For our first episode, we wanted to give you a choice between our full 98 minute interview with Dr. Rick Wright or this one, the 39 minute "radio edit."
In this shortened version, we stick to (mostly) the 50 year history of the radio station, beginning with that famous "knock at the door" of Dr. Wright's office in 1975. From there, we wind through the 80's and the story behind the move to the FM dial, Pan Am 103, and the "flamethrower" days of the early 90's,
We also touch on the receivership era, and the infamous house on Ostrom that was the station's temporary home for a year.
Jag also asks the question all Banquet attendees want to know: When did the old Professor figure out what was happening during "Rick Wright Radio Bingo?"
We wrap up with Dr. Wright's thoughts on the current state of the radio industry, and what could be done to save it. And finally, we zoom out to hear his takeaways from 50 years of the World's Greatest Media Classroom.
Join Us in Syracuse on March 4th: https://bit.ly/WJPZ50BanquetTickets
The WJPZ at 50 Podcast is produced by Jon Gay '02 and JAG in Detroit Podcasts
JAG: Welcome to WJPZ at 50. I am Jon Jag Gay. And for our first episode, it was really a no brainer who to have as a guest. Throughout our podcast series, you're gonna hear folks refer to the family of WJPZ. Well, the unofficial father of the family would be our guest today who helped put the station on the air 50 years ago.
Welcome Dr. Rick Wright to the podcast.
Dr. Wright: Well, what a fantastic treat this is for the old professo. Wow! I was checking my email. And then theres JG, Jon Gay, saying, Hey Rick, I'm putting together a 50th anniversary show, and I'm gonna do all these interviews and all these incredible WJPZ major market types all over the world now.
And I said, Jon, why me? You know, so Jon, I'm not just a father. I'm getting older. I'm the grandfather of WJPZ Radio as we broadcast live from Syracuse, New York. From the top, top, top, top, top of Mount Olympus!
JAG: The top of Mount Olympus for the station. And your new digs on top of Bird Library!
Dr. Wright: Oh yeah. Well, I'm up in the faculty commons all the great WJPZ family as a professor emeritus of the famous SI Newhouse School of Public Communications. Beautiful setup up here on the fifth floor Have everything. I really need to get this book, by the way. I'm working on a book. "I Turned Up the Radio" that I've been promising all of you and a lot of WJPZ's history histories in the book.
JAG: We are thrilled to hear that, and you've mentioned the book many times at the Banquet as many of the fellow alumni have heard. I'd like to ask if you would tell somewhat briefly how the station started, Craig Fox and Bill Blyley and all those guys back 50 years ago. Because for those who haven't heard the story, maybe some of our younger alumni or current students, how did this whole thing get started?
Dr. Wright: Back here in Syracuse, August of 1975, my office was 381 in the Newhouse School, Newhouse Two building. And Jon, a famous knock came at my door. Hey Professor Wright, are you in there? And I went to the door and opened up the door and standing in my door. Was Craig Fox and Bill Blyley. And they said, man, we need a radio professor and you're the answer to our prayers.
I said, Look, we are starting we have already started a new radio station on campus and the call letters are WJPZ. And I said, Hey, those calls sound pretty nice guys. They said we got the call letter rhyme scheme from, WABC in New York City. So I said, Okay, guys, great. They said, But professor, we got a problem.
The university is trying to kick us off campus. We got all of the old WAER broadcast equipment. Now here's a story. WJPZ family. Newhouse Two was built creating new broadcast studio facilities for WAER, which at that time was completely student running, operating. And of course the early building for WAER and it was built in 1946.
Can you imagine a building where a radio station has been in since 1946? And there is 19 what, 74? Well, the building had got to a stage of dilapidation. They didn't need all that equipment. You know that new buildings up. So the old WAER broadcast equipment, before they tore the building down, what did they do with the equipment?
They took all the equipment and threw it in a dumpster. So Craig was there standing in the door and he said, yeah, professor, I got the old equipment. And Bill Blyley came to him and he saw all this equipment in the dumpster. I think they left a dog, maybe, you know, coming off of Mount Olympus or whatever, and he saw all of this equipment in the dumpster.
So Bill Blyley looks at Craig and said Craig, hey man, why don't we take all this equipment out? Craig said let's set up another station on University Avenue, which is pretty much right across from where the Newhouse school is there, right in a spot. There's a big Sheraton Hotel here on campus there. Well, in those days it was a three story wooden house there.
I said, Craig Bill, show me the station. So we walked into the student union building. And it was in the basement and the wonderful radio students of that era. We talked the mid 1970's, they had built a radio station. I mean it had studios control room in the basement. And man, the place was neat.
I mean, those days wer'e talking turntables. Cart machines, records, and. It was just organized, just a beautiful look. And that day there had to have been at least maybe 12 students down there, all sitting around in the station and there was a disc jockey who I'll never forget. This was emotional for me.
Johnny D was his name, and Johnny D was Sightless. During this stage in the history of Syracuse University there were a number of young people who were sightless and of course they live in a world of audio, so radio, you know, the audio is their world. And there was Johnny D on the air man, and of course they had, the charts on the wall about the format.
This is the moment that I just never forget. A brand new faculty professor here at Syracuse University. Johnny D is on the air. I mean, this kid was really, sounded like he was in major market, New York City somewhere, and he's on the air WJPZ!1200 rock! You know? And. I said, Wow. By the way, the power output was one 10th of a watt.
Craig Fox, it was his genius engineering self. He's got an incredible way of doing an interpretation of the engineering Part 73 rules, of the FCC with regards to, radio stations. And he found that if you have a radio station that is operating with one 10th of a watt or lower, it's legal to be on the air.
And Craig built the transmitter and of course the transmitter was up on Mount Olympus, but a wire hanging down the side of the dorm, which really gave a signal of at least about three or four miles of the campus.
JAG: There you go. Whole thing was covered.
Dr. Wright: Yes. At 1200 on the dial. I said, Craig and Bil,, what's the problem? This said, professor, we can't get any professor or someone to help us. Everybody's turned us down and we're getting these letters from the student affairs that we must cease and assist and get out of the basement. I say, hold it, guys. You guys need to be a student organization.
Let's settle this right there. So Bill Blyley and Craig Fox, and yours truly, Professor Rick Wright. , we go over to student affairs and I walk in, introduce myself, say I'm the new advisor for the WJPZ organization, and please give me all the paperwork that is needed to basically make a student organization legal on campus.
And they handed me all the documents and everything. I never forget the day. I'm sitting there, start filling, still got the paperwork as, let's name it, WJPZ Radio. I say eventuall one day we'll get it cooperated, but WJPZ radio and then of course, you fill it out, you know, and then I said,,,hey guys, gimme some names.
Bill Blyley. I wrote him down as a general manager, Craig Fox, program director, chief engineer and everything else. And then of course, gimme some of the names, some of the other students. So you know, named now people will be the operations manager. These are the announcers. Somebody in sales also another thing with that station on the air. The students already were going out to like Fast Break Deli, some of the joints, you know, selling pizzas and reaching out, you know, to the student population here in Syracuse. They were selling, you know, on the air.
JAG: So that is 47 years ago. As you record this here in October of 2022, you've had a front row seat for everything. You are the one constant in the station's history. Dr. Wright, as you think back over almost half a century. What are some of the significant moments in the station's history that stick out to you? I know there's a lot, but you had to pick a few.
Dr. Wright: Oh, Todd Parker, Todd Parker. God bless his soul. Todd. I had not lost contact. Hop he's still alive in this life. Well, anyhow, one day Todd Parker came on to my office and he came in and kinda sat there. Professor. I don't think anybody's listening to WJPZ radio. I said, Todd, look, whenever you are on the air behind a microphone, you never know who's listening.
Couple of days later, Todd came back to my office. I guess what Todd told me, he said, Professor, Wright, you were right. He said, I just got a call for Bob Carolyn. Bob Carolyn was the program director of WHEN here in Syracuse. WHEN at that time had reshuffled the deck and became really like the number one radio station in Syracuse.
And Bob Carolyn called Todd and, Hey Todd, I've been listening to your show. He said where? Over at WJPZ Radio. So Bob Carolyn, who was a program director, was there listening to WJPZ Radio trying to find part-time announcers to work at 620 WHEN here in Syracuse. And that was an incredible moment. I said, Okay, this is what I'm talking about.
Then of course what I did also, I taught a course at radio television announcing and performance.
JAG: Which I took in 2001.
Dr. Wright: Oh, yes. And then the key thing about it, anybody who was working at the station, You know, you're on air. That was a part of the class. I said, you know, some of the lectures and stuff that we'll be doing, if you're working at the station, bring your tapes by, Let's play 'em to the class.
JAG: And in fact, I wanna say if memory serves, I think I was VP of Ops the station when I took your class and you still gave me a B, not an A.
Dr. Wright: Oh my God. I gotta change that. Oh, maybe I can we'll have to go back into the, Let's go back on the record. Okay. Oh God.,Everybody in the world is listening to this, huh?
Well, I'm a professor emeritus now, but as far as I can tell you got an A plus A plus.
JAG: I appreciate that.
Dr. Wright: A plus. A plus Jon. A plus. A plus. Again, for the record, Jon JG got an A plus. Whatever I gave him back in those days, it's A plus. He's become major market material, but also I think the rigor too. Maybe I kind of give those grades to make sure y'all are getting with the program.
JAG: Keeping us honest. I gotcha.
Dr. Wright: Keep you honest, you know what I mean? But of course I knew all of you would be great successful people in the business. And I having been in the industry knowing which you would be up against, you know, in this industry. And of course we got some challenges there.
JAG: I wanna come back to that later on where we are now in the industry for sure.
Dr. Wright: And we'll get to that too. But somebody called the FCC, Let's just get down with the program. Hey, what about this new radio station that's on the air, 1200 in Syracuse and the FCC came out and said, What new radio station at 1200 on the dial?
We were working with the one 10th of a lot, but Craig's genius with my audio modulation and Amplitude modulation radio. So really what happened, the FCC showed up looking for this new radio station, and of course they looked all over the place, couldn't find it. They ended up going up and absolutely that day did a engineering inspection of WAER radio right in the top of Mount Olympus.
So they went to see the transmitter and that's where WJPZ's transmitter was. And they said, Oh my God, here's the transmitter. And it was like in a little cage, you know, off to the side. And of course the antenna was actually a wire which dropped from the top right down the side of the building. We're talking the 1970s there guys.
We got a cease and stop operating at the station and everybody came to me and they reallput a lock on the station saying, Hey, this station not to be operated. Thank God that in my case I was a broadcast engineer myself, First phone broadcast engineer, and the engineering officer who was head of the FCC you know, for this region of New York State though, was a friend that I knew from Norfolk, Virginia.
Mr. JJ Friedman was his name, and I called Mr. Friedman. I said, JJ, I'm the faculty manager, advisor for the station, for the wonderful broadcast students here at Syracuse. And he said, Okay, we'll take care. Don't worry, it's still legal. So yeah, Rick, no problem. I didn't realize you were there. So got the station back on the air.
That was a key point.
JAG: It was a key point. And it's important to mention too to our listeners, some listeners and some guests on this podcast who have received the Rick Wright Lock Scholarship Award given out the banquet every year. For those who don't know, this is the origin of the name of that award from the lock that was put on the station as you've told the story over the years.
Dr. Wright: Yeah, that's back in the 1970s and some people weren't around, but here is another great moment and it's really cable, cable television. At that time, there were two cable TV systems here in upstate New York and Syracuse did not have a cable TV franchise yet, but New Channels which was owned by the Newhouse family, had cable franchises covering it all out the suburbs of Syracuse, you know, Fayetteville, Manlius, you know, out in the high rent district., this is back in the 1980s, the early part of the eighties, and I was a naval officer, I was a lieutenant commander at the time, Navy doing a lot the United States Navy. So I just got the Hancock Field.
We had this Air Force panel truck, and we drive the truck and park it right at the very end of Runway 20. So these four young guys anyway, I think they were probably maybe eight, nine years old on a field trip, you know? And the kids said, Hey, do you know anything about that radio station? I said, What radio station?
WJPZ Radio. Ah. I said, Yeah. I say, My God, how do you guys, Oh, we listened to it on our television set.
JAG: That's interesting to me because I didn't realize, I knew that at some point the station from its AM days had gotten onto cable. I was under the impression that was on campus, but it wasn't on campus. It was in the suburbs.
Dr. Wright: Oh yes. The suburbs. So all the kids out there in the high rent district of, why do I call this the high rent district?
JAG: Well, anybody who knows the market knows why you're calling it the high rent district. Okay. So after we go on cable, we've now moved on the am dial. In the mid eighties, we move over to fm, which is a yes, certain big deal in the history of the station.
Dr. Wright: But here's the story on this, WAER radio was completely student run and operated, okay? And then politics surface on the campus. Really, it's all about money. And WAER was in the Newhouse building and completely student run and operated. The lab, see money that students were paying a part of their tuition into the Newhouse school's coffers for, you know, supporting WAER radio.
And then we brought another person in by the name of. Dr. David Berkman, who came in from Washington DC to be the head of really what they call in those days, they changed the name to telecommunications, which was really television, radio film. Now in the interview session with Dr. Berkman, the question was on the table about WAER radio.
And he said, Oh man, you guys should make it a public radio station. Basically affiliated with National Public Radio and the corporation for public broadcast, CPB. I was sad because I said this is not the way to go. And of course, student Government Association was also putting money into WAER radio along with the lab fee, you know, to basically support the station financially.
Well the Student Government Association were furious, students were up in a uproar. So WAER basically goes in that direction. There was WJPZ Radio, I was teaching our class in the Newhouse school, radio management, and I came to class that day and I said, Hey, you know what? With all this stuff that's going on right now, why don't we look at putting WJPZ radio on the FM dial?
Let's rewrite the syllabus and what we're gonna do is put WJPZ Radio on FM. Let's use this class as our laboratory to learn how to put a brand new radio station on the air from ground level up. And we went on the air and there's a fascinating photograph of Mary. Mary Mancini. In the Daily orange. Turning on the switch for WJPZ.
JAG: I wanna ask you, cuz we're going chronologically here. This is not something that comes up often when you've told the story of JPZ, but we've gotten to the mid eighties now. We're on FM a few years after that. A moment that was infamous and very well remembered in JPZ history and SU history. And that's PanAm 103.
Dr. Wright: Oh yes.
JAG: What do you remember about that? And the station
Dr. Wright: Boy, I tell you, that was a sad day. I was in my office, we're talking Christmas of 1988. I'm in my office at the Newhouse School checking papers. And I'm there, Christmas is coming up. The students have had left the campus.
I mean, everybody had gone, you know, leaving the campus and go home. And I was in my office that day and I had my TV on, and the building was quiet. I mean, really quiet that day. Then all of a sudden, Tom Brokaw showed up on the TV screen. And he said a plane crash that happened on a flight from London to New York City and we're trying to get the details on it.
I said to myself, Hold it. Plane from London to New York. And I said, Oh my God, we got a lot of students over there in the radio, television, film semester in London. And I said, Hope nobody's known that flight. Oh, I just,
JAG: You had that gut feeling.
Dr. Wright: I had an eerie feeling, Jon, and to the JPZ family, and the building was quiet. I mean, the semester was over and Christmas was coming. And so I'm there and within about another half hour, Brokaw comes on the air again and said, at a PanAm flight 103 out of London, headed for New York City, had exploded and crashed over a place called Lockerbie, Scotland.
And I said, Oh my God, what? And I was thinking again about the students who were coming back home. And then Dr. Joan Deppa. Joan died this past year. Dr. Joan Depa, who wrote a book on this, by the way, she was in her office, and I went down and said, Joan, I just saw ontv that a PanAm flight from London headed to New York City has crashed over in Scotland.
I think I went to Dr. Myers, he was in his office, said, My God, that plane was kinda off course, wasn't it? I said, I don't know, but something, I don't feel right about this. And sure enough, later that evening, come to find out that the students that I was thinking about were on that flight. Yeah. And one of the students with a WJPZer..
JAG: Steve Berell,
Dr. Wright: Yes. Rusty "The Bailiff" Berell, his brother Steve was on that flight. And I tell you, I just, I, I tell you, I just broke down and cried in my office that day. Jag.
JAG: Yeah.
Dr. Wright: See, and it was Christmas time coming up. Then I called my father. My mother had died in 1979 in Elizabeth City, North Carolina at Christmas time. And this is about a decade later, and I called my dad. I said, Dad, I'm coming home. I hadn't planned to come home for Christmas. I was gonna stay in Syracuse, and then I went home and just packed up some clothes, threw 'em in a car, and just jumped in my car. And drove all the way down through the night back home to Elizabeth City, North Carolina.
JAG: I just appreciate you sharing these stories with us so that we have a place to keep them all because those of us have heard the stories and passed the stories down, but to hear them straight from you, and we're kind of going chronologically here through the station and we're into the nineties now, I would say these are the flame thrower days.
That's when the station really hit its stride and. Going toe to toe with 93Q. Those are some times too.
Dr. Wright: Oh, 93Q . Oh my God. Bill McMartin, General manager of 93Q, the hundred thousand watter here in Syracuse. Every Monday morning when I got into my office at the Newhouse school here in Syracuse. Bill, McMartin.
Yes, the general manager, Vice President of 93Q would be calling me on the telephone and JG,. What was he asking? Well, what, What did he tell me?
JAG: I'm guessing he's saying, What are these kids doing? They're taking money outta my pocket.
Dr. Wright: Yes, that's exactly what he was basically saying. He was saying, Hey Rick, you got this radio station man, these college kids, they're sounding too professional.
He told me, he said, the station sounds too good. I said, Well, Bill, I mean I'm training. This is what they're suppose to do. They're college students, man. And he was complaining. Every week I got a phone call about, I gotta cut back. WJPZ I said, But no, it's competition. One day I said, Bill, you mean to tell me you got a 100,000 watt FM'er?
93Q, right? I said, Bill, you got an F with a 100,000 watts signal? And you mean to tell me that some college students at Syracuse University with a 100. watt noncommercial FM station is kicking. Oh, I didn't do, I shut up . I said, Bill, You should hire the WJPZ staff if you're having a problem.
JAG: So that was the early nineties. And then as we get into the later nineties folks like Harry wearing Dena Giacobbe, they helped shepherd the station through some very difficult times with receivership and some really tough moments.
Dr. Wright: Basically, what happened there, God knows that I tried to pull everybody.
There were students who basically felt they were being shut out of WJPZ, you know, within this leadership and having an offer and a chance to learn the business. And I had real mixed emotions about how did I handle that situation in those days.
JAG: Really?
Dr. Wright: Yes I do. And I think I could have stepped up, kind of avoided this, but I was trying to appease some folk.
You know, WJPZ's my baby too. And didn't wanna, Well anyhow, what had happened was technically we had some students who basically went through student affairs and all, and basically, you know, pretty much sued the station. And then of course the student organizational side of the deal, not the radio side station went into a receivership is what I'm getting at. But, you know, I will say this though.. I got a phone call from Chancellor Shaw's wife. Miss Mary Shaw. Love her. She called and said, Professor Wright, don't get too involved. You're the faculty advisor for WJPZ. But I didn't forget, she told me something. She said, just back off.
She said, The students. This is a learning experience going on. And you just stand by and make the adjustments as you see. Everything's gonna be okay. You know I said yes it will be. The chancellor's wife called me on the phone and I never guess she, Then I met her one day on Marshall Street, she said.
The students have to work this out themselves. It's a learning experience because they gotta run into the same identical kind of situation, especially the management students once they get into the industry itself.
JAG: That's a really interesting perspective.
Dr. Wright: Yeah. So she was telling us a teaching moment and she said, No, you know, the students will come and go here to the University. She looked at me and held my hand, is that it's a learning environment. Let me just give you for another perspective. That's what we are here as a university to teach and get our alums out of here to be able to handle life's problems and handle those kind of challenges. So that moment, as I look at it now as I've gotten older, it was a great teachable moment.
JAG: There you go.
Dr. Wright: And a lot of the people who were involved in it, I think that particular. Scenario to have with the station. And a lot of our people, that era have ended up in some of the biggest leadership roles, in the broadcast industry today. And as I look at it there, the big picture and how I handled that. Success was on the table. people. Everybody learned, you know, about what needs to be done.
JAG: A couple years later, another learning situation near and dear to my heart, So it would've been 2000- 2001. Where they were rebuilding the station. And we were moved into a house off campus over on Ostrom, and we had to jury rig that thing together.
We had John Ferracane and Rob Crandall, and Stephen Kurtz and so many others where you would lose the station under a bridge like AMm. At one point there was a mysterious tone at the top of the hour. Yes. What do you remember about the house on Ostrom?
Dr. Wright: I loved it. In fact, if I got to a point, because the house gave WJPZ it's biggest facility ever. We had the whole house!
JAG: That's an interesting way to look at it.
Dr. Wright: I tell you what really? From the standpoint of being the advisor for the station, I got over and saw his house. I said, My God, I was thinking about the basement, the third for the attic, you know the names of Mike Roberts.
And then I move over to Watson and the reason was that Watson was being renovated into a brand new student media center. And we had to move to the house. And in fact, Design and Construction had called me and I said, Professor, well we'll give WJPZ a whole house. And we got in there and had space galore and then all of a sudden I got think said, Man, we should stay here but you know, get some money to really fix the house up.
But of course the university had other plans in there. All those houses got torn down. That was a, that was a big picture.
JAG: As the VP of operations that year in the house. I'm glad to say we got out of the house and got to a new state of the art studio.
Dr. Wright: Oh, I am too.
JAG: I hope I don't embarrass you here, but there was,
Dr. Wright: Oh, you never can embarrass me.
JAG: Okay, good. You may change your mind in a second here.
Dr. Wright: No, I won't change my mind.
JAG: We had Peterman and Marty D on the morning show in that house. And they did a bit with you on a walkie talkie walking through the house, live on the air, describing the house over the air. And I'm pretty sure if memory serves live on the air, you said, Oh, well that's a used condom. Let's get away from that.
Dr. Wright: You're right!.
JAG: Do you remember that?
Dr. Wright: I've forgotten all about that, Peterman! BUt I loved it. Oh God, yes. Oh no. Embarrassments in radio man.. I mean, my God, for that era. Oh yes.!
JAG: So a few years later, if I said the phrase Rick Wright radio Bingo, would that mean anything to you?
Dr. Wright: Oh God, yes. Yes.
JAG: Okay, so before I hear your side of it, I wanna give you the other side of it. It was either homecoming or fall conference in 2003. Several of us are sitting around having beers at Faegan's. And we were trying to come up with fundraising ideas for theB anquet, and we think about the great story of the history of the station that you would tell every year.
There are several of us there, and we came up with the idea of a bingo game and we put a number of key phrases and names and call letters that you would tell in the story on a bunch of bingo cards. Yes. And instead of B I N G O, it was R A D I O across the top. And it became this great fundraiser was a 50 50.
And if you got, not bingo, but radio, you had to jump up and yell Radio! In the middle of the speech and you got half the pot and then that being a great fundraiser. But I feel like after a few years of this, after trying to get one over on the old professor that you figured it out. At that point you would just mess with us and just throw out random call letters and random stations and random things that you ever even mentioned in the story before, just to mess with us and have fun with the game.
Tell me, is that accurate?
Dr. Wright: Accurate! I did not know. Now let's get it. It took me about three years though, before I figured out what the hell was happening. I usually show up about an hour or so. Just to see everybody and yeah, I'm walking around and y'all got the big table set up when you check in, get your name tags and everything.
And then I'm seeing some students over there pulling out money. Y'all are buying tickets over there or whatever. So that's your first year. Y'all would bring me up on the stage and God, I thought y'all were just tired of this old professor, giving y'all this story. But of course we got new people coming in every year, so I'm ,you know, keep the historical timeline. So anyhow, I finally, I think about the third year of you all doing a Rick Wright Bingo. Everybody's having some nice drinks and everything and everybody's there looking nice. So then I said, Oh my God, I see what's happening here. Because what was, you put the money in, we all got 50% or what?
JAG: Yeah, it was a 50/50. So 50/50.. Everybody would buy tickets for I think 25 bucks. And then half would go to the station and the alumni association and the other half would go to whoever got RADIO first.
Dr. Wright: And I said, Oh, wow. Then I finally got what was happening.
JAG: And then you started messing with us because you would throw out stuff that wasn't on anybody's card because it was stories you'd never told before.
Dr. Wright: Well, also, the next thing about it, I think what really helped me finally was that I came early and I saw these cards and.
JAG: Oh, you saw the cards?!
Dr. Wright: That's what, But look, it happened like three years later. Okay. I mean, three years have gone. And the game was getting bigger and bigger than ever. And then all of a sudden I was noticed, I got there early and you all were, you know, handing the money over to the table.
But then I saw these cards, bingo cards, and then I realized, and everybody, when I was giving the story of WJPZ and the story of Rick Wright all through the night. Radio! That was what was happening. And I'd say, Oh my God, Rick. You gotta approach this thing differently, man. Eventually someone's gonna get it.
But you got to go into your bag of radio stories and pull out some stories that they don't even know about. And man, I tell you, I got a lot of radio stories. Really, I'm telling you. And I'm playing with y'all. Then I finally would say, Okay, let me let somebody win this bingo game.
JAG: But , the perfect choice of words. You were playing with us because we thought we'd get one over on you and we might have for a year or two. But then you had the last laugh in the end.
Dr. Wright: Oh yeah. And then finally I realized what was happening. And so thank God I had a bunch of other radio stories. Let me be the radio professor there, the historian of radio.
Let me come up with some radio stories that they do not know about or either they might know about it if they're really genius scholars like they are, but that was it. Yes, the Rick Wright Bingo Game
JAG: Proving once and for all that you were the professor and we were the students.
Dr. Wright: Yes.
JAG: A couple things I wanna ask you about as we start to wrap up here, Dr. Wright. So the first is: 50 years of Z89, WJPZ. In all the different formats and you've seen it all. What is your biggest takeaway of the radio station? Half a century later?
Dr. Wright: I tell you what, the radio station is still kicking. I think of Cousin Danny and Larry Barron doing that morning show where they call over to the Tri Delts. And they call over and act, and they said they were the management of the Sheraton Hotel on the air. You think of Howard Stern, all the prank phone calls that are done on the air. This was the one that I never will ever forget. What I'm getting at. Radio's ability to localize with live local announcers in the studio is still as greatest attribute.
JAG: And you know this better than anybody, Dr. Wright, the state of commercial radio. I was gonna ask you about your thoughts on this. There are a lot of computers, and I think there was an article written that said that there were more commercial radio stations in Syracuse than DJs at one point.
Dr. Wright: Yes. But you know what? The industry right now, I think they kinda overpriced radio back in the 1990s.
JAG: Telecom Act of 96 and everything after that. Sure.
Dr. Wright: We got companies that got, I think, too big. You know, one company owning all these stations. Then an economic downturn happened and trying to stay afloat. This one group, I won't mention their name.
They sold off a bunch of stations one day for cash flow problems. Those problems are still on the table. What's really saving these stations is basically running in with no people, no payroll. But what is sad about this moment? Is radio's ability to entertain, to communicate, inform, and educate audiences is incredible.
When you have live people in the studio, the technology that we have there, you can do some incredible stuff. But the bottom line is we have technology leading the process. Got it? And we should have people in the studio leading the technology in the creation of content. What I'm getting at is a lot of our students of this generation, they haven't heard the radio stations.
When you had seven announcers at one station, you know, working the different day parts, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Every town had that radio star that we don't have now. One size does not fit all. I'm talking about syndication of course, and I'm talking about voice tracking. I mean, you got a company.
One announcer who's voice tracking in what eight or nine markets basically introing the music and they are they're driving. People go to our website if you wanna find out the latest happening in your community. Well hell! You on the air, why don't you tell me what's happening on the air right there?
And you know the sociological difference. Every city is different. And I remember as a young kid, man in Elizabeth City, I couldn't wait for the sun to go down those big powerhouse AM'ers. Celebrity has not died. JGj, I mean, our populous right now, the demographics of people, they love celebrity. Radio, was the greatest creator of celebrities.
JAG: Agreed.
Dr. Wright: There's one statement I think I'll lay on you, My godmother, who I love so much, Mrs. Leola Dyson. She said, Godson, what you wanna do is make your format so compelling with entertainment, information, education, and reach out to the audiences that you are trying to serve, that you would make your radio station become a part of the family of your listeners.
Now, this is when you know you have won. Here's some robbers who have just broken into a house, and then they say, Okay, tell ya what we're gonna do, we'll give you a chance to make one phone call. They don't call the police, They call the disc jockey at the radio station. When people are in trouble, they call the radio station.
When they call the radio station instead of calling the police. You know, you've won. With regards to the power of your radio station in that particular community, or demographic that you're serving.
JAG: I like that. Last radio question for you, if smaller companies can take back over and put live local DJs that become parts of the community back in place, can that save radio at this point?
Dr. Wright: Yes, it can. And that is what's going to save radio. We have been writing radio off ever since the 1920s, so radio had to reinvent itself. And of course, what was available were live DJs and music. Of course, the fire sale is coming and that fire sale is coming, is gonna allow us to get back to locally owned radio stations.
JAG: I can only hope for the sake of radio. You are right.
Dr. Wright: I'm just saying this is gonna happen. I'm telling you. I was just looking at this morning and looking at the photograph of the hurricane that just wiped down Southwest Florida. . In fact, the station that got wiped out down there, they got back on the air, is render one of our WJPZ.
JAG: Tony Renda.
Dr. Wright: Tony. They were able to get that baby back on the air. But the point I'm getting at with all the powers gone, disasters struck, the electricity is gone, man, the internet, all this tools we got is gone. But guess what? There's a thing called radio broadcasting. Radio station with a generator running. Got a microphone, a board, be to plug that baby in. The old transistor radio with, you know, two AA batteries in it, it gives you a system of communication.
JAG: Absolutely. Last question for you, Dr. Wright, and thank you so much for being so generous with your time today. The WJPZ alumni association that you see every year, every March or February in Syracuse. What is your takeaway or your message to the alumni association, and we have gotten so much from you out of the last 50 years, What have you gotten out of the group as a whole of the alumni association?
Dr. Wright: I tell you if for me, boy, as a poor guy who grew up at Northeastern North Carolina. Family was not wealthy, but Dad was a real good provider, I never would realize that I would've ended up 40 years at a great university like Syracuse and probably the number one school in mass communications and teach. And then in retirement, man, to be home and to listen to the radio.
And the other day I turned the TV on and I switched over to CBS to watch the Nightly News. And up pops Scotty MacFarlane. And I just tears flows when I see this. I said, My God, here's a WJPZer. And I'm bringing up Scott because y'all have changed the Banquet scenario around and now you do it differently with not just me given the speech.
You got Scotty MacFarlane, who the last few years, who was the biggest broadcaster at CBS in the world. He's covering Congress and of course with all the political scenarios we got in Washington. Scott's getting a lot of airtime. And he is the person who was interviewing me during the banquet. I mean, there's so many different stories and it, its, it's really, I'm a really emotional guy.
You know, be sitting there in the room by myself. The tears are flowing of joy, man, knowing that I had an opportunity to at least be in y'all's lives to help you get there. And right now, look what is happening today. I'm on this nice facility here at Bird Library on this computer equipment and the system that we are using to broadcast this message to the whole world.
And Jon, you are the interviewer. Major market baby. Major market, A plus, plus, plus. Again, Jon,
JAG: I appreciate you changing the grade in hindsight. Dr. Rick Wright, always a pleasure. Can't wait to see you for the Banquet, celebrating our 50th anniversary, and thank you so much for your time today.
Dr. Wright: Thank you so much to the WJPZ family, baby Dr. Rick Wright from the top, top, top, top, top, top, top, top, top, top of Mount Olympus, WJPZ Radio, Syracuse, New York signing off.