One of the joys of doing this web page is meeting different people
from the
WWDJ past. Ken Mosier is one of those
people.
Ken did an article on
WWDJ
28 years ago in one of the local newspapers. That was one of
the first features of this web page[Sean Casey Interview]
. Thanks to David Hinkley's write-up in the Daily News, Ken & I hooked
up. Here is his story about his experiance with
WWDJ.
Ken Mosier - 28 YEARS
LATER
WWDJ,
how those 4 letters bring a smile to my face every time I hear them. In 1972,
at 21 years old, I was a student a William Paterson College, I was working
part time writing free lance "filler" articles, for a few local newspapers,
when I was asked to do an article on a local AM station called
WWDJ. This was a
time when for the most part AM stations like WABC and WMCA, really controlled
what kids were listening to. FM was just starting to emerge from the depths
of "only" being listened to late at night. In fact, since most kids drove
"older" cars, so they didn't even have FM radios. When I arrived at
WWDJ, I was greeted
by 2 people, Nick Anthony, and John Brown. John gave me the "vast" tour of
the facilities, which took all of 2 minutes, and actually introduced me to
"Bwana Johnny". John certainly lived up to the old adage that: "DJ's don't
look like they sound". The general consensus was that he sounded like a rock
star, when in fact he was just a "regular guy". I then got to sit down with
the Station Manager, Nick Anthony. We sat and discussed how the station was
run, and where they wanted to go in the future. Nick then started asking
me questions about what I thought "kids" wanted from the station. At the
time the leading FM stations that were hot were WCBS and WNEW. Oldies and
Hard Rock, so I told Nick that I thought that was the type of music that
most kids wanted to hear, not only top 40. Not exactly innovative but truthful.
In retrospect
WWDJ was innovative
in their programming, often playing music that before was only heard on FM
radio. Nick then introduced me to Sean Casey.I did an interview with Sean,
[Sean Casey Interview], that
ran about 8 months after I wrote it. Nick then asked me if I wanted a job
there running the request lines. I immediately said Yes, and I started 20
minutes later. When I asked about training, John Brown told me: "pick up
the phone, say
WWDJ, and write
down what they ask for.", I was now officially trained. As a 21 year old
in college, I couldn't have asked for a better job. Wear what you want, free
tickets to almost every show at the Capital Theather, talking to hundreds
of girls everyday, who thought that flirting with me, would get their song
on the air, and getting to work with all these great people, who always made
me feel like part of the team. I stayed at DJ for about a year, and was sad
to hear that it was changing formats to all religious programming. I think
that DJ really had a greater share of the listening audience, than the Arbitron
ratings had shown. Most of the problem came fron the fact that at the time,it
just wasn't "cool" to admit that you listened to AM radio. But for this 21
year old kid and for most of the area listeners, both vocal and silent ,
there wasn't a better station around.
[WWDJ
Cover Page]