Danville......

[MACK184]

It's been a long time..31 years to be exact since I was the night jock at WIAI in Danville. I was there for a year and haven't been back in the neighborhood since. I was curious about what's happening in the market now.

 

[leakyimplant]

Dead and or dying. No pulse. If I was there I'd leave.

 

[radio_radio]

In terms of radio, the only people making money are 102.1, K Rock and 1490 Am. 99.1 moved to Champaign when they were acquired by Saga. The Bresee Tower, where WIAI was located is vacant, rotting and literally falling apart. WITY is on the air, but I don't know how. The stations over in Covingtion/Veedersburg have decent ratings, but I don't think their sales staph can close a Coke bottle.

Danville is in really bad shape. The economic impact of the prison never came close to making up for the loss of the General Motors Foundry.

 

[MACK184]

In terms of radio, the only people making money are 102.1, K Rock and 1490 Am. 99.1 moved to Champaign when they were acquired by Saga. The Bresee Tower, where WIAI was located is vacant, rotting and literally falling apart. WITY is on the air, but I don't know how. The stations over in Covingtion/Veedersburg have decent ratings, but I don't think their sales staph can close a Coke bottle.

Danville is in really bad shape. The economic impact of the prison never came close to making up for the loss of the General Motors Foundry.

I didn't know that the GM foundry had closed, but again, I haven't been in Danville since the late 70's. When I was there it was WIAI, WITY, WDAN, & WDNL. Mike Mitzlaff was running WITY. From what I've heard he went over Covington {?} It's funny you mention the Bresee tower. It wasn't very spiffy when I was there in 77-78.

 

[radio_radio]

You must remember Bill Craig, Bent Marlin, Russ Bredholt, Tim Drake? Are you in Indy? I looked at some of your previous posts. We may know each other. I was at WDAN/WDNL or WMBJ from 1976 to 1985 in some fashion or another either part time in the early years 77-80 and full time 80-85.

We should meet for coffee, how do you propose we do that without revealing true identities to the rest of the radio-info world?

 

[MACK184]

You must remember Bill Craig, Bent Marlin, Russ Bredholt, Tim Drake? Are you in Indy? I looked at some of your previous posts. We may know each other. I was at WDAN/WDNL or WMBJ from 1976 to 1985 in some fashion or another either part time in the early years 77-80 and full time 80-85.

We should meet for coffee, how do you propose we do that without revealing true identities to the rest of the radio-info world?

You left out Don Russell! No, I'm not in Indy. I was in the late 90's. I now run a small station in northeastern Pennsylvania. I worked for Russ Bredholt at WIAI. I will send you a PM.

 

[Rowdy1234]

The stations over in Covingtion/Veedersburg have decent ratings, but I don't think their sales staph can close a Coke bottle.

I noticed WKZS is leaving the market. There's an approved CP where it will be moving into the Champaign/Urbana market at 103.3.

 

[MACK184]

The stations over in Covingtion/Veedersburg have decent ratings, but I don't think their sales staph can close a Coke bottle.

I noticed WKZS is leaving the market. There's an approved CP where it will be moving into the Champaign/Urbana market at 103.3.

WKZS is where? Covington? That's a bit of a stretch for a move isn't it?

 

[str8forward]

I was there thru the 90's. Went back to visit a few months ago the town is pitiful. Who are you guys? I'm sure I worked with some of you.

 

[11south]

You must remember Bill Craig, Bent Marlin, Russ Bredholt, Tim Drake? Are you in Indy? I looked at some of your previous posts. We may know each other. I was at WDAN/WDNL or WMBJ from 1976 to 1985 in some fashion or another either part time in the early years 77-80 and full time 80-85.

We should meet for coffee, how do you propose we do that without revealing true identities to the rest of the radio-info world?

You left out Don Russell! No, I'm not in Indy. I was in the late 90's. I now run a small station in northeastern Pennsylvania. I worked for Russ Bredholt at WIAI. I will send you a PM.

Don Russell is still there. PM function on this board doesn't work

 

[hoopeston]

What ever happened to Danny Ross? Bill Craig, Warren Hershberger they were awesome guys. Marlin not so much, pretty lost. IAI kicked butt until the hillbillies came to town on the Corbin Confusion Train.

 

[MACK184]

What ever happened to Ron Colson? Is he still around?

 

[str8forward]

danny went work fr the railroad, timm to state police,ron was in covinton doin oldies like at iai. i was programming there till 99 and had all of dennis down in corbin i could stand. we were on a climb but there was nowhere to go but up. it got down to like a `2.4 i got it back up to 6.1. dennis wantd me to change everthing and i said see ya

 

[str8forward]

Brent lol...I remeber we would go out on tuesday and do karoake at the Freindly. Brent would drink Miller High Life and sing Knights In White Satin. Torture!!!!!!!

 

[MACK184]

I'm from back in the days when the line-up on WIAI was, Tom the preacher, Kenny Ball, Bob Ashley & Me.
Joyce Cutright was the farm director. On the weekends we had Ted Osborne and Ron Colson. Ron was teaching high school at that time. Also at that time was a young guy named Jeff Cosgrove, who later became GM for a time after Russ Bredholt. Over on WITY was Wally Wawro, Nancy Jean The Tuba Lady & Steve Rodio. Reed Pence was over at WDAN/WDNL along with Don Russell and a few more who's names my poor mind has forgotten.

 

[hoopeston]

I don't think I every heard a bad word about Colson, just one of the nicest guys in the world and he had or still has probably a great following. Working with Key Broadcasting can only be compared to waterboarding, pure torture.

 

[str8forward]

I was there with Kb for a while. Left and then came back. I was there whenever they lost the overnight satelitte feed I was the overnight guy. They ran WSM overnite and the satelitte changed and WIAI didn't. Talk about luck I walked in and KB hired me started that night. I didn't have a job and they didn't have a night guy.
I came back in 90's Randy Jones was PD. WiXY signed on and started kicking butt. Because "WIAI is number one and we are not doing anything different" mentality. Plus Corbin came into the picture. WIAI was number one but they were the only horse in town as well.
I really loved working there it was my first country gig. Some stories I could tell...i'm sure you have some to. We had a night guy 7p-12 can't remmber his naem he woulds get sauced up and no one could (or wanted to catch him) until he quit and they found his vodka bottles in the ceiling tiles. Heck he was better sauced than alot of jocks now sober.

 

[radio_radio]

Brent lol...I remeber we would go out on tuesday and do karoake at the Freindly. Brent would drink Miller High Life and sing Knights In White Satin. Torture!!!!!!!

My first job in radio was at WDAN when I was in high school. I was 17 and got hired by John Eckert when I showed up at the station with my third class permit. He said, "when can you start?" Dan Swaney just got hired by WJBC in Bloomington...he'll train you this weekend on the Sunday morning shift...then Tim Drake and Scott Medland will train you on the evening shift.

Part of the evening shift was pulling the carts for the morning show. The morning show on WDAN in 1976 was Brent Marlin. After college I came back started selling. The station was owned by Sangamon Broadcasting. Marlin was still there in a sales position. He soon left to run WVWV in Covington.

Some of the names of people I worked with were: Bob Taylor, Joe Jackson, Tina Bunnell, Bruce Yentes, Scott Albert, Vickie Longer, Doug Quick, Keith Mason, Bill LaCombe (deceased), Bob Appuhn, Rich Moore, Max Shaeffer, Bill Pickett, Don Russell, Russ Bredholt, Bob Iverson, Kerry West, Mike Hulvey, Scott Eisenhauer (current Mayor), Jeannie Eisenhauer, Kent Starkey, Doyne Dwiggins, Opal Blacketer, Justin Althaus, Brian Barnes, Dick Barnes, Randy Daniels, Lisa Beauchamp, Steve Sibley, Bill Raak, Jim Sheppard, Carol Vorel, Mike James, Ken Carson and Susan Frick to name more than a few.

I worked there full time from 1980 to 1985 and part time from 1976-1980. I learned alot. I would never go back however.

 

[amfmxm]

Although I have legitimate reason to pull a barstool up to this particular conversation, I'll admit some caution because I gather that I preceded all of you in Big D Radio--started at WITY in 1966 (hired by Elzer Marx?) and was part of the Original Crew at WIAI (hired by Bud Sunkel?) in--what?--1968 or '69? Starting pay at WITY was $1.25 an hour, so when WDWS-AM/FM came along with $1.50 an hour...

Went to DACC (then-DJC) and U of I, so worked the whole Eastern Illlinois Radio Circuit of the late sixties as a jock and/or newsguy, then headed East and have been managing radio stations on the Right Coast for the past 30 years or so. I come back to Danville once or twice a year to visit relatives.

Sorry to see WIAI retooled as a Chambana station. Although the "always-behind-the-times" operation of the station had set it up to get whacked by someone like Saga/WIXY, I always felt that 'IAI was capable of emerging as a real radio station at any time. Ken Ball had moved it in that direction, but never quite got it there. Maybe it still is capable... but this most recent episode would be quite a stumbling block. 102/DNL has likewise always seemed to be 5-to-10 years behind the rest of the industry, whether as a CHR or Hot AC or whatever. When Neuhoff bought it I thought it might catch up, but it never really did.

My hunch is that these stations have always been run purely for profit--and squeezed very tight to maximize every dime's worth of cashflow. So it's always been radio on the cheap. Too bad. Danville deserves better.

 

[radio_radio]

Although I have legitimate reason to pull a barstool up to this particular conversation, I'll admit some caution because I gather that I preceded all of you in Big D Radio--started at WITY in 1966 (hired by Elzer Marx?) and was part of the Original Crew at WIAI (hired by Bud Sunkel?) in--what?--1968 or '69? Starting pay at WITY was $1.25 an hour, so when WDWS-AM/FM came along with $1.50 an hour...

I think Elzer is still around selling real estate. Sunkel got in some real trouble back in the 80's for some real disturbing stuff IIRC. When you were around either The Commercial News or First Danville Radio owned and operated 1490 and 102.1. Sangamon Broadcasting (Shelby Harbison) of Springfield bought them in 1977 and brought them into the, then current century. A company named MaJac destroyed most of the good that Sangamon brought....and Neufhoff just ran the things for cash flow.

WIAI was always the sleeping giant. Bresee was an absentee owner at best, and the people from Corbin KY were as close to awful as a broadcast owner could be. Then of course there was WITY. When they were owned by the people in Jasper Indiana, they actually paid attention to the product. I am not sure who owns it now, but my guess is "the big red off switch" is a viable option.