[NJARC] Vintage Radio, Down to Farm

[John Dilks - K2TQN]

it looks like the snipper was at work again........

here is the article ....

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