Ralphie Aversa has done a little bit of everything in this business. His voice has been on radio stations in Syracuse, Scranton, Providence, and New York. He's warmed up the crowd at the Billboard Music Awards, and you'll now see him hosting USA Today's Entertain This.
An avid Yankees fan from Niagara Falls, Ralphie was first advised by broadcaster Michael Kay to look at Syracuse. Fun fact: he toured the campus the day of the National Championship game against Kansas in 2003.
Before he set foot on campus, an internship at Kiss FM (WKSE) in Buffalo got this sports guy interest in music radio, and he quickly found WJPZ when he got to SU. You'll also hear how Kevin Rich, our current Alumni Association President, is a recurring character in Ralphie's journey.
Already doing Z89 nights as a freshman, Rick Wright introduced Ralphie to Butch Charles, then-PD of Hot 107.9. Ralphie talks about the tough decision to "go pro," and the advice he got on both sides before heading to WWHT.
After SU, Ralphie landed a gig at WBHT in Scranton-Wilkes Barre, PA. There, he leveraged Pennsylvania's key role in the 2008 Presidential campaign to land celebrity interviews; they were part of the Obama campaign. This got him noticed in the trades, and soon he was syndicated to Providence, Rhode Island.
When Cumulus bought Citadel, the new brass were impressed with Ralphie, and soon he was off to New York to do nights on WPLJ, where he remained for several years, working as many media jobs as he could in the Big Apple.
Following his run at PLJ, Ralphie worked for an internet startup, then leveraged his network to find what was next - including a make-up artist who worked miracles following a gnarly scooter accident just before a big interview. He's now been with USA for 3 1/2 years.
Throughout this episodes, you'll hear lessons Ralphie learned from many of our alumni, and we close with the story of how he got the Black Eyed Peas into Chuck's. Yes, you read that right.
The WJPZ at 50 Podcast Series is produced by Jon Gay, Class of 2002, and his podcast production agency, JAG in Detroit Podcasts.
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JAG: I am Jon Jag Gay. Today's guest is someone that I first got to know when he was a student, and I consider very fortunate to have been able to call him a friend in the time since. That is Ralphie Aversa. Welcome to the show, JAG.
Ralphie: It's a pleasure. Thank you for having me, and thank you for doing this.
JAG: Start at the beginning. Ralphie. How's the kid from Niagara Falls end up at Syracuse?
Ralphie: Look, the great reputation of Newhouse. As I got older and as I realized I wanted to be in broadcasting specifically at the time, by the way, sports broadcasting.
JAG: Hang on. I have a tote board in here. I mark it off every time I talk to a guest who got to Syracuse and wanted to be a sportscaster. So one more hash mark. Okay, go ahead.
Ralphie: There you go. So it became apparent as I was moving through high school, I wanted to be a sports broadcaster, that I should go to Syracuse. That should be my number one school. And so I ended up only applying to Syracuse and St. Bonaventure. That was it.
Got accepted into St. Bonaventure and then got accepted into Syracuse. Early admission for a dual major and for a kid who had a, my GPA in high school was like low 3's, and the average for the incoming class, my freshman year was a 3.9. I was over the moon ecstatic. My parents were pleasantly surprised and yeah, that's how it started.
JAG: That was to get into Newhouse?
Ralphie: Yeah. Yeah. I was in Newhouse and Whitman School of Management
JAG: so what were your two majors?
Ralphie: Broadcast Journalism and Marketing
JAG: Man. If I could tell any broadcast journalism student now to major, double major in any kind of business or marketing, you were ahead of your time knowing to do that when you got there.
Ralphie: You know why? Because my dad, of course, this ties back to Jag being from Boston and me, being from Western New York, but also being a big Yankees fan. We've talked sports quite a bit over the years. I was at a Toronto Blue Jays game. My father and I, and we ran into Michael Kay. I don't even know if he was on YES Network yet.
He might have still been on the radio calling the games with John Sterling. And my dad asked Michael Kay, hey, my son's thinking about getting into broadcasting. Should he go to a journalism school? And it was Michael Kay who like drilled into my dad. Yeah. But he should also have a business background as well.
Cause that's gonna help him a lot. Wow. And then got to Syracuse. And Max Patino, who's no longer at SU but at the time was the director of admissions for Newhouse really sold me and my Dad. I'm like, yeah, it's like a twofer essentially, and give it how expensive Syracuse was even back then.
We're like, oh, if we can get two for the price of one, why not? I'm not gonna lie and skipping ahead a tiny bit. In hindsight. I may have only minored in marketing if I could do it again, but that's really more for a credits thing. Cause I didn't bring any credits into Syracuse from high school. As far as the curriculum, yes, it made a lot of sense.
JAG: Fair enough. Okay, so you get to Syracuse, you got two majors going right out of the get-go. How do you find out about WJPZ?
Ralphie: Like so many people, I went to Syracuse, I'm like, I'm gonna be the next Bob Costas. The summer before I got to Syracuse, I landed a part-time job at Kiss 98.5 WKSE in Buffalo, and that changed me completely.
Not that it took away my interest in sports, but it opened me up to top 40 in entertainment. And my program director was Dave Universal. He was my first program director. He was my intro to radio. And if you know who Dave Universal is, you're like shocked right now. You're like, oh my G-d, that was your intro to radio.
I loved it. Kids, if you don't know who Dave is, Google him. But I remember that summer, I was on the KISS Street team. I did some board opping as well. And I remember one of the events we had to cover was the 50 cent and Eminem tour. I believe they were on tour together. I know 50 cent was on the bill and one of the co headliners.
And we went to Darien Lake Pack, which is like your typical Live Nation outdoor amphitheater. We met at the radio station before we went to the venue and Dave Universal shows up with his baby boy who's like still an infant or near infant and his diaper bag. And in his diaper bag he has a thousand dollars in ones.
All cash. And he pulls it out and he says, guys, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna walk through the lawn at Darien Lake and we're gonna hand out a couple dollars to anyone and you're gonna say, thanks for listening to Kiss 98.5.
JAG: Wow.
Ralphie: Now you really wouldn't be able to get away with that because there'd be so many questions and there'd be so much red tape. But like even back then it was like, whoa. So that's just a taste of what my real intro and radio was back in Buffalo. And then yeah. I got to Syracuse and I'm like, okay, I'll get to WAER at some point. But where's the WJPZ Studios again? Okay, awesome. I'm gonna go there.
JAG: What year is that? You came into Syracuse and you right off your summer job?
Ralphie: It's a fall of 2003.
JAG: So who's at JP PZ when you get there and what's your impression when you walk in?
Ralphie: The first person I ever met at JPZ was Kevin Rich. And I, to this day, bust his stones about this because, as I mentioned, got in early acceptance, went for the spring tour at Newhouse, and I was at the spring tour the day of the National Championship game against Kansas.
Parents wouldn't let me stay, so I ended up watched that game back in Niagara Falls. I had obviously Niagara Falls to Syracuse. It's about a two and a half hour trip. They're close, but. I was in the same group with this kid who had uncombed hair, a kind of straggly goatee, and a really worn leather jacket, and that person was one, Kevin Rich, aka Kev Rich.
So that is the very first person actually that I ever met at JPZ, obviously before either of us were even students at JPZ. When I walk into the door at the J PZ studios at Watson, the first person I meet, thankfully is Greg Katsulis. Who at the time is a law student and is the general manager of WJPZ.
And I came armed with, I don't think I had a demo at that point, but I definitely had a resume. I might have burned a CD. I probably burned a CD actually, now that I think about it.
JAG: That'd be on brand from you for the year that you walked around the banquet handing out your demo.
Ralphie: Even back. Even back then, like even like right from the jump, right from the jump, like I was like armed with materials in hand, ready to hand out to be like, Hey, this is me. This is who I am. I remember doing that and I had the WKSE call letters on there too, and I think Greg was like, whoa, wait a minute, this kid's a freshman and he is already working at commercial radio in a top 60 market. Again, not that I was holding down even a part-time shift, but still, and then it just steamrolled from there.
Like I had to, go through all of you know what you have to go through as far as the training. I remember Ashley Luongo was the program director at the time and got cleared to get on the air pretty quickly. And funny enough, I was holding down the 7-10 shift on Monday and Tuesday, and then on Monday and Tuesday from 10 to midnight who was behind me? None other than. K-Rich.
JAG: So you see a familiar face right out of the gate.
Ralphie: Yeah, it was it was cool and K-Rich wasn't at that 10 to midnight slot for long cuz he eventually moved up to the 7 to 10. But yeah, we were doing the "Slammin Seven at 7" fall semester freshman year.
JAG: Which is funny when you think about years later when you and K-Rich were on opposite each other when he was on 93Q doing nights and you were doing nights at Hot 1079 at the same time.
Ralphie: It's so wild. Like how he was the first person that I met. And I still I get such a kick outta the fact that he does not remember this at all.
JAG: I was gonna say, he didn't mention it on the podcast when I talked to him.
Ralphie: I'm sure he didn't. Whatever. That's fine. You know what though? I beat him and Hot Beat Q pretty good in those Arbitron diaries so.
JAG: Oh, there it is. There it is right there.
Ralphie: So maybe he didn't wanna remember any of those four years. But no, it was funny, yeah. how our careers then for those four and a half years and our lives intertwined. It was pretty cool.
JAG: All right. So you're at JPZ. You're very quickly cleared and doing nights. Tell me what else you did at the station and how you moved on to commercial radio from there, Ralphie.
Ralphie: I remember the fall semester of 2003 was cool. The two events that I really remember that were big were, we did a, like a live broadcast. I'm using air quotes but we did a live broadcast ish type thing. From Lawrinson. And I was living, I lived in Lawrinson in my freshman and sophomore year. Sophomore year I was a RA there, so like that was really cool. Freshman year I remember being like, oh yeah, I'm on the air on the station.
And we were like playing Z 89 in the little area between, what is it? Sadler and Lawrinson, right? We were like blasting JPZ there, and it was like around the holidays, I feel like, or close to holiday break. So that was really fun. And then I remember the other live event that we had for Z89. I don't know how this happened, but we did a live remote.
From the CBA-Henninger basketball game. And it was a huge deal in Central New York because Greg Paulus was the point guard for CBA and Andray Blatche, who obviously went on to play in the NBVA, was the big forward slash center for Henninger. CBA won. I remember that. And I remember at Z we, like we did giveaways like before the game and at halftime I got to announce the starting lineups for both teams.
That was a pretty cool thing as well that we I think the sports staff might have been there as well, but it was definitely like on the pop music side, like we were handling a lot of that too. So those were like two really cool things that happened. The fall semester and then spring semester comes around.
At this point, I have a demo from WJPZ and obviously like when you get back, like you start thinking about the following year and about elections and all that. As far as the station, and Greg was pushing me to run for program director of Z89. I had linked up with Dr. Wright. I went in to shadow Dr. Wright one day at what was then Clear Channel and then eventually iHeart at 500 Plum. And of course, Dr. Wright at the time had his show, which was then on Power 106.9. Power was still on the FM dial. And of course, the program director for both Power and Hot in Syracuse at the time was a former keynote speaker for the WJPZ Banquet, Butch Charles. So I go in, this is like February of. 2004, and it was the day that I found out that my grandma had passed away, who was my last living grandparent. Also found out that day that she was Jewish and therefore I was Jewish, which that's another story for another time. But I'll obviously, we'll never forget that day for a number of reasons, including shadowing Dr. Wright.
And then afterwards Dr. Wright walking me into Butch Charles's office and I gave Butch my Z demo that I had burned onto a cd, and he popped it in. And, Butch. Butch is a very even keeled individual, which, especially in hindsight now, I appreciate quite a bit. But at the time, and especially, JAG, you knew me when I was young, I wanted Butch to tell me I was the greatest thing since sliced bread and that, I was gonna be doing nights on Hot you know what I mean?
Like I just had these unrealistic expectations. But he popped the cd out. He was like, he is nodding his head. He said, okay, not bad. And then, He said, we got some part-time openings. When can he start part-time? I'm a freshman. I don't even have a car. I don't know what's gonna happen with the Z elections.
So Butch and I kept in contact and Butch made it pretty clear that if I was gonna stay at Z and be on air and be the program director, he didn't want me at Hot. If I was gonna be at Hot, he wanted me there both feet in. He had, I think, big plans for me as far as not just being part-time, but being fill-in kind of really being like the sixth man off the bench, if you will.
But I still went through the Z process of running to be program director and didn't get it. Dave McKinley beat me out. From what I heard, it was a very heated execs staff meeting. And then, yeah, so I was like, okay they wanted me to be APD at Z and help mentor the jocks. And I'm like I have no problem helping to mentor the jocks, but I can't take a staff position here cuz I'm gonna go to Hot.
Ended up not starting at hot. I knew then that this was gonna be the start of My hustle. And so I'm like, let me get one more summer at home. So I went back home for one more summer, worked at Kiss again like I did during the breaks. And then it was fall of 2004 that I started working part-time at Hot 1079.
JAG: It's funny as you describe that story, cuz I'm thinking in my head the whole, everything happens for a reason thing. And I don't know if you'll be able to answer this question, but you're begging me to ask it. Had you won the election and become PD at JPZ, do you think you would've left it and gone hot? Or are you not able to answer that question? What do you think?
Ralphie: It would've been a very difficult decision. Let's put it like this. I can't 100% say I still would've went to Hot. I'll reveal a couple things to your first point. I'll never forget walking into Dr. Wright's office after I lost the JPZ election and he said, Raffi, the Lord looks in mysterious ways.
And and he's and in his own very fatherly Dr. Wright way. Just tried to help me to understand that everything does happen for a reason. Jag, like you said, that really helped me in the moment because again, I'm a freshman. I was so high energy, I was full of myself to a degree. I was hurt by the JPZ election. By not getting program director, except that definitely helped. I don't know. I, and I had a lot of JPZ alums in one ear saying, stay don't quote unquote go pro. I don't know if I've ever said this publicly. I had Rich Davis in my other year, and I hope I don't hurt his chances to ever be a JPZ Hall of Famer by saying this. It shouldn't, cuz in my opinion, he should already be in the Hall of Fame. But I remember having Rich in my ear who I'd become friends with, and he was like, yeah, dude. You go to JPZ to get a gig on commercial radio to then build that legacy. That's what you gotta do. You, you need to do that.
JAG: Rich had Z100 on his resume at that point too. And had he, I think he may already have been at Sirius XM at that point, or he would, would've been close.
Ralphie: No, he was at Z still. I met Rich when he was still at Z. That's another funny story that I could tell if you got a second there. If it doesn't derail us too much. I was freshman year law five and there was a girl there from North Jersey. Her name is Jess Ross, and she had the Z100 hotline number. I think I had mentioned to her. Because again, being a freshman and then being like so into JPZ, like you're looking up the Dion Summers of the world and the Rich Davis of the world and et cetera, and I was like, oh yeah, Rich Davis, he's on Z. He's a Syracuse guy.
And she's oh yeah, I've talked to Rich and I told him I was going to Syracuse, blah, blah, blah. Here's the hotline number. So I would call the hotline my freshman year and chat with Rich Davis. At Z100.
JAG: And for anybody who didn't work in radio, who doesn't know the hotline is the bat phone to the studio. That is the private number for only those in the know. So good for you.
Ralphie: Yeah. That's how I got in touch with Rich freshman year. He definitely pushed me to, leave. Like he said, if the opportunity's there at hot, you gotta take it. And I did.
JAG: Makes sense. Nicest guy on the planet by the way.
Ralphie: I love him and very appreciative for his friendship and mentorship.
JAG: So take me through your career path fairly briefly. And by the way, I'm glad Butch Charles did not give you as critical an air check as I did at that time.
Ralphie: I knew this was coming up at some point.
JAG: Why don't you tell the story? Better you tell it than me?
Ralphie: Oh. Because again, I remember this so vividly.
I believe I'm a sophomore at the time because I remember when I was an RA in Lawrinson. The RAs had the corner rooms. Had the private bathroom in there. It was like a, what we call in the city, an alcove suite or an alcove, one bedroom. It was really nice and I remember specifically sitting down at my laptop and this was on a Saturday night and I had emailed Jag my latest air check. And Jag and I started doing this my freshman year.
When I had met him at fall conference freshman year, he wasn't even back in radio or in broadcasting or in communications at the time. But he just always had a really good knack for broadcasting and certainly for radio.
JAG: Thank you.
Ralphie: And he had offered anything I could do to help ya, even if it's just to listen to an air check.
So Jag started air checking me, really the first person to like actually air check me, listen and give me real pointers and tips and reinforcements, break by break. And so Jag was doing that for me freshman year and I found it so helpful that I kept Jag on free retainer and kept asking him to do it. And thankfully, you were kind enough to continue to do it.
JAG: And so I should say here, you mentioned that I wasn't working professionally in radio yet. You're right. I wasn't. So this is my way to stay plugged in. I loved doing it. And I gotta give you credit here because whatever feedback I gave you, you would take it and I would hear it in the next tape you sent, and that's a credit to you.
Ralphie: Thank you. Yeah, I still try to do that to this day when anybody gives me constructive criticism, and especially if I can comprehend the constructive criticism and understand where they're coming from. And then understand how to implement it. I always find that huge. I think that's just how you improve in anything in life.
But yeah, so sophomore year I send Jag an air check and I'm getting ready to go out that night again, as an RA, it's weird because you're not supposed to go out, but maybe we did. Anyways, so I was getting ready to go meet up with some friends and I saw a new email from Jag and I made the mistake. Maybe I made the mistake of either taking it too personally or I made the mistake of opening the email before I went out.
Regardless. I opened the email before I went out and Jag just, I don't know what it was about this particular air check, but he just tore me a new one. It was just like, Everything's awful. Nothing's great. He didn't say it in those words. He was of course, as always very deliberate and constructive with his tips and criticism.
But it put me in such a funk that I stayed in that night, didn't even go out and like really, like even the next day was like processing it. And I wouldn't say I got to the point where I was like second guessing radio is a career, maybe you don't get to the door, but you start to walk down the hallway.
But it's good. Sometimes again, for me I think I've always in, in my career needed those gut checks and that was one of the real first ones that I got. And so while it did ruin my one Saturday night, sophomore year of college, I'm still very appreciative of it.
JAG: And it's funny because that story is a story that Ralphie told me probably 10 years after the fact.
At an after party one banquet weekend, and I had no recollection of this cause I had never known that I'd ruined his Saturday night. But I think it's just a natural piece in the evolution of a jock where you start to really get some momentum and you get talented. And I think all of us who've been on the air have done this where there's a moment where you might get a little cocky about it and you might feel like, okay, you know what? I got this.
And we've all been through that in our development. And if memory serves, that might've been that point that you were at and it was like, hang on, you still got a lot of room to grow here. You're not there yet. That's my best guess for what I would've said. Not having any recollection of the specific air check or email.
Ralphie: Hit the nail on the head, especially fall semester and spring semester. Really though. Sophomore year had the car on campus, was a resident advisor who was on air at Hot 1079. Was on my way to, and then was cleared at WAER desk, started doing some TV stuff later that year. Like my sophomore year was a real transformative year in my career. And yeah, again, going back to what I was saying before about how, I was a little full of myself at times.
Yeah, absolutely. So I needed, like your good friends in life do that to you. They tell you the things that you don't want to hear. They tell you the things that you need to hear. And thankfully Jag was there for me on that Saturday night. And yeah, I didn't go out, but I made up for it plenty in college thereafter and even after college.
JAG: So Hot 1079. You're working your way up the chain there. Briefly take me through that and some of the other stuff you've done in your career.
Ralphie: Yeah, so Hot 1 0 79 was again, another big point because, I'm working part-time and also by the way, producing Dr. Wright's show every Sunday. So like getting in at 1130 on Sunday and not leaving, cuz Then I had to produce the Public Affair Show for Hot 1079, which was live, called Teen Talk.
Which if you remember listening to Hot 1079, I think it used to be on 93Q as well. So just saying the words Teen talk, I'm sure brings people back. And by the way, also while I'm doing all this at Hot 1079, working part-time, main fill-in, still working at KISS during breaks.
At one point later in 2006. I'm doing weekends on Kiss, while I'm also doing weekends in, fill-in on Hot. And no kids, like we didn't have remote tracking. I'm driving back and forth down I 90, doing both. Also helping out at WAER, did a semester at Citrus tv and then was trying to pick up some other on-camera stuff as well. Even hosted a game show on the local PBS affiliate in Syracuse for one semester as well.
So doing a lot of different things in college and I'm hustling. So fall semester 2006, Clear Channel has like serious layoffs. We lose DJ Maestro, Hassan Stevens, to that. I get put in as the night guy on Hot 1079. So it's a full-time gig with part-time pay, essentially.
JAG: Huh, sounds about right.
Ralphie: And I'm on like six, seven nights a week on Hot From then on out. Stop doing the work at Kiss and still on at WAER though. Fast forward to the spring of 2007, and then that's when I walk across the stage, although I'd never graduated. And that's when I begin looking for gigs.
JAG: What's next after that?
Ralphie: I got three offers, full-time offers out of college. None of them came from Hot in Syracuse cuz Clear channel just wasn't gonna, at that point, they weren't gonna put a full-time night guy on again in Central New York. The only way I could be full-time, I remember, I believe was if I went into sales, which I wasn't willing to do.
So the first offer came from another JPZ alum, Dan Austin. So Dan at the time was the general manager at the, I think it was Pamal, right? Pamal Broadcasting in Albany.
JAG: Pamal in Albany. Yep.
Ralphie: Pamal, thank you. You'll understand in a second why. And by the way, the governor was there as well at Jammin.
JAG: JD Redman.
Ralphie: Yes. And so my first offer was from Jammin in Albany to do nights, the full-time salary. Was $15,000. They kicked in an extra $500 for moving, and they said with appearances you'll probably make in the low twenties.
JAG: Anybody who has been on the air and heard what you just said. With appearances you could get up to, oh my G-d, my PTSD is kicking in the second you say that.
Ralphie: Oh yeah. And especially Albany, which was not a cheap place to live at all. And it was a, a decently sized radio market, certainly also. So that was a no.
Second offer came from the CBS affiliate in Watertown, New York. Pay was decent. Lot of overtime opportunity.
Ultimately, I just had a gut check with myself and I was like, am I gonna be happy up here? You're an hour north of Syracuse, you're covering the weather, the army base, and other local government happenings.
JAG: This is a TV reporter gig?
Ralphie: Yes, the CBS television affiliate. In Watertown. Yes. And so I turned that down. And then the third offer came from Scranton, Pennsylvania, Scranton Wilkes-Barre. And it was at the top 40 station there and the money was decent and certainly with appearances it got even better. The cost of living there was really low. I loved the location. You were so close to New York. You were close to Philly. I could get back to Syracuse with ease. Even driving back to Niagara Falls where I'm from was only like a four and a half hour drive. And that was the gig I took in the in August of 2007.
JAG: How long were you there?
Ralphie: So I was living in Wilkes Barre doing nights on WBHT, which at the time was 97 BHT for about five years, like living in and on the air. I was on the air there for 11 years.
JAG: You foreshadowed when you said close to New York because that came a point in your career where you started to spend more time in the city and started to trying to advance, right?
Ralphie: Yeah, so you know what I was doing while I was at BHT in Wilkesboro is looking for media opportunities in the surrounding areas, whether it was hopping on the turnpike and driving down to Allentown to what was in the Crock Rock Cafe.
To interview a Good Charlotte or a Pitbull or driving down to Philly to interview like a Plain White Tees, or whoever was performing at TLA. Hanson, whoever the case may be, or going into New York, and I would go into New York sometimes to cover a media op. I remember interviewing The Script in New York.
Probably my most memorable interview was with Kim Kardashian at the time in New York, while I'm still living in Wilkes Barre mind you, it's, 2010.
JAG: Okay. What was memorable about it besides the obvious?
Ralphie: In the moment, so much hoopla, but in hindsight, the lack of hoopla because now I think about it and I'm like, oh my goodness, you couldn't even imagine, like regardless of what connections I had or who I knew or you couldn't imagine now a DJ in from Scranton, even if at the time he's syndicated to Providence, Rhode Island, interviewing Kim Kardashian in New York City, in Rockefeller Center of all places. So that's what sticks out to me.
And I also coupled it again, it always ties into sports somehow the Yankees had a home playoff game that night. So I went in with my buddy Danny, who was working part-time at the station and is still one of my best friends. He and I drove into the city that morning. He was my camera guy for Kim K. We got a day rate at a hotel downtown, and then we went uptown to the Bronx and watched the Yankees that night, lose to I believe, the Tigers.
And then I was also doing TV appearances in New York as well. So a lot was happening for me in Scranton. The biggest career moment while I was in Scranton though, has nothing to do with New York City. It was the Presidential election in 2008 and I was not doing talk radio in Scranton. I was on a top 40 station.
To this day, obviously we know that Pennsylvania is really ground zero for a lot of politics in this country. Especially Presidential elections. Whether you talk about just the demographics of the state or you talk about the ties that some of the candidates had to the state. So the primary, for the 2008 presidential election, you had Clinton and Obama, and of course Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The Rodhams grew up in downtown Scranton. And she used to vacation in the Poconos, and so she played up those roots and ended up winning Pennsylvania. One of the last states she won in that primary before Obama won the nomination. But then of course, president Obama picks Joe Biden as his running mate.
And so now Joe Biden is born in Scranton, left when he was three to go to Delaware, but obviously he's playing up those roots as well. And Pennsylvania is such a swing state, so how does that play in with a guy from, top 40 radio doing nights? I started covering the rallies because when Obama ran, there was just, something felt different about that election, it just felt like politics was always left to our parents. And now this time like we actually had a say in things and we had a stake in it. When I say we, 20 somethings. So I started covering the elections and really bugging Obama's communications director in Pennsylvania to the point where he was like, okay, I can't give you Obama or Biden, but we have all these celebrity surrogates.
So within the span of a couple weeks, I'm only on the radio doing nights in Scranton and on my show it's Adam Levine. It's Maggie Gyllenhaal. It's Fran Drescher, it's Matt Damon, it's Cynthia Nixon, Sex and the City and the whole nine. All of these names, one after the other. I'm in All Access like every week.
And then that gets the attention of the higher ups at Citadel. Citadel has cuts in 2009 and they need a new night guy on Pro FM and they syndicate me out of Wilkes Barre to be on a bigger market to be on in Providence. Really because of that, because of all of these interviews that I was getting. And they would eventually then go on to also syndicate me in New London, Connecticut at Q105.
JAG: Speaks to your hustle. If there's a thorough line through all this, Ralphie, it's the hustle and not leaving any stone unturned in terms of an opportunity.
Ralphie: Yeah, no, I was going to those rallies like just me, myself and I. No connections no anything. Just an HD camera that I bought from a thrift store on eBay for $300 with money outta my own pocket that I really didn't have, and a backpack and some ambition.
JAG: There you go. Okay. How does the transition go from Scranton to actually getting on the air in New York and moving to New York?
Ralphie: Citadel gets bought out by Cumulus in 2011. I'm on the air in New London. I'm on the air in Scranton, I'm on the air in Providence and Pro FM in Providence is just a juggernaut.
It's a top biller. It's number one across the board. It hits the whole thing. So Jan Jeffries, Mike McVay, they have all these new toys to play with, and they look at this PRO FM shiny toy and they look at the numbers. They're like, wow, this is incredible. And they're like, wow, the night guy's got this huge share.
What's his deal? They're like, yeah, he's actually out of Scranton. Mike McVay and Jan Jeffries summon me to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where they're having a regional Citadel program directors meeting to introduce all of the new program directors to the new scheduling software and on-air software that they're going to be using or eventually using down the road.
And I go to that meeting as the only non-PD there, and I'm in the meeting. And I'll never forget, everybody's going around and introducing themselves. I introduce myself to Jan. He's oh yeah, Ralphie. We love you. Mike and I, we're gonna chat with you after. In front of all these program directors.
I'm like, oh geez. So we're down in this lobby and of course, typical me like I used to do for the banquets, like I did the moment I met Greg Katsulis, I have my folder with my demo with, a DVD TV demo with an audio cd, radio demo, resume, press clippings, headshot, the whole nine. They're very impressed.
They tell me, look. You can't stay in Scranton for the rest of your life. And they said, what do you wanna do? And I said, I want to go to New York. And can you believe it, Jag? A year later they moved me to nights at PLJ in New York.
JAG: Wow.
Ralphie: There's a lot that happened in that year. But the bottom line is they moved me to Knights at PLJ. And I kept my other three stations voice tracking them from New York. I was on every night on PLJ.
JAG: For how many years did you do that? You were there for a while, weren't you?
Ralphie: From October of 2012 through December of 2018. So a little over six years. Yeah.
JAG: Okay. And from there is where your multimedia empire exploded, cuz you're right there in New York and you're working nights and that gave you a lot of time during the day to do all kinds of other stuff too, right?
Ralphie: Absolutely. As far as like producing content and producing content for multimedia for multiple platforms, that really started my senior year at Syracuse because Syracuse was one of the like first schools after the Ivy schools to get onto Facebook. And of course, YouTube was just starting around that time too, to gain a little bit of traction.
While I was at Hot 1079, I was doing like weekly video wraps and uploading them just to our.com to like the embed player that we had there, and to YouTube as well to my own YouTube channel. They're still there. Don't look them up, but you could if you wanted to. So that's where that started and it continued through my time in Scranton, which obviously you could imagine Scranton, Pennsylvania 2007.
That's a very forward way of thinking. Oh, the night guy's gonna have a blogger site as well, and he's going to record and edit video of his interviews and other like MOS stuff, man on street stuff.
JAG: Before it was required.
Ralphie: Yeah. Exactly. Way before it was required, before anybody understood what it was or even tried to understand what it was. And that's what really also appealed to the Cumulus folks was like we have this station WPLJ in New York, and yeah, they have a little bit of an online following, but there's nobody there really commandeering it implementing policy, procedure and protocol, and so on.
So it really helped me get to New York. 100% besides just being on the air. And then, yeah, while I was in New York, while I was in Scranton, I would drive to New York and do some TV hits, continue to do those in New York, and then worked full-time while I was on PLJ. Held down a full-time gig at Yahoo News from 2013 to 2014.
So literally would spend the day in the Yahoo Newsroom, take maybe a half hour to myself, hop on the subway. Go down 10 blocks to Two Penn to Madison Square Garden, and then tape all the syndicated stuff, the voice track stuff, and then be on the air at PLJ. And then do it all over again the next day.
JAG: I'm exhausted just listening.
Ralphie: Yeah, I'm exhausted recalling it. I just recalled it to a colleague earlier and every time I do it, I'm like, what was wrong with me? But yeah, 9a to 3p at Yahoo and then 3:30 to 11, 12 at PLJ. Usually at that point take an Uber home try to wind down and do it all over again. The next day.
JAG: Things end up coming to an end at PLJ and you've done a bunch of really interesting stuff since then. Ralphie.
Ralphie: Yeah. I was laid off at PLJ. It's interesting, I've told these stories. I don't know if I've told this story publicly the way I'm about to tell it. I was laid off at PLJ in December of 2018.
There's not that there's any shame in being laid off, but we all know, the news of the PLJ sale and the big Cumulus radio station sale at that time came a few months later. So I think we know what was going on there or what was brewing anyways. But regardless, I was laid off in December of 2018.
The same day I was laid off hours before I was laid off, I was told I was going to be offered a full-time job at a startup video company that I'd been working with in downtown Manhattan at the new One World Trade Center. So I left the startup thinking, oh my G-d, I'm gonna go back to two full-time jobs.
And then by the end of that day I'm like, I hope I have one full-time job when this is all said and done. Yeah, so no pun intended. I went radio silent for a while on a lot of people because I didn't want the news to get out that I had been, first of all, my layoff was interesting because I was laid off from PLJ.
But.There were still some unanswered questions about what was happening with Pro FM and with BHT at that time when I was laid off. I wasn't on Q GN anymore. So I had to tie up some loose ends there. But also, obviously I didn't want it to get out that I had been laid off because I was still waiting for this offer from the startup, and I didn't want them to think that they had any extra leverage on me.
Thankfully they came through with an offer. Everything worked out the way it was supposed to. And yeah, for five months I was at a startup. And Jag, going from like Cumulus and traditional media to a startup video company working at One World Trade Center. Oh my goodness. Those five months, and I don't mean this in a bad way at all, those five months felt like five years just in the experiences in the culture, in how much I learned in the people I interacted with.
Fascinating. I could do a whole podcast just on those five months. It was great though. Wouldn't trade 'em for anything. That startup kept iterating and iterating. And so I was let go from there in May of 2019. And then that marked for the first time since August of 07, the first time that I was not in college and did not have a full-time gig in media.
JAG: Welcome to the beach.
Ralphie: Woo boy. And I'm, in real life, I'm not a big beach person anyways. Don't really love the sun too much and I hate sand. I didn't enjoy that beach either. I tried to piece it together as much as I could between Union severance, other severance startup severance, and part-time gigs, and just a lot of support from the people around me.
A part-time gig, I ended up getting at ABC News Radio for a little bit too. Certainly helped bridge it, but it was rough. It was rough. Emotionally it was rough. Thankfully financially it was okay. Although there's, there's that uncertainty. But I was, at the time dating my now wife.
She was great and family was as great as they could be also. And it all worked out because what happened next on my birthday in 2019, June 6th, I met with my old boss at Yahoo News, Russ Torres, who is was and is the vice president of video for Gannett and the USA Today Network. They had posted a gig for a entertainment host producer, and I'm like, oh, that sounds right up my alley.
Because even, when I was in top 40 radio, I did have a weekly segment with Life and Style Weekly just to fill the celebrity gossip void. But I never really got into the Kardashians and the celebrity gossip and stuff. I always try to keep it about the music artists and the music and then the communities we were broadcasting to.
And I always try to tell stories with style and substance. So when you kick it forward to this USA Today gig, even taking away my prior experience in news, to me, at least in my head, it made a lot of sense. Oh, this is great cause I could cover entertainment. But I'm doing it for a news organization.
It's on camera. It's in New York, cuz people were telling me, you gotta move to LA. Gotta move to LA. It's in New York. So I'm like, great. Like this is it. So I meet with Russ in June of 2019. We have a great coffee meeting. He ends up bringing me by the newsroom. Get to check out the studio, the whole nine.
I have a follow up meeting with one of our senior managers, Robert Padavic, like about a month and a half later as they start to really ramp up the interview process. And then there's a little bit of silence until August of 2019. So August of 2019, I go to Los Angeles for general meetings. I met with Quibbi.
Remember Quibbi? I took a general with Quibi.
JAG: How many Quibbis long has this interview gone?
Ralphie: So I took a general with Quibbi in la and then on Monday of that weekend, the Monday after the weekend that I was there, I had a general meeting with E News. The reason why I was in LA besides those generals is because the Yankees, of course, were playing the Dodgers in Dodger Stadium. I go with my cousin Anthony.
We leave Dodger Stadium, can't get an Uber. We're trying to get downtown. So then we could eventually get back to our hotel in West Hollywood. And at the time we didn't have 'em. I hadn't seen 'em anywhere, but they had these motorized scooters. Yeah, got on one. Got into a really bad accident.
Cracked ribs. Huge bruise on my face. Lacerations, the whole nine. Didn't go to the hospital. Probably did suffer a concussion. Next morning looking like I had just gotten into a fight, still met with the VP of E-News and then two days later had my screen test for USA Today for entertain this because I had made it that far in the process.
JAG: All busted up.
Ralphie: The morning of the screen test thanks to my wife. We link up with a makeup artist. Who was working for Cardi B at the time. She comes over and the before and after Jag. I mean you gain. And I already had at that point in my career, trust me, with my acne scars and everything else. I already had a great appreciation for makeup artists.
She was a miracle worker. This woman, she was incredible. I looked like nothing had ever happened. I went in, I nailed my screen test. They offered me the job in November. I started December 2nd, 2019, and that's where I currently am. Host, producer of USA Today's Daily Entertainment flagship video series Entertain This.
I also write for our life entertainment section, and then they also pull me in when they need help with coverage on either news, but mostly sports and all of our Super Bowl ad meter coverage as well.
JAG: Ralphie, give me before we wrap up, a funny story, remember from JPZ, and also any lessons you learned at the stage you've taken with you throughout your career.
Ralphie: I'll give you a lesson, first, I learned. So many things from Dion Summers who of course now is the head of Urban programming at Sirius XM. He's incredible and I learned so much from him as a student and yonder. The professional piece of advice that I learned from him that always sticks with me is that radio is a business of first impressions.
And I think you could extend that to any media and, even I remember with my current gig with USA Today's Entertain This. They iterated inversion that for months before I even got there. And then once I did get there, like I'll never forget the first episode we put out, we put it out like December 3rd or 4th, 2019.
It was on a Friday. It was the day that Taylor Swift dropped her surprise original Christmas song. And even that, like making sure it was as perfect as it could be because it was our very first Entertain This. So just a good business lesson, good life lesson. But he said it at the time. Radio is a business of first impressions.
The other piece of advice, more of a life piece of advice that he gave to me and he gave to others. I remember one year during his Hall of Fame acceptance speech was he had all of us in the room look around at each other. And he basically said, look like all of these people that you're with. And I think he was really telling this to the students, but again, especially cuz I was only at JPZ for a year and like towards the end with the PD election, like there was a little bit of a rift with me and some of the people that were there.
He said to us like, look around, look next to you. Like these people, whether you're in love with them, whether you're fighting with them. These are the people you're gonna wanna reminisce with 5, 10, 15, 20 years down the line. Don't forget that we're all here together, like we're all one family.
Be nice to everyone and, having a beef or some type of grudge, like you're gonna look back and you're gonna regret it, so don't do that. And that really, again, resonated with me as well. And something I've taken, not just with the JPZ colleagues that I deal with the Alumni Association, but again, past gigs and my current ones.
JAG: So typically Ralphie, I ask people to share a funny story from JPZ. I'll make an exception for you cuz I know your funny story comes after you'd crossed over to Hot 1079. But there's a Syracuse connection to the Hill.
Ralphie: Yeah, there's a Syracuse connection and now that I think about it a little bit more there, there is a slight Z 89 connection.
So real quick, my freshman year, my roommate is from Tiverton, Rhode Island. He and I decide to drive to the University of New Haven because performing there are the Dropkick Murphy's, which were one of his favorite bands.
JAG: Shocking for a New Englander.
Ralphie: Yeah, Eve 6, who I had a contact to, their tour manager and the Black Eyed Peas who, where Is The Love was becoming big, and then they had a second single, I feel like before, Let's Get It Started, which was about to be in the spring of 2004.
The theme for the NBA playoffs on ABC and that let's get it started, and the unedited song, were about to both become well known, right? So we go up to the University of New Haven. Also, there was a girl from Lancaster, New York that I was about to start seeing at the time, and also a girl I went to high school with who was also there.
So there was a lot of connections. We drove up there, we went to the show. We met the Black Eyed Peas and actually ended up hanging out with them and I became friends with their tour manager and the way we were able to swing this is, hey, I'm with a college radio station and I need to get liners. So I got liners from like Taboo from the Black Eye Peas and my buddy Nick Rest in Peace, who was one of their managers at the time, like one of their roadies.
He was the one that connected it. Nick and I, the roadie from the Black Eyed Peas stayed in touch and he would always like text me when they released tour dates and he is yo, if any tour dates are near you, let me know. We'll hang out. We'll party. And he'd get me a backstage pass and I'd go back there.
I'd hang with him. Then after the show, me and whoever was down to party with the Peas, we'd all go out. There was one instance where my sophomore year at Syracuse drove to East Stroudsburg. After the show at East Stroudsburg University, me and the Peas loaded into my Fort Contour. Went to a frat party.
I got back and made my 8:00 AM radio reporting class the next day at Newhouse. So fast forward senior year, the Peas are performing at Turning Stone.
JAG: Okay.
Ralphie: Nick hits me up at this point. He knows that I'm a Syracuse student still, and he's yo, like we wanna party on campus. They were into girls and drinking and the whole nine.
So I'm like, all right, we'll set you up at Chuck's. So Taboo and Apple and like the entire Peas band came to Chuck's and signed the wall. The old Chuck's. I got in so much trouble. Because I'm working at Hot 1079 at the time, and we had a club night that night. I'll never forget, Jus Mic, who I love him.
He was doing afternoons at the time at Hot. Oh. He didn't talk to me for a good week and a half, maybe two weeks, because he was hosting that night and he's like, why wouldn't you bring them here? Why would you bring them to Chuck's? I'm like, dude, I didn't have a say in where they went. They wanted the college party experience.
I brought 'em to the quintessential college bar to do that. So yea the Black Eye Peas, at least half of the Black Eye Peas rolled into Chuck's my senior year. Yes. Because of me.
JAG: Probably a smart business decision on Fergie's part to abstain from that adventure.
Ralphie: Yeah. Fergie was hit or miss. Fergie and Will were always both hit or miss when it came to going out and partying. If they had time after their show and if the venue, cuz they were at Turning Stone, if the venue was a little closer to campus, I feel like one or both of them might have shown up, they didn't, those are also other stories probably for another time. A lot of Black Eyed Peas stories too. Especially my four years at Syracuse.
JAG: Ralphie, we've covered so much today and we haven't even gotten to you doing the Billboard Music Awards.
Ralphie: Yeah, I got to work for Dick Clark Productions and the Billboard Music Awards, and I do wanna quickly shout out that I am still in radio. I still love radio, and I'm still, I'm on part-time and fill-ins for 1071 The Boss, which of course, if it's a classic rock station called The Boss, where is it?
Of course it's down the Jersey Shore playing a lot of Bruce and. Jon Bon Jovi and the like. And so I still do that part-time and still really enjoy it in addition to my full-time gig at USA today, and enjoyed catching up with you Jag, or at least me blurting out my whole professional story here.
JAG: All good, my friend. Always good catching up with you.