Irv. Danny. Van. Carol. The men and women who’ve watched and listened to have become family enough that we only need their first names. Buffalo has a deep and rich broadcasting history. Here are some of the names, faces, sounds and stories which have been filling Buffalo’s airwaves since 1922.
Scroll to read more about Buffalo’s Radio & TV History from one of WNY’s most counted upon broadcasting historians or search for a specific person or station…
To the listener, Mark Leitner was the last of the great WBEN news men. Unerring. Rock solid. The most trustworthy voice Buffalo radio has known in decades.
Mark Leitner in the WBEN News Booth, early 80s
“Leitner provides the most effective and reassuring voice among WBEN anchors,” wrote The Buffalo News. Critics have used the words “solid presence,” “respected,” “crisp and calm.”
But the man with the most serious voice in Buffalo didn’t take himself too seriously. “I tell the jokes around here,” he’d often say with a scowl to unsuspecting newbies— before letting go with one of his always-contagious laughs.
I recorded Mark laughing when we were both at a press conference at some point in the early 2000s when Mark was working for WNED-AM and I was at WBEN. I would play his laugh in the WBEN newsroom when someone would say something silly– and we’d all laugh again thinking of Mark.
To all of us who worked with Leitner— that’s all anyone ever called him, Leitner— he was the ultimate newsman AND the funniest guy we’ve ever worked with. His decades-worth of fellow journalists and disc jockeys can’t help but feel a smile creep across our lips even at the thought of him. Even with the sad news of his passing.
This was a serious news story about “The Sniffer.” Mark treated it very seriously. He took any opportunity to add the absurdity of a news story– but never did it without clowning.
On 9/11, News Critic Anthony Violanti wrote Mark’s “professionalism and journalistic integrity provided a calming presence” on perhaps the worst day in our nation’s history.
But at the same time, the walls near Leitner’s work station in the newsroom were usually covered with “autographed” pictures from Bishop Head and Carol Jasen among others— photos which he’d inscribed himself just to be silly.
Mark talking with newsmakers with a Carol Jasen photo over his shoulder
His over-the-top acting was the source of light hazing for interns and new part-timers for decades— and the source of deep unbridled laughter for those who loved him.
Leitner’s performative conversations with himself were legendary. “I know, just shut up Leitner. No kidding, really? That’s how you’re going to treat me after all these years?”
For me personally, Mark’s mentorship and eventual friendship is something I will always treasure. He was among the many who looked out for me and helped guide me through my earliest years of radio and adulthood.
WNED Reporter Mark Leitner, Channel 4’s George Richert, and Channel 2’s Claudine Ewing. They all worked together at WBEN in the 1990s.
My students, I think, would have gotten a kick out of seeing Leitner talk to himself in a stage whisper, realizing that’s where I ripped that routine off from.
When it was time to go, Mark wouldn’t say good bye, but it was always, “I’ll bore you later, my friend.”
Never a bore. Always a friend.
Listen to Mark Leitner:
Mark Leitner says goodbye to WBEN audience after nearly 25 years, 2002.
Newsday at Noon, 1987. Tim Wenger, Mark Leitner, Kelly Day
Jeff Kaye introduces Mark Leitner and Ed Little, 1983
Mark Leitner, WBEN newscast, 2001
Bill Lacy introduces Mark Leitner, 1993
Mark Leitner & Craig Nigrelli news, 1991
One of Mark’s famous “cold intro” news wraps. “This is Mark Leitner.”
Kevin Gordon, Bernadette Peters, Mark Leitner, Stan Barron, and Rick Pfeiffer in the WBEN Newsroom, early 80s.
Howard Simon might be the best broadcaster I’ve ever worked with.
So knowledgeable, personable, smooth and genuine that he really didn’t have to prepare.
Still, he’s the most prepared talkshow host I’ve ever seen.
Howard Simon with the late Jim Kelley, 1996.
Even though he’s the best broadcaster I’ve ever worked with– I don’t even feel moved to write about that when I think about Howard. All I can think about is that Howard Simon might be the finest human being I’ve ever worked with.
Howard and Steve, WBEN Studios, 1995
It’s the fact that he is a great, amazing human being that makes him a great broadcaster. Humble. Even keeled. Giving. Would rather make a caller or a co-host look good than put the spotlight on himself. Dozens– maybe even hundreds– of co-workers and fellow reporters owe so much to this kind soul who gives so much, sometimes it’s difficult to realize it’s happening.
Steve and Howard, WNSA/Empire Sports Network, 2003
I’ve known Howard for 30 years. He has never disappointed me. He doesn’t disappoint– as a talkshow host, as a journalist, as a human being.
The world needs more guys like Howard. Radio and sports broadcasting definitely could use more people like Howard.
Rob Ray and Howard, 1995
Of course, the fact that Howard is so nice (and I am such a prick) makes him a very easy target for my merciless chirping.
He won’t like that I’m sharing some of these highlights from early in his career– but I know he’s expecting it. (Or at least he should be. The guy’s about to retire.)
The WGR Morning Show, c.2005
As we listen to the clips below, we will all laugh at Howard talking up a Kajagoogoo or Wang Chung song, reading a newscast, or even being a country music disc jockey. We’ll laugh, because Howard lets us. We’ll laugh, but we’ll all be thinking, what an amazing talent at everything he does.
Wang Chung!UB vs Buff State, 1981NewscastWOHO jockBuffalo Stallions news—WBNYMudhens PBP, 1988Kajagoogoo! 1986 ElmiraReal Country! No bull!!HOWARD SIMON!! WNSA voice over guy
My favorite Howard protege is Chris Parker.
Howard Simon and Chris “Bulldog” Parker
Even though it’s almost 30 years ago, it’s still one of my favorite shows to have been a part of– those two co-hosting on WBEN’s One-One-One Sports.
Howard Simon & Bulldog WBEN 1996 Part 1Howard Simon & Bulldog WBEN 1996 Part 2
WGR is celebrating 100 years of broadcasting and, as WGR Historian, I put together a handful of minute-long stories talking about the station’s rich history.
WGR’s Sign On
Just
weeks after Buffalo’s first radio station… WWT first went on the air, On May
21, 1922, WGR broadcast its first programs the Federal Telegraph Company on
Elmwood Avenue.
“Buffalo
enters into the field of national radio broadcasting with the formal opening of
one of the largest and most powerful broadcasting stations in the east…. thousands of dollars (have been spent) to
furnish Buffalo with a class of radio service which will be equal to that of
stations which have been broadcasting since interest in radio began to assume
such proportions as we see today,” reported the Courier.
The
original owners started WGR to sell radios… and Federal Radio’s $25 set could
easily pick up any broadcast within a 30-mile radius of the city.
“This
renders radio reception in homes of Buffalo and vicinity no longer an
instrument of the well-to-do, but for almost anybody who cares to use it.”
In
1923, WGR became one of the earliest tenants of Buffalo’s brand new Statler
Hotel, where it was a Class B station– authorizing broadcast on reserved
frequencies, without interference, at high power. That meant the station could
be heard regularly within several hundred miles, but could also be heard on
occasion as far away as Hawaii and England.
For
a century now, WGR has been the voice of Buffalo heard around the world.
WGR Sign-on
Early personalities at WGR
Bob Schmidt, later known as Buffalo Bob Smith
For
100 years now, WGR has been bringing the great voices of radio to Buffalo.
Before he was Howdy Doody’s sidekick and one of television’s early stars, Buffalo Bob Smith, Masten High School grad Bob Schmidt was one of the stars of WGR in the 30s and 40s as “Smiling Bob Smith”
In
the early years of radio, the country’s most powerful stations—like WGR—weren’t
allowed to play recorded music. Conductor David Cheskin, the leader of the
18-piece WGR Staff Orchestra, was one of Buffalo’s most popular entertainers
and a “one man wonder” during the pre-war Golden era of Buffalo radio.
The WGR Orchestra
Cheskin’s
music made WGR nationally famous as he conducted 18 network shows a week—
including “Buffalo Presents”— heard all over the country on NBC and CBS as
performed live in the WGR studios.
Billy
Keaton was one of WGR’s most popular hosts after he, like many early radio
entertainers, settled down with radio after a life on the road as a Vaudeville
man.
Billy Keaton in the WGR studios with singer Johnny Ray.
After
his “Stuff and Nonsense” program took off, his success turned a temporary
Buffalo assignment permanent. After the war, Billy’s wife Reggie joined the
act, and the two hosted the “Mr. and Mrs. Show” on WGR.
As
a long-time WGR Radio fan favorite, Billy was the natural choice to welcome the
first viewers to WGR-TV in 1954.
Then
and now, the great voices of Buffalo can be heard on WGR.
WGR– Early Voices
Baseball on WGR
For
100 years now, Buffalo’s best sports coverage has been a reason to listen to
WGR.
From
the earliest days of announcers recreating baseball games from tickertape print
outs, complete with broken pencil sound effects for the sound of a hit
Roger Baker
To
Bisons play-by-play from Offermann Stadium with Buffalo’s first sportscaster
Roger Baker and his protégé who’d spend more than 60 years broadcasting sports
in Buffalo, Ralph Hubbell.
Hubbell
broadcast the games of Bison Great Ollie Carnegie as he set an International
League homerun record which stood for 69 years.
Later
it was Bill Mazer who was behind the WGR microphone when another great Bisons
slugger—Luke Easter famously hit a White Owl Wallop over the Offermann Stadium
scoreboard.
Pete Weber and John Murphy at the Rockpile
In the 80s, WGR was owned by the Rich Family—and with Pete Weber behind the play-by-play mic…
The station was instrumental in helping get Pilot Field built—starting a renaissance for building in downtown Buffalo, and a renaissance for classically designed ballparks all around the country.
Baseball on WGR through the years
Ted Darling on WGR
WGR was the long-time home of Ted Darling… whose smooth and exciting style brought gravitas to the expansion Sabres in 1970 and became a trusted uncle behind the Sabres play-by-play mic on radio and TV for the next 21 years.
Sabres broadcast crew, Mid-80s, in the Memorial Auditorium Press Box. Mike Robitaille, Jim Lorentz, Rick Jeanneret, Ted Darling
His genuine excitement for what he was describing on the Memorial Auditorium
ice and the stunning pace of his broadcasts helped make listening to the radio
almost as exciting as being there for a Perreault rush or a Korab check.
Darling’s voice instantly brings generations of Buffalo hockey fans to a different place and time.
There’s something that feels like home when you hear Ted Darling….
Ted Darling
Rick Jeanneret on WGR
Spine-tingling. Quirky. Explosive. Imaginative.
What can you say about Rick Jeanneret that even comes close to listening to him?
Across
a span of 51 years—Rick Jeanneret’s has been an inseparable part of what the
Sabres are to us…
And for most of those years, it was WGR that brought you that voice.
Rick Jeanneret
Van Miller calls four Super Bowls on WGR
There were different places around the radio dial you heard Van Miller’s voice through the years, but the only place you ever fastened your seatbelt for Van Miller Super Bowl fandemonium was WGR.
Van Miller, the Voice of the Bills (Buffalo Stories archives)
Thinking of those great teams of the 80s and 90s, our minds flash pictures of Kelly, Bruce, Andre and Thurman—but the sound is undeniably Van Miller.
Another
voice that made WGR feel like home during the Bills Super Bowl run…
Van Miller– Four Straight Super Bowls
The Great DJs of WGR in the 70s
The 1970s were the glory years for big personality disc jockeys and rock ‘n’ roll music on WGR.
Shane Brother Shane was “Buffalo’s zany philosopher king.” The Cosmic Cowboy did it all to make smiles across the miles, hoping you fill your night with life, love, laughter, family, friends, fun and music.
Shane Brother Shane
Stan Roberts—whose WGR jingle called him the Corny DJ—is remembered for wearing a lampshade on his head on Royalite TV commercial and Dial-A-Joke, but also as a warm, friendly, and funny presence on morning radio across five decades.
Buffalo Stories archives
Frank Benny was one of the smoothest broadcasters to ever work in Buffalo– as the weatherman on Channel 2 and DJ on WGR starting in the 60s through the 80s.
The DJs of WGR in the 70s
The Commercials of WGR in the 50s & 60s
WGR has aired literally millions of commercials over the last hundred years…
Our sponsors have not only paid the bills, but have made for great memories themselves, like these Buffalo classics from the 50s and 60s:
The commercials of WGR in the 50s
The Commercials of WGR in the 70s & 80s
Hundreds of thousands of sponsors have aired millions of commercials on WGR over the last century…
Through
the 70s and 80s, thousands of local institutions used the power of WGR with
commercials you can’t forget–
The commercials of WGR in the 70s
The Voices of News on WGR
Sportsradio550 has been Buffalo’s premier source for Bills and Sabres news for decades, but for 80 years— WGR was also the home of some of Buffalo’s most beloved news voices.
Since his time as News Director at WGR Radio and WBEN Radio, Ray Marks (center, seated in the WGR Newsroom in the mid-1990s) had been teaching communications courses at St. Bonaventure, Buffalo State, and Medaille. He died in 2015. (Buffalo Stories/staffannouncer archives)
We also remember WGR personality and Traffic Reporter Mike Roszman and pilot Herm Kuhn, who died when the WGR Traffic plane crashed between reports in 1993.
WGR’s News voices through the years
Artie Baby Boo-Boo & The Coach
Back
in 1988, Art Wander got Bills General Manager Bill Polian so mad, he told Art
to get out of town.
Instead, Art spent the next decade taking your calls (and East Side Eddie’s calls) on WGR.
Then there was “The Coach,” Chuck Dickerson.
Chuck Dickerson, “The Coach”
He was a coach for the Bills—until Marv Levy fired him after Super Bowl XXVI for being a little too opinionated.
For
a decade starting in 1993, Chuck Dickerson was the loudest football fan in
Buffalo.
Art Wander & Chuck Dickerson
John Otto, Buffalo’s first talk show host
WGR has been heading to the phones as Buffalo’s call-in show pioneer for more than 60 years, starting with John Otto in the early 60s…
John Otto, WGR, 1975.
And you’ve been a big part of what makes WGR special ever since, taking part in call-in shows with hosts lke JR & Susie, Paul Lyle, Tom Bauerle, Ann Edwards, Clip Smith, and so many more…
But the brilliant and dry-witted John Otto– and his nearly 40 years overnights on WGR– is the stuff of legend.
Some shows were more legendary than others.
Thursday nights it was Desperate and Dateless, with co-host Shane Brother Shane (and later with Tom Bauerle.)
John Otto & WGR talkshows
This was a fun project and it was wonderful to celebrate so many great broadcasters and friends, but the truth is– it felt a bit funny.
For the first half of my broadcasting career, WGR was a sworn enemy of the stations where I worked– first as a news competitor at WBEN and then as a sports competitor at the now-defunct WNSA Radio.
But many of the guys I worked with at WBEN and WNSA now work at WGR, so I guess we won 🙂
During the decade I worked at Entercom Radio (2003-2013), I primarily worked at WBEN– although you regularly heard my newscasts on Star 102.5, KB Radio, and 107.7 The Lake.
You also heard me occasionally on WGR, filling in at the sports desk, like in this clip from 2003…
Cichon says, remember the time you spent listening…
Of course, my biggest on-air contribution at WGR was as the curator of the Haseoke archive.
Bills Safety Jordan Poyer and sportswriter Jerry Sullivan have been going back and forth for a couple of weeks now… But there’s nothing new under the sun.
I recorded this 1997 postgame exchange between Jerry and Bruce Smith at the WBEN studios on Elmwood Avenue from a live feed coming from Rich Stadium.
With the static from our wireless microphones, it’s hard to hear exactly what Jerry is asking Bruce, but most of Bruce’s response is pretty clear. “You a punk ass motherfucker once you get (interference),” said Bruce, to the laughter of the assembled reporters, photographers and players.
“I know you’re going to say it,” said Bruce. “I know you ain’t gonna stop.” The first clear words we hear from Sullivan on the tape are, “(something) stop being an asshole…”
To which Smith replied, “Oh, I’m the asshole! I’m the asshole! Oh yeah,” before turning to another reporter and calmly telling him, “Go ahead, man.”
That year, I produced Bills games on the radio. For years, we’d run the postgame show without a delay. My timing or the exact order of events might be off, but I think we started running a delay on the player press conferences after Thurman Thomas stormed away from the podium microphone one time yelling something close to, “half of you ain’t ever put on a jockstrap,” but with the word “fuck” worked in there somehow.
I think I have that audio somewhere, but I couldn’t find it today.
Anyway, that running live on the radio earned me a strongly-worded note from my boss about trying to make sure to avoid those sorts of words going out on the air if possible.
When this Bruce Smith interview aired live, I was able to “dump” out of delay—so the WBEN audience never heard Bruce Smith call Jerry Sullivan a “punk-ass motherfucker” on the radio. The problem was, with the 1970s technology we were using at the time, there was no way for me to hit dump a second time so quickly and avoid allowing Jerry and Bruce calling each other assholes on the radio.
Back in those days, while there were relatively few ways to hear or see full press conferences, it just so happened one of the local tv stations—I don’t remember whether it was 2, 4, or 7—aired this press conference live on its post-game show.
The complete exchange between Bruce and Jerry was aired live on TV and talked about for weeks on sports radio talk shows on WBEN and WGR—as well as in letters to the sports editor as published every week in the Sunday News.
I don’t remember exactly how it started on the air, but I know that back in the early/mid-90s, when I was the producer of One-On-One Sports with Chris “The Bulldog” Parker on WBEN, I was buying up as many obscure albums as I could from Salvation Army and AMVETS thrift shops—including polka albums with interesting cover art of great song titles.
Chris “The Bulldog” Parker, mid 90s at WBEN.
At some point, with me going through these albums, Chris must have said—we should have a Friday Night Polka—so we did.
The show closed with a polka every Friday night, and we
eventually had a good rotation of songs about drinking and about Buffalo.
Heard here for the first time in more than 20 years—a medley
of the Friday Night Polkas from WBEN’s One-On-One Sports with the Bulldog.
We’d only play a minute or so from each selection at 10:59pm to close out the show—these are the minute long clips we’d play.
Chris and I really enjoyed the music– but we’d get side eye from the lovely call screeners Monica and Rose (which is really how most of the show went most nights anyway.)
One-on-One Sports with the Bulldog Friday Night Polka Medley
On this track:
“Bulldog Talking Sports” theme
Bulldog welcomes you to a Friday night, 1996
Ice Cubes & Beer, Ray Budzilek & The Boys
Buffalo Polka, Krew Brothers Orchestra
No Beer in Heaven, Li’l Wally
Bartender Polka, Walter Solek
Meister Brau Polka, Li’l Wally
Why don’t you people give the ball scores?— from a complaining voicemail
ME! Steve Cichon, producing One-On-One Sports in the WBEN control room, 1995
The Bulldog theme is taken from an aircheck… and you can hear the ancient WBEN delay system folding back on itself as the theme music plays.
One of my personal all-time favorite moments in music came when the late, great Tony Krupski of the Krew Brothers played the Buffalo Polka on demand– and grinned from ear-to-ear when I sang along with him, knowing all the words because of this great Friday night tradition in Buffalo radio.
Buffalo radio pioneer Charles Klinck at his radio transmitter on West Parade Avenue, weeks before “the birth of modern radio” in 1920.
One hundred years ago this week, Buffalonians were reading about the latest innovation in election returns — the wireless receiver, better known these days as radio.
Most historians agree that the broadcast of election results on the night of Nov. 2, 1920, was the birth of modern radio.
History books point to the broadcasts of experimental station 8XK in Pittsburgh — which would eventually become KDKA, but Pittsburgh was not alone on the radio dial a century ago. That same historic night, at the same exact time, election results broadcast by The Buffalo Evening News also came in loud and clear on wireless sets across Western New York.
Radio listeners in Buffalo and Pittsburgh had the same mind-blowing, history-making experience on what was a rainy evening in Western New York. People sat around their wireless sets in their living rooms, finding out in real time that Warren G. Harding had been elected president.
The newly born power of radio was equally evident in both cities, and the marvel and wonder surrounding this growing technology was exactly the same. In fact, it was all part of the same plan.
The American Radio Relay League, an amateur radio operator group still in business to this day, created a plan to “beat the regular wire service in getting the election returns to the public.”
“The plan is to have a good amateur transmitting station in each important city throughout the country send broadcast via radio the available data in his territory once every hour. This information will be picked up by thousands of radio amateurs who will arrange, through the local newspapers or in some other manner, to bulletin the returns for the general public in their respective territories.”
All this is described in a Pittsburgh Daily Post article, which goes on to say that Frank Conrad’s 8XK will take part in the effort for Pittsburgh area listeners.
Pittsburgh Daily Post, Oct. 21, 1920.
A Buffalo Evening News article announcing the broadcast of election returns for Western New York doesn’t mention the larger plan, but does offer more detail about the Buffalo plan.
Buffalo Evening News, Oct. 28, 1920.
The Buffalo Evening News had set up a special direct telephone line to the home of amateur radio operator Klinck, who was teacher of electrical science at Technical High School and was able to fund his expensive radio hobby as a member of one of Buffalo’s top meatpacking families.
After months of experimentation, he invented and pioneered the use of equipment that would allow for the clear transmission of phonograph records over his wireless transmitter.
“Well boys, how did you like that?” said Klinck, quoted in the Buffalo Courier after playing Strauss’ “The Blue Danube.” “Now listen, and I’ll give you a little jazz.”
That was the sound, on a March night in 1920, in the attic at 38 West Parade Ave., as America’s first disc jockey took to the airwaves. You pass over the historic spot where it happened when you drive the outbound Kensington as you pass the Buffalo Science Museum.
Klinck received word from as far away as Long Island that people were listening to his broadcasts. By mid-September, he reported that he was getting music requests from folks all over the northeast.
He also reported that from the beginning, the folks at the big wireless station in Pittsburgh were among his “most interested listeners.” Months before that “first broadcast,” the Westinghouse engineers at KDKA were tuned into Buffalo. On that election night 1920, Klinck was on the air from 6 p.m. to midnight, offering election results interspersed with recorded music. Not only was he Buffalo’s deejay, but also Buffalo’s first radio newsman.
That first commercially sponsored broadcast in Buffalo was described the next day in The News:
“As soon as the returns came into the Evening News office, they were telephoned over a special wire to Mr. Klinck’s residence, where they were received by a member of the Evening News staff. From 6 o’clock until midnight, Mr. Klinck sat at his wireless telephone apparatus and sent out the encouraging Republican news. Not only were city and county returns flashed out over the wireless outfit, but also state and national figures.
“During the evening, Mr. Klinck … received word from several wireless operators in the city, in Lancaster and surrounding towns that they were getting the returns by wireless with perfect satisfaction. … During lulls between dispatches, the operators who were listening for the returns were entertained by musical selections from a Victrola in the Klinck home.”
Listeners in Lancaster were amazed as the radio returns beat out the Western Union telegraph service by minutes. Pine Street druggist Harry Frost told The News that he enjoyed the “returns by wireless telephone” immensely. “We sat around very comfortably smoking cigars and commenting on the election, while every few minutes, Mr. Klinck’s voice would roar out the results as he received them.”
Both the technical aspects and the reaction to Buffalo’s election night 1920 broadcast have been better chronicled than the “more historic” program the same night from Pittsburgh. The main difference remains that the KDKA broadcast was made by the Westinghouse Corporation in an effort to promote and sell the radio tubes they were manufacturing, while Klinck was an amateur operator without much interest in self-promotion.
As the world celebrates the 100th anniversary of radio on Monday with plenty of mentions of Pittsburgh and KDKA, Buffalonians should also celebrate, understanding our city’s exact same role in the birth of modern mass media a century ago.
WBEN signed on the air September 8, 1930—90 years ago today.
The station’s birthday is important to me because the station
has played such an important role in my life as a listener, employee, and now
alumni of the station.
I first walked into the station as a 15-year-old intern, and
would spend the next five years working my way up through the producer ranks up
to what was the highest profile producer job in radio—producer of Buffalo Bills
Football with Van Miller and John Murphy. I also met and worked alongside the
woman who’d become my wife during those days on Elmwood Avenue.
Five years later, I returned to the station, this time in
the newsroom—and over the next decade I worked my way up to news director.
Through all my years in media, I always took special
pleasure in being able to share my passion for Buffalo and Buffalo Broadcasting
with the listeners of WBEN, and the station’s birthday, I’ve dipped into the
archives to share some of the stories I wrote and produced about WBEN and the
people we all listened to at 930am.
Steve Cichon- WBEN celebrates 80 years-1
Steve Cichon- WBEN celebrates 80 years-2Steve Cichon- WBEN at the Aud-1Steve Cichon- WBEN at the Aud-2Steve Cichon- WBEN at the Statler-1Steve Cichon- WBEN at the Statler-2Steve Cichon- WBEN says Goodbye to Barbara Burns-1 Steve Cichon- WBEN says Goodbye to Barbara Burns-2Steve Cichon- Brian Meyer inducted into Broadcast Hall of Fame-1 Steve Cichon- Brian Meyer inducted into Broadcast Hall of Fame-2Steve Cichon- Remembering WBEN on 9/11 ten years later-1 Steve Cichon- Remembering WBEN on 9/11 ten years later-2Steve Cichon- John Zach celebrates 50 years in Broadcasting-1 Steve Cichon- John Zach celebrates 50 years in Broadcasting-2Steve Cichon- John Zach covers Martin Luther King-1 Steve Cichon- John Zach covers Martin Luther King-2Steve Cichon- John Zach lived the Jersey Boys-1Steve Cichon- John Zach lived the Jersey Boys-2
WBEN’s longest serving announcer
The 90th anniversary of WBEN’s first sign-on brings to mind
many of the stable and authoritative voices which have unflappably informed
Buffalo over those decades at 930am.
The longest tenured of those voices remains a daily fixture.
From her early days of airborne traffic reporting from the
Skyview 930 helicopter to the last two decades as morning drive host, Susan
Rose has been a steady, unwavering, and professional voice on WBEN and a clear
connection to the great news voices of generations past.
Susan Rose with current co-host Brian Mazurowski
Rose is not your typical “radio star.” She’s never
wanted to be. It’s exactly that which makes her a fit in the pantheon of WBEN
greats.
“A superb anchor,” wrote Buffalo News critic
Anthony Violanti. “Reads the news with journalistic style and skill.”
After graduating from Buffalo State College and starting her
radio news career at Lockport’s WLVL, Rose joined WBEN in 1985.
WBEN Newsteam 1988: Brian Meyer, Ed Little, Susan Rose, Tim Wenger, Monica Wilson, Mark Leitner
Her blue-collar approach to journalism combined with 35
years of continuous, daily broadcasting on the station puts her in the same
rarified company as past WBEN greats, many of whom she regularly worked with
across the decades.
Mark Leitner and Ed Little were WBEN stalwarts and frequent
Rose co-anchors through the 80s and 90s.
Rose was hired to join the WBEN news team by legendary news director Jim McLaughlin.
The legendary Lou Douglas was at WBEN for 30 years before
retiring, overlapping a couple years with Rose.
After three decades at WKBW, John Zach spent another 18 years at WBEN, including 16 years co-anchoring “Buffalo’s Early News” with Rose.
John Zach & Susan Rose, WBEN, 2002.
While she doesn’t have that booming voice— once considered
the most important hallmark of the then all-male radio news profession— Rose’s
even and reliable presence has been featured on the station longer than any
broadcaster, including Clint Buehlman, who hosted mornings at WBEN for 34
years.
Perhaps that’s part of the secret why Rose’s approach and
sound is still as upbeat and fresh as the day she walked through the studio
doors 35 years ago.
Rose’s husband, Tim Wenger, was her co-anchor on evening drive news program “Buffalo’s Evening News” in the early 90s.
She doesn’t project her personality into the news. Through
her career—rather than stand out in front— she has allowed her writing,
editing, news judgement, and steady on-air presence to support the team.
It’s even fair to say Rose avoids the spotlight— but it’s
also fair to say when crisis strikes in Buffalo, there aren’t many voices on
the airwaves today which bring credibility and calm like hers can.
A recent WBEN bio said “it was always her dream job to
work for the number one news station in Buffalo.”
“I try to skewer with grace. I love being called a curmudgeon.”
John Otto may have been Buffalo’s greatest curmudgeon. He was scholarly and erudite, but had a playful silly streak that kept listeners glued to his “conference call of all interested parties” for nearly 40 years.
He spent the 50s and early 60s doing just about everything imaginable on-air – and doing it superbly, first on WBNY and then on WGR, both radio and TV.
He was a classical music host, radio news anchor and TV weatherman – but he seemed best in his element once he began hosting talk shows, specifically WGR Radio’s “Expression,” a nightly moonlit program that invited “listeners to telephone spontaneous, unrehearsed opinions” starting in 1962.
1962.
Such would be Otto’s gig, more or less, for the next 37 years.
“He’s a good show with his deep, pulpit-shaped voice because his unshakeable confidence forces you take sides,” wrote News radio critic Hal Crowther in 1973. “If you agree with him, it’s ‘Give ‘em hell, John,’ but if you’re against him you’re often sorry that there are six or seven miles of night between your fingers and his windpipe.”
“Dracula and I have a lot in common,” Otto told News reporter Mary Ann Lauricella in 1981. “Daylight rather frightens us back into our caves. My metabolism is so attuned to nighttime hours that I’m more comfortable at night, when a velvet cloak is wrapped around the world.”
“He takes delight in practicing conversation as an art,” wrote Lauricella. “He uses a metaphor here, a simile there, perhaps a humorous play on words and weaves them into bright, conversational tapestries.”
But Otto preferred self-depreciation to plaudits.
“I’m certainly not modern in anything – from the way I dress to the way I think,” said Otto in 1978, when he was still dressing in “outdated narrow ties and straight-legged pants.”
“Weekends, I tend to fall out in customary corduroy slacks and white socks. I even let myself go a day without shaving. It’s a very exciting life I lead,” Buffalo’s congenial co-communicator told News reporter Jane Kwiatkowski in 1986.
His biggest vice, Otto confided nightly to his listeners, was his “regular investment of fortunes at Hamburg or Batavia.” Otto loved the horses, and would announce the winners from the local tracks on his show.
“We have the first three from Batavia Downs,” he’d say, often with commentary on the horse’s name, but sometimes with the hint of disdain in his voice.
“It’s the rental of a horse for two minutes to run across the finish line first, and they seldom do,” Otto said of his horsing around.
Catching him in a moment of serious self-reflection, it was clear Otto had loftier goals for his nightly meeting of the minds.
“If it works right, it raises the level of community thought and sets people to thinking with some added knowledge they didn’t have before,” he said.
“We want to occupy and engage thoughts and to allow the opportunity for people to have access to a forum they are otherwise denied,” Otto said. “Some people call in who are just passing through and want to say ‘hi’ to the world – to let others know they are alive – a fact sometimes overlooked by the rest of the world.”
Not every caller “wants to unburden himself on the big hot-line issues like Vietnam, Watergate, crime in the streets, drugs and the rest.” Otto’s often hardboiled entrenchment on those issues easily and often made way for the kind of calls an overnight program attracts.
“We get a lot of older people, lonely people. What they need are some voices in the night. And they have other things on their minds besides the headlines,” Otto said.
“One thing I’ve learned on this show is that many of them have an abiding fascination for marvels. Anything about the supernatural, ESP, UFOs and experience that can’t be explained – that will get them talking like nothing else.”
For decades, Otto was ol’ trusty – the iron horse of radio. Starting in 1955, through his first 30 years in broadcasting, he never missed a day of work – not once called in sick.
However, he landed in the hospital in 1985 with pneumonia.
“Forty years of smoking,” he said.
The streak was broken and over the next decade and a half, sickness in breathing would slowly take Otto’s life – right before his listenership’s ears.
Eventually, very labored breathing made it difficult for him to get around, and he spent his final year “on the radio, on the telephone” broadcasting from his home. Even in his final days, “John, John, your operator on” didn’t miss a broadcast. He signed off with his signature “I’ll be with you” on a Friday, went to the hospital on Saturday, and died early Monday. He was 70 when he died in 1999.
The son of Holocaust survivors who settled in Buffalo in 1949, Wolf Blitzer arrived at CNN in 1990, after years of covering the Middle East and Washington for the Jerusalem Post and occasionally for The Buffalo Evening News.
He was named after his grandfather who died in a Nazi camp. His family came to Buffalo when he was an infant and his father, David, found work in the Bethlehem Steel coke ovens.
Later, David Blitzer opened Blitzer’s Delicatessen on Hertel Avenue, before becoming a contractor and President of Forbes Homes.
Wolf Blitzer in his Ken West days.
The family moved from North Buffalo to Kenmore, and Wolf Blitzer played linebacker at Ken West before studying history at UB.
He fell into a job with Reuters because he could speak both Hebrew and English — and in the role of journalist, the historian made history.
When Egyptian President Anwar Sadat visited Washington, Wolf Blitzer was the first Jewish reporter to ever ask him a question, about the possibility of allowing Jewish and Israeli reporters to cover Egypt. Sadat later said the question resonated with him and helped him find his way to peace talks with Israel.
“Wolf was the kind of young man who always pushed himself,” said David Blitzer of his son. “He always wanted to be something. Look at him now. Only in America.”
Wolf Blitzer became a national figure during CNN’s coverage of the 1991 Gulf War, at a time when CNN was the only 24-hour cable news channel and he was the Pentagon correspondent. As is often the case in TV news, it wasn’t just his solid reporting that gained him acclaim — his unassuming manner and unusual name made him the fodder of Johnny Carson and other comedians.
Wolf Blitzer won an Emmy for his coverage of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. He moved into the studio for CNN in 1999, and he has hosted “The Situation Room” since 2005.
He brought his famous laugh to Buffalo more than 50 years ago and the jingle that’s opened his WBEN talk show since 1997 says Sandy Beach is “bigger than life and twice as loud.”
That may be, but News critic Jeff Simon added this in 2007:
Sandy Beach “may be the most talented figure in (the) storied history of Buffalo radio,” and Beach was the “last legend still heard daily on Buffalo radio.”
Aside from a brief stop in Erie, Pennsylvania and four years in Milwaukee, Beach has been a constant in Buffalo radio since arriving at WKBW to take over the night shift there in 1968.
And if you’ve listened to even five minutes of his show – any of his shows – over the last 52 years, you’ll understand why News critic Hal Crowther dubbed Beach “the Needle” shortly after he landed on the Buffalo radio scene.
KB’s disc jockeys in 1972: Standing: Sandy Beach, Don Berns, Jack Armstrong. Sitting: Casey Piotrowski, Jack Sheridan, Dan Neaverth, Bob McRae
In a 1972 interview, legendary WKBW Program Director Jeff Kaye said that within four years of arriving in Buffalo, Sandy had “worked every shift on KB except morning drive, and improved the ratings in each part.”
Beach spent the 70s, 80s and 90s in and out of Buffalo as a disc jockey, program director and eventually a talk show host. After leaving his post as KB Radio’s Program Director in the early 80s, he held morning show jobs at Buffalo’s Hot 104 and then Majic 102.
Much earlier in his career, Rob Lucas, left, was a producer on the station then known as Majic 102. With him are news anchor Sally Ann Mosey and host Sandy Beach.
“At most stations, you could get a bag boy at Bells, take a week to train him, and he’s set to go. All he has to do is read off a card: ‘We’re in the middle of 43 songs in a row,’ ” Beach said in 1989. Not his show.
He hosted talk shows on WBEN and WGR before leaving town for the mid-90s, but when he came back to host afternoons on WBEN, he was ready to make the change permanent.
“I liked playing the oldies,” Sandy said in 1997, “but you can only play ‘Doo-Wap-Diddy’ so many times.”
Six years later, he would play oldies once again, this time at WBEN’s sister station and his old stomping grounds, now sporting the call letters WWKB. For the three years KB played music of the 50s and 60s from 2003-06, Beach was a disc jockey mid-mornings and a talk show host for afternoon drive on WBEN.
After 18 years hosting “Beach & Company” during afternoon drive, the show was moved to mid-mornings in 2014.
Last week, Beach’s leaving WBEN was announced in a memo sent to staff, where managers called the conservative voice a “provocative and edgy talk show host” who entertained with “distinct humor.”
And an unforgettable laugh.
Ad for Buffalo Bills Football on WKBW, featuring Ed Rutkowski, Dan Neaverth, and Sandy Beach. The Top photo shows, among others, Rutkowski, Rick Azar, play-by-play man Al Melzter (sitting up, middle) and Jeff Kaye, standing.
By Steve Cichon
