so I had to be at work at like five. I had to be on the air at five rather than six. So when I would come in on Sundays between five and six, I would have people call in from distant places, wherever they were listening to me. And that was the only time I used that big signal to have fun with it, you know, and I'd get, I'd get a call from a letter carrier in North Carolina, you know, I would get calls from California. So that was the cool part of that. And I also realized that the audience wasn't all that interested in that, but it was fun for an hour once a week, and it stroke my ego. I had stoner Broadcasting System on 48 radio stations back in Binghamton, where I had been, and then they had stations in Louisville and Buffalo and Rochester, New Orleans. I don't remember where all of the stations were, but anyhow, I fell into favor with stoner broadcasting with that 38 here that haunted me that, I mean, it came back to bite me that 38 share I got a call from the general manager of wnbf in Binghamton. It was a female lady. She's now deceased. Kitty bocock was a wonderful, wonderful lady. She and her family became very good friends of ours. Kitty called me up at W, G, y, and said, John, she was Southern belle. She was from Huntington, West Virginia. She put on more of a southern accent than she really had. You know, she'd come up to you and say, Hi, how are you? And I'd say, well, gesundheit, you have a cold. But anyhow, she called and said, her husband, Bo, she's Bo, and I coming up to your house tonight. We're gonna have dinner. We're gonna take you and Amity out to dinner. My wife, Amity, but we're going to talk. And so she came in in my living room, and she said, I'm not leaving until I have your signature on a contract to come back to Binghamton, wnbf and do a morning show. And I said, Kitty, are you crazy? Why would I leave wg, y and go back to Binghamton, New York, on wnbf to do a morning show. Well, we all know that companies have more money than they admit. And she started throwing money at me, and it got bigger and bigger and bigger, and I kept turning her down. And I said, Kitty, you're wasting your time. I am not going to leave wg, y Well, I'll tell you what, Matt, she got to a point where I just couldn't I had to say yes, and it was the biggest disappointment in my life. I just so I accepted it. It was just a lot of money, and the cars and membership in the country club just went on and on. And so I went back to wnbf, walked into the studio, and I just said, Oh God,

Matt Cundill  29:28  
what am I doing here again?

Unknown Speaker  29:29  
Yes, what am I doing? But boy, I'll tell you what. We lived high on the hog for the next from 1982 to 1995 made a lot of money. My wife got a great job. She made a lot of money, and so we had a great time, traveled all over the

Matt Cundill  29:45  
world. Hold that thought, because this travel all around the world part is wild. You're not going to believe what John had the budget for and what he did after radio.

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  29:56  
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Matt Cundill  30:26  
I mean, in today's day and age, if you suggested that, you know, a radio station was going to send somebody to Nepal or perhaps to India, and you're going to be doing a live broadcast from there a that's very that costs a lot of money. I'm sure there's some satellite involved to get that signal back.

Unknown Speaker  30:41  
No, actually, we use the comrades unit.

Matt Cundill  30:46  
I didn't know you could plug that in over there.

Unknown Speaker  30:48  
You can plug them in anywhere. We use the comrades in Russia too. When we were there. Tell me about plugging it in there, and then I want to talk about the Soviet Union. Okay, yeah. Well, I'll tell you what happened, why I went to Nepal. This was the relationship I had with Stoner. Broadcast I saw on the wire that there was a guy from Scotland who was going to Nepal to chase down Bigfoot abominable snowman, Yeti. I had done some Yeti searching on my own back in the Midwest, and so he was going to use Scottish beer as bait to attract Yeti. And so I called him on the air live called Nepal, got into Kathmandu on the phone, got to the Himalaya View Hotel, and found this guy. And I got him on I said, Well, what makes you think that Scottish beer is the correct choice? And he says, What do you think American beer is better? I said, Yes, well, get it and bring it over. And so we completed the conversation. I wished him good luck. And so on 10 o'clock came, I got off the air. Kitty bocock called me into her office, and she said, John, you know what you have to do, don't you what she says, we've been in contact with Genesee beer in Rochester, and they're sponsoring your trip to Nepal. They're paying for everything you're gonna fly first class to London. This was done by 10 o'clock.

Matt Cundill  32:12  
Oh, that's the way it was done back then. And I've

Unknown Speaker  32:16  
flew to London. I flew then on to India and onto Nepal, and I was there 10 days, and we hooked up with this guy. I can't remember his name now. We never did find Bigfoot. But of all of the things I did, people talk more about that than just about anything else

Matt Cundill  32:33  
I did, I think I remember it was Curt Gowdy was the spokesperson for Genesee. Could have been I was the spokesperson for Genesee at that time,

Unknown Speaker  32:43  
I've got some photographs. In fact, they're on the wall back here of me standing on 20,000 feet on a boulder with nothing behind me except air holding a Genesee beer can.

Matt Cundill  32:53  
1980s was, you know, really the crescendo of the Cold War, and you find yourself inside the iron curtain of the Soviet Union,

Unknown Speaker  33:04  
right? Because of all of this travel, I, you know, I broadcasted from London and Ireland. We did St Patrick's Day four times or five, and Oktoberfest in Germany. So I developed a reputation for being somewhat of a world traveler. The Chairman of stoner broadcasting, his name was Tom Stoner and there was a president of the company was Glen Bell. Tom and Glenn were the two greatest bosses ever. They knew us all. They knew our families. They knew my real name, Glenn Bell, the president of the company used to like to call me COVID Tech. And he knew my wife. He knew my daughter. Came to my daughter's wedding. He and his wife did. But anyhow, one day, my general manager said, Tom Stoner is coming up from Annapolis to where their home office was. He wants to talk to you. And I said, Oh, why is Tom coming to talk to me? And he said, Because he wants you to go to Russia. And that's all I knew until Tom stoner arrived, and he said, I want you to go to Russia. Here's the back story on it. Tom stoner ran for United States economy. He was asked to be the national GOP chairman. He turned it he was a big time Republican. He turned it down because he wanted to run for Senate. So he ran for Senate and lost to Charles Grassley, and they were in Iowa at that time. We our home office was in Iowa. Corporate office was in Iowa. But in the meantime, Tom moved to Annapolis, the whole corporate office so that he would be closer to the Washington scene. And he became close friends with Howard Baker, who was Ronald Reagan's Chief of Staff, unbeknownst to me, until, like, a year later, until this was two years later or longer, General Secretary Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan were having communications by diplomatic pouch. They were sending notes to each other, and Reagan sent Gorbachev a note that said, Mr. General Secretary, you will not have Glasnost had a. Like a new openness reconstruction, until you open your country to foreign journalists. Because right now, anybody who is they're all censored. You know, you just don't, you don't go over there and report. Even their reporters aren't allowed to report, let alone some foreign reporter, so Reagan says to Gorbachev, unless you allow a foreign reporter to come in there and report uncensored, you're going to have nothing. So Gorbachev writes back and says, I'm ready send me a reporter. Reagan goes to Howard Baker and says, Baker, get your friend Tom stoner to send one of his people to Russia. So here I am right. Tom stoner comes to me and says, I sounds like The Godfather. He comes to me. He sat across the table from me in our cafeteria, and he said, I want you to go to Russia. I said, why? And he explained this to me. He said I was so far away from I was so not connected to this stuff. And he said, I want you to go. I want you to go over and test gorbache. Can you feel it? You want me to test Gorbachev? He says, Yeah, I want you to go over there. And he explained a little bit, not in great detail, but he said, If Gorbachev is going to be, you know, for real about this, he's got to allow uncensored reporting. And it took me about four months or five of almost full time logistics setting up the logistics of me going and I made the official request. And then it finally. Finally, it came back. And finally, I got a call from the Soviet correspondent from New York City, Vladimir vyagan, and he said, I have good news for you. I've requested 32 different programs, 32 different features. Good news, all 32 your features have been approved. What? So it's on now, right? And I'm going, and I still didn't really feel the full effect of this or the historic nature of it. I thought this was another trip to Ireland on St Patrick's Day. So I went. I don't know whether you're familiar with Joe Sobel. He was with AccuWeather, yes, yes, Sam, he was one of the original AccuWeather meteorologists, and he was on with me every morning. He was my meteorologist. And I asked Joe to go with me because I felt that of all of the similarities that we all have, we all live in the same atmosphere. And so one of the topics we were going to talk about was weather. Everybody talks about the weather, and I thought that that would have a great calming effect. If I encountered any opposition there, we could talk about the weather and get it calmed down. So I don't want to go into all of the details, but my first night was my favorite night, and I had already made arrangements with the Foreign Relations Director of the Soviet national radio system to be our guide and our translator too, if you will. And he took us to the Television Center, which to radio. And Television Center was a huge building with a big like a 1600 foot tall tower in the middle of Moscow, and they did all of their telecasts and all of the radio broadcasts out of there. And the telecasts were all just Soviet propaganda. And they had a six o'clock news program called dobervich moskova, which means good evening Moscow. The host was Igor abruzzov, and they introduced us to Igor. He was live at six o'clock at the Dan Rather, if you will, of Russia, that news program went out to all 15 republics every night at six o'clock. So I said to Igor, through a translator, there's a protocol, even if you speak the language, if you're on a diplomatic mission, you don't try to use your Russian or whatever language, because you're liable to make a mistake. So you always use a professional translator. And so I said to him, is it true? Now, Igor, are you allowed to report things other than Soviet propaganda on your newscast? Oh, yes. He says, Yes, we can report anything we want. In fact, he says, Last night, we did a story on some ducks down in the park. I said, I'm not talking about ducks in the park, I'm talking about world affairs and glasnost and perestroika. And I said, if it's true that you're allowed to do anything you want on your newscast, may Joe and I be guests on your six o'clock TV newscast tonight? And he said, Yes. And so at six o'clock, he led with us, the three of us on the set. That photograph is here on the wall as well. We were the first foreign journalists ever permitted to broadcast uncensored live in the Soviet Union. It was just the most special event that there ever was. And when we looked into that camera lens, we were looking at three, 400 million Soviets. Is looking at these Americans, and they're saying, Is this for real? And Matt, I'll fast forward it. We became real celebrities. Every place we went, there we were there for 10 days, and every place we went, they knew it. I mean, they had bands. We'd get off the train at some city and there'd be the city band would be playing for

Matt Cundill  40:19  
us. It's incredible to think that in the middle of the Cold War that you're making this appearance, you know, in Russia, and you know, the walls are coming down. I mean, listen, I almost asked you to compare it to today. It feels like they've rolled the clock back. So I'm, I mean, the 90s were great for Russia, 2000s but it just got weird along the way, and now it's, it seems like it's back to where it was. Well, yeah, but then, and also, if I were in a similar situation now, and they said, well, we want you to go to Russia and do some I don't think so. No, no, it's hard now, no, find somebody that you're going to fire and send them. You know, you see that there is the traditional radio thinking that I like. So tell me when your time at stoner came to an end. You jump into the world of radio syndication, and it's 95 this is a year before Bill Clinton signs the act that you know allows a lot of radio stations and not very many owners, think that was really the beginning of the end, we can say. But here you are in the syndication world. Why'd you jump into it? And what did you see? Well,

Unknown Speaker  41:26  
I needed to do something. I walked away. When in 1995 I quit. We had a new owner come in. Stoner sold the station. Well, actually, Stoner merged with Atlantic radio, and then Atlantic radio spun off. Now how did that work. It became eventually American Tower Corporation, Matt, as a result of my time in Russia and all the work I did for stoner during those years, he allowed me to become involved in ownership of stoner broadcasting. So when I quit in 1995 I was not destitute. I was still a fairly large shareholder in stoner broadcasting, but I still needed to do something. Well, I was approached immediately by the company that owned a group of stations, one of which was in Endicott, New York, which was one of my competitors when I was on wnbf. They owned some stations downstate, in New York, around New York City and elsewhere. And they said, What would you think of doing Saturday morning syndicated show on all of our stations. And I jumped at the chance to do that, and so it didn't work well. It didn't work out well because it was okay for people who knew me and were familiar with me, but in the markets where they had never heard me before, I had a lot of acceleration to do in order to get their trust, in order to get them to listen to me. And so after a couple of years, the owners came back to me and said, It just ain't happening. So we we abandoned it. But then for the next few years, I had various individuals who wanted me to that they wanted their own radio program. I had a doctor, I had a hunting expert and some others, and the Wyoming conference children's home, for example, hired me to produce and host a one hour program and then buy time on various radio stations and air those programs on those stations. So we did that for a couple of years. The story comes to just about an end with one final story, my dear friend John Morgan, who I worked with at wfbl on Syracuse, John and his family and my family became very close when we worked at FBl and Syracuse, and when I ended up in Kansas City, he was also in Kansas City, and they bought a house about a mile from us. So our kids grew up together. My daughter babysat their kids, and we became real close. The Meads and the coca Jacks became very close friends at that time in 1996 789, 99 when I was doing those programs, John was the program director. He had gone to Providence and worked at a number of stations there and gained a pretty significant reputation as an oldies program director. And he was hired at W O, D, S in Boston, C, B, S O, N, O to be their program director. So one day they called John, who also, over the years, had become a Certified Hypnotherapist. That was his passion, his side passion. So one day they called John in and said, John, you are, this is in 99 you are the best oldies Program Director in the country. But we've decided we're going to have one program director for all five stations, and you ain't it. And so John's out, and he called me and he said, I'm out. He said, Let's get together and figure something out. And so I said, All right, so we got together and I said, Let's here's what let's do. Let's do hypnotherapy sessions. Partner with our radio pals around the country, have them market these sessions for us for smoking cessation and weight loss. Some of which I could use now and have them. And we'll go in, and you'll do the seminar smoking cessation for two hours, and then we'll do a weight loss for two hours. They'll promote it. We'll share the gate with them, because we were charging 6995 of people's hard earned money to get in. And some of our groups, Matt, were our biggest groups. I think we had like 700 people in the room for these things, because the station, the more they ran the spots, the more people came. And we, after the first year, we went all over our friends. First went to Kitty bocock, you know, she did it for us. We went to, you know, everybody we knew within they, they worked with us, and after the end of the first or second year, we had over 200 radio partners around the country, and we did these smoking cessation and weight loss seminars. Got to the point where we had 14 employees, because we just couldn't handle the load. John and I were we were traveling, and we just couldn't do them all. So we hired other hypnotherapists, and so for the next 18 years, we did smoking cessation and weight loss seminars all over the United States and Canada, and in 2018 we both retired.

Matt Cundill  46:12  
That's an incredible story, because here you are, like a seasoned radio Pro. You know how radio works, and so I know, like, for the first early part of this show, you're talking about, like, all the things it took to build audience share. So, you know audiences. And then here you get into, Oh, I know radio. Oh, and here's a business, and I can make this business just hum by using radio.

Unknown Speaker  46:38  
And we knew good for me. We knew that we had to have a professional voice do our spots, so we hired me. We

Matt Cundill  46:48  
didn't even touch on that, but yeah, you, you know, you've been on radio stations across America for for many, many years with your voice.

Unknown Speaker  46:55  
And so we paid me the same fee that we would have paid some other voice talent to do the spots. Yeah,

Matt Cundill  47:02  
you didn't need to go get Don Pardo, right? Exactly, to be honest with you, I'm

Unknown Speaker  47:07  
a typical answer, right? I'm saying, Oh, God, do I have more spots to do? Jesus, did you ever come to Canada with that? The closest we got was Presque Isle Maine, and we had Canadians come across the border, but we had problems, because it was held in America, and so we had problems with the conversion of Canadian funds and American funds, but that was the closest. And I guess we were in Calgary. We went up to Spokane, and then we went to Calgary,

Matt Cundill  47:34  
yeah, so Prescott is right across from Edmonton, New Brunswick. I like to sort of look at that part of the world there's Bob and Sherry territory, because their show is up there. I actually spent a little bit of time in that. This is why it's coming back to me now, right? Because I think the radio there was radio out of Presque Isle. Also, Holton Maine,

Unknown Speaker  47:52  
yeah. Holton Ray, yeah. We were in Holton a lot. That's at the end of I 95 that's where I 95 ends,

Matt Cundill  47:59  
yeah. And so I spent the summer of 87 up in two small towns. One's called Topsfield, another one's called Vanceboro, which is on the St Croix River, bordering an academy Brunswick. So I spent about six weeks there and in the summer. And I vividly remember those sort of things, because the person I was living with smoked a lot and was overweight. And there was discussion at the table on whether or not that they should, you know, get into this or not. So

Unknown Speaker  48:25  
we checked into a hotel in Holton, and they said, Here's your key. And then we get keys in those days. Well, they probably still have keys in Holton. And so I went and I unlocked the door, and I said, the room has went back. I said, the room has not been made up. The toilet hasn't been flushed. I said, I'm not going to stay in there. So they gave me another key, and I went in, and it was the wedding suite with a canopied bed, and I so I went back downstairs. I said, I am not going to sleep in the wedding suite. They gave me another key. Went back upstairs. I unlocked the door. There was nothing in there, not even an alarm clock. It was empty. So I went back down again. This is my fourth trip to the desk. This is true. They handed me a ring of keys and said, open doors until you find a room. I did eventually, and I got to tell you, I don't want to get on national podcaster and say how much we made in 18 years, but it was when we closed out the business. I asked my wife, who did our bookkeeping. We had to hire a bookkeeper, so we hired my wife. I said, How much did we gross over 18 years? And when she told me, I slid right out of the chair. You know, this is

Matt Cundill  49:41  
one of these, only in America. Stories, because if you tried to do this in France, there's not enough overweight people to sustain it, and those who are smoking do not want to quit. So this is only in America. Hey,

Unknown Speaker  49:53  
how did you think this? I thought I was innovative, and thought of my podcast talking about radio. How long have you been doing this? Yes, well, I

Matt Cundill  50:00  
stole the idea from Larry Gifford. Larry Gifford, who was doing talk radio in LA but he had a podcast called Radio stuff. And I thought that's that's a good one, but I was let go from radio, and said, Well, I better start something. And I was doing a little bit of radio consulting in 2015 and then in 2016 said, Well, I'm gonna start a podcast because I'm gonna go to a podcast conference, and I better have one so at least I can speak to it and say, Yeah, I've got one going as a conversation starter, and I've been doing one every week since 2016 Oh, that's long time, yeah. And so, I mean, you're gonna be episode 426 by the time we get this one out. You know, this leads me to believe that you've got this sort of period in your life between 2018 and 2023 when you start your show and your studio looks very much like a radio studio. Did I got the microphone that I'm very familiar that I used when I was doing radio in Edmonton. So I'm, I'm curious to know what is your perception and views of podcasting as it compares to radio,

Unknown Speaker  51:04  
I struggled with that. I thought it was the stepsister of radio, and then I realized it's the same thing, just a different delivery mechanism. Broadcasting is broadcasting, whether it be that three watt transmitter that I had in my bedroom for Jackie sharp or the Internet. In fact, the internet is a better signal than W, G, y had, and it's cheaper, so it is still broadcasting. The complication, I think, comes in Matt that everybody is doing it. People think that it's easy. And I see these questions on the Facebook groups, the podcast groups, will I need a microphone? What kind of recording equipment will I need? They don't have any idea about anything. And these vultures that are trying to get people to hire them, whatever the term they use to organic,

Matt Cundill  51:58  
yeah, to promote, I think the only job that's in Bangladesh, by the way, is that job.

Unknown Speaker  52:07  
It just drives me crazy that people think, I'll tell you one little thing, I actually get mail emails, and nobody sends me regular US Postal Service mail, but I get emails about my podcast from non broadcasters, and I floated the idea about a year and a half ago that I would scout around and find some interesting podcasts and maybe have those hosts on as a guest on my show. And I mentioned it on one of my podcasts, and I got mail saying, if you start interviewing podcasters, you've lost me as a listener. And I thought, Well, I think I better pay attention to that. And so I did one, and these were Canadian guys, and they were the, I don't know what they were. They knew everything. I was a guest on their podcast. No, I was I had them on, I guess it was the worst piece of audio and history. It was terrible. I don't even know why I bothered to put it up.

Matt Cundill  53:09  
I mean, you don't know until you make the mistakes. But this is why you bring Valerie Geller on your show, and this is why you, you know, you bring the season pros, you bring an art volo on to tell stories. Because, you know, this is, this is very much the storytelling business. The good news is, you don't have to break on the 20s for traffic and weather together and that we've got news coming up at the top of the hour. And I guess you're also, you're also no stranger to on demand audio, because you have such a history with syndicated audio.

Unknown Speaker  53:38  
Yeah, these are timeless, so people don't know, but in a couple of days, I have as my guest, shotgun Tom Kelly.

Unknown Speaker  53:49  
We're officially starting now. Okay, here we go. And

Speaker 3  53:51  
now the 60s at noon with Rod Morrison on K, A, C, y, Port Whitney, and of

Unknown Speaker  53:58  
course, sit in for Rod Morrison is me. I love it like that right here. In case they in Southern California, it just happens to be 12 noon. You better believe it. Jumping Jack. Flash is the gas, and I love it like that. German Jack. Flash show is that gas, shotgun Tom Kelly right here, in about five minutes after 12 noon, as we geek the 60s right here into one o'clock standby. We got fucker D and the MG is gonna be coming up next.

Unknown Speaker  54:40  
Hamburger company, get enough. Y'all live shotgun time right here and meet Milton borough Saturday at the Claremont square between noon and 2pm as San Diego salutes uncle Milty, there's gonna be music and celebrities meet Milton burrow Saturday, noon to 2pm where Claremont Mesa Boulevard meets Claremont drive. That's the Claremont square. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  55:00  
Case, John Morgan enters the picture again, right? John is my biggest fan. John and I talk about once a week, and he listens to my podcast, as does Pete slant. Do you know Pete? He was one of the biggest shakers in New York City, and Pete listens every time I do a podcast, I know Pete's listening, and he's not afraid to critique my shows. So John Morgan says to me, you know, you're wasting your creativity sitting there playing golf five times a week. You ought to be doing something. And I said he used to do a podcast I saw. I sold my mic. I sold my mic to a guy in Holden. My re 20, like a guy was starting a short wave radio station of some kind. So he bought the RA 20. So I said to John, I don't have I don't have a my mic anymore, and the only mic I'll use is an RA 20. John says, I'll send you one. So he sent me this mic, and he said, and you need to buy a zoom l8 board. So I bought one, and it sat here for 10 months before I finally pulled the trigger and decided. And then I then I went to my friends, I went to Joe Sobel, and I went to a couple of other guys, JP Andrews and Des Moines, who I knew. And then from that point, the next one was bigger, and the next one was not that these guys aren't big, but I mean insofar as stature in the industry. And then I, within month or two, I contacted John records, land Decker in Chicago, from W, l, s. I said, Would you like to be on my podcast? He said, Absolutely, I'd love it. And so from there, it just went on. I had that was the shotgun Tom Kelly, who's going to be on, got him coming up. He's got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He's going to be a guest on my podcast here in a couple of days. I talked to him the other night. I called him to see if he would do it. Hour and a half later, we're talking about his train layout.

Matt Cundill  56:54  
Yeah, it's like, you gotta say, oh, save it for the podcast. We don't want to blow it all right now. Right, exactly, right. I'm so glad you're doing this podcast so you can connect people like to shotgun Tom, who I remember from the days in San Diego. Most of these people that I that I listened to, I've only seen from art volu, video, Air Checks and so to get to listen to a John records land Decker, who inspired so many people and doing so from live atop the downtown Burger King WLS,

Unknown Speaker  57:27  
one of the biggest compliments to me was when I was contacted by Charles Manu from New York City. He is known worldwide for his air checks that he collects. He's an archivist and a curator of Air Checks. He has archived all of my podcasts. And he said, your podcasts are not living, but history of radio broadcasting.

Matt Cundill  57:51  
And he said, so I have them archived forever. You know, I mean, who? Who's going to listen to this 15 years? But maybe somebody will or 20 years, I don't know. Well, it's important that these stories be remembered. And, you know, with the technology that's out there, you know, we get an accurate history of radio and the stories that get told from it. I have a number of episodes. I'm happy to pass those along to him as well. Great. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  58:16  
I communicate with him. I'm not on a regular basis, but he comments. When he hears one that he thinks is particularly good, he'll make a comment about it. And I don't know what my promo that Savino did for me. Steve Savino, he did a video promo for me, and Manu really liked that. He commented on it, so that was kind of kind of cool,

Matt Cundill  58:35  
by the way, John continued success with the podcast. I'm a fan. I'm listening to it every week. Now I'm really I am, of course, I am. What a great compliment.

Unknown Speaker  58:45  
Did you listen to the 66 years of WNBC? So

Matt Cundill  58:50  
I started, and then I fell asleep, because WNBC was a station I used to fall asleep to at night when I would listen to it in Montreal, 66 so I said one more time, I'll listen to this while I fall asleep. And of course, the next morning, I'd wake up and there'd be nothing but static on the air. I'd make it a point to go back and just listen a little bit further every single time until I I've listened to the whole thing and I haven't fallen asleep.

Unknown Speaker  59:14  
I know who where these are downloaded. Oh yeah, no, I know in my statistics, it tells me where they go. So I saw the two had listened to it.

Matt Cundill  59:23  
If you see Manitoba in there that that would be where I was downloading it from the summer. So please follow and subscribe to the show. All the details are going to be in the show notes of the episode. And as well, I'm going to be promoting your show throughout this podcast. So not necessarily this episode, but other episodes in the future, people will be able to hear

Unknown Speaker  59:41  
the cross promotion. Well, that's great. It's an honor for me to be on and I'm really honored that a guy of your your caliber, listens and enjoys the program. That makes it worthwhile,

Matt Cundill  59:53  
unlike radio, where we all want to kill each other and still share in Podcasting A. Rising Tide will lift all boats.

Unknown Speaker  1:00:03  
And you know, poor Jackie sharp, she doesn't know what she missed not listening to my three watt radio station. Look what came over.

Matt Cundill  1:00:09  
Shout out to her, wherever she is. Thanks, John,

Unknown Speaker  1:00:14  
thank you. The sound

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  1:00:15  
off podcast is written and hosted by Matt Kendall, produced by Evan serminsky, edited by Taylor MacLean, social media by Aiden glassy, another great creation from the sound off media company. There's always more at sound off podcast.com you.