In The Day
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John Wayne Gacy Execution- May 10, 1994
John Wayne Gacy was the killer clown from suburban Chicago who in the 1970′s picked up young men and took them back to his tiny house. There he raped and killed them, burying most of them beneath the floor boards of his house. Other bodies he threw into a nearby river. In all, he murdered 33 young men — or at least that was how many bodies were eventually found.
After the usual interminable delays in the judicial process, Gacy was finally scheduled to be executed on May 9, 1994, and Howie went out to Chicago with his producer Kevin Straley and engineer Larry Bruce, who took these pictures. At noon, a local radio station held a parade and rally in the Loop in “honor” of the execution. Howie did his show from WLS, talking to the mother of one of the victims, who was having beans and franks for dinner while her son’s killer dined on steak and smoked a final cigar with the warden. In prison, Gacy had become an artist of sorts, with his paintings (of clowns, naturally) fetching thousands of dollars.
As the hour of execution approached, at the prison in Stateville the usual crowds gathered for the magic moment. Quakers and Amnesty International types holding their traditional candlelight vigil, while a few feet away the pro-capital punishment types whooped it up, drinking, chanting, “This Bud’s for you, Gacy!”
After his execution, Gacy’s house was briefly placed on the market, but there were no takers, and it was eventually razed. It remains a vacant lot to this day.
Hey Howie:
Us up here in Maine already have it bad enough having a couple of RINO’s. How about a fax number that we can send articles to you that we find funny. I have sent a few emails but never know if you get them.
Great book.
Entercom’s biggest plborem is that WRKO is that it’s directional pattern at night means for half the year, they’ve got zilcho signal over the lucrative Metrowest market during prime drive-time hours. So it’s too small a signal to really be competitive against FM signals.But it’s still a 50,000 watt Class B signal that covers a huge number of people and puts a solid signal over most of the core Boston/Cambridge area.So it kind of demands that a major format be put on WRKO, not a niche format .The two major formats for large AM stations are still news/talk (mostly right-wing) and sports, two formats that WRKO can’t win with because WTKK 96.9FM and WBZ 98.5FM, respectively, have vastly superior FM signals with. Worse, WRKO can’t really do sports because it detracts from the meal ticket (WEEI 850AM).So WRKO is kinda screwed, in part by Entercom’s own success with WEEI.Worse still, Entercom could put WRKO on one of their other FM properties (WMKK 93.7 and WAAF 107.3/97.7) but neither of those signal pairings is equal to (much less better ) than their chief competitors’ FM signals. And they’d be substituting a struggling product for a successful, profitable product in either case; WAAF does pretty well overall, and WMKK costs so little to operate that it rakes in the cash.If WGBH hadn’t gone news/talk, then a strategic partnership with WBUR to make WRKO an outlet for alternative NPR news/talk programming almost might’ve worked. Emphasis on might’ve . But that option is effectively off the table now.Honestly I think Entercom really only has two options: muddle along with WRKO as it is and try to reduce costs to the point where lower revenues are still viable revenues. Or bite the bullet and switch to a niche format that lets them slash costs to the bone (a la Mike or a leased-time ethnic/foreign-language) and accept the huge drop in revenue because your costs have dropped equally.Of course, neither is exactly a palatable solution.I dunno. What the hell, put a Haitian/creole format on there. There’s tons of Haitian pirate radio stations, maybe they’ve figured something out?
Martin, when I was Chief Engineer at WRKO I hired the best AM engineer in the country to help analyze the WRKO signal, Ron Rackley. We went to Burlington and examined the grounding wires in the swamp, not only were they good the original flat copper from the 40′s was still mostly intact. Ron had me perform a full AM proof, day-night-non directional at all the original monitoring points. I took measurements out as far as the State Hospital in Medfield. I was able to prove that there was just as much power leaving the site in Burlington as in the ’60s when folks remembered a stronger signal. Out in the far field however the signal was quite diminished. This data allowed me to apply for new FCC ground conductivity curves- I was able to put more power to Worcester and Framingham and less to NH. The CFO at the time Joe Winn refused me the $25,000 to re-tune the combiner (splitter of signals to the towers). He said the day pattern didn’t matter since we could not let the signal out at night. I got let go in a merger shortly after- coincidentally right after I pitched and worked with Howie and Kevin Straley to broadcast on the 25th anniversary at Chappaquiddick. I’ll post those photos and audio soon. Bottom line, you have the right idea-just understand that you’re dealing with morons. LB
Nice goin buddy! you just inflamed a wifey feud Ihad xtinguished nag nag nag
Please skip these domestic twaddle calls – it makes my hair hurt and my fingers itch to turn the dial.
I think Tony’s radio 101 lesson was easy to terndsuand, but a little oversimplified and based on a couple of faulty assumptions. While much of what he said makes sense, also consider the following:1. While the margins of stations like WRKO have certainly taken a hit in the economic downturn, they are not so tight that the talent contracts make the station unprofitable. As a rule of thumb, you could estimate that the talent cost of an AM or PM drive show would never exceed 25% of the gross revenue in the daypart. WRKO does not lose money on Howie. Do they probably make less than planned and are the stakeholders disappointed? Probably.2. Most advertisers (at least the important ones) don’t just buy one show or one station. They buy across multiple stations/multiple dayparts in order to create a schedule that delivers their desired reach (% of target audience that hear their spot) and frequency (the average amount of times they hear it). Stations need shows like Howie because he gets big enough ratings and is the type of marquee program so that he can be the linch-pin that gets WRKO on the schedule. If they ditched him for The Tony Show, assuming Tony’s ratings don’t approximate Howie’s, many advertisers will simply buy another station and leave WRKO off the buy altogether.3. This is purely supposition, but Howie’s suspension is both a little slap on the wrist to tweak him and a strategic legal maneuver. Howie certainly has gone after ETM on many occasions and if they didn’t suspend him at some point, it would be harder for them to go after him at a later date. Note that Imus successfully settled with CBS following his incident partly because his lawyers could make the case that he had made similar comments without punishment, and thus made the Nappy Headed Ho’s comment with no expectation of discipline because he had never been cautioned. Maybe this is a step in ETM’s paper trail.That said, I would not be. surprised if Howie stays on WRKO until he rides off into the sunset.
Did anyone else noitce how Howie did some actual reporting for a couple of his recent columns, rather than simply reprise a discussion off his radio program? Of course one instance of the reporting was more acting as a flak for a city council candidate, and the premise of the column was ironically absurd the candidate whining that someone said bad things about him. Boo-hoo. What’s the over/under on the first column to quote a radio listener? My guess is Sunday.BTW, when he uttered I’m back when rejoining WRKO he took a line from Jerry Williams, who said the precise same thing when he joined WRKO after being away from Boston for several years ( I’m back Kevin. I’m back ‘) Personally, I think the greatest return to duty’ line came from George Frazier, rehired by the Globe after a campaign led by Eddie Andelman (whose influence on Boston media is woefully under-appreciated). Wrote Frazier to lead his first column back: It’s been a long time between dances
Howie,
Tell that dingbat that says Georgetown U. should pay for her contraception, rubbers prevent minivans.
John
I have been listining to WRKO since the days of Gene and Jerry and continue listening to Howie and Jen B. in the afternoon ( she has an excellant program). Just resently, I started lisitening to the morning show with Tom & Todd. Not the best production vaue but it beats NPR. I left WTTK months ago when the bumped Michelle McVey. I drive around the New England Area and find affiliate stations to listin to Howie. I spend several hours a week listening to the radio, including NPR for Car Talk on the weekends. Howe is by far the best. I do find the radio signal a problem in NH where I live, I do however using the computer which beats the radio problems. I hope that Howie goes FM with a station in the Boston Area. I beleive he has the brains and understanding to go national on wide topics, but never want to lose the local talk on the Boston an New England Area.
What RKO needs is people of the calibre of Gene Burns for the day time programs. Laura & Rush are old news and life goes beyond poltics, that is why Howie is so sucessful, he produces a gambit of mediem covering a broad range of topics.
Hey Howard, Is it true that firemen in cambridge only work 89 days ?
Howie,
How come your call in phone number is not at the top of your web site?
I tried to find it, and I work on web site design, and it was nowhere to be found.
I was going to call in and let you know that I tried to find the age requirement in Mass to
apply for an EBT card…like your call in number………..???????????????
Also, I saw that “aliens” whoever they are or from whatever planet, are also elidgeable
for these wonderful, free EBT cards…nice!
Larry