#wnbc

Chapter One: Meet-Cute Adjacent

Marvin Gardens woke at 5:30 a.m., as dictated by both muscle memory and dread. Three things happened, in order: he silenced the alarm, stared at the ceiling, and thought about whether Jason had left his math homework in the living room again.

Coffee was already waiting. A cold brew he prepped nightly, out of both efficiency and the knowledge that if he had to interact with a French press before sunrise, he’d commit a crime.

By 6:45, he was spooning artificial dye-loaded cereal into Jason’s bowl, skimming weather alerts from his phone, and asking questions like “Did you brush your teeth?” and answering ones like “Do Pokémon eat breakfast?”

At 7:58, Marvin kissed his son’s head, dropped him at school, and walked into 30 Rockefeller Plaza wearing a slate blue suit and an expression just north of “please don’t talk to me.”

The weather segment at 8:30 went fine. It always did. He was dryly funny in a way that got him Twitter “clout” from moms who couldn’t tell he was gay, or maybe they did and didn’t care, and meteorology students.

“Temperatures climbing faster than my therapist’s hourly rate,” he joked, and got a chuckle from the anchor.

Afterward, he met with Charlotte at One Medical. The oddly located office of his best friend on the second floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza. She told him to lower his sodium and consider “letting people in.” He told her he’d try, which was a lie.

Then it was back to his desk, where he quietly ate a banana with a fork. Not because he was quirky. Because he didn’t want to get his tie dirty.

—

Whizzer Brown arrived at Thirty Rockefeller Plaza like he always did: immaculate, barely on time, and pretending he hadn’t spent the night with a new writer whose name he never asked.

He wore a vintage SNL crewneck from the Dana Carvey era and carried a cup of ice and what could be estimated to be around six shots of espresso. His hair looked like it had been done by angels. He smelled like Le Labo and very expensive denial.

“Morning, sunshine.” Cordelia, his sickeningly optimistic best friend, said from behind the cafeteria counter.

Whizzer grinned. “How’s the food today?”

“Still barely legal.”

“Perfect.” He winked. She handed him a breakfast sandwich that was more Styrofoam than egg.

Whizzer was beloved at SNL by fans, the new star with a smirk that could disarm critics and a sense of timing that made him look effortless. He wasn’t.

He read every note. Memorized every script. Rewrote jokes in his head that he’d never get the chance to pitch. He slept with people who didn’t matter and avoided calls from the ones who might.

Cordelia once told him he lived like a man five minutes ahead of a nervous breakdown. He told her that was generous.

He loitered in the halls today, killing time. He didn’t like being in the writers’ room too long. Too many people he’d kissed. Too many ideas he didn’t write but would have to sell anyway.

—

Marvin left Charlotte’s office, one hand holding a disposable coffee cup filled with oatmeal, the other holding a folder of both weather briefings and doctor’s pamphlets in hand: “Coping with Stress for Dummies”

He rounded the corner with a grimace. Whizzer turned into the same hallway, humming something jazz-adjacent under his breath.

They collided, not dramatically, but awkwardly enough. Marvin’s oatmeal dropped. Whizzer’s espresso hit the floor.

“Damn it,” Whizzer muttered, stepping back just as Marvin crouched down.

They looked up at the same time.

“Oh,” Whizzer said, offering a practiced smile. “You’re the weatherman.”

“Meteorologist,” Marvin corrected flatly.

Whizzer picked up the folder. “Whizzer Brown. SNL.” He extended the papers. “I do impressions of celebrities and I’m currently wearing your breakfast.”

Marvin blinked as he wiped espresso off himself.  “It’s fine. I didn’t like that tie anyway.”

He said as if he hadn’t been forking a banana that morning to keep it safe.

“You’ve got one of those faces that looks like it proofreads emails for fun,” Whizzer said, re-adjusting himself.

Marvin cleared his throat. “Thanks. I think.”

“Never mind,” Whizzer grinned, already stepping back, folder handed off. “You’re too serious. I like it.”

Marvin watched him disappear down the hallway, his crewneck tugged slightly to the left, just enough to show the faint outline of a bruise someone else had left tthere.

Whizzer didn’t look back. Marvin didn’t either.

But something shifted.

 WNBC 66 New York – Howard Stern – May 25 1984 Courtesy: Charles Hallett Back in the 1980s, when many radio stations playing music on AM were quickly dying, as music radio listeners had migrated to FM, New York’s 66 WNBC was one of the stations, which continued to play music and have decent ratings. The secret for WNBC was doing high personality radio, along with the music, on…

“When in doubt, count!” 

My mentor Dale Pon didn’t get much public recognition for his smart, strategic and successful creative work in media promotion. I’m posting about a few projects I was lucky to work on with him.

Scott Webb sent along this advertising campaign Dale Pon created on the cusp of the 1979/80 era of WNBC Radio in New York City. Bob Pittman, Scott, and I recount our view of it below, and I’ll update as more come in from other colleagues. 

There have been countless lessons I learned from Dale Pon about promotion and marketing, but the one that has stuck with me most is...

“When in doubt, count!”

Sounds pretty boring and I thought Dale was a creative guy. Count, like “4 out of 5 dentists recommend Crest”? Really, that’s a good solution?

But Dale’s point of view was the numbers can always point you to a creative solution that can work if you use them as a jumping off point. Basically, as you’re trying to figure out a pitch, a unique selling proposition for a campaign, if you get stuck, look at the numbers. It’s an idea that so pervasive that our mutual co-worker Bob Pittman has even started a podcast on the principal called “Math & Magic.”

To me, this maxim was often how to do a lot with a little, but it didn’t become super clear to me how “counting” could lead to anything useful until I saw it in amazing action back at the beginning of our relationship in the late 1970s.

Fred Seibert:  In 1977, Dale Pon had hired me at WHN in New York City, moved me to Los Angeles and back again. He’d successfully and ____ promoted WHN into the 2nd most listened to country music station in American –remember this station was in New York, home to Frank Sinatra, not Johnny Cash– and I was his lackey,

In early 1979  Dale abandoned me. He went to a New York radio competitor, telling me that not only could I run the WHN promotion department –a job for which I had virtually no experience other than my short stint with him. (“Hey, you produced a jazz record that got a Grammy nomination, you can be good at this too.” Really?) He’d been whisked away by WNBC, a relative ratings laggard, home to Imus in the Morning, run by veteran Bob Sherman and upstart program director Bob Pittman. Sherman’s public goal? “Beat WABC!, which had been New York's #1 station for decades.”

“Oh, I need you to help me produce the TV campaign. If WHN finds out and fires you, I’ll bring you over.” 

Oh great.

Next thing I know Dale’s whipped out the latest New York Arbitron radio ratings books and hands one to me. “Go to every demographic page and circle WNBC. Let’s see what’s what.”

A half hour later I said, “You’re fucked. At best they’re #14 in the prime demos.”

“Here!” he points, “They’re #2!!” It was something like Adult men 35-49. 

I was confused. The group that advertisers wanted was Adults 18-49, maybe on a stretch Adults 25-49. What the hell?!

“We’ll note the demo in the mouse type at the bottom. No one will notice!”

No one will notice?!

Within an hour Dale had sketched out the pitch. A take off on a successful Avis Car Rental campaign.

“We’re #2, we want to be #1! WNBC Radio 66!” 

Before I knew it, Dale had WNBC putting out a call to it’s listeners to send in  Polaroids of any twins who listened for a potential casting in commercials.

Huh, twins? “We’re #2.” Twins. OK, he’s got a creative idea. 

Soon enough, he had me coming to an audio studio after work to moonlight the soundtracks for the campaigns. (WHN never caught on, and I stayed until I want to MTV Networks.)

“Twice as many winnas!*** Twice as many prizes!! Twice as many chances to win!!!” 

And you know? The damned thing worked like crazy. When in doubt, count. Indeed. 

***Remember, we were in New Yawk City. You know, that accent.

Bob Pittman: “...being bold; getting attention; and dominating the airwaves…” 

In addition to my time working with Dale Pon when he created ‘I Want My MTV’ for us in the very early days of MTV and when he helped me relaunch Six Flags Theme Parks, Dale was a lifelong friend and was my partner in building WNBC Radio in the late 70s.

We had completely rebuilt the programming and brought Don Imus back to WNBC from Cleveland, and Dale used the Imus return to help build the huge cume for the radio station and lead WNBC to its eventual position as number one.  WNBC went from an old, staid, second-rate New York radio station to the number one radio station through building the right  programming; Don Imus was the anchor and nighttime disc jockey Alan Beebe’s introduction of ‘WNNNNNBC’ gave the station its unique hooks. Dale took those  – and the rest is history.

Dale taught us all about having a clear and valued claim; being bold; getting attention; and dominating the airwaves with frequency.  Although he may not have won awards for his creativity, it worked time and time again and those of us who adopted his philosophies had that same kind of success in other businesses at other times.  But make no mistake about it – it was Dale’s influence that got us there.

Scott Webb: “...creativity was about problem solving and winning...” 

I got an internship working for Dale Pon two days a week at WNBC Radio during last 3 months of my senior year at Sarah Lawrence College. There were 3 other interns and mostly we made sure that content winners got their prizes and that all the promotions were administered properly. 

There were A LOT of contests and giveaways. 

I had never worked at a radio station before and I just assumed this level of promotion fervor was standard operating procedure. The station was based on the 2nd floor of 30 Rock and at the time it seemed glamorous. I was in line with David Letterman at the cafeteria and Saturday Night Life was rehearsing on the 8th floor and Tom Snyder was in the office down the hall. 

Dale’s office was the dead center of the office when you walked in the door. He ran the team like it was a barroom in the middle of a battlefield. He was loud and always barking out orders. It was stressful and fun. On the last day of our internship we were given T-Shirts that read “I survived Dale Pon”. I, for one, was afraid to put it on - for fear of what his reaction might be - but also because I didn’t want it to end. 

A few weeks later, after he abruptly fired one of his managers he hired me on the spot to join his battalion, er I mean, team. We went to work on the TV advertising campaign that would take WNBC from #2 to #1 in the NYC market. 

We put a call out for twins and cast dozens of twins to kiss Imus. Shooting that campaign was the first production I had ever been part of and it was fast and furious and Dale took me to almost every meeting and along the way from storyboarding with the cinematographer to instructing the animator to directing sound and even buying the air time. 

I didn’t know it but I was getting a master class in creative strategy that was all about winning. It was not just fun – it was a mission to transform what had been a shitty, demoralized loser of radio station to being totally made over into an unstoppable #1 radio station. 

When the dust settled WABC, formerly #1 gave up completely and changed their format from music to News and Talk. An outcome that blew me away at the time. I thought Dale would be happy at the utter defeat he delivered to his competitor but he hated that they never took the bait to respond to his challenge. He wanted a worthy adversary but he never got it. They ran.