Chuck Hoffman chimes in

Chuck Hoffman was the Group program director for Alpha Broadcasting, and worked out of Williamsport at WLYC/WILQ. I had the pleasure of working with him for over a year. In addition to his programming duties Chuck did morning drive on WLYC AM and the talk show. Chuck recently found this blog and send me some information about his time in radio and gave me permission to share it with you! So now heeeeeere's Chuck!

My career in radio broadcasting should not have begun as it did. Unlike the vast majority of aspiring disk jockeys and newsmen, I started at KOIL, the most popular station in Omaha,then the 44th largest radio market in the country. Most radio beginners labor for months - or even years - at small stations in obscure markets, honing their craft and developing the voice techniques that mark them as professionals. In my case, however, there must have been a serendipitous alignment of the planets.While a member of the US Air Force, I had the good fortune to have Bruce Haines as a friend and roommate. Some of you may remember Bruce. He worked for years under the name of David Haines in the New York City and Baltimore markets before his untimely death in 2005.Bruce and I had been stationed together along the Gulf Coast of Mississippi.Before joining the military, he was an announcer at WMYR in Ft. Myers, Florida. During one of the hurricanes that regularly batter the Gulf Coast region, I recall him telephoning live news updates to WMYR. After technical training, Bruce and I were reassigned to Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha and worked together for a couple years as computer technicians in the SAC Headquarters underground command post.While still in the Air Force, Bruce secured a part-time job as a weekend newsman at KOIL. As my discharge date approached, he told me I had a good radio voice and suggested that I meet with his boss, news director BobBenson (who retired a few years ago after a long stint as vice president ofABC News Radio). I did as Bruce suggested and was hired, to drive a truck. In the mid-1960s, KOIL had a Dodge van that had a sign with moving letters on its top called the Visual News Cruiser. Mobile reporter LJ Lancer and I split the duties ofparking it in highly visible locations in and around the Omaha area. Itspurpose, of course, was to prompt motorists to tune in to KOIL.When Election Day, 1966, neared, Benson apparently noticed my "pipes" and gave me a mobile news assignment covering polling places in Omaha in the BigRed mobile unit. I was to report on the number of voters at each of myassigned stops. I must have done fairly well because that led to further mobile news assignments and weekend studio news shifts. At about the same time, Star Stations, then the parent company of KOIL, was looking for someone with a first class radiotelephone license to be the overnight babysitter of the transmitter of KISN, the Star Stations outlet inPortland, Oregon. Since I had been trained in electronics in the Air Force,Mike McCormick (KOIL's program director) asked if I thought I could up grade my license. I told him I probably could. To keep me employed while I studied to secure the "first phone" ticket, McCormick created an overnight studio news shift, to which I was assigned.Morning "cop shop" beats along with other mobile news assignments rounded out full time hours.But, as often happens, something unforeseen occurred. Just before Christmas of 1966, Jim Hunter (Hal Widsten) and I were cruising Omaha in the Big Redmobile unit and stopped to view the KOIL Carol Tree, which was set up onNorth 30th Street in the parking lot of a furniture store. Parked next to us were two girls in a new Chevelle Malibu and we struck up a conversation.One thing led to another and I no longer wished to move to Portland. I have now been married to the driver of that Chevelle for over 35 years.That became a bone of contention over which KOIL and I parted ways in the spring of 1967. I taught electronics at the Radio Engineering Institute in Omaha for about six months and then landed a news reporter job at KRCB inneighboring Council Bluffs. After a few weeks, I also began doing board shifts and learned how to be a disk jockey. At that time, KRCB was a 1000 watt daytimer that played anawful mix of swing, big band and middle-of-the-road standards sprinkled with a few light contemporary hits. New owner Jim Conroy finally was convinced that Top 40 was the way to go and we made the format switch. Not since KOWH abandoned Top 40 a few years earlier had KOIL experienced any competition for its audience in the Omaha market. Needless to say, we got their attention. A short time later, KRCB's new 100,000 watt FM went on the air and we simulcast until the AM's sunset signoff, the FM continuing(officially) until midnight. It was a young consultant by the name of CJ Jones who helped convince Conroy to switch formats and Jones implemented the Boss Jock sound along with theBig 15-6 playlist. Most of the KRCB personalities adopted or were given new names. I acquired a new first initial and became J. Charles Hoffman, which was shortened to Jay Charles when I took over the morning drive board shift a few months later. In early 1969, KRCB's program director, Buddy Scott (Mike Bothell), was recruited by KOIL. They thought they were performing a surgical kill but, no, KRCB continued its assault on ratings in the Omaha market. I don't know if we ever beat KOIL in any day part but we sure had fun, the competition was fierce and I learned a great deal in a short period of time. Around Christmas of 1969, I moved on to KLWW in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and a few months after that became the program director of Top 40 WSJM in St.Joseph, Michigan. I stayed for two and a half years and delivered a Pulsebook showing improvement from fourth in our own market to first in 18-49's in all day parts. That put us ahead of Chicago giants WLS and WCFL, which were just 55 miles across the lake and - up to then - had badly beaten WSJM's ratings. I attribute a great deal of the success I achieved to the things I learned from McCormick, Jones, et al, at KOIL and KRCB. From Michigan, I went to Pennsylvania, where I served as the group program director of Alpha Broadcasting, which owned WLYC AM and WILQ FM inWilliamsport, and WGGO in Salamanca, New York. Even though it was a daytimer, WLYC was the dominant rocker in the Williamsport area and my tenure solidified its status. The following year, having been recruited by the owner, I went "across the street" to fulltime WMPT in South Williamsport - the other Top 40 outlet -which had been laboring under less than competent management and programming direction. I made the necessary format and personnel changes, tightened upthe air sound, implemented a revised playlist and knocked off WLYC. But the general manager - who had formerly been the program director - took umbrageat the things I was trying to accomplish and in early 1974 I realized that I was exhausted and decided to leave the world of radio behind. The career that began so remarkably ended rather inauspiciously - a victim of broadcasting's incredible egos. I went on to a successful twenty-five year career in software engineering and high tech consulting in Silicon Valley and recently retired. I'm now attempting something of a broadcasting comeback. I've been a part time video news stringer for San Francisco and Oakland television stations for the last couple years and I'm looking toward full time TV news writing and producing. On air? Not me. Not anymore