FM (32 page)

This was a system that Charlie wisely pioneered, and it seemed to encapsulate the best of both worlds. I commended his innovations and his respect for the jocks’ freedom to program their own music, knowing that this system tangibly achieved what Harrison and I had dreamed of at WLIR. But forces over all our heads conspired to upset the roll we were on. Suddenly, our four-plus share and morning revenues weren’t good enough, even though they represented new heights for the station.

Group president Carl Brazell could certainly be cast as the greedy one here but he was under great stress due to another surprise development—Kluge sold him Metromedia. The old man was reenergized when he foresaw the rise of cellular-telephone technology and needed to liquidate his radio assets to fully fund his new endeavor. Rather than take on the lengthy process of finding a buyer and awaiting FCC approval, he hit upon the idea to sell to his own employees. He offered the whole chain to Brazell and his group of general managers for the fair market value, at least in his eyes, of $285 million. He even agreed to intercede with the investment bankers at Morgan Stanley to leverage the deal. Although the GMs were men of means, most of the money would have to be borrowed. He gave Brazell forty-eight hours to answer before withdrawing the offer. After gaining no sleep throughout the entire period in his efforts to forge the coalition, Brazell agreed to Kluge’s terms.

The new company was called Metropolitan Broadcasting (the original name Kluge had started with) and they assumed huge debt from the outset of their venture. Doomed from the start, stations had to increase revenues almost twofold just to stay in business. Immediately, plans were laid to spin off some of the chain to keep the others afloat.

The ripple effect was felt in Los Angeles, where Michael Harrison was told at KMET that KIIS and Rick Dees were now his target, not the vanquished KLOS and KROQ. Although still owned by Malrite, the venerable WMMS in Cleveland also heeded the siren’s call for bigger profits and turned to Top Forty, although they played almost exclusively singles from rock bands in an amalgam they called Rock Forty. They were the role model for what Brazell envisioned for KMET, as the Cleveland rocker broadened their appeal even further and reached sixteen shares. They had become such a habit in the market that people who didn’t even listen would cite them in Arbitron diaries because they were so hip to listen to. Much of what drove them to change was that AOR gurus had declared that artists like Prince were inappropriate for rock stations, which Kid Leo and his gang considered racist.

Despite the increasing corporate pressure, Mark McEwen and I still felt safe in the mornings throughout 1985. We blew Jay Thomas out in short order, and he was replaced by a weird guy who most considered a failed afternoon jock at WNBC. He had been fired when his superiors objected to a sketch that he did on the air about having sex with barnyard animals. His name was Howard Stern.

Where the Streets
Have No Name

A contest was staged in 1984 in cooperation with
Radio and Records.
A collective of record companies were its sponsors, and it was brilliantly conceived and executed. The setup was simple: It was open to program directors across the country and each week, they’d be asked to evaluate a certain number of records. They were to rate the records based on their final chart potential—would this song be a top twenty, top ten, number one, or miss the charts entirely? At the end of the year, the results would be tabulated and the winner would be given a grand prize, which turned out to be a red Mercedes-Benz convertible (ironically, like the one Mel Karmazin got when he joined Infinity).

What a masterstroke for the record labels! Here was a legal inducement to get program directors to listen to their new releases. In order to win the car, the programmers would have to carefully evaluate each song for its hit potential. Unspoken was the fact that if one were to pick a record to succeed, they would naturally champion the song on their own airwaves in an attempt to help it up the charts.
Radio and Records
profited, not only raising their already high profile with the labels, but making themselves must reading for the PDs, who naturally wanted to check their progress.

And of course, most program directors fancy themselves to be great judges of talent. Their calls on which records should be played and which should be avoided are a large factor in determining the success of their radio stations. To win or place highly in such a competition would raise one’s stock in the industry, and possibly lead to a better job in a larger market. At worst, it might convince a recalcitrant general manager of their value. And who wouldn’t want to tool around in a red Mercedes?

The winner of the contest, as it turned out.

Mark Chernoff, a short, slender man with sandy brown hair and a mustache, was programming WDHA in Dover, New Jersey. He had grown up a radio devotee, loving WABC, and then worshiping WNEW-FM. But he was also a scholar of the entire medium, aware of what WPLJ, WMCA, WNBC, and all the other major stations were doing. Like most programmers, he started out doing DJ work at a small station, eventually working his way up to WDHA. Like WLIR, it was a respected suburban station—its signal blanketed the middle and northern portion of New Jersey, but failed to reach Manhattan. Record promoters would visit a couple of times a month, and saw WDHA as a starter station for their new acts. If they couldn’t get a record played at WNEW-FM, they could work the suburbans—generate some sales and requests, and hopefully get noticed in the big city. Smart programmers in the large markets would key on certain smaller stations for guidance when the call was close. It was almost like the chain of progression in baseball—first you succeed in Class A ball, then AA, AAA, and finally, if the talent is there, you get to the majors.

One always had to be wary of stations that were too malleable to record company inducements. Heavy airplay may accompany a promotion, based on a large schedule of advertising and free concerts that may have nothing to do with a record’s potential. No smaller-market programmer was immune to such enticements, because revenue is so critical, but Chernoff was able to maintain his reputation for integrity despite those pressures. WDHA was considered a good bellwether because of its proximity to New York and Chernoff’s acumen at selecting hits.

And now he had proven it.
Radio and Records
called him with months left in the contest to inform him that he’d won. He was so far ahead of the competition that no one else could possibly catch him in the remaining weeks. Chernoff, with children to put through college, eschewed the convertible for a trust fund to help pay for their education. This was not your typical radio dude.

Chernoff was able to strike a balance between his dedication to an all-consuming business and his devotion to his family. He was active in his community and supportive of his sons’ Little League, coaching their teams when most others would be attending record company parties. He was as immune to hype as one could be in this business, and his discipline paid off when WNEW-FM needed a music director.

Charlie Kendall had been served notice that his wife could not stay in the position. Aside from the nepotism issue, the two represented a power block that alarmed Mike Kakoyiannis. So when the word went out that WNEW was looking, Chernoff applied, speaking first with Kendall and then going through the Muni ritual. Mark had met Scottso at a convention some months earlier, and the two had spent time together, sharing common tastes in music. Muni also appreciated Chernoff’s total lack of artifice in a business filled with phonies constantly striving to advance their own causes. But leaving the interview with Muni, Mark felt that WNEW wasn’t really interested in him, having spent most of it listening to Scott regale him with stories. Sound familiar?

Weeks passed and Chernoff hadn’t heard from Kendall. Through friends in the business, he discovered that the candidate list had been narrowed to two, and that he was one of the survivors. His friend Jim Del Balzo of CBS Records suggested Chernoff call Kendall to thank him for the interview and to ask if he needed anything more from him. It was possible that Charlie hadn’t decided yet, or had and was postponing it.

Mark agreed to make the call, feeling despondent about not getting the job, but hoping to plant his foot in the door for future consideration. Upon reaching Kendall, the program director cut him off as he began to thank him for his time.

“Great, man,” Kendall said. “When can you start?”

Kendall had thought he’d already informed Chernoff that he’d gotten the job and was wondering why he hadn’t heard from him. Chernoff maintains that he never received any such call. However, he wasn’t about to argue the point and quickly gave notice to WDHA. Mark would later play a huge role in the further ascension and eventual undoing of WNEW-FM.

Meanwhile, at around this same time in Los Angeles, Mike Harrison was having his meeting with Lee Abrams on how to fix KMET so that they could beat Rick Dees and give the struggling Metropolitan a chance to stay afloat. There was no rancor between the two but that meeting convinced Harrison that his time at KMET as program director was over. Abrams couldn’t refute Harrison’s logical arguments in favor of his own music mix. They went back and forth into the night, and Abrams wound up getting sick. Harrison literally had to carry him back to his hotel room. It was the beginning of the end for KMET.

The next day, Michael informed Bloom that he was resigning as PD and wanted only to continue as a talk show host. He offered the station his counsel, but knew that he wasn’t going to be needed. He suggested that Bloom resign as well, before the deluge, which he now saw as inevitable.

Bloom was outraged. He said that Harrison was deserting him by not sticking it out as program director. Since Harrison had made a commitment to travel to Australia for two weeks to consult a broadcast group there, he suggested they declare a truce and revisit the situation upon his return. By the time Michael landed back in the States, Bloom had hardened his position. Not only was Harrison out as PD, but he was taking away the talk show as well. He didn’t want anyone that disloyal around the radio station. Bloom didn’t even deliver the bad news in person; he chose to send the message through his secretary. Thus Michael’s ten-year involvement with KMET ended on a destructive and spiteful note.

Although I sympathized with my friend’s struggles on the West Coast, I had my own problems to deal with. My relationship with Charlie Kendall wasn’t improving. I decided to clear the air with him once and for all, trying to improve our communication difficulties. I sat in his office and explained that neither myself nor McEwen responded well to verbal abuse, and that if he could learn to stop yelling and screaming at us, we shared enough common ground to work together. I said that the tirades only caused us to tune him out, and that a different tact would serve him better in making his points.

His response was worse than I could have anticipated. “You’ve got a lot of nerve telling me how I should conduct my business,” he said calmly. “I’m the boss, you work for me. If there’s any adjustments to be made, you have to adjust to me. Not the other way around.”

I mumbled something about both of us working on the problem, but he wasn’t having any of it. Mark and I knew that he wasn’t thrilled with our morning show. I was his declared enemy from the start, and Mark was my sidekick. But I’d also misinterpreted my friendship with McEwen. My overall impression was that we got along very well and were friends above and beyond work. I had driven him out to New Jersey in search of a house. We ate meals together, played golf together, socialized outside of work frequently. We unburdened our respective romantic troubles on each other—he about his estranged wife and their attempts to reunite, and me about a volatile relationship I was having with my fiancée. It wasn’t a complete bed of roses—we did disagree about show content on occasion, but I thought that was a normal occurrence when two people spend a lot of time creating a project together.

Later I found out that McEwen suspected me of being a closet bigot. I was hurt, since I’d hired the man after WAPP had dismissed him and had accepted him as an equal when I was doing the show by myself. Somewhere down the line, I had started to refer to him as the Dusky Moor, a quote from Shakespeare’s
Othello.
I thought that the appellation was a harmless acknowledgment of his dark, dashing image. It was Kendall who told me that Mark found it insensitive, and that it spoke of my disregard for his feelings.

When I confronted Mark about it, he admitted that he had told Charlie about how it had bothered him. He also resented his role in our
Miami Vice
parodies and thought that they had become stale. More resentments came out and as I listened I began to believe that perhaps I was insensitive. It was like breaking up with a lover you’ve unconsciously taken for granted, where you’re read chapter and verse all the things you’d done wrong since you met. You had admitted your transgressions and thought that they’d been forgiven and forgotten. But then there are dozens of other slights and offenses that you weren’t even conscious of, minor incidents that had been laughed off when they occurred.

It comes down to trust. I felt that I could trust McEwen, but obviously he didn’t feel likewise. If I had a beef with him, I’d tell him and it was quickly forgotten. For whatever reason, he held it all inside until it was too late. After that, our chemistry was never the same. I was guarded when I teased him on the air for fear that he would take my jibes seriously, and he protected his turf as funny man by insisting on more autonomy to do bits on his own. I was merely to serve as his straight man. Our respective romantic difficulties didn’t help. I was totally devastated when I had to call off my wedding six weeks prior to the scheduled date, and he was experiencing the daily ups and downs of a reconciliation.

In any team situation, especially if it involves only two people, success and failure can be equally dangerous traps. When you are successful, you tend to paper over differences, which can then grow until they get out of hand. When things aren’t going well, small differences can be magnified to the point where they become insurmountable obstacles. Friends constantly whisper in your ear that you would be better off without the other guy dragging you down, and your ego tells you that they’re right. You tend to look for solutions outside yourself, when a hard look in the mirror might reveal the source of your problems. We had our good moments, but the numbers were shifting inexorably in Howard Stern’s favor. Looking back, I don’t think that anything Mark and I could have done would have changed that.

Our last best chance came when John McGhann, a former director of NBC’s
The Source,
agreed to produce our show. McGhann was just what the doctor ordered, a cheerleader who could boost our sagging spirits. He was constantly nudging us in the right direction, lavishing praise when we succeeded and offering encouragement when we fell short. His infectious enthusiasm even made Charlie believe that the show might work after all. But John wanted to be an actor, and after a couple of months of working with us, he left for Los Angeles. He was able to score some nice guest shots on television, including a role on
L.A. Law,
before his death at a much-too-early age.

After John left, Charlie felt the show went downhill. I didn’t believe that, but when Stern’s numbers passed ours in the summer ratings book of 1986, they decided to pull the plug. When we got off the air one Friday in mid-October, Mike Kakoyiannis’s secretary told us we were both wanted in his office.

That walk down the corridor was the longest I’ve ever taken. It felt like we were on Death Row, about to be executed and powerless to earn a reprieve.

“Are we going to be fired?” Mark asked as he turned to me, incredulously.

“I don’t know. Sure feels like it, though, doesn’t it?”

By our downcast looks upon entering his office, Mike knew we had already figured it all out and there was little that he could offer to ease our pain.

“Fellas,” he began. “What can I say? You’ve just done your last show. I know you guys tried hard, but the results just weren’t there. Stern has to be stopped, and his momentum is getting to be too much. I’m sorry. You know I like you both personally, but this is business.”

Mike hinted that there might be an opportunity for me somewhere else soon, but he wasn’t specific. He went on about severance issues, but we were too stunned to absorb his words. Neither one of us had much to say. We asked about who would be doing the show and he replied that Charlie would be handling it on an interim basis until they found a replacement. Our newswoman, Lisa Glasberg (now Lisa G), would be kept on for now.

Mark and I went out to breakfast and lamented our fate, second-guessing every decision we’d made in the two years we worked together. The fact that we weren’t being replaced by some hotshot from another market made it even worse. It was like being told that “you guys are so bad we’ve got to get rid of you now even though there is no Plan B.” We didn’t blame each other, though, and I felt that whatever the fates had in store, Mark and I had buried our differences and would still be friends. I was wrong about that. At first we talked regularly, but over the years my phone calls to him went unreturned until I finally stopped trying.