Posted by Mike Biel on January 10, 1998 at 00:37:45:
In Reply to: Ed Sciaky...it's called experience not age posted by Gerry Wilkinson on January 09, 1998 at 16:44:00:
When Ed and I and many of you began our careers on WRTI-FM one of the criteria I and the other program directors used when we assigned people to shows was KNOWLEDGE. I felt that it was dumb for a station to put someone on the air who obviously did not know as much as the potential audience. I discovered this the first day of air my freshman year when I (who knew about classical music) had been denied FM clearance but my idiot sophmore roommate (who flunked out that semester) went on the air playing a classical piece by HAY-den.
The audience knows if you know, and it knows if you don't know.
I played old records made long before I was born. I was 20 and I was a yound whippersnapper and I thought I KNEW, but I occasionally got calls from people who had BEEN THERE and knew much more than me. I listened, became good friends with one of them, and I learned. Now thirty years later I am still learning, but I know a hell of a lot more than the new young whippersnappers who are just like I was when I was a young whippersnapper on WRTI.
Ed Sciaky and Barry Berg grew up listening to Gene Shay playing folk music on WHAT-FM. And Barry and Ed were pretty knowledgable on Broadside. But Gene KNEW. And we all respected him. I read a couple of weeks ago that Gene is being dumped from WHYY because they are going all-talk-talk-yack-yack. I haven't heard Gene in years, but certainly he is not getting any dumber. And Ed is in the position of having BEEN THERE. So WMMR is putting on some young whippersnappers who will now undertake in the next thirty years to learn what Ed ALREADY KNOWS.
Well, we thought we knew better than our elders--but deep down we knew we didn't. Ed listened to and learned from Gene. And over the years I listened to and learned from the giants in discography and research in the record and radio industry. Meanwhile Ed was MAKING the history of classic rock in the 60s and 70s. HE played Janis Ian BEFORE Leonard Bernstein. And Springsteen and Joel, etc. etc.
Besides that, he sounds tasteful on the air. Quiet, assured, confident, knowledgable, friendly.
Maybe the problem was that when you clicked onto the WMMR web site all the OTHER jocks had HAIR!!! You couldn't tell that on the air (didn't Blenheim tell us we didn't have to look good on radio?), but you can on the web site. Ed--GET A RUG!
WMMR--get some experience back. It's interesting that they are going to celebrate their 30th birthday turning their backs on what made them.