Pat Delsi and WCAM

 

In 1973 Pat Delsi aka (Pasquale Del Signore) inherited the Camden city albatross, a city-owned radio station, 1310 WCAM-AM. Municipal commercial band radio stations have always been rare but they're not unheard of in the course of radio history. The station was the oldest in Camden. It signed on in 1924 as 1270 WFBI-AM owned by Robert Galvin of the Galvin Radio Supply Company. But it became WCAM, owned by the city by March of 1926.  The studios moved to the top floor of the City Hall building at 520 Market Street after it's construction completed in 1931. 

Until 1948 the station shared time on its frequency with 1300 WTNJ in Trenton and WCAP in Asbury Park. Despite the protests of WDEL and WTNJ, the FCC allocated WTNJ to move to 1170 AM in 1949 ending the time-share and allowed WCAM and WCAP to become a full-time stations on 1310, albeit at reduced power. More here. The transmitter was in a brick building in the north west corner of Pyne Poynt Park. It was not a very secure location. The building was broken into multiple times, vandalized and finally experienced arson in 1982. WSSJ operated at low power, without staff for weeks. the transmitter building was demolished after 2003.

Delsi, that poor bastard. In 1973 he was promoted to General Manager but he was still also a DJ, talk show host, and sports announcer. If you were curious, Pat did not host the weekly Italian program “Spectrum Italiano,” on WSSJ. That was hosted by Pat’s friend Frank Medori. Seemingly he did everything else. Pat was given the mission to make WCAM profitable; a station which already had the marketing problem of being confused with WCAU in Philadelphia. But by 1978 he had succeeded. WCAM was in the black. 

Back in the 1960s, when Pat was just a DJ, WCAM was doing great. It was a strong rock n' roll station with a big local audience. But then after the payola scandal hit in 1961 they made the mistake of firing populat DJs like Hy Lit, and Jerry Blavat and basically declaring rock n' roll to be dead. They made the very progressive decision in 1963 to drop all cigarette advertisements, and gave up $13k of annual revenue. It sounds manageable, but in today's dollars that's 137k! The station also subscribed to no ratings services and had no metrics on listenership. That's a real obstacle to selling ads.

The station was losing money and by the late 1960s the city was trying to sell it off. A series of four deals fell through which notably included Jerry Wollman, then owner of the eagles, and another a private company owned by William F. Buckley. Delsi had been with the station since 1953. Mayor Angelo Errichetti told Delsi to do everything he could to stop the bleeding.  He became their 8th general manager in a period of 5 years. He chose to stabilize the station, retain all staff and focus the daytime music programs on oldies. It worked... But it couldn't stop Camden from selling off the station. 

A deal was finally made in the late 1970s and the station was sold to Philadelphia-based Wade Communications. Wade changed the call sign to WSSJ in 1980. Then that fire I mentioned in 1982. Pat decided to take back the station. Delsi started WSSJ Broadcasting Ltd. with some business partners and they bought the station back from Wade for $850k. After the 1984 purchase, he managed to hold on to it for another 15 years, finally selling WSSJ in 1999 to Mega Communications.

In 2001 Mega Communications changed the calls to WEMG spinning Spanish oldies. But in 2005 they sold it to Davidson Media. Today it's a mix of Spanish language and brokered programming. Today the original WCAM calls reside on 1590 in Camden, SC.  Pat Delsi died in 2021. Delsi's first job in radio was in 1953 at WWBZ in Vineland, NJ in 1953, and about a year later went to WCAM. It was his baby. He had been in radio for 67 years. 

Note: There are a surprising number of Airchecks on YouTube from WCAM and WSSJ but none of Pat Delsi:

• Mitch Ryder WCAM 1980 [LINK]
• Rick Anthony WSSJ 1980 [LINK]
• Nikki Duval WSSJ 1980 [LINK]
• Nikki Duval WSSJ 1982 [LINK]
• Unknown DJ WSSJ 1994 [LINK]
  
  
  

The Fraser Radio Gospel Hour (Part 2)

Courtesy of Bill Johnson

I got some new information on a post [LINK] from way back in March of 2012 and I am now able to post a Part 2 segment. My original research indicated that the program started "around" 1925 and ran until possibly as late as 1973 and was hosted by Rev. Robert Fraser, a Blind Radio Evangelist in Philadelphia. It even operated a gift shop at 36 North 8th Street, an area that's now prime center city real estate. a calendar I saw at the time listed the stations carrying the program in 1947, those were on Sunday from 4:00 - 5:00 PM: 1310 WCAM-AM, 1240 WSNJ-AM, 1110 WNAR-AM and 1360 WWBZ-AM. Then Sundays 9:00 - 9:30 PM: 990 WIBG-AM, WNAR-AM, 1360 WWBZ-AM and 1360 WPPA-AM. 

WCAM is particularly interesting as Camden New Jersey's oldest radio station. It dates back to September 1925, predating the program under the callsign WFBI-AM then on 1270. WPPA-AM was a share time with WCAM so it's all the more odd that both stations were listed. [More here] WSNJ-AM was in Bridgeton, NJ and had been since 1937. WNAR-AM only signed on in 1947 in Norristown so it would have been a brand new affiliate that year. WWBZ-AM was in Vineland, NJ, and WIBG was in Philly of course.

I had assumed originally that the program ended when host Rev. Robert Fraser died but that date was unknown, and  conjecture anyway. It took 8 years, but all of those questions have been answered.

Courtesy of Bill Johnson

Edward W. Fraser Jr. himself tell us that the program actually began in 1927 just after Robert Fraser and Ella Stark were married. Robert Fraser's prior radio experience was limited. He appeared with Christopher Graham "Uncle WIP" who read children's stories on WIP-AM. [More here] Later he was booked as the "Sunshine boy" at WCAU. He sang with Dumont and Emmett Welsch's  Minstrels on WFI-AM and WDAR-AM.

The Gospel Hour program ran until 1995. This end date is much later than I expected, as Bill Johnson confirmed that Rev. Fraser died April 11th 1957.  Mrs. Fraser (née Stark) continued to host the program. The speaker for the last 10 years of the show was the late Rev. Nelson H. Hill, Jr., of Aldan, PA. The equipment was run by James J. "Joe" Tolbert. His wife, Dianne, played the organ. Dianne's sister, Darlene, and mother Adele Marsh were on the program years before Mr. Hill was the speaker.  When the Gospel Hour program was finally discontinued, it was being produced at WVCH, Chester.

Courtesy of Bill Johnson

Prior to the studios of WVCH, The Fraser Radio Gospel Hour was produced at the Fraser Home for Elderly Ladies. Though at least some the equipment was still on site in 1972. He also operated a home for girls on 529 Tabor Rd in Olney, PA.  Chaplain Steve Phillips passed this information to us directly from Mr. Hill's wife, Lucille Mosher Hill. (Lucille, and Joe and Dianne are residents at Quarryville, Pennsylvania Presbyterian Retirement Community.)

Also interesting is that the program was also carried on channel 12.  While that is WHYY-TV today, that was WVUE-TV on the VHF band out of Wilmington back in 1957, as in the calendar below:

Courtesy of Bill Johnson

All of the above images came from Bill Johnson. He purchased a Bible at an Estate Sale in Southern California. Inside were several artifacts from the Fraser Radio Hour, including a card announcing the passing of Rev. Robert J. Fraser on April 11, 1957.