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Wild Bill
Throughout the 1970's and 80's A little radio station licensed in Westervile was often at the center of attention here in the Columbus market because of the man who owned and operated it. Bill Bates. Through the years I've heard many people in the business rave about his technical skills as well as his marketing abilities. Whatever he had, he kept his little station in the limelight.
Unlike it's bigger competitors who for the most part had spacious facilities in downtown Columbus, WBBY wasn't much more than a shack that sat back away from the main road out in the boondocks. I was only out their twice, once to apply for a job that I never got, and I'll discuss the second time later.
My memory of that little radio station at 104 on the FM dial conjures up imaginings of a Norman Rockwell painting.
It was a great radio station. I used to wonder how they got so much sound out of that little box of a building. From the road it looked a small house.. I was used to getting on elevators when I went to work. Had it not been for the sign telling you what it was you might think the tower behind it was for someone's short wave radio.
But there it was, seemingly in no-mans land blasting the hits and sounding as good as any of it's competitors. Some pretty talented personalities came out of WBBY. And some pretty good one's ended up there after stints with some of the power houses.
Bates was one of the most colorful personalities of them all. He would do things that other station owners and managers would never dream of. Like cheer leading on the side-lines of high school football games, dance to disco music on top of his van, wear scanty clothing while drawing large crowds downtown as he chastised elected officials in a loud an arrogant manner.
And I'm talking about a guy who was an old man. I'd guess in his 70's. He was a one-man side show at times.
Some in the industry thought he was pretending to be senile just to draw attention to his station. But the man could draw the crowds. And I think he personally knew everyone at the Federal Communications Commission. They certainly knew him.
He was known as "Wild Bill." A title that he seemed to covet.
My best memory of him was when he visited the WCOL studios one afternoon and walked in uninvited and sat down and ordered me to interview him. We had something else planned but I wasn't going to miss that opportunity. Even in anger he was hilarious.
Back to the second time I was at WBBY. It was the late 70s or early 80's and I was doing well at WMNI. One day our station owner and General Manager, Bill Mnich met me as I arrived for work and asked if I had anything planned. This was strange.
But when Mr. Mnich asked a question like that it meant he had plans. And whatever part of those plans included you, you were going to do it. He didn't make requests.
He told me to go out to WBBY and give them a hand. He explained there was some sort of labor revolt out there and all of the the staff had walked out. In other words I would be a strike breaker. So I went.
When I arrived only one of the WBBY jocks was there. I explained to him that my boss had sent me out to help. Apparently he had worked a marathon shift covering for those who had labor issues and was glad to see me. He gave me a crash course on how to operate the equipment and I went on the air. It was great.
They had a tight Rock N' Roll format and I was thrilled to get a reprieve from Buck Owens and Tammy Wynette records, if only for one afternoon.
As it turned out "Wild Bill" and "Big Bill" Mnich were friends and Mr. Mnich was just reaching out to help an old friend by sending me on this assignment. I never regretted it. And as I write this vignette, it has suddenly occurred to me that the WBBY jock who "trained" me was was again, Robb Case, the guy who years earlier had shown me the ropes at USA Skating Rink when we were there for WNCI Night. Our world is indeed small. Rick
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12/21/07 11:18 PM