Interview with Jerry Solomon, February 6, 2014

Jack Fox: It is February sixth, it's a Wednesday, 2013, kind of chilly and overcast this morning, and we're at the New Albany YMCA. And I'm talking with Jerry Solomon, long time employee at WHAS radio. Jerry, how are you doing?

Jerry Solomon: I'm doing fine.

JF: Are you a New Albany native? I know you live in New Albany.

JS: Yeah, I've lived here all my life, except for six months. My mother remarried and we moved to South Bend, Indiana, and that lasted about six months. We came back and I've-

JF: You're a Hoosier through and through.

JS: I'm a Hoosier through and through. I back the Hoosiers, yes.

JF: Ah, good for you. Did you go to New Albany High School?

JS: Went to New Albany High School, and then I didn't last long at Purdue. I had a football scholarship to Purdue.

JF: Oh, I didn't know about that.

JS: Back then it wasn't a four-year deal. I busted up my leg, and at the end of the year I was no longer playable. So I came back, and I went to IU, IU 1:00extension then, which was only a two year school.

JF: Oh yeah, is that what IU Southeast is now?

JS: Yeah, that's what it is now. It was called IU extension. It was only two years, and you had to go to campus or transfer to Louisville, and I went to U of L then and I finished up.

JF: How about that? Yeah, good, very good. So you were in sales for all your career in radio.

JS: My whole career was in sales.

JF: Now how did that happen? Were you a born salesman? Were you a guy that sold lemonade on the stand as a kid, or how'd that happen?

JS: Well, I guess it started, I could book my way through life, I guess. But my uncle was the sales manager for Capitol Records at that time, and he needed a salesperson. So I was a salesperson for Capitol Records.

JF: In this area here?

JS: In this area. We sold to retail store. Of course, back then you had Kresge's and Woolworth's, and you had-

JF: And then the record stores and everything too, yeah.

JS: And record stores here, and I sold that. And then when they closed-

JF: This was when? When was this? What year was that?

JS: This was 1962.

JF: Okay.

JS: And then when they, we were a distributor, and they came in and closed all distributors, and I had to get a job. And I went to work for a little station in Jeffersonville, Indiana, WXVW. Keith Rising was the owner.

JF: That's a name that's known in Louisville broadcasting too.

JS: Oh yeah, yes, you're right. And I stayed there for, I think it was two years, and then I got a job with WAVE radio, which was a move up. And I was there like two years, and then WHAS put an FM station on.

JF: Oh, okay.

JS: It was a classical station. In fact, it was not WHAS FM, it was called FM WHAS. And because my uncle had had a record store and I'd sold classical music, 3:00I got the job.

JF: Is that right?

JS: Yeah.

JF: Who did you interview with? Do you remember who you interviewed with?

JS: Jim Topmiller.

JF: He was the sales manager?

JS: He was the sales manager for AM, but he was also the sales manager for FM.

JF: Which was a new venture.

JS: It was a new venture. It was a venture that Barry Bingham wanted this classical music station on the air, and I got hired.

JF: And apprehension about that? Starting a new venture, a new radio station, classical music and-

JS: New radio station. And I was kind of leery because I was selling AM and this was an FM station.

JF: Which was new at that time, FM was pretty new.

JS: And at that time, 10% of the people had an FM radio.

JF: Oh my goodness.

JS: 90% didn't, and here I'm selling in a town that is not a New York town. It's more of a laid back country town, and I'm selling classical music.

JF: On an FM station.

JS: On an FM station.

JF: Your wife have anything to say about that?

JS: But I got laughed at and I got kicked out of a few places.

JF: What made you decide to do that, because of all of those obstacles there or-

JS: It was a challenge. It was a challenge and I thought I want to try it and see. And it was a challenge, and like I say Barry Bingham Junior actually went on calls with me.

JF: Really?

JS: Oh yeah, to Byck's Department, women's store. People that he knew, of course he knew a lot of them because being the head of the-

JF: And this was his baby, yeah.

JS: Oh yeah, and it was his. And I shouldn't say it, but we lost a lot of money for a few years on this.

JF: Were you the only salesperson?

JS: I was the only salesperson.

JF: Only one, how about that?

JS: I'm going to be truthful, I didn't bring in a lot.

JF: It was difficult, yeah.

JS: I mean it really was. There was one other FM station, and like I say, there was only 10% that had an FM radio. It was weird, it really was.

JF: Well, at least your rates weren't as high as WHAS AM.

JS: No, no they weren't nearly as high. No, they weren't nearly as high. But 5:00that lasted, the classical lasted I think about three years. Of course, it was losing money. Of course, the Bingham's were making money on everything else, but it was losing. And they finally changed it, NBC came up with a day long news program and we would break in at 20 after for 10 minutes of local news, and 10 before the hour for that. And that lasted about two years and we were still not doing much, and that's when we went country with WAMZ. And of course, that's been a great-

JF: So you came in 1966? Did you say that's when you started, 1966?

JS: Mm-hmm (affirmative), and we moved over in the new building in-

JF: Tell me about the old building. We're saying old building now, this was in 1966, and you were in the Courier-Journal building on Sixth and Broadway.

JS: We were on a good floor, because we were on the fifth floor and that's where the cafeteria was too. But we were on the fifth and the sixth floor, and the old studios, it was different. And even TV then, see WAVE always says they were first with color, and they were first with color because HAS TV didn't want to go color until they got in the new building.

JF: But that was on the horizon when you came? Had they started talking? Obviously 1966, they were talking about it already.

JS: Yeah, they were talking about it, yeah. Yeah, it was an old building and rounded on the corner there. The head people had offices on the corner.

JF: It was quite a community really though, wasn't it?

JS: It was, it was.

JF: Big cafeteria and all the people that were newspaper, and radio, and television.

JS: And you had a lot more engineers then, which you have, Clear Channel over now has two or three engineers period. Back then we had 15 or 20. I remember 7:00when I started, you didn't face it, but the disc jockeys didn't spin the records. The engineers sat there and he touched the button to spin the record. That was-

JF: The disc jockey sat at a... And actually on HAS then there were no disc jockeys, were there?

JS: No, they were announcers.

JF: Do you remember who some of the people were when you came there?

JS: Ray Shelton was one, Van Vance was there, Jim Walton was there. Of course Milton was there at night.

JF: Jerry Melloy, was Jerry David Melloy?

JS: No, Jerry Melloy wasn't there then. He came a little later. But I remember Jerry coming. I shouldn't even say this on here, but Jerry came, and a lot of radio stations, they trade out stuff for refrigerators and stuff. Well, the Bingham's didn't believe in that. He comes in and he said, "Where do you have a trade? I need a refrigerator and a stove for my apartment." We said, "Jerry, the Bingham's don't believe in trading."

JF: Welcome to the Bingham world.

JS: Yeah, welcome to the Bingham world is right.

JF: Now what was the FM like when you put it on the air? You were in the older building. You didn't have disc jockeys there did you, or how did that operate?

JS: No, no well I'll tell you what. The gentleman you interviewed, Brench Bowden was kind of the program director, and it was all on tape.

JF: All automated.

JS: All automated. It would fit in a room maybe six by six, and so it was simple to operate. But Branch decided what went on, what opera or what movement or whatever, he decided.

JF: Did your experience selling classical records have any bearing on your career? Did that help you at all?

JS: No, it may have got me the job because I said I knew that. I mean other than that, and I'm glad it did because I had a nice career with HAS and then AMZ, and then Clear Channel and all the way through. So I can't complain, I really can't. I've been very fortunate.

JF: Your last year at HAS was when did you say?

JS: 1999, October. My wife retired from teaching in May of that year, and I was going to keep on, but it's like any business now. It was changing so fast Jack, that I had... In fact, Clear Channel at that time did not pay you if you had vacation days coming. So I told, I think it was Mark Thomas, I told Mark, I said, "Mark, I've got nine days vacation. I'm going to go on vacation. And if I come back, if I come in with a suit and tie on, I'm staying. If I come in with just a sports shirt on, then I'm going to give you a notice." So I came in with a sports shirt on, gave him my notice. It wasn't a two week because they had to hire somebody. I think I was there three or four months or something, but finally I got out and I'm glad because I've had a good time with my grandchildren.

JF: Yeah, that's a 33 year career though. That's a long time. Well, let's go back to 1960... When did they move into the building that was-

JS: 1967.

JF: We called it the new building.

JS: The new building.

JF: 1967, it was at Chestnut and Sixth, up the block there.

JS: Yeah, because Armory Place and Sixth Street and Chestnut.

JF: Still all that was owned by the Bingham's though wasn't it? He had Courier-Journal, and then what, the Standard Gravure.

JS: Standard Gravure was the printing, and then-

JF: Well, you got to watch that building being built and equipped and everything.

JS: Oh yeah, oh yeah.

JF: What was that like?

JS: That was something.

JF: Go over and check it every day or-

JS: No, we wouldn't check it every day. But one thing was, and I think you remember, if you remember the board room.

JF: Yeah, up on the second floor.

JS: That gigantic you know.

JF: Long table, yeah.

JS: Board room table. See that was supposed to be one piece. If you notice, down the middle, they couldn't get it in.

JF: Well sure, no place to put it.

JS: There was no place. It was too big to get in.

JF: Put the table in, build the room around it.

JS: Yeah, it was a beautiful board room table and they didn't take it up first, so they had to cut that thing in half. And Bingham's, I don't believe they liked that but they didn't have a choice.

JF: Otherwise, have your conference table in the lobby or something.

JS: Yeah, yeah.

JF: That lobby was something else too, wasn't it there?

JS: Well the lobby, we had the fountain that came up. But we had a problem, I mean every day you'd go in, you'd see the vice-presidents and the managers out there because the fountain was supposed to come down. Well, it spilled out onto the carpet day after day. And they would... I don't know how much money they spent on it, but they spent a ton on this fountain. And over the years, they had it going a while, but after a while they just gave up on it.

JF: Yeah, I didn't think about this, but the Bingham's also spent some money on a fountain in the Ohio River too, didn't they?

JS: They spent money on the fountain in the Ohio River and left money for-

JF: Same problem with [inaudible]

JS: Same thing, the left money for care of it, but it didn't take long for that money to run out. And it was supposed to shoot up a fleur-de-lis and every time I saw it, there was just a spray and I did not see the fleur-de-lis design.

JF: I forgot about their troubles with fountains over the years. It's funny. So you moved into this then new building. Everything went over, radio, television, everything.

JS: Everything, radio, television.

JF: You said everything was new, huh?

JS: Everything was new. Everything, the ash trays, the garbage can. They didn't move anything except the employees. We were old, but-

JF: Probably had some new ones there too.

JS: All furniture, everything Jack, was brand new. It was fantastic, it was. I thought boy, we all had offices upstairs, TV was here, and we were here. Had offices with doors on them and later on that changed.

JF: So you had a lot more room, of course.

JS: Oh yeah, we had a lot more room because when we were in the other building there were three sales people and we were just in one room with the desk next to each other. And this way, we had our room, and doors on the office door, and it was nice, very nice.

JF: So were you with FM, how long were you with the FM then? You were with from the classical up through the country. How long were you with FM?

JS: Well no, when it got to be country, then I went back with strictly HAS AM.

JF: Now when you were selling FM, were you selling both AM and FM, or just FM?

JS: No, no it was strictly, they were separated. They were separated, yeah.

JF: But then you went with AM when, in 19, what was that?

JS: I went with AM in 1986. I went from being sales in HAS to sales manager of AMZ in 1986. And that was... No, we were bought in '86. No, I'm sorry 1984, because we were purchased in 1986.

JF: Let's go back just a minute and talk about, before we get into Clear Channel, let's talk about the Bingham's a little bit. You mentioned you were hired to help Barry Junior put on the FM station. Did you have much, what was your experience with the Bingham family? Did you have much experience with the Bingham family, how they treated their employees and all that sort of thing? What they did with the community?

JS: Whether, I didn't always agree with their editorial viewpoint, but as far as working for someone, if you did your job, they took care of you. It's the way business used to be, you take care of them, they take care of you. I mean I could never complain. They were wonderful people to work for. I just never could complain about them.

JF: Well, you had contact with Barry Junior early on, didn't you?

JS: I had contact with Barry Junior, because early on with sales being kind of tough, then Barry would call me and want to go on sales calls with me. And I'd say, "You're the owner. You can go."

JF: Never was upset with you because of lack of results?

JS: No.

JF: Because he recognized the challenge.

JS: He knew the challenge. To begin with, classical music is not like country or pop. You're way down here, and then you only have 10% of the people have an FM receiver, it's crazy. I mean and we couldn't even get, here we are the classical 15:00music station, and at that time WAVE radio AM carried the Louisville Orchestra. Well, we tried because we're classical-

JF: And you couldn't get them on there?

JS: And you could not get them because, "Wait a minute," they'd say, "there's not that many listeners. There's not that many receivers." So we never got the Louisville Orchestra and here we are the classical music station.

JF: And Louisville Orchestra was in its heyday during that time too, and yeah, that was almost like a UK or U of L basketball game.

JS: Oh yeah, they were the top of their game. They really were. Yes, they were.

JF: Who were some of the people you worked with during those early days and then as you moved along? You mentioned Jim Topmiller.

JS: Well, in the early days Jim Topmiller was the sales manager.

JF: He was there for a long time as sales manager, wasn't he?

JS: Jim was there for a long time.

JF: Good man.

JS: I forget how long Jim was there. He came up here as a salesperson, then 16:00ended up as sales manager. And I worked with Kurt Smith, who was the other salesman, Bob Shirer was the other salesman. Like I say, the people on the air were Jim Walton, and Van Vance, and Ray Shelton, and Milton. There's engineers and I can't even remember some of the engineers' names, but we had 15 or 20.

JF: Well, you were there for the transition through, when they moved not only to the new building but began to, AM especially began to change and become more DJ oriented so to speak. What influenced that?

JS: Well, really I guess we hired a gentleman named Hugh Barr as program director. And I think he was the one that had the foresight to say, "Hey, we've got to change." And like I said, we always had announcers, deep throat announcers. And then we hired Wayne Perky, and I'm going to bring this story up.

JF: That's great, that's great.

JS: But Wayne was there, and Wayne was a disc jockey.

JF: Rock and roll disc jockey, yeah.

JS: Yeah, not an announcer. And he was there a year and the three sales people and our sales manager got together and said, "We've got to get rid of this Perky guy. He's got a mush mouth. We've got to get rid of him." Well, we were dead wrong. He lasted forever and did a tremendous job for the station.

JF: Yeah, over 30 years, yeah. Brought in numbers, and you sold him after that.

JS: Yeah, I'm tickled to death.

JF: Sing his praises.

JS: A tremendous individual, tremendous individual.

JF: Wow, that's great. So you moved into the new building then and you're selling FM, and then switched to AM.

JS: Switched to AM, and then we hired more people.

JF: Did sales techniques change at all? I mean because you had the blocks of people, now you had personalities to sell. Did you have more sports packages and things like that?

JS: Yeah, because we had University of Kentucky at that time. Yeah, yeah it 18:00changed a lot, selling the sports, and selling, the disc jockeys helped I mean because really even the AM sales, we were kind of backward the way the radio business was going at that time. If Hugh Barr hadn't of come along, we would have still been back here and not making, I mean we made money, but not as much as we should have with a 50,000 watt station. I mean you're putting out all over the country and it-

JF: Yet early on we're not dominate in Louisville at all.

JS: No, no, no we were not. I mean it was lacking.

JF: Yeah, not until about the middle seventies or something like that.

JS: Yeah, WAKY was playing the rock and roll and they were up there. And sometimes we'd get laughed at because we were still backward according to how the radio world was going at that time.

JF: Backward in what way?

JS: Well, we were still deep throat, and then the music was not-

JF: So Hugh Barr had an influence on that.

JS: Oh, I think Hugh had a big influence on it.

JF: And you had... Of course, the thing that I remember, I came there in 1973, and the thing that I remember was that there was this community still on radio. The sales department was excellent, the news department was excellent, the on air people were great, but everybody kind of worked together. There was no turf like saying, "Well, you stay out of my place." They all, you could work with sales guys and they'd help you have an idea for how to produce a commercial or something. It all worked together it seemed like.

JS: Oh, I think we did. I definitely think, we did work together. I mean I don't care what part was, if it a copywriter, or on the air personality, news, or sports, or anything, we worked together.

JF: What do you think caused that?

JS: I don't know, Jack. I wish I did.

JF: Because many of those friendships have continued over the years. You've talked about having lunch with Perky, or Shelton, or people over the years that has maintained.

JS: It's just, you just worked. I don't know, it's not that way today. I think back then you did work together for the common good of that business.

JF: Yeah, that's a key.

JS: And I don't know that they do that now. Everybody's kind of for themselves and not for the common good of the whole. And maybe, I don't think that's good, but I'm kind of glad I'm this age now so I don't have to put up with it.

JF: Makes good memories anyway.

JS: But I've got good memories about it, yes. A lot of good memories.

JF: Now were you sales manager for AMZ?

JS: Yeah, I became sales manager for AMZ.

JF: Yeah, now you'd developed a sales force there. At one time you were it, but who else was on AMZ? Was Jane Vance, was she selling AMZ?

JS: Jane Vance was a sales manager.

JF: Oh, she was sales manager.

JS: Sales manager, and I was with HAS in sales. And when she went to regional sales manager, then I became WAMZ sales manager. Then she became national sales manager, and I became regional sales manager.

JF: This is during Clear Channel time?

JS: Yeah. And then when Jane retired, then I became national sales manager. So I 21:00followed, and she was a wonderful lady, believe me. She knew the business, and she was just so delightful to work with, I mean wonderful lady.

JF: Yeah, she really was. Who were some of the other sales people you remember along the line? You mentioned-

JS: Well, there was Kurt Smith and there was Bob Shirer was a sales person, June Wood was a sales person.

JF: When did Bobby Frazier come in? He was on AM.

JS: Bobby Frazier came.

JF: He was on HAS AM, wasn't he?

JS: He was on AM in the seventies, seventy-something I think it was.

JF: Yeah, he was there for a long time.

JS: John Beecham came there.

JF: Oh yeah, Beecham.

JS: June Wood, I mentioned June, she was there.

JF: Outstanding. Mark Thomas, when was Mark there?

JS: Mark came in seventies.

JF: Now Mike Crusham was, he was a salesman and became manager of the station didn't he?

JS: Yeah, he came when... All right, Mike came and was a sales manager when WAMZ first started country music. He was the sales manager. Did a very good job, worked himself up and got an offer to be general manager of a station in Tulsa, 22:00and moved around. And he came back here, and I don't remember the year, and was the general manager of AM/FM HAS and AMZ.

JF: Yeah, I bet that was sometime in the middle eighties, I bet.

JS: It could have been. And then he moved onto others.

JF: You know one time in the early seventies, Mike lived across the street from me, and he was selling for I think WKLO. And I thought he's a good guy, and I said, "You ought to go talk to the guys at HAS," and he did and he came back and went to work there.

JS: Well, our business, well you were in the radio business, but everybody wanted to work for HAS because the other stations, if you didn't work quite 23:00right, you're gone. As a general manager was, a new one comes in and he fires everybody. But at HAS it wasn't that way. We had people that lasted 25, 30 years which was unheard of in this business, especially in sales. It was totally unheard of, and general managers, they just didn't last. If they didn't quite do the job, boom, they're gone, here comes a new one. And so everybody, anybody that worked for HAS or AMZ, because the Bingham's owned it, and you do your job, they take care of you. But other stations weren't like that. It was a different world.

JF: Yeah, definitely a special place. Yeah, no question about it.

JS: It really was.

JF: That's interesting. What are some of the things, any events you remember during that time there? Any special events?

JS: I guess I started something. I remember one time we were having something for Milton Metz over at the old Marriott in Clarksville, and I mean it was honoring him. And we had a governor of Kentucky, two ex-governors, Cawood and 24:00all these people coming, and they said that the sales people were supposed to wear a tux. And I said, "Well the company's going to..." No, no company doesn't do it. So I thought well, if the company's not going to do it, I'll do it myself. And I got the brightest yellow tux that you've ever seen, and they thought I was Big Bird. And I went there and it kind of set the tone though. From then on, the company seemed to say, "If we have an event like this, we're going to pay to rent a black tux." And I'll never forget that. It was a big occasion for-

JF: And you showed up as Big Bird, huh?

JS: I showed up at Big Bird. I thought if I have to pay for it, to go to this 25:00event for my workplace, then I ought to be able to pick out anything I want. And I'll never forget that, never.

JF: Oh wow. What were some of the challenges of selling WHAS? Did you ever have any big challenges?

JS: Oh yeah, I've had people say, because we were a 50,000 watt station, "I don't need to advertise across the Ohio River." And they really, they said, "We're paying for all these people out there that are not going to buy here in the metro." And it was a challenge, a lot of them.

JF: You know, somebody we haven't mentioned, did you sell much farm programming with Barney Arnold?

JS: I love Barney. In fact, I was very, I've worked with Barney, well all things, I worked with Barney Arnold.

JF: He was the farm director.

JS: He was the farm director at WHAS, tremendous farm director. And my wife taught school with his wife in Clarksville, Indiana.

JF: Oh really?

JS: Oh yeah, they were. But Barney was a tremendous guy to work for. In fact, I 26:00told the story one time. If Barney Arnold got on and said it's going to rain at noon, the farmers put up their umbrellas at a quarter til. I mean he had a backing. In fact, I had him do a commercial for a little appliance store, All American Appliance Store, here in New Albany, with just him selling, his voice. He had people coming from Lexington, Kentucky to buy appliances at that appliance store.

JF: Boy, that was power, wasn't it?

JS: He was a tremendous. Yeah he-

JF: Anybody else have that kind of-

JS: Well, Fred did too. I think Fred, when Fred Wiche followed him. Fred had that same thing, it was something else.

JF: Cawood was there much of the time when you were there.

JS: Cawood, but then, see Cawood couldn't do commercials. Back then-

JF: Oh that's right, yeah. Sports and news, yeah.

JS: In fact, when Barney first started doing commercials, we finally fought the Bingham's because all over the country farm directors did commercials, but we didn't. Well the Bingham's, it hurt me financially because for a year they let Barney do them and we paid him to do them. Well, after a year the Bingham's said, "Nope, we're not doing it anymore." But they raised his salary on what he had, but then we salespeople going out and selling these people and they say, "I want Barney to do the spots," and I said, "We can't." And they said, "Well, we're not buying." And it was, it was something, Jack.

JF: Yeah, well with that kind of credibility, that was worth a lot of money, wasn't it?

JS: Oh my gosh, yeah. But he was, he was dynamite. He was something else. Well Perky though did a good job. All the jocks did a good job on commercials.

JF: Again, it was a team effort wasn't it?

JS: Oh yeah, definitely.

JF: They weren't in an ivory tower somewhere. They were out saying, "Well, let's go call on this client," or something.

JS: Yeah, oh yeah. It made a world of difference.

JF: Did you guys have any special packages and things like that? What kind of strategy went into selling a place like WHAS or WAMZ?

JS: Well, you had the helicopter.

JF: Traffic guy.

JS: Dick Gilbert, which was the only thing in town. I mean it wasn't somebody on the street, it was a helicopter up there. And that was a good sell, but I don't know, the disc jockeys, you could sell yourself almost.

JF: What about rates? How do they compare? Were you able to get more after a while?

JS: After a while. At first see, we didn't have that kind of ratings. And we had to put packages together that were not, low rates in order to get people on the air to get some results. In fact, I remember, and I'll tell this one story. There was a place out in St. Matthews called Koster Swope, and it was a Buick dealer. And of course, they were out in the east end where the rich people live, and I'd been after him. And finally, it was the end of the year models back 29:00then, along October, November they still had a lot left over from the prior year, and he advertised with me.

JS: And I went back out two or three weeks later and he said, "Best thing I ever did." He said, "I'm going to tell you something." He said, "I had these farmers coming in." Said, "I want that one." "Well, how are we going to finance that?" They said, "Wait a minute," and they'd reach in those bib overalls and pull out that cash. He said, "Now, it was so easy because a lot of times I had our sales people have these people you think's got a lot of money from the east end spend an hour with a client and the client doesn't have any credit." And Koster Swope stayed with the station for like 10 years because of that.

JF: Wow, boy that's credibility isn't it?

JS: That is, it really is. I mean it took a long time to get him on because he was one that, "Why do we need all that coverage?"

JF: But when he got those people from out [crosstalk] and everybody else.

JS: He got those people coming from 90, 100 miles away.

JF: Because they heard it on WHAS.

JS: That's right, that's exactly right. That's like, I remember a story of Bob Scherer who was a salesperson, and Bob got the Purnell's Sausage to advertise. And at that time we weren't a network for University of Kentucky, it was just us. And now, it was a county down on the Tennessee border, and I forget what county it was, but that year his sales went up 30% because of one thing they were advertising on University of Kentucky basketball. And Purnell stayed on it for years and years after that.

JF: Yeah, that's good. [crosstalk] is good.

JS: That's Al Purnell, that was it.

JF: Do you remember, that was an interesting thing about sales that sometimes a catchy thing would come along that you hadn't even planned on, but that would be a catch word like, "That's good," for Al Purnell. Do you remember any others? I was trying to think of some other clients like that.

JS: What was the one? Oh, the one with Metz. I forget. It was a pharmacy, Metz, 31:00Metz was on nine to midnight, or 9:30 to midnight, and it was a pharmacy at 18th and Market, which you wouldn't think. Leon, what was Leon's name? I forget, but anyway Leon makes the pill easier to swallow. And it was a pharmacy, and again, here we're talking about personalities, Milton Metz had such believability that he had people from Kansas would send a prescription to this pharmacy.

JF: Is that right? Because they were listening at night.

JS: Because they're listening, and fill it out and send it.

JF: Wow, that's impressive.

JS: The pill makes it, Leon makes the pill easier to swallow.

JF: I hadn't heard that one, that's a good one.

JS: And the thing with radio, you think you've got to run a lot of spots. Well Leon only ran three, he ran Monday, Wednesday, Friday on Milton, one spot a night.

JF: And got that kind of results.

JS: Not that much, because Milton had a following and a believability. And Milt was one, he wouldn't do just any commercial. He would check it out every time 32:00before he did one, so he wouldn't lose his credibility.

JF: Sure, that was important to him, yeah.

JS: Oh man, it was great. It was fantastic.

JF: Wow, well that had to be some fun times doing that kind of stuff.

JS: Oh it was, it was. It was fun.

JF: What were some of the challenges you had in addition? Of course, you had rates and ratings early on. Any other challenges you think of that-

JS: No, I don't think there was that many challenges, Jack. It was just a good station, it was good people. We had different general managers and you had some come through there, and some were not that good and didn't last long. But the thing is, you had a general manager, but all these people below him-

JF: They stayed.

JS: Everything succeeded whether that was there or not.

JF: You had to work, let's talk about the process of you would go sell a commercial or sell... Then you had to get it produced and on the air. Who'd you work with to do that kind of stuff?

JS: Well, Brench Bowden was the copywriter. We would go out, if they didn't have 33:00an ad agency, if you were calling on what we call a direct account, not an ad agency, then we would go out and get some information from the client. Go back, give it to Brench Bowden. He would write it and we'd go back to the client, "How's this?" "Yeah, that's fine." Then if they wanted a particular disc jockey, then-

JF: If they wanted a Perky, or Metz, or Van Vance, or someone like that.

JS: Perk, Metz, or Jack Fox, or anybody, then they would pay them to do that. Otherwise, it was just whoever was available or the-

JF: Who were the production directors then? Was that, let's see, Jim Ferguson was there for a while.

JS: Ferguson was there.

JF: Polk was there for a while.

JS: And then Polk was there, John Polk.

JF: And then Scott GettleI guess was the one.

JS: Scott was the last one I knew. Scott was there when I left.

JF: And that was really, that was an essential part for you guys as sales people, because people would hear the end result, but there was a process that 34:00had to go through and make it sound good, or people wanted to hear it and everything.

JS: Yeah, we had one girl, I remember Bob Scherer was a salesperson and we had a lady that wrote commercials. And he came in and gave her a 60 second commercial, and she wrote... She was a good copywriter, but this time she kind of goofed and wrote the copy. And she gave it to Bob, and he looked at it, and she'd forgot to put the client's name anywhere in the 60 second spot.

JF: Masterpiece aside from that.

JS: Yeah, right. It was a tremendous commercial, but it wouldn't have done the job. Bob and I, when he told me, we died laughing but-

JF: That's kind of interesting because I know that wasn't intentional, but when I watched the Super Bowl ads the other night, sometimes you watch this whole thing for 60 seconds and you just see the client right at the end and you think, "What happened? Who was the client?"

JS: That's what I don't understand. We were watching it with some friends and we'd say, "Wait a minute, what is it?"

JF: Who's this?

JS: And then at the end you see the name. And usually, back on radio, you wanted 35:00their name in five or six times. It wasn't down at the end or the beginning. You had it in there numerous times, and you had to do it.

JF: Do you remember, were there perks for sales guys? If you did a good job, did you guys have regular outings to do things?

JS: Well, basically when I started we were on a salary. And then we got on commission, and I liked it because the more I sold and harder I worked, the more I made. I didn't mind that at all that someone over here got a salary. Then when I got into management, then you had a salary plus an override too there. But no, I worked on commission and I never-

JF: You did all right. You don't look like you missed too many meals, so that was good.

JS: No, I haven't. See, I haven't missed too many.

JF: You're looking good, you're looking good.

JS: But no, I was happy with it that way. And I think in sales, in fact, see the Bingham's turned me down on it. When I got sales manager, what I wanted to do is, we had two secretaries and the traffic lady that puts the log together for the station.

JF: Yeah, we didn't mention that in the process there. To get it on the air, it had to go through traffic and get a schedule and all that stuff, yeah.

JS: What I wanted to do, if we made budget, then we'd give each one of those for 36:00that month $100, and they wouldn't do it.

JF: Is that right, huh?

JS: Because that wasn't, they didn't do it over at the newspaper. That's like when I first started, most stations, other than WHAS, they were on commission. But because the Bingham's had the paper and they didn't set their people that sold advertising for the paper were salaried, and they didn't believe in that. It was hard for them to really become a commission sales people. They didn't believe in it.

JF: To keep up with the rest of the world really.

JS: They finally did, yeah.

JF: Let me go back, to this. Why don't we talk about the process of getting a commercial on the air. Did you ever have occasions where you've worked hard, you've got somebody on the air, you've got the commercial produced the way they want it, and then it's going to run at maybe a UK basketball game, or U of L 37:00ballgame or something, and it messes up on the air or something. Have you ever had that happen to you before?

JS: Oh, we've had that happen before.

JF: What's that like at home listening and you're thinking, "Oh man."

JS: The client goes ballistic. I mean I go ballistic because it happened, but back then you had tape and stuff that could break or anything. It's not like now, they're on computer. Oh yeah, I've had clients that-

JF: Ever get calls during a-

JS: Oh yeah.

JF: "Where's my spot? What's going on?"

JS: And we always had, in January we always had a little award for the person that had the first Christmas spot on, because somebody would forget and run a client from December. In the middle of January they'd put the spot on and it'd be celebrating Christmas. And we always had a little award for the sales person that ran the first spot for the next year, which was not true. It's from last year.

JF: Get a jump on the next year, yeah.

JS: Yeah.

JF: Just to mention a couple more names. You mentioned Brench Bowden. I'm talking about the chain of getting something on the air. You had the traffic people. Would that be Ann Hubbs?

JS: Ann Hubbs and Helen Hubert. They were tremendous, they really were. They were very, very good.

JF: They put the commercial log together which was required by the FCC, but that was a record for you all too, for your clients, wasn't it?

JS: Oh yeah, oh yeah. Well yeah.

JF: It's how you charge them and do what you do.

JS: Yeah they've, in fact a lot of times Fridays people take off early. Well, those people there putting that log together had three logs to get out, Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

JF: And then you have ballgames in there. With tournament time, you don't know what was going to happen.

JS: You didn't know what was going to happen. Well, when it was tournament time, you may have to put two logs together, because if there's a game, if they get beat, and if they don't get beat. It was something, it really was. And like I say, I was lucky to have people like Ann and Helen. And now, well Helen's still out at HAS and Anne's at DRB. I think she's still at DRB.

JF: Yeah, television, channel 41 television, yeah.

JS: Yeah.

JF: Well now, you were there from the start in 1966 and worked with the 39:00Bingham's, transitioned to the new building. Then in '86 you had another transition. Talk to me about that.

JS: The Bingham's, well basically Sallie Bingham wanted to sell, wanted money for her part in owning the Bingham's.

JF: Well, the senior Bingham's were getting older. I guess they had to face that.

JS: Seniors was getting older, but Sallie wanted, if I remember right, $32 million. Barry did not want to give her $32 million, he wanted to give her $25 million. And Mr. Bingham, the father, stepped in and said, "We're not going to have our laundry out here in front of everybody, so we're going to sell it." So he put it up, and it was a deal. He could sell, and because of lawyers, his son, Worth Bingham's widow owned a part of it too, and she had lawyers that looked after her. So when it was for sale, if you bid on it and I bid on it, and I was 40:003% below you, I could still get it because they put a 5% deal in. But that didn't matter, but it was really eerie.

JS: Clear Channel bought it, and they were buying it, and the owner happened to be in China at the time. And of course, when somebody's buying a radio station, you go check out the owner. Well, we checked this out, he didn't check out too good.

JF: We as who?

JS: Well, the salespeople, Jim Topmiller. We don't like this. So we told the Bingham's, so they flew him in here. And there was Wayne Perky, myself, Kurt Smith, sat there telling this new owner-

JF: This is Lowry Mays?

JS: Lowry Mays, the owner of Clear Channel, telling him that his stations aren't worth a diddly. And really, I went home and I told my wife, I said, "I may be looking for another job." Well Lowry had a guy running the whole operation.

JF: Now at that time Clear Channel was not a big outfit.

JS: Oh no it wasn't. They had maybe six stations, very small, very small.

JF: Yeah, headquartered in San Antonio, Texas.

JS: Yeah, they were out of San Antonio, had an AM/FM there. They had some down farther in Texas, and one up east. But I mean we're telling this owner that his thing's not worth, you're bad people. Well, it was the guy running the thing. I forget his name, but he ran the radio stations for Mays.

JF: Yeah, Mays was not a broadcaster.

JS: No, Mays was really, he was in the money.

JF: He was an investor basically, an accountant/investor.

JS: And so John was his first name, I forget his name, but anyway, he was running the operation. And it was, he was something, he was horrible. In fact-

JF: You mean the way he treated employees or things?

JS: Oh, the way he treated employees, and he never, he ran. He wouldn't let anybody run a department. He overrode everything. And-

JF: Completely different atmosphere from what you guys had.

JS: Oh my gosh, yeah. So he was there about a year and a half, and Mays found out. He got rid of him. In fact, that man who was over all of radio could not come to Louisville unless we asked him to come, because he was that bad. I mean they had a reputation, and I think Mr. Mays saw through this, that if he wanted to hire a good disc jockey, and this disc jockey checked out what people thought of the stations, he wouldn't work for him. So I think he saw that and got rid of him.

JF: Well Jerry, I'm trying to remember, were there a group, were you involved, was there a group locally that tried to buy it instead of-

JS: Yeah, three people, three. Bob Scherer, Mark Thomas, and who was the news director, Brian.

JF: Brian, Brian Rublein.

JS: Brian Rublein.

JF: Is that right?

JS: Those three put something together.

JF: Was that because of the Clear Channel, or they just wanted to have a shot at it?

JS: No, they wanted to have a shot at it. Yeah, they wanted to have a shot. But I think they were well under what Lowry put in.

JF: So Clear Channel came in at that time.

JS: Came in, bought it, and really brought it up, I mean even more.

JF: Did things change much as a result of that?

JS: They really didn't.

JF: No, I didn't think so.

JS: There was a-

JF: Had local management and all.

JS: Local, Bob Scherer ran it. We'd go down there for meetings once a year and everything. In fact, they never changed. We were so afraid because we'd heard about this company, that we would lose jobs. Well, we were bought by Clear Channel, the television was bought by Providence Journal. And we never lost anything. Providence Journal signed their contract in buying WHAS television at nine in the morning, 11 o'clock they told 20 people, "You've got one hour to get 44:00out of here." So we were the ones that thought-

JF: Yeah, that you were going to be in trouble. And you were the ones that came out. Wow, yeah.

JS: We were going to be in trouble, and we were in great shape, tremendous. So no, it was good. They did a good job.

JF: So did you see changes as Clear Channel began to grow? Of course HAS was kind of a cash cow for them. I mean they had-

JS: Oh yeah, HAS and AMZ were cash. See, when I was with AMZ, they were like 55 to 60 cents of every dollar went to the bottom line. I mean this is unheard of, but you only had like four disc jockeys. Now, HAS had more people, so they were returning in the 30% range.

JF: Which was pretty good.

JS: Which is good, yes it is. But no, we were the top. Until they got into a lot bigger markets, we were their top producers for-

JF: Did you start to see changes during that time? When did changes start coming?

JS: They were close. They watched the dollar. That portion was. I mean as far as 45:00firing people, no, but I mean as far as getting raises sometimes for the people, and doing certain things. Like they got rid of the helicopter because that was too expensive, and stuff like that. It was a bottom line decision.

JF: But that began to happen as they began to grow other stations and need money to do things.

JS: Yeah, oh yeah, and we were paying for-

JF: Let me go back to one other thing you mentioned. WAMZ, you were very involved with that. You worked with people like Coyote Calhoun.

JS: Coyote Calhoun, Bobby Jack Murphy.

JF: You were there when Coyote came in, yeah, yeah.

JS: Oh, I enjoyed it. Bobby Jack's now working for a radio station, selling I think now.

JF: Is that right, huh?

JS: And of course Coyote's still over there. And of course, with the broadcast now, they've only got two live disc jockeys, one in the morning, one in the afternoon. I don't know who the afternoon is now, but yeah, it's cut back. But Coyote was a character.

JF: Easy to work with?

JS: Yeah, yeah he was. Coyote was all right. I can't complain about him.

JF: Very good, very good. Well, it sounds like an outstanding career you feel. You retired in '99.

JS: Retired in '99, I've enjoyed every minute. I mean the only thing I miss-

JF: Do you go back, have you been back at all? Let me ask you this. Let's see, when did they move into the building over on Bishop Lane? Were you involved in that?

JS: Yeah, we moved there... Oh Jack, '99, maybe '97, something like that.

JF: So in your 34 year career then, you were from-

JS: From the old building, to the new building, to Bishop Lane, yeah.

JF: Yeah, what was that like to move to the Bishop Lane? What was that like?

JS: It was nice. The only thing I hate, living in Indiana, I go across either bridge and right downtown. Now I had to take the expressway to get to work. But I mean it was an older building. There again, I'll give you a good example. We 47:00were talking about how Clear Channel, they're a little tight with everything. Well, we get in that building and there's 15 air conditioners up on the roof. So we call the air conditioning man and checked and he said, "You need to replace them all." So we call headquarters and they said, "Well, get a second opinion." So we did. Next one comes in and says, "Well, you need to replace them all." We call headquarters, "Replace five of them." So we replaced five of them, then over the next year or two, we replaced every one of them.

JF: Yeah, had to do it.

JS: And the studios, as you well know, you were announcer, you've got thick studios. Well, Charlie-

JF: Charlie Strickland.

JS: Charlie Strickland, the one that designed, and you had windows already in the building, and he wanted to make a hallway between there to put the studio for the thick. Mm-mm (negative), they put them right next to that window. Well, guys on the air, he's talking and there's a fire engine going by. You could hear the fire engine. I mean they were good people, but they were very conservative 48:00people, yeah.

JF: That's a little different from somebody told me the story about when they put the studios at the Courier-Journal building, special designed so the presses wouldn't be heard and all that. It was very quiet up on the sixth floor. In the middle of everything, you couldn't hear anything.

JS: No, well we even, when you were there... All right, the studio you were in was not just on concrete. It was built so if there was an earthquake, it moved. It moved. I mean that's kind of unheard of.

JF: Yeah, right.

JS: But it really did, it really did.

JF: Well, you've had some special times. Any other special memories you recall?

JS: No, I just, the retirement, I mean like I said, I've enjoyed it, but I miss the people and I'd still like to see them. In fact, you don't know, sitting here talking to you, I'm just elated that we work together and I get to see you. And we're so close, you're in Louisville and I'm here and I just enjoy seeing the people.

JF: Well, we'll have to make sure you're on the list for... At least once a year 49:00they have a meeting of WHAS people. We meet at Austin's out on Brownsboro. Ray Shelton and Dave Jones are the guys behind it.

JS: I'd love to.

JF: We'll get you on that list because you would love it. Last time there were about 33 or 34 people there. Yeah, it was wonderful, yeah.

JS: That's great, that is great. That is super.

JF: Very good. Well Jerry, good luck to you in the future. Thanks for taking the time. This'll go on the archives and people for years and years and years get to have some special memories of WHAS.

JS: Okay Jack, thank you.

JF: See you on the golf course, man.

JS: Will do.

JF: All right.