The Green WENY part 2

One thing certain about broadcasting is that there is NOTHING certain. When Mike Steele decided to leave The Green Group the station lost a good manager, and I lost a good friend. Mike had been with Howard Green for quite a number of years and I am pretty sure he was getting burned out, so he and his wife Jane bought a station in Walker, Mn. That of course left an opening for Corporate General Manager, the liaison between the department managers, such as me, and Howard. The Corporate G.M. was responsible for the overall operation of the Elmira stations.

Right before Mike left, Dick Ireland was transferred to WOND/WMGM in Atlantic City, and a fellow named John Richer was hired to replace Dick as WENY AM Manager. John came to Elmira from Syracuse where I believe he was the victim of a station sale. Anyway, John was a different type of person, and we actually did get along pretty well in spite of the fact that I was doing my best to take away the AM's business.

Anyway, back to the story! With Mike's departure that left John, Bob, and myself to run the property, which was OK, except for items that were beyond our scope of authority such as spending any large amount of money. Even though I had been Manager of WLEZ FM for only a bit over a year I applied for Mike's position. Needless to say I didn't get it, with the reason given that I didn't have enough TV experience. Looking back, I suspect it was because Howard didn't think I could make the change and treat John fairly. One day a fellow named Pat Parish appeared at WENY with Howard. I spent part of the day talking with Pat, he talked a good game, but there was something that was clawing at my insides that I could not put my finger on, I soon would know what it was.

Pat came from Atlantic City where he had worked for the Merv Griffin Group, yep, the same Merv who was an entertainer, talk show host, producer, etc. The station Pat ran in A.C. NJ was from what I was given to understand losing money, no big surprise there. Once Pat was in place the troubles started. He tried his best to violate my contract and make life miserable in general for me and the other managers. John Richer was the first to leave and was replaced by Don Murphy who had been manager at WQIX/WIQT in Horseheads and for a period of time had run his own advertising agency. I had known Don since I had been in the market and we got along well, making many agency trips together and working on getting national business for both stations. I think Don lasted about a year till the Coup! More about that later, it could be a whole chapter by itself! Also around the time that Mike left, Bob Edwards retired from WENY TV and Lew Robelyer was named Manager of TV 36 and Meade Murtland who had been doing sales for WENY AM moved over to TV Sales. I believe the Lew lasted about a year also and he too was butting heads with Pat Parish when he left Meade was named TV Manager.

My relationship with "Puff the magic pipeman, as we all called Pat Parish," was bad at best. Several times there was no communication between us for a month or more. Every time I went to him with a request he would never give me an answer so I finally started to run the station the way I thought best. By the way, the bottom line showed that! How did he get his nickname? That was courtesy of his always smoking a pipe, it was given to him by John Richer after a particularly frustrating managers meeting.

During this time, a lot of people came and went in the organization, my staff turned over again with Laura being transferred to I.T. Department Head in charge of all the new computers for logging and billing on all three stations. I replaced her with a very bright lady named Deb, Donna Pulito left as did Byron and they were replaced by "Smilin" Jack Ryan who had retired from Corning Glass and Jim Flynn. Both were really good salespeople and we made a lot of progress. As far as the three stations went I was one of the "old timers" with about 7 years to my credit. I was definitely the senior manager on the property and had the station that was actually increasing in revenue. Finally Don Murphy had enough of Pat and left to go sell cars, and once again I took care of the National business for both WENY AM and WLEZ FM. Little did I know that when I met Art Kendall, I was meeting my replacement! Art had been a partner in Howell and Kendall Advertising in Elmira and was some backdoor relation on my mother's side. Pat brought him in to manage WENY AM and in the spirit of cooperation I helped Art settle in took him to meet the regional agencies and brought him up to speed on all the national business.

In late September of 1986 on a Friday, I arrived at the station and immediately received a call to come to Pat's office. At that time he informed me my services were no longer needed as Art Kendall would be managing both stations. I could not believe it! I was handed my severance pay and yearly performance bonus and given an hour to clean out my desk. My performance bonus was based on the amount of increase over the previous year, I can tell you it was a rather large check, so it was not a performance issue, but rather a "I didn't hire him so he is gone," issue. Those of you who have worked in media know that this is the rule rather than the exception.

My time at WENY left a very bitter taste in my mouth for corporations and media in general and was my last broadcast management position. I researched many possibilities, but looking into the organizations I found that they were not any better than what I had just left.

I may sound very bitter but I can only hope that Pat got what he deserved in life as well as Howard, they were two men who climbed the ladder on the backs of others, only to shaft the very people who brought them success.

Now it was time for a career change, that story is next!