Meet Charley Bailey from Buffalo’s Golden Age of Radio. In the 1930’s and 1940’s he was considered Buffalo’s “Man About Town”. And he graces the cover of last week’s 16th annual Buffalo Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame Awards Celebration. Please note Charles Bailey’s microphone has the initials BBC. The initials don’t mean the British Broadcasting Corporation. In this picture from the 1930’s they stand for the Buffalo Broadcasting Corporation! The Buffalo Broadcasters are always looking for pictures like this for their archives.
Posthumously Traffic Reporter Mike Rozman won the Golden Age Award, Mike died in a tragic helicopter crash into the Niagara River in 1993. Photojournalist Bill Cantwell won the Behind the Scenes Award. CNN Southeast Bureau Chief Mary Lynn Ryan won the Buffalo Bob Smith Award. Buffalo Sabres hockey announcer Rick Jeanneret won the Active Award. President of VH-1 Tom Calderone won the Al Anscombe award. Investigative reporter Lee Coppola won the General Award. All were inducted into the Hall of Fame yesterday. St. Bonaventure University student Shannon Shepherd won the 5th annual “Tim Russert Medal of Merit”.
I would like to share some of the interesting moments with you from the evening. An edited replay of the ceremony will eventually be shown on WNED-TV. It will also be available for sale, as will be previous years’ ceremonies.
YNN Katie Morse was one of the co-hosts of the evening. I learned that Katie won the cheese-stacking competition, and saw a video where she won the Dancing Under the Stars competition in Buffalo’s Italian Heritage Festival this year… wow, can Katie move! WYRK’s Clay Moden was the other co-host. He said he became co-host by being caller number 9. We got to see Katie and Clay do some funny mall video bits on the big video screen. One bit had Katie shopping for her outfit for the event, as the camera caught her exiting Victoria’s Secret. Another had Clay asking for additional samples from an Asian fast food eatery from the food court. This was all in good fun, of course, and there was great editing of the videos by Jim Safee of D G I Video. I must say the whole night moved along smoothly without any slow spots. Some of it reminded me of what Letterman and Leno do, along with some Entourage stylings.
1st Buffalo FM Stereo station, later a format change led to death threats
On its 50th anniversary, WADV/WYRK, 106.5 on the dial is this year’s radio station inductee. In 1962, as WADV, their format was jazz, big band music, and vocal standards. It was the first radio station in Buffalo to have FM stereo. That was was a huge innovation in 1962. Then, in 1981 WADV changed their name to WYRK, and the format changed to country. That format change got some people upset, and led to death threats, Radio certainly was exciting back in the day!
The longest tenured broadcaster in the National Hockey League
That would be Rick Jeanneret, who joined Ted Darling on WGR Radio in 1971. Later this year Rick would be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, and the Greater Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame. Colleague Harry Neale stood at a whiteboard, and had a layout of the studio, with tables, stages and bar, which looked like a Sabres intermission report breakdown. Harry showed how he and Rick proceeded to the bar, Rick ordered two beers, and Harry got stuck with the tab! Someone thought they may have been the oldest pair of announcers in the NHL, but the reply was they were the most experienced! They ordered a 3 minute egg at a restaurant, but was told that at their age they would have to pay in advance.
Rick Jeanneret fires back
Rick tells us that Harry Neale is to social media as Travis Henry is to condoms. Then he stated that his answers to the next (unasked) questions are “I don’t know” and “Sooner rather than later.” His dream was to be a disc jockey, and he humbly talked about where he ended up. Mr. Jeanneret finished up with his looking forward to just one more moment, when the Buffalo Sabres finally hoist the Stanley Cup!
Great replays of Lee Coppola one-liners
Lee Coppola has had many successful careers, as Buffalo News reporter, troubleshooter with WKBW-TV, investigative reporter with WIVB-TV, assistant United States attorney, and dean of St. Bonaventure University’s journalism school. His articles on organized crime inspired the movie ‘Hide in Plain Sight’ that was filmed in Buffalo. Lee was quite aggressinve in his reporting style. One video showed Lee confronting someone that hid behind a screen door, Lee shouted “I’ll stay here all day, you gotta come out!”, and in another “What do you mean not admissable, so now you’re a lawyer too, instead of just a scumbag?” His in-your-face style got results, and was a trailblazer back then. He remembered advice that he received from WKBW-TV’s legendary anchorman Irv Weinstein, “If you don’t have pictures you don’t have sh%#.”
Coming soon look for Part 2 of this series
Please share with us any memories you have of these great Buffalo broadcast legends…