Sponsor (Oct-Dec 1962)

Glascock was determined to make the station a dominant I force in the Philadelphia market. He became intrigued I with the potential of delivering buying power rather than I numbers, and, with the help of program director Varner | Paulsen and his staff, evolved the concept of programming for an audience between 18 and 45 years old. '"people in the age of acquisition who are in the process of spending most of their disposable income." To win such an audience is easier said than done. WIP had to evolve a programming policy that would attract it. and all the business acumen in the world is of little use without a flair and an instinct for entertainment values. Since the advent of TV, radio has changed considerably. In the pre-video days music was usually put on the air to fill time. But currently radio stations broadcast music and news almost exclusively. The big programming questions today: What kind of music? What kind of news? Glascock and his staff eventually decided that to reach the adult audience it wanted, it must evolve a concept of music programming not available on the Philadelphia dial. "Our music is popular music," observes music programming director Dick Carr. "It's not the heavy, rhythmic beat at the lowbrow end of the field nor is it the complicated arrangements of progressive jazz at the highbrow end. And just as important, it must be current." Glascock and Paulsen monitor each of the 300 single records and albums that are released every week, check music trade journals (to see what people are currently paying to hear), to make their selections. Depth is added by blending a balanced number of older popular standards which have been carefully preselected. The sound Of news. The news operation is just as painstakingly planned. Paul Rust, the station's news diI rector and a newsman for 20 years, points out that since i the WIP audience is adult, it is interested in what is going I on in the world. The station broadcasts at least five : minutes of news on the hour and news summaries on the I half hour. Instead of tailoring the news to cut and dried ji time segments, the station will expand its coverage when important news is breaking. But the WIP signature is I most apparent in the sound of the news. The station has I beeper tape recorders hooked into telephones in its news room and portable tape recorders for street assignI ments. Instead of depending on its wire service, WIP adds I human interest and authority by airing reports directly I from the newsmakers themselves. One recent international I scoop was an exclusive interview with one of the fishermen I picked up by Castro's navy off the coast of Cuba last I spring. Rust had his department bombard Cuba with calls until they got through to one of the captives, recorded I the report that the party was unharmed and would be < released shortly. The taped segments can be as short as 30 seconds but I they bring an immediacy and intimacy into radio news. Rust has been able to integrate as many as nine separate taped reports into a five minute news show. In addition to its own news resources, WIP gathers (and | feeds back) news from the 1 1 other radio and TV stations I in the chain and uses the reports of correspondents in Metropolitan's Washington news bureau. World view. The station's major public affairs pro I gram is a Sunday feature "World in Perspective." Pro • duced by Rust, it deals with problems which range from the plight of the schools to political corruption. One recent show on narcotics addiction won the nationally-prized I radio journalism award from Ohio State University. The public affairs programming blossoms out on WIP's FM channel. Generally, the FM band is used to simulcast AM programming but the station, through the Metropolitan Broadcasting network, is able iu pick up many additional features. The famous "debate." for example, between Soviet party chairman Nikita Khrushchev and David Susskind (a star of Metropolitan's WNEW-TV in New York) was rebroadcast in toto here. During the Congo crisis at the United Nations, WIP-FM carried the full discussion from the UN assembly floor. And WIP-FM was possibly the only station in the world that carried the full transcription of the recent Eichmann trial in Israel. Glascock hired an engineer to record the whole trial and the English translation, presented the tapes, after airing them, to an appreciative Library of Congress in Washington. Congresswoman Kathryn Granahan was impressed enough to read a commendation for the broadcast into the Congressional Record. On the square. Like its programming, WIP's physical plant has been revamped and spruced up. Early this year, shortly before its fortieth anniversary, the station replaced dated radio equipment with the most modern, transistorized equipment on the market, moved mike and baggage from the Gimbel Building to elegant, historic Rittenhouse Square. "Our uptown move puts us in closer rapport with the community, both physically and psychologically," Glascock observes, gazing out over the sea of greenery below his window. Shortly after its move, good neighbor WIP participated in the annual outdoor Rittenhouse Square Art Show by offering the biggest purchase prize for the paintings that are exhibited every Spring. And it added to the panoply of the Easter Parade which terminates in the Square by providing, to the delight of the youngest paraders, a chap in an oversized rabbit suit who gave out 3000 balloons. But the image of a station (and radio people are very conscious of the concept) rests with the voices that go out over the air. WIP has eight major personalities: their average time stint: Four hours. "You could get all of our radio personalities into a taxi without too much trouble," wryly observes program director Paulsen, "but we've got 60 people on our station staff. So these handful of personalities, what they do and say, is going to set the tone for our entire operation. To our audience, they are WIP." The voices. "Running a radio station is a lot like running a baseball team." adds Glascock. "We have a talented group that works together. Each man knows the music he's playing, is aware and concerned with the community, and the world around him. He has to be likeable — the kind of person you'd like to have as a guest at your house and invite back — because that, in essence, is where he is — in your living room, or car, or wherever you turn on your radio. "And just as important, he has to be a fine salesman." Dean of the eight-man crew that maintains the roundthe-clock vigil over WIP's turntables is dry, witty loe McCauley who started with the station 20 years ago as "pilot" of the Dawn Patrol. Philadelphia's oldest all-night program. McCauley has since been switched to the key morning (six a.m. till 10) time slot which draws radio's heaviest audiences, accompanies many listeners in their cars to work. Taking them home at night is Tom Brown, the station's articulate and knowledgeable afternoon man whose familiarity with music has earned him a listing in the American Encyclopedia o( Jazz. The one to six a.m. slot formerly piloted by McCaule\ is now presided over by Dick Reynolds, a confirmed night owl who prefers the shift so he can spend the daylight hours with his family. The Reynolds show is augmented with West Coast sports reports and an open telephone line that Reynolds uses to chat over the air with listeners. The junior partner of the WIP air staff is Jim Tate (no rela