Tag: Carl Erickson

WBEN AM-FM-TV’s new home, 1960

       By Steve Cichon
       steve@buffalostories.com
       @stevebuffalo

Excerpt from 100 Years of Buffalo Broadcasting 

Among the Election Day 1960 races being covered closely by Carl Erickson on Ch.4 were between Richard Nixon and John Kennedy for President as well as Edward Rath and Chester Gorski for Erie County Executive.

Erickson came to WBEN in 1948, and was the newsman on Clint Buehlman’s show.

He spent most of the 50s and 60s as Chief Announcer for WBEN Radio.

A new era in broadcasting was ushered in 1960 when WBEN opened its new studios on Elmwood Avenue. WBEN AM-FM-TV had outgrown the studios it had called home on the 18th floor of the Statler Hotel since 1930.

The Buffalo Evening News stations bought the former WBUF-TV studios, which had been built by NBC only a few years earlier, and added more studio space and an office building to the complex.  

Bill & Mildred Miller show off the stove in their new studio, 1960

Clint Buehlman, operator Tom Whalen, and engineer Earnest Roy— who started with the station before it even went on the air in 1930– are shown in the new, far more spacious radio studios.

WBEN announcers Carl Erickson and Jack Ogilvie are seated as Mike Mearian leans on the piano of Norm Wullen, 1960.

WBEN executives George Torge, Alfred Kirchhofer, station owner Kate Butler, James Righter, and C. Robert Thompson inspect the new WBEN-TV control room. The $1.5 million building was heralded as the “most modern broadcasting center in the nation.” The final broadcast from the Statler was Jan. 10, 1960.

After WNED-TV left for the Lafayette Hotel, the studios for WGR Radio were in the building behind WBEN’s studios in the late 50s and early 60s. 

It’s incredible to think that when Van Miller started calling the play-by-play for the brand-new Buffalo Bills of the American Football League in 1960, he was better known as Ch.4’s 11pm news and weather announcer than a sports broadcaster. Through two AFL straight championships, four straight Super Bowls, and two stadiums, Van’s sense of the game and amplified level of excitement became the filter through which football-loving Buffalo took their love to the next level. He’d call every game during the NBA Buffalo Braves’ stay in the city and work as Ch.4’s primary sportscaster for more than 30 years. “Do you believe it?” he’d ask, as fandemonium went into overdrive, imploring “fasten your seatbelts!” until retiring as the Voice of the Bills after 37 years in 2003.

This page is an excerpt from  100 Years of Buffalo Broadcasting by Steve Cichon

The full text of the book is now online.

The original 436-page book is available along with Steve’s other books online at The Buffalo Stories Bookstore and from fine booksellers around Western New York. 

©2020, 2021 Buffalo Stories LLC, staffannouncer.com, and Steve Cichon

Around Buffalo’s Radio & TV dials in the 50s

       By Steve Cichon
       steve@buffalostories.com
       @stevebuffalo

Excerpt from 100 Years of Buffalo Broadcasting 

Ch.7’s Main Street studios on a snowy night in the late 50s.

WBNY’s bright red “News from Where It Happens” cruiser, with “Flash Mike and the Mike Patrol.”

Chuck Healy goes over prizes like a case of Squirt and TV dinners on Strikes, Spares, and Misses on Ch.4.

Henry Brach (with dark glasses) broadcasting live from Sattler’s with WBNY deejay Mark Edwards.

Engineers Harold Smith and Leroy Fiedler in the WKBW master control room in the mid-1950s.

WBUF-TV weather personalities Joy Wilson and Mac McGarrity share a laugh.

The Kenneth Baumler family won a 1959 Studebaker Lark in WBNY’s “Lark Hunt” contest, sponsored by Buffalo’s six-area Studebaker dealers.

Bill Mazer called Bisons games on WKBW before moving to WGR. This team photo, with Mazer superimposed in the top right corner, was taken at Offermann Field in the early 50s. The Bisons moved to War Memorial Stadium in 1960.

 WBEN’s staff announcers in the late 50s included, standing, Jack Ogilvie, Lou Douglas, Van Miller, Ken Philips, Gene Kelly, Virgil Booth, Carl Erickson, and Bernie Sadler. Steve Geer, Harry Webb and Mike Mearian are among those seated.

 WKBW’s team of disc jockeys, about 1960.

Bob Diamond was a utility man on WKBW, at various times holding down the overnight shift, weekends, the farm report, and production work from the late-50s through the mid-60s.

As a member of the boys’ choir singing on WGR starting in 1926, Ed Tucholka’s first announcing job was on the PA at Sattler’s, 998 Broadway—talking about the bargains of the day, paging mothers of lost children and generally keeping things moving without benefit of a script.

Soon, his deep rich voice would be heard on WEBR, and in over 20 years there, he hosted the wartime “Noon Day Review” highlighting local GIs and as well as Uncle Ed’s Children’s Hour.

After stops at WWOL and WHLD, Tucholka moved to the WBEN stations in 1966 and oversaw WBEN-FM, always reflecting simple dignity and elegance he presented on the radio for nearly 70 years.

WBEN Operator/Engineer Tom Whalen gets ready to cue up albums for Clint Buehlman.

News anchor John Corbett looks over news scripts hot off the typewriter of Fran Lucca in the Ch.4 newsroom.

WBEN’s Sports team: Dick Rifenburg, Chuck Healy, Van Miller, and Ralph Hubbell. When injury ended Rifenburg’s professional football career with the Detroit Lions, the former All-American Michigan wide receiver turned to broadcasting and spent nearly 30 years at WBEN Radio and TV.

Officially, they were Memorial Auditorium and War Memorial Stadium, but to Buffalonians they were the Aud and the Rockpile, and they were the great WPA-built stone homes of Buffalo’s greatest diversions:  football, hockey, boxing, basketball, and wrestling.

The men in this photo and their compatriots across the radio and TV dials helped bring those diversions closer. Maybe more than in other cities, Buffalo’s sports guys have always been among the most popular broadcasters, as they seemed like one of us while helping to bring us closer to heroes on the court, on the field, in the ring, and on the ice through their work.

With the smooth melodious voice of a classic announcer, Ward Fenton joined WBEN as a radio news man in 1941. After serving in World War II, he returned to the station and was named chief announcer in 1947. He was also heard as the announcer on the NBC network program Mr. IQ, which originated from Shea’s Buffalo Theater for a national audience.

His fluency in French, German, and Italian made him a natural for decades’ worth of announcing classical music programs, especially on WBEN-FM.

When Ch.4 signed on, he was the station’s weekend weatherman, and by the 1960s, was regularly seen in front of the weather map in living rooms all over Western New York, with his forecasts sponsored by the Charles R. Turner Company. His segments were bookended with a memorable film clip showing trucks at the Turner’s company garages. At the beginning of the weather segment, the trucks headed out onto the street, and then after the weather forecast, the same film ran in reverse, with the trucks appearing to back into the garage.

Fenton became Ch.4’s Chief Announcer in 1967, and retired in 1975.

Harry Webb anchors a WBEN-TV newscast sponsored by Esso, and interviews Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy on a visit to Buffalo in 1958.

This page is an excerpt from  100 Years of Buffalo Broadcasting by Steve Cichon

The full text of the book is now online.

The original 436-page book is available along with Steve’s other books online at The Buffalo Stories Bookstore and from fine booksellers around Western New York. 

©2020, 2021 Buffalo Stories LLC, staffannouncer.com, and Steve Cichon