GARY STEVENS: FROM JOCK TO DOUBLEDAY EXECUTIVE . . . DECEMBER 18, 1982

Motor City Radio Flashbacks logoFormer WKNR and WMCA Deejay Hits Big Today As President of Doubleday Chain

 

 

 

 

 

 

WKNR's Gary Stevens 1964
WKNR’s Gary Stevens in 1963.

NEW YORK — Consider for a moment how the major broadcasting chains evolved into the forces they are today: companies like Westinghouse, Bonneville, Gannett and Malrite, all rich in history but not quite like Doubleday Broadcasting — “which really should not exist,” suggest Doubleday president Gary Stevens.  “The only reason it does because I couldn’t get a job. People wanted to generalize me as an ex-deejay who had no business acumen.”

In all fairness to a near-sighted industry, never before (or since the likes of) Gary Stevens, formerly a night-time Top 40 disk jockey, has led to running a radio station. The road to management usually runs through sales, and occasionally takes a left turn through programming.

Gary is the first to point out it wasn’t easy. “Even after I’d been successful in Phoenix and Minneapolis, nobody would take me seriously. I knew that if I wanted to do what I’m doing, I had to build my own company.”

WKNR Music Guide - Gary Stevens - November 14, 1963 (Click image for larger view)
WKNR Music Guide – Gary Stevens – November 14, 1963. (Click image for larger view).

Stevens has become more than a builder. He’s the architect of one of the fastest-growing chains of radio properties in America. Interested in broadcasting since the age of eight (“my mother would take me down to sit in with the jocks at the local station”),  the son of the chief executive officer for a chain of Buffalo department stores started his career ay WWOW in Conneaut, Ohio while on vacation from college.

The next years at the University of Miami brought him work at several stations, including WCKR and WAME, “where I worked with Frank Ward, one of my idols. He was one of the four guys who were ‘Guy King’ at WWOL. The other three were Tom Clay, Bruce Bradley and Dick Purtan. Some of the guys who went through Buffalo were amazing,” reminisces Stevens.

From WAME, Gary gravitated to WFUN, which had just signed on the air in Miami, “where I stay until 1961, where I left to go to WIL in St. Louis. My whole career moved so quickly because I worked with such good people and I learned from them. WIL had Ron Lundy in afternoons; I did seven to midnight; Dan Ingram, who had just left to go to New York; Roger Barkley; Gary Owens. I kept finding myself in the company of excellent people. I was there from 1961 to 1963, when Mike Joseph hired me to go to WKNR in Detroit.

WKNR's Gary Stevens in studio with Frank 'Swingin' Sweeney, February 1964
WKNR’s Gary Stevens in studio with Frank ‘Swingin’ Sweeney, February 1965.

In 1965 I came to New York. I’d been pitching Ruth Meyer (the program director at WMCA) since St. Louis. When I went to Detroit, I sent her a note and said, ‘watch what we do.’ I’d figured if we did what we said we would, I’d have a job, and if we didn’t, she wouldn’t remember anyway.”

She remembered. In just two monthly Hoopers, WKNR emerged as the No. 1 station in Detroit, climbing over such giants as WXYZ, WJBK and CKLW. It wasn’t long before Gary Stevens wound up where he’d always wanted to be, on the air in New York City. “I stayed there (at WMCA) doing nights until 1968, when I didn’t want to be on the air anymore. I moved to Europe, which was something I’d always wanted to do.”

When Stevens returned to the United States, he learned the harsh realities of being a former WMCA ‘Good Guy’ in search of a management position. In spite of the grim prospects, his perseverance paid off when he heard that Doubleday Broadcasting was about to acquire KRIZ in Phoenix. “I called the president and told him about my background. I paid my own way to Dallas, where the company was located at the time, to talk to him about the job, and he hired me on the spot,” Stevens recalled.

WMCA's Gary Stevens in 1965 (Click image for larger view)
WMCA’s Gary Stevens in 1965. (Click image for larger view).

“I went to KRIZ after having been gone for two years, and I put on the greatest 1968 radio station you ever heard — in 1970. We bombed. We were almost run out of business, but then I analyzed what was wrong and we fixed it. We became the highest rated Class IV in the United States, as well as perhaps the highest billing 250-watter. I stayed there until 1974. The truth is, nobody else took me seriously as general manager. The disc jockey thing still hung over me.”

So when an opening came within the Doubleday chain for a manager at KDWB in Minneapolis, Stevens went for it. “When I got there, there was KSTP consulted by Burkhart, Storz’s WGDY, and WYOO, which had just come in. We beat ’em all, and by 1976 I still couldn’t get a job. I thought, ‘How many times do I have to do this?’ “

Gary Stevens with the 'Woolie Burger' in tow at WMCA, New York in 1965 (Click image for larger size)
Gary Stevens with the ‘Woolie Burger’ in tow at WMCA, New York, in 1965.

Before Stevens had the chance to contemplate the answer, an offer to manage a large East Coast station won him a promotion within his own company. He was named senior vice-president director of research. “A lot of people don’t know this, but nobody before us was doing music research. When Todd Wallace joined us at KRIZ, he was the first guy to market a a music research system. Steve Casey was our all-night man and a computer nut. He refined the system and suggested things like playing parts of a song to listeners over the phone” — which, while commonplace today, was quite innovative in the early-1970s. Casey followed Stevens to Minneapolis along with another KRIZ personality, John Sebastian. “John became our program director. You heard of Sabastian/Casey, well, they got together under me at KDWB.”

In 1977, a change in the structure of Doubleday led Stevens’ being named president of the company. Since that time, Doubleday had gone through several changes and emerged as a force to deal with: “It’s only in the last two years that people are taking us seriously. Actually, this company has benefited by the underestimation of it’s abilities. A few years ago, many people thought Doubleday was getting out of radio. We’d sold half the company. All we had was Minneapolis and Denver and a construction permit for St. Louis.”

WMCA Good Guys Gary Stevens in 1967 (Click image for larger view)
‘WMCA Good Guys’ Gary Stevens in 1967. (Click image for larger view).

But Stevens was far from ready to fold. “By then, there was no question where FM was going. I got us into the right technology, selling our AMs and buying only FMs starting with Detroit. One thing I learned in Phoenix is was that you work harder for less money in smaller markets, so our central core strategy was top 20. But after our experience in Detroit, I realized the big markets brought three to five times the return, and redefined that strategy as top 10.”

Assessing the future, Stevens is ambivalent about the fate of his two remaining AM properties. “Our AMs don’t cost us anything to operate, but they don’t bring in any revenue either. I don’t see any future in AM. As for AM stereo, it’s too little too late. The problem between AM and FM is coverage, not stereo. AM stations were engineered 30 to 40 years ago, and they don’t cover today’s market.

“Nobody could have envisioned the tremendous growth our cities have undergone, and because of that, most AMs can’t compete. FMs being non-directional are winning to a great degree because of a signal advantage. So AM stereo won’t be a solution to the basic problem.”

The Doubleday chain currently includes WAPP in New York, WAVA in Washington, D. C., WLLZ in Detroit, KDWB AM-FM in Minneapolis, KWK AM-FM in St Louis, and KPKE in Denver, and is in the process of acquiring WMET in Chicago from Metromedia. All are operated under what Stevens terms “the module concept, where all the stations are similar in format and facility.” (Once Top 40, the chain is now AOR, a move Stevens generally credits to former Doubleday program director Bob Hattrick).

“While we’re committed to AOR for the foreseeable future, we really look at our company as seven very good FMs in seven very good markets delivering whatever the public wants. Keeping the philosophy and physical setups the same is the reason we’ve been able to grow so fast. And though there are enormous musical differences among the stations, the positioning and promotion remains consistent, and that gives us a good synergy and allows our people to become interchangeable from station to station.”

Gary Stevens as he looked at the former WKNR studios (WNIC) in 1998 (Click image for larger size)
Gary Stevens as he looked in the former WKNR studios (WNIC) in 1998. (Click image for larger size).

People is a key word with Stevens. “That’s the edge we have. Our people last. Most people don’t want anybody good. They feel threatened by them. I really believe that. One of radio’s biggest problems today is the definite lack of professional management. Radio is a margin business, not a gross sales business. Two bad books and you lose your revenue. And while revenues in this business have been increasing each year by about 10%, profits have been consistently going down. That’s a stunning indictment of management’s failure to realize that they’re operating a margin business. And that impacts all of us because we get our future management from the system that’s producing these people. And I want the best I can get.”

Stevens’ track record is indicative of a man who gets what he wants. A list of his former programmers, for instance, read like a radio who’s who. Names like Todd Wallace, Dan Clayton, John Sebastian, Gerry Peterson, Dave Hamilton and Bobby Hattrick, most of whom were in their infancy when they came to Doubleday, had gone on to notable careers.

“From 1970 to the present, we’ve had an unending strings of successful program directors who have emerged from nowhere. I don’t program the stations. But I know how to pick a good program director.” END

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(Information and news source: Billboard; December 18, 1982)


Former WKNR personalities Frank "Swingin' Sweeney" and Gary Stevens at the Detroit Radio Reunion Conference in Novi, Mi. April 25, 1998. (Click on image for largest view).
Former ’60s WKNR personalities Frank “Swingin’ Sweeney” and Gary Stevens at the Detroit Radio Reunion Conference, Novi, Mi., April 25, 1998. (Click on image for largest view).

A MCRFB note: Here’s a recent article still on the internet MCRFB found on Gary Stevens today. While the article is dated March 23, 2010, it is stillcurrently posted on the allaccess.com website.


Gary Stevens left WKNR for New York's WMCA in March, 1965. Here's a recent picture of the legendary WMCA-AM 570 studios, taken in 2010.
A recent picture of the legendary WMCA-AM 570 transmitter site in N.J., taken in 2010. (Thank you M. J. Rosenbluth for the “transmitter site” clarification you shared in your comments below this post).

Gary Stevens was at WMCA from 1965 to 1968. The former legendary WMCA-AM 570 facility resonates strictly with a Christian radio broadcasting format today.


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19 thoughts on “GARY STEVENS: FROM JOCK TO DOUBLEDAY EXECUTIVE . . . DECEMBER 18, 1982”

  1. I LOVED HEARING GARY ON WMCA AND EVEN HAVE THE LPOF GOOD GUY GOLDIES WHICH I BOUGHT MAINLY BECAUSE OF THE PICTURE OF GARY AND THE WOOLY. WMCA WAS A GREAT STATION THAT ALWAYS HAD GREAT DJs, BUT SADLY WABC WITH IT’S HIGH POWER SIGNAL BLEW THEM OUT OF THE WATER ESPECIALLY AFTER GARY AND HARRY HARRISON LEFT.

  2. Those WMCA “studio” shots are really photos of their transmitter site – somewhere in the swamps of the New Jersey Meadowlands. Having the inside track as one of Gary Stevens’ WMCA “Good Guy School Correspondents” back in ’67-’68, I can assure you the studios were on the 13th Floor of 415 Madison Avenue, in midtown Manhattan. While I visited frequently, my reports were taken over the phone. Great stuff!

  3. I used to listen to Gary Stevens on an English pirate station way back in the 1960s! He did a taped show for Swinging Radio England in the afternoon and played some great music. His colleague on WMCA was also taping shows for another pirate, Radio Caroline. These stations operated on ships beyond the then 3 mile limit of territorial waters. They were very popular from 1964 to 1968 when closed down by the British Government. A popular show could attract an audience of several million as we had no legal commercial radio until 1973. Great memories and they played great music too.

    1. If anyone is interested I made a broadcast back around 1985 which features Gary Stevens talking about his career and it has an aircheck of him on Radio England. Let me know if you want to hear it and I will upload it to mixcloud.com

      1. Back in the 1980s I made series of programs about offshore radio. On the edition of March 10, 1985 I made one answering a taped history sold in the UK about a station my friend Don Pierson of Eastland, Texas had started aboard a ship anchored off England. Gary Stevens was heard on that station via recording from New York. Gary Stevens is heard on that station and at the event described in the email. I have now uploaded it for you at https://www.mixcloud.com/mervyn-hagger/4fws-march-10-1985-rebuttal-of-the-tapetrix-radio-england-story-about-don-pierson/

    2. Gary switched to Radio City for a couple of months after SRE demised, and was on there until it too folded in February 1967.

  4. I omitted the name of the other WMCA Good Guy who broadcast on Radio Caroline, it was Jack Spector who was very popular with his sound effects, echo and great music from the USA.

  5. Gary was my boss during his first general manager job for Doubleday at KRIZ IN Phoenix, Arizona – 1971-’73… He and I had a fabulous relationship.

  6. When I was just starting out in college radio at Rutgers University, Gary was one of my idols on WMCA in NY. He came down one afternoon to make an appearance at a campus fundraiser we were broadcasting. Made a great impression on me as a nice, fun-loving guy who went along with my antics as MC. As luck would have it, I was later hired as the six to midnight jock at WMCA’s sister station in Utica, NY, WTLB. We were the “Good Guys” just like the big boys in the City. Strauss Broadcasting maintained a direct line between the two stations, and I had the opportunity to talk with him a couple of times before I was drafted. Glad he’s done so well. Should try to get back in touch with him.

  7. My brother Jim was the woolie burger. He worked with Gary in the 60s. He lived with me at the time. He would lay his costume out on his bed to air out. It used to scare the hell out of my wife.

  8. Gary inspired me to go into radio in my early teens. I used to mimic him, pretending to be on the air
    I knew him when he was employed at WIL in St. Louis where I hail. Guess I was an overly zealous fan of his
    He was not only nice, he was cool. Thanks for the memories,Gary!

  9. Hair inspired me to go into radio while in my early teens when he was employed at WIL in St. Louis. Guess I was an over zealous fan. Thanks for the memories, Gary. You were a cool jock.

  10. I remember listening to Gary Stevens on WMCA when I was growing up in Livingston, NJ. He and his “Wolly Burger” were a riot. I listened in every night. I was very disappointed when he left the station. I can still hear the roar and hick-up of the Wolly Burger in my mind. Thank you for the memories!

  11. I was a big fan of Gary Stevens when he was employed at WIL Radio in St. Louis. He gained a big following there, as he no doubt did everywhere he jocked. I am happy for him at all the success he has made. Thanks for the memories, Gary. I will be your fan for as long as I live!

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