The Night Mayor of Norfolk

For a brief period of time Bryce B. Bond was known as The Night Mayor of Norfolk. It says so on the back of the LP, but it also says the same thing in two issues of Billboard; one from 1959 the other from 1960.  As terrible as the record is I am surprised to read he released at least another five on Folkway records.

In 1960 Bryce moved from WNOR-AM in Norfolk, VA to WVOX-FM in New Rochelle, NY. Billboard described his then new program as an "early bird" show and that he shared the MC position with PD Mort Dean. Mr. Bond himself said that rock n' roll was banned form the program. This was no surprise of course. He'd put the kibosh on the rock at WNOR earlier. He was quoted at length on the topic a year earlier.

"...As the night mayor of Norfolk, I have put a ban on rock and roll , rhythm and blues, and hillbilly music on by six and a half hour nightly show (midnight to 6:30 AM.)  I play nothing but the very best in quality standard music, old and new, plus good progressive jazz. . . Wt at WNOR are very proud of having 95 per cent of the adult audience, the buying audience."

He comes off more than a tad arrogant no?  In 1961 Strand records released their "Bryce Bond's Bachelor Apartment" LP. they advertised that in Billboard too. It was priced at a whopping $2.98. In January of that year Bryce was promoted from mere DJ to Program Director of WVOX.

I lose track of him a bit there and he reappears on a New York jazz station WTFM-FM 103.5 in 1966 hosting the Moondial program. Philco was the original sponsor of that program at least starting in 1962.

Bryce appears by name in a WTFM advertisement run in New York magazine in 1970 so we know he was with that station for at least four years. I had assumed that he began in 1964 or so but a 1962 issue of Billboard has Bryce on WTFM hosting "Moondial" in 1962 and in 1966. This is incongruous because another issue plainly says that Alan Grant took over as host in 1963. 

What happened is that Bryce left and came back. He was a morning host at WBAB in 963 into 1964. That didn't work out and by 1965 he was doing afternoons and was back on WTFM in lake Success, NY. the trail ends there except for a mysterious single reference to an ex-radio broadcaster, who became a New York psychic and got a parapsychology show on cable TV... named Bryce Bond. (I totally hope that's him.) If it is, he was the editor of Psychic Observer Magazine until it's demise in the 1990s.

The Art of Formatlessness

Yes, I know that's not a proper word

So maybe it's not an art. Many radio people would argue that non-commercial stations practice this all the time. I personally would argue that they actually are "block-formatted" most programs in fact have a format. it's somewhat unfortunate that the reggae format the death metal format and the polka format may be in close time proximity.

What I am talking about are the commercial stations that dont really have a format. Some of you are thinking "Jack" right now but that too is a format. For all the hype it's really just deep catalog AC/80s but I digress. I mean actual commercially licensed stations that actually sell ads, that just don't fit conventional format definitions. In previous years the addition of oldies to a standards playlist might have qualified (or vice versa) , like WGUL-AM in Tampa. They ran deep catalog oldies beside overplayed vegas crooners. It had a loyal niche audience, but in that market WRBQ killed them in ratings. I had an inkling that they wouldn't last, and sure enough last month they dropped it for talk. A nice straight standards station might have been able to eek by with the demo in that market.

Anyway I'm on a tangent again. My examples today is New Rochelle 93.5 WRTN. (some of their programming is run on their AM sister station WVOX 1460)

I first heard WRTN over two years ago. They ran a very straight-ahead standards station; lots of Sinatra, a little big band, a lot of Glen Miller As they say "It is what it is." And then they added some reggae programing. It stoof out as kind of random but they blocked it out pretty well with talk programs on each side of the slots.

I am guessing these shows were popular because they added more., lots more. Today the station runs reggaeton, reggae, tropical, dancehall... all sorts of Caribbean music and then few straggling hours of standards. But this new format is a little awkward.

If they played more rap you could call it Hurban. If they homogenized it more they could call it tropical or even Reggae. But they don't. The playlist is all over the place in terms of genre. but in terms of demo it's not. They don't appear on the recent Bridgeport or Stamford Arbs but I dont think they participate to be honest. They've found a community that clearly wants them to be there. And the community has found a station that wants to be there for them. I cant argue with that.

The president of Whitney Radio the parent Co. to both stations, William O'Shaughnessy is a bit of a willful crank who reminds me of other brilliant wilful cranks that ran massive media groups on to great success. men like like Ahmet Ertgun, Ted Turner and the like. His impressive bio is here: http://www.wvox.com/wo/index.htm including where to buy his book.

Nothing explains why he runs WRTN station the way he does. I hope that they keep it up. But like so many eccentric gems out there, I can only beleive that ineviably the big money offer will come and it will be sadly swallowed up by some large multi-national conglomerate.