...With all due respect to Gary Muller, and the late great Dr. Demento.
For the record, Merv is no stage name. He was born Mervyn Edward Griffin Jr., so that much is wholly true. After founding Merv Griffin Enterprises in 1964 he began buying up small and medium market radio stations. At different times the total list included
WPOP-AM Hartford, CT and WIOF-FM in Waterbury, CT; WMID-AM in Atlantic City and WGRF-FM in Pleasantville, NJ and in upstate New York WENE-AM and WMRV-FM in Endicott and WBAX-FM in Wilkes Barre. They also had WARD-AM in Pittston and two in Rhode Island WHJJ and WHJY. I count ten stations there but in their own accounting the Merv Griffin Radio Group "bought, managed and sold 17 radio stations." I'm still trying to find the balance of 7.
Only one of those stations bore his name: WMRV-FM. Originally on 105.5 as WENE-FM the station was a simulcast of WENE-AM. The call signs and programming changed in 1971 with the change in ownership. In march of 2013 it became WBNW under the ownership of Clear Channel. It remains a top 40 station even today.
Just two years after he picked up WBAX in 1971 Griffin and his wife, Julann, divorced just two years later in 1973. She retained ownership of many of the stations as part of the settlement.
There were negotations but in the end Julann got 4 of his then seven stations. In 1986, following his retirement, Griffin sold his production company,
Merv Griffin Enterprises, to Columbia Pictures for $250
million. Merv Griffin then founded Griffin Group in the months following that sale. The
WMRV calls now reside on 93.9 in Danville, NY on a stick that was formerly
WDNY and
WACZ.
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Dr. Demento (Barry Hansen) is indeed great but certainly not "late." He is still alive and kicking, doing his weekly show solely over the Internet (with occasional appearances on KSWD "The Sound" in Los Angeles when they have a KMET "Mighty Met" Weekend). I have had the pleasure of meeting him on three occasions. One will never find a nicer man who is always glad to answer questions at length (and has an encyclopedic mind for almost all types of music and not just novelties and comedy).
ReplyDeleteDr. Demento is NOT dead.
ReplyDeleteSure enough.. not dead.. 73 years old and beating the actuarial table.
ReplyDeleteMerv turned over ownership of WMID to his ex-wife in 1976, and it is rumored that, while being interviewed by Larry King on CNN, King asked Merv what he regretted most about his divorce settlement; Merv replied "Having to give up WMID". Upon turning over WMID to Julann, she payed a surprise visit to WMID and demanded that Gary Lane turn off the loud reverb and strip the station of all its top-40 "glitter". This was the beginning of WMID's decent, and it broke Lane's heart, because Merv always gave Lane a free hand to program the station without any interference. As the story goes, Lane admired WABC so much that, in 1972, he turned WMID into a "clone" of WMID. As a matter of fact, Lane sounded so much like Dan Ingram on WMID's PM show that even Don Imus commented about it on WNBC in 1975! After that, WMID lost its pizazz and became a lost puppy, changing formats so frequently that it's impossible to trace all of the changes.
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