Scott Mason has died

No, I didn't plagiarize this from Wikipedia. I wrote this first...and then I updated the Wikipedia page. Scott Mason died on April 19. He was either 54 or 55. There was so much confusion over the age of Gary Owens, I don't dare try to say which age Mason was!

Scott Mason, a veteran CBS executive, engineer and DJ, had kidney problems for most of his adult life. In 1999, he received a transplant. The kidney came from a cadaver. In 2012, he underwent a second transplant. That kidney was donated by longtime KROQ morning show co-host Gene "Bean" Baxter. Mason died on April 19 at age 54. Mason began in radio at age 14 in 1974, answering the phone for program director Rick Carroll. A year later, he lost his job when KKDJ merged with KIIS and became KIIS-FM. Mason obtained his 3rd class broadcasting license and in 1975 and began jocking at KIQQ. He moved to KGBS/KTNQ in 1976 and also worked part-time at KKOK in Lompoc. In 1979, Carroll replaced Shadoe Stevens as program director of KROQ and launched a New Wave format. When KTNQ switched to Spanish language in July 1979, Carroll asked Mason to join him at KROQ. Mason became chief engineer and weekend host. He was promoted to assistant program director in 1981 and operations manager in 1985. In 1983, Mason and Jim "Poorman" Trenton created the Sunday night Loveline program and Mason served as co-host for the program's first four years. He also hosted KROQ's Openline public affairs program for almost ten years. Since 1999, Mason had served as CBS Radio's West Coast Director of Engineering for 45 stations.

I did not make it clear that Scott Mason's first radio job was at KKDJ. And he was actually more than a phone answerer---he was an intern. I also found his birthdate: September 26, 1959. He was 56 when he died. With all the billions of webpages online, why is it sometimes so difficult to determine someone's age?

Pretty hard to be a 14/15 year old intern at KKDJ, borderline illegal even back then?. I received Work Credit during High School in my Senior year to work in non com Radio. I also never knew he was a 15 year old jock at KIQQ as they used the jockless "IRA" system, Independent Radio Automation with paid Board Op's and the top & bottom of the hour ID was pre produced. Don would know?

LARadioRewind said:

I did not make it clear that Scott Mason's first radio job was at KKDJ. And he was actually more than a phone answerer---he was an intern. I also found his birthdate: September 26, 1959. He was 56 when he died. With all the billions of webpages online, why is it sometimes so difficult to determine someone's age?

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Well, Steve...it helps to be able to do the math. It's not yet September 29th, 2015, so Scott would only have been 55.

Mary Cummins is a real estate appraiser and an Animal Advocates volunteer. Scott Mason interviewed her several times on KROQ and she posted the audio on her blog. She also wrote a nice obituary and gives his birth date as September 26, 1959. She said he was 56 when he died. She made the mistake and then I unthinkingly repeated it here. As Curly Howard would say, "I'm a victim of soicumstance!"

http://marycumminsrealestatemarycum.../kroq-dj-scott-cary-mason-born-september.html

LARadioRewind said:

Mary Cummins is a real estate appraiser and an Animal Advocates volunteer. Scott Mason interviewed her several times on KROQ and she posted the audio on her blog. She also wrote a nice obituary and gives his birth date as September 26, 1959. She said he was 56 when he died. She made the mistake and then I unthinkingly repeated it here. As Curly Howard would say, "I'm a victim of soicumstance!"

http://marycumminsrealestatemarycum.../kroq-dj-scott-cary-mason-born-september.html

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Critical thinking, Steve. As B. Mitchel Reed used to say, "Don't believe everything you read on the internet".

Reed? Really? And all these years I thought it was Alan Freed who had said that!

CBS "This Morning" video with Bean & Scott Mason's operation on Beans Birthday.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/la-dj-donates-kidney-to-co-worker/

Paid at 13, woe! I started when I was 12 and got my 3rd Class Ticket when I was 13 but didn't make money until 17 at KRLA preparing Traffic reports as no company provided that service. There have always been child labor laws although nothing to prohibit one to work at a Radio station except for late night or excessive hours. I believe at least in California you were supposed to have a signed work permit from a parent or guardian, mostly for a release of liability. It seems most internships these days are reserved for college students, usually unpaid. What was your paid position at 13 David? I was 'hired' at 13 by the local Columbia College Record rep to hand out fliers and got to pick any 20 Columbia releases. I picked some 2 & 3 Disc sets that counted as one choice if that counts?

Ugh, those Magnecord tape decks were HORRIBLE! They were built like tanks, but no matter how loose or tightly one would cue up to the start, the audio would always jump when the pinch roller slammed into the capstan. That, and it seemed like the take-up reel motor would start pulling a fraction late after the pinch roller solenoid pulled in, causing the tape to jerk. No matter how many times I tried to calibrate and even modify those decks, I could never get them to work right. The Scully and Ampex machines seemed so much better for on air use.

Hot Hits said:

There have always been child labor laws although nothing to prohibit one to work at a Radio station except for late night or excessive hours. I believe at least in California you were supposed to have a signed work permit from a parent or guardian, mostly for a release of liability.

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That's pretty much what I recall being the case in 1968-69, Scott, when I was at KKOG-TV/16; originally, all my involvement was on weekends, and there was only a prohibition on working past 10:00pm if I had school the next day. I believe there was also a restriction on number of paid hours worked, which stopped applying to me after the first six weeks, because no one was getting paid after that.

During channel 16's last few months I was able to work up until sign off every night since those were summer hours.

And I do remember my mother having to sign paperwork that was kept on file with the school district, which was probably the work permit authorization.

I started when I was 12 and got my 3rd Class Ticket when I was 13 but didn't make money until 17 at KRLA preparing Traffic reports as no company provided that service.

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I was also 12 when I started at KKOG-TV, but I didn't get my Third Phone until just before my 16th birthday, because I didn't go into radio until that summer; in the interim, I worked at the cable company on their local origination channel. I actually thought I was going to stay in television until my first weekend radio work ... then I was hooked.

BTW, for those who knew of my KKOG-TV involvement and asked when I was going to share some of the saga and scans of stuff I'd saved, I did manage to put a tribute site up last summer.

Hot Hits said:

Paid at 13, woe! I started when I was 12 and got my 3rd Class Ticket when I was 13 but didn't make money until 17 at KRLA preparing Traffic reports as no company provided that service. There have always been child labor laws although nothing to prohibit one to work at a Radio station except for late night or excessive hours.

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...I got all of y'all beat. Started in '70 at the age of 9 doing kid voices for Sure Way grocery commercials at WNRR in Neenah-Menasha, Wisconsin. The commercials were so popular that WNRR had me come in on Sunday afternoons for a few weeks and do a two-hour airshift. Never ran the board, and WNRR got blown up and converted to Beautiful Music WROE the week after that, but I did get $5 a show and all the vinyl I could eat. After that, a hobby pirate station in the UK, World Music Radio in Oxford, had me do taped liners for a Saturday hour for ₤1 a month, postage costs and copies of the 45s I was supposed to comment on (many of which were never hits in the States). Did that from '72 to '76...

KM:

Fascinating story of a TV station I'd never heard of - set me to wandering about your larger UHF website as well. It also gave me greater insight to and respect for your background in radio.

One note: the link to the 12/23/68 Broadcasting article needs fixing.

I was hired (providing I could pass the FCC Third exam) at 14. The ticket didn't arrive in the mail until a week or so after my 15th birthday. It was a paid position, not an internship, and I did have to have a work permit until...16, I think. Restrictions were the same as K.M.'s ....no work after 10 p.m. on a school night. Not a problem since KIBS signed off at 10 every night but Sunday (when we signed off at 7). After I turned 16, I convinced them to let me keep the station on until midnight Friday and Saturday and switched the format those two nights from Top 40 to AOR (well, about as AOR as KLOS, which I ripped off mercilessly, to the point of occasionally calling it "Rock n' Mono 1230 KIBS".

And you thought the Jack-FM guy invented on-air snark...

Art Landing said:

Fascinating story of a TV station I'd never heard of - set me to wandering about your larger UHF website as well. It also gave me greater insight to and respect for your background in radio.

One note: the link to the 12/23/68 Broadcasting article needs fixing.

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Thanks, Art. There was an errant space in the file name on the server ... renamed it to remove the space and now you can read that article.

I only take credit for designing the UHF site, for writing several of the articles, and editing/formatting others' contributions. It was Clarke Ingram's idea and he enlisted me to help after I did some repairs to his DuMont Network site. But it's been a wonderful labor of love to work on.