[NJARC] Vintage Radio, Down to Farm Reports and School Menus, Is Signing Off

[John Dilks - K2TQN]

Forwarded from the New York Times

>   Vintage Radio, Down to Farm Reports and School Menus, Is Signing Off
>
>   February 1, 2004
>    By G. PATRICK PAWLING
>
>   UPPER DEERFIELD TOWNSHIP, N.J., Jan. 29 - As radio stations
>   go, it's not fancy.
>
>   The microphones appear to belong to the 1940's, and some
>   do. There is not a single personal computer in the
>   building, though a typewriter sits on one desk and is used
>   every day. The format? Call it country nostalgia: polka,
>   school lunch menus, farm reports, hunting and fishing news
>   and pet advice. One of the most popular slots is a call-in
>   show called "Country Store," during which people try to
>   sell three-quarter-ton pickup trucks, tractors and, at
>   least once, a cow.
>
>   WSNJ, which sits in a farm field just outside Bridgeton, is
>   the radio station that time almost forgot. But not for much
>   longer. The family that nurtured it for more than 50 years
>   is selling. The much-sought FM license will go to Radio
>   One, a hip, urban-oriented company with 66 stations. Radio
>   One intends to move the operation north to Pennsauken,
>   where it can broadcast across the Delaware River to a
>   bigger and more lucrative Philadelphia audience. The AM
>   side is also being sold, to the mayor of nearby Millville,
>   who says the operation is too successful to change or move,
>   so he won t.
>
>   But the heart of the operation is the FM side, which has
>   more power and a far bigger reach to four states. Some
>   people who know radio say that when WSNJ-FM goes dark,
>   probably sometime Monday afternoon, so will a rich part of
>   the state's history.
>
>   "This is absolutely the end of an era," said Scott Fybush,
>   editor of NorthEast Radio Watch, an online publication.
>   "WSNJ is very popular among folks like me who study the
>   history of radio, simply because it presented a style of
>   radio that died in most places years ago."
>
>   But the family that owns the station says it's time. Its
>   share of the reported $35 million that Radio One is paying
>   is some $20 million, an amazing amount of money for a
>   country radio station that did not even bother to subscribe
>   to Arbitron ratings, relying instead on phone calls and
>   letters to prove its worth. But positions on the radio dial
>   are a little bit like land: nobody is making any more.
>
>   Like farmers who've worked their fields for decades while
>   progress made everybody around them big money, the Bolds of
>   Bridgeton are ready for their final harvest - cash.
>
>   It started in 1946, when a man named Ed Bold emerged from
>   the Coast Guard with some training in electronics and a
>   duffel bagful of ambition. WSNJ AM (1240 on the dial) had
>   gone on the air in 1937. In 1946, the FM side became one of
>   the first, if not the first, commercial FM stations in New
>   Jersey. Mr. Bold started working there shortly after the FM
>   side went live. Over the years, he tried other jobs,
>   starting a cable TV operation nearby and working for RCA,
>   but he always walked back through the open door at WSNJ.
>
>   In 1971, Mr. Bold and his wife, Katherine, bought a half
>   interest in the station. In 1991, they bought the rest.
>
>   Although time moved, WSNJ did not. It was successful, it
>   reflected the rural character of its home, and the Bolds
>   did not think there was any particular need to become
>   modern. There were plenty of successes. The station fed the
>   family, for one thing, and over the years it gave jobs to
>   people who later moved on to New York and Philadelphia. It
>   even played host to a show by a country yodeler named Bill
>   Haley, who performed from the lobby, the crowds were so
>   big.
>
>   Brokers would periodically court Ed Bold, promising him
>   enough money for anything he wanted, but what he wanted he
>   already had. He was the chief engineer and the guy who
>   swept the floors, the detail man who wanted to make sure
>   his people kept their jobs. But as he got older, the offers
>   finally became more persuasive, and he began negotiating a
>   deal.
>
>   Then came the cancer. Mr. Bold died last March, having
>   walked out of the station on a Friday and succumbing the
>   following Tuesday. Katherine Bold, 82, continued the
>   negotiations. On Thursday, she said the deal would probably
>   be concluded Monday afternoon, with the wiring of money to
>   the family's account. Once that happens, they will shut
>   down WSNJ FM.
>
>   If the Bold family is elated about becoming among the
>   richest people in this part of the state, they're hiding it
>   well. Lynn Timberman, one of Ed and Katherine Bold's two
>   daughters, said nobody had any plans to move. She and her
>   mother will now concentrate on the country furnishings
>   store Ms. Timberman runs in Bridgeton, Kate-Lins & Park
>   House Primitives.
>
>   "It's been a real hard thing," Ms. Timberman said. "Harder
>   than we thought. Our family has been involved with this
>   station one way or another since 1946. "
>
>   On Thursday and Friday, she and her mother were closing the
>   accounting books, cleaning out the closets and clearing
>   away some clutter in the small workroom Ed Bold had used to
>   keep the ancient analog equipment running. At that, they
>   said, he was a near genius, a radio station engineer who
>   could coax life out of equipment that would have been
>   junked by anybody else decades ago.
>
>   "He really was four or five steps ahead of everybody else
>   when it came to FM," said Dan Morrow, a salesman and WSNJ
>   on-air personality.
>
>   On Thursday, Katherine Bold kept both her strength and
>   humor. What, she was asked, does she intend to do with all
>   that money, considering that she had come from modest means
>   and had stayed that way? She made $21 a month when she
>   started work as a teacher, and still has scars on her hands
>   from working in the nearby glass factories.
>
>   "I figure it's time to go on to bigger and better things,"
>   she said, smiling broadly. "I just hope I m not bored."
>
>   "Let's put it this way," she went on. "I'm going to be 83.
>   I've had enough. I taught school for 39 years and the last
>   day of school I walked out and didn't look back. And I
>   think that's the way it's going to be here. It s been
>   interesting, but it's been a headache too.
>
>   Ms. Timberman, who has worked at the station since she
>   learned to walk well enough to stay out of the way, said
>   her father was never particularly interested in the money
>   either.
>
>   "He hung on because he loved it, and to preserve the jobs
>   mainly," she said. "I always say it was the American dream.
>   He got his education in the service and made something of
>   himself, and that is what the American dream is about. "
>
>   The mayor of Millville, Jim Quinn, who is buying the AM
>   operation, owns another area radio station. He said he is
>   through with trying to compete with the Bolds' formula. He
>   will keep WSNJ-AM s format virtually as is and will extend
>   its reach by simulcasting with his other station,
>   abandoning that station's format entirely. Thus WSNJ's
>   style will be preserved to a degree. Quinn said people have
>   been coming up to him to thank him for that.
>
>   "It's probably one of the most unique radio stations in the
>   country," Mr. Quinn said. "It is truly local, and they get
>   unbelievable response. I was on there recently and I had 18
>   people who called in during my hour. On my show we don't
>   get 18 in a week."
>
>   Still, even Mr. Quinn said something will not quite be the
>   same when WSNJ-FM goes dark. But that's radio. That's
>   progress. And that's a heck of a lot of money for a family
>   that worked hard for a heck of a long time.
>
>   ---------------------------------
>   Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company