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Since
1994 I've been communicating with WDRC alumnus
George Freeman. In May 2007 we talked him into an interview
about his broadcast career. - Ed Brouder, webmaster
Q:
What early influences caused you to pursue a career
in radio?
A:
A public service program produced by high school students
on WKBN in Youngstown, OH my junior year at Struthers
High School. After first writing and then broadcasting
a script on the history of the steel industry live in
a high school assembly, I was bitten by the broadcasting
bug and aggressively pursued a career in radio/TV.
Q:
Let's set the table for radio in the late 1950s. TV
was siphoning off major network talent right and left
leaving many stations without the strong, traditional
lineup of programs they were accustomed to. Many stations
turned to music as their primary product. The FCC still
required stations to do certain percentages of news
and public affairs. Which direction was your career
pointed in?
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WDRC's
George Freeman
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A:
I started as talent on both TV and Radio; staff announcer, dj, then
moved into news as news editor, then news director. I always had
station ownership as a goal. I moved to WCCC AM/FM as general manager.
That was the final level of preparation I needed before I took the
leap and bought my first radio station.
![August 3, 1959 - (l-r:) Richard D. Buckley, Franklin M. Doolittle, John B. Jaeger and Victor E. Forker [standing] at transfer of WDRC](people/freeman/19590803.jpg)
August
3, 1959 - (l-r:) Richard D. Buckley, Franklin M.
Doolittle, John B. Jaeger and Victor E. Forker [standing]
at transfer of WDRC.
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Q:
On August 3, 1959, Buckley-Jaeger
took control of WDRC from founder Franklin M. Doolittle.
Victor E. Forker of Darien, a former WNEW account executive,
was appointed general manager. Did you know anything about
Richard Buckley or John Jaeger?
A:
John hired me as news director late in 1959. He hired my number
two news editor, Mike
Stein, and my number three man, Bud
Steele. None of us had met prior to joining WDRC.
Jaeger had a very successful career hiring talent at WNEW-AM,
New York. John was a very likable fellow. He had a terrific
wit which seemed to surface when he got a few drinks in him.
I visited him in Boca Raton, FL in the mid-70s. He and Dick
Buckley formed their partnership after being edged out by
John Kluge when Kluge took control of WNEW AM/TV. Buck Forker
was smooth, suave and likable.
Q:
In late 1959 you were working in Binghamton, NY. What was
your job and what led to your hiring at WDRC?
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A:
I had been news director of WNBF-TV 12 and WNBF-AM. My boss, the
general manager of Triangle's New Haven operation, WNHC, got the
job as Triangle's general manager of WNBF-TV/AM/FM. He asked me
to go with him to be news director of the Binghamton group. An intern
I was training slandered the town clerk of Owego, NY in a news story
he created moments before I read his version on the eleven pm newscast.
On a Saturday night we had a captive audience of a million viewers.
The intern and I were terminated so that when the town clerk's lawyer
called Triangle, management could say we were "no longer with
the firm. Addresses unknown". I immediately bought an ad in
Broadcasting Magazine in "Situations Wanted". John Jaeger was one
who responded. I flew to Long Island for an interview and was hired.
Q:
Describe Hartford's competitive marketplace when you arrived.
A:
WDRC was still riding the CBS Radio Network as the station
had done for some 25 years. The music we played was MOR (middle
of the road). News was pretty much "rip and read" from the wire
service. Leif Jensen
read the newscasts. What a great pair of pipes! Russ
Naughton was another pre-Buckley/Jaeger WDRC personality.
WTIC
owned the market. Bob Steele at one time had the largest
share of audience compared to those of any other morning man in
America. His show was continually sold out. Advertisers lined up
waiting to get on during his time period, 6-10AM. Bob had ingredients
such as a "Word of The Day" and readings such as an English dialect
piece about a child with "a stick with a horse's head on it."
WTIC's 50 kw power at 1080 made it the technically superior facility.
WDRC's 5kw at the higher dial position of 1360 rendered us
inferior technically. Steele got fan mail from towns and cities
where our signal could not be heard.
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