Tribe Has Spoken – Bill O’Shaughnessy Must Stay

Albeit completely coincidental, the WVIP call letters of his New Rochelle, NY FM supply a succinct sagacious summary of a wonderfully warm, amazingly articulate and brilliant broadcaster: William’s (a) Very Inspiring Personality.

Indeed.

Palpable elegance emanates from and envelopes William O’Shaughnessy from his demeanor and way in which he comports himself to how he makes a first-time visitor feel like a lifelong comrade.

A more gracious gentleman you will not find.

Those privileged to spend time with the perfectly coiffed President & Editorial Director of Whitney Radio’s WVOX-AM & WVIP-FM are guaranteed to be regaled with classic radio nuggets spun in extraordinary style and vivid flair.

Queries on any subject produce at least a handful of vibrant recollections, all eloquently crafted by the classy O’Shaughnessy who frequently and delightfully refers to himself in the third person.

It’s Only Make Believe
Journey down Buffalo’s Delaware Avenue and you’ll encounter Canisius High School, the Jesuit-run alma mater of O’Shaughnessy and the late Tim Russert.

That’s where O’Shaughnessy first thought seriously about radio. “I loved [air personality] Fred Klestine who played jazz and big band music,” fondly recalls O’Shaughnessy whose poignant eulogy of Russert is flat out chilling. “I edited the school newspaper, wrote a music column and ran the dances.”

Employment as a Mt. Kisco bank teller was one of his first post-high school jobs although O’Shaughnessy candidly admits he wasn’t particularly adept at it. “I once gave someone $500 in change instead of $50 and had to get it back. He’d already spent most of it on beer and I only [recovered] about $30.00. Mt. Kisco didn’t have [its own] radio station and Martin Stone, a brilliant, charismatic television pioneer (Howdy Doody) started up a pristine jewel of one.”

Eighteen-year-old O’Shaughnessy earned $65 a week as AE of upstart WVIP which debuted October 27, 1957. “There was a GM and three salespeople,” he recounts. “We billed $130,000 the first year and, by sheer guile, I [was responsible for] $80,000. It was a wonderfully heady time with many young, attractive people buzzing around. Stone wrote a spectacular letter of recommendation [on my behalf] to John Van Buren Sullivan, the major domo of [NYC’s WNEW-AM which then] had a 26-share. Sullivan idolized Jack Kennedy and I was his Kenny O’Donnell – the doorkeeper.”

Contributing mightily to WNEW-AM’s luster was “The Make Believe Ballroom,” splendidly hosted by impeccable Radio Hall of Famer William B. Williams (Martin Block’s replacement in that role). “As I grew up, I was crazy about William B. Williams,” O’Shaughnessy explains. “He was a wonderful man. Sullivan always told me to stay out of the studio but one day I walked in and said [to Williams] `that’s a gorgeous song, Billy.’ The song was “You Are Too Beautiful”, an obscure Rogers and Hart ballad known only to musicians. When I inquired as to the lyric, William B. had some fun at my expense: ‘It goes like this, Mr. O’Shaughnessy: ‘You are too beautiful for one man alone… so I brought my brother!” He then opened the microphone and said he was trying to tutor and educate this ‘young man from Mt. Kisco’. The fabled WNEW-AM which Variety called ‘the best sound coming out of radio in America today’ [the early 60’s] had 24 [newswire] machines; five maroon Chrysler mobile units with red leather seats were parked outside.”

On The Dot
The Army drafted 21-year-old O’Shaughnessy during the Cuban Missile Crisis and as he deadpans, “My whole time was served overseas - in Staten Island. I got home every weekend and had the three best jobs: I was the post commander’s driver; editor of the command newspaper; and tended bar in the officer’s club. I think I learned more editing that paper than anything else I’ve done.”

Most bemoan the current economic climate, yet O’Shaughnessy remains upbeat because he maintains, “Radio is a foul-weather friend. Our business always goes up in downturns. It’s easy to get [an advertiser] on the air. I can get [a client] on in 20 minutes. You can’t do that with newspapers or television. The more local a station, the easier it is to get through a downturn.”

Intellectual loquaciousness is O’Shaughnessy’s stock-and-trade and his three ample books, “AirWaves” (1999, 391 pages), “It All Comes Back To Me Now” (2001, 637 pages) and “More Riffs, Rants And Raves” (2004, 781 pages) are perfect representations even though the author confesses he still doesn’t know how to punctuate. “I write in dots and dashes. Fordham University Press, the great Jesuit publishing house in the city of New York, has put its imprimatur on my three books. When I turned in my last manuscript, they hit one key and wiped out 10,420 dots and replaced them with [appropriate] commas and exclamation points! We invited 125 people to my last New York book party at Le Cirque and 300 showed up. [Walter] Cronkite, Liz Smith and a few others crashed it but they were very welcome.”

Few will find a more advanced wordsmith than this dedicated professional who’s lectured at 20 universities yet O’Shaughnessy never attended one day of college. “I guess I’m self-taught,” the Broadcasters Foundation of America board director and Chairman of its Endowment Committee downplays. “It doesn’t come easy. I struggle with it and learned by reading Jack Kennedy. You had to be powerfully affected by [the late President’s] use of language. [In addition], I idolized Jimmy Cannon, Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill. They wrote with strong muscular sentences and then I discovered [William] Saroyan and the great Cuomo.”

Supreme Courting
Utmost reverence is reserved for O’Shaughnessy’s greatest mentor, former New York Governor Mario Cuomo. “The Boston Globe called him the great philosopher/statesman of the American nation. I’m in the heart of the Eastern Establishment where [another former New York Governor] Nelson Rockefeller was such a dazzling figure. All the young men of my day were Kennedy Democrats [while] I’m a self-styled Rockefeller Republican – But I’ve not encountered anyone quite as gifted as Mario Cuomo.”

To infer O’Shaughnessy isn’t much of a president-picker would be putting it mildly considering Rockefeller and Cuomo are the two individuals he’s championed to take up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. “Whenever Cuomo’s on a riff, I tell him he’s wasting it on my meager brain. He’s sure of my love for him. I’ve been asked [countless] times why Mario didn’t make it and I still don’t know how to answer it. Everyone else in politics tries to push themselves [whereas] Mario always tries to restrain himself. He is the brightest and most decent man I’ve ever met.”

Vacationing at Lyford Cay in the Bahamas (with his fetching wife Nancy), O’Shaughnessy received a call from Cuomo asking for feedback about a possible Supreme Court nomination. “Some [of his family members] wanted him to [pursue it] but he tried being glib by saying he’d never have to wear underwear in that job,” O’Shaughnessy recalls. “He knew why he was reaching out to me and exactly what I’d say. He would’ve been appointed by Bill Clinton and I don’t like what Clinton `giveth.’ He told me I was impossible and hung up. Mario tells people he wants to crap out of this life sliding into home with an inside-the-park home run. I merely want to be his third-base coach [waving him in].”

Virtually any conversation with O’Shaughnessy is also bound to have liberal and lavish praises for former NY Senators Jacob Javits and Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

That in combination with bon mots for John F. Kennedy, Cuomo and Rockefeller lead one to wonder if O’Shaughnessy ever held political aspirations of his own. “I had an opportunity when I was 29,” he explains. “They were looking for a guy to run against [Richard Ottinger] the heir to the U.S. Plywood fortune. I lived in Bronxville and said I couldn’t do it because I was raising a young family and needed to apply myself to what I knew [and know] which [is] broadcasting.”

Very Important Calls
One facet of the medium in which O’Shaughnessy especially excels is the art of the interview. “You have to be interested in people and listen,” he counsels. “You must get out of yourself and be interested in the person you’re talking to. Ossie Davis called me one day to say what I did with [AP correspondent] Terry Anderson [who was taken hostage in Lebanon in 1985] was fabulous because I didn’t try to fill in the spaces. It never occurred to me [but] Ossie approvingly said I’m not afraid of the silence. When I do interviews, I don’t let [guests] talk about anything they know or what they do for a living.”

Consolidation hadn’t quite kicked in when O’Shaughnessy founded NYMRAD New York Market Radio - and as he colorfully explains, “We needed to draw the wagons in a circle. Even then [radio people] started talking `business-speak,’ using expressions like `getting it done,’ `doing what it takes,’ `make it happen,’ `the whole nine yards’ and `24/7.’ I think these phrases are more dangerous than George Carlin’s Seven Dirty Words. I’m the permitee of practically the last locally-owned/locally-operated independent stations in the New York area. [The others] have all fallen to speculators and absentee owners and are being run by market managers who spend all day in airport lounges on their BlackBerry or PalmPilot. They are beholden to corporate masters a whole continent away. I saw this coming many years ago.”

Wall space in his office and conference room has now been exhausted to accommodate the numerous plaques, encomiums and awards “America’s Great Community Stations” WVOX and WVIP continue to accumulate. “On High Holy Days, we don’t do anything except go right to Temple Israel, the largest and most influential Jewish congregation,” explains O’Shaughnessy, a past President of the New York State Broadcasters Association. “We don’t play music or commercials.”

Conversely, three weekly Muslim programs are aired and O’Shaughnessy explains “that bright idea” eventuated about three days after 9-11. “Some people like it and some don’t. Broadcasters can be provocateurs and use their genius to encourage dialogue and build up communities. I’d like to keep these stations in the service of the people for as long as we can. WVOX does that for the `townies,’ which is what people with community roots [call themselves]; WVIP does it for the new, emerging people without a voice. Our FM used to be WRTN and I was so delighted to get back the WVIP calls [quite familiar to him, of course, from Mt. Kisco].”

Localism of which he speaks is quite a contrast to satellite radio although O’Shaughnessy stresses Sirius XM Radio CEO Mel Karmazin is “a good guy. He is very generous to the Broadcasters Foundation of America. I once woke Mel up at 3am [when he was head of Infinity Broadcasting] to let him know I couldn’t stop the NAB Board votes from censuring Howard [Stern]. When he asked what he should do, I gave him [then NAB President] Eddie Fritts’ number and [recommended that Mel] tell him he would pull his stations [from the NAB]. I said it was his only shot.”

Votes magically began appearing the next morning not to censure Stern. “That’s why Howard has always [been kind to me] and calls me `the white-haired mogul from Westchester.’ When XM wired up Westchester, I got calls from zoning board chairmen who asked about people wanting to put repeaters on rooftops. I was a little late to the game on this. I served on the NAB board – on and off – for 18 years. When there’s a First Amendment thing, I am on the floor but I’m out walking to the beach when there are technical [issues]. They bamboozled many people with their fly-by-night stealth tactics. As best I could, I alerted the NAB five years ago to get off its ass and get into this thing. The NAB is paying too much attention to structural stuff and not training its fire on incursions against content by government regulators.”

Hip Decision
Specifically regarding the First Amendment, O’Shaughnessy was noticeably upset about the outcome of the April 2007 Don Imus/Rutgers University women’s basketball team controversy. “It was not Mr. [Les] Moonves’ finest hour [nor was] it [MSNBC’s] finest hour. Corporate acquiescence in the face of intimidation or coercion is every bit as dangerous as censorship by government fiat or decree.”

Given that he and the lovely Nancy dine out five or six nights a week, there are moments when O’Shaughnessy entertains thoughts of operating his own restaurant. “We love the dynamics of it,” he states. “You try to find out where God wants you to be in life. I was told a person should change careers every four years [but] that’s a [suggestion] I never took.”

An obligatory Mario Cuomo section will grace O’Shaughnessy’s fourth book “Again: Run that By Me One More Time,” currently being readied by the charismatic author who had hip replacement surgery last winter. “I happened to choose an Italian doctor over a Jewish one,” the NAB’s former Public Affairs Chairman points out. “Cuomo called to say I was the dumbest guy he knows. Anyone who picks the Italian over a Jew has to be crazy [but] my brilliant doctor – Paul Pellicci - also [operated] on Oscar de la Renta and all the Saudi princes. He has an international reputation and the most beautiful hands I’ve ever seen.”

Variety Of Voices
Every day in his life is different but never what one could call dull. “Some issues are relentless and never go away [but most others] ebb and flow,” opines O’Shaughnessy who relaxes by walking around Manhattan, swimming in his pool at his place in the country and looking at pictures of his five grandchildren. “My portfolio as a community broadcaster has enabled me to see, witness, experience and feel so many things. Our little 500-watt WVOX has also enabled me to preside over many black-tie charity dinners in the grand ballroom of the mighty Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Captains and waiters love me as an emcee because I get them home on time.”

Being an author or journalist is tempting but in the final analysis, O’Shaughnessy (correctly) sees himself as a broadcaster. “When you hit certain [age] milestones, you begin to wonder if you’ve had an impact on your tribe,” he reflects. “People kid me about calling broadcasters my tribe. I’ve been preaching the same damn thing for what seems like forever. I wouldn’t call [radio] our industry [it’s our] profession. Radio achieves its highest calling when it resembles a platform and a forum for the expression of many different viewpoints. My job is to keep that podium from being wobbly. I’m in love with the notion: where many different voices are heard in the land.”

Late Greater Media executive Peter Bordes once jabbed Whitney Radio’s head honcho by noting that although they started their enterprises at about the same time he had 23 stations to O’Shaughnessy’s two, leading the latter to cleverly and rhetorically retort, “How many more do I really need to get a better table at 21?”

WHO: Bill O’Shaughnessy
WHAT: President/CEO/Editorial Director
WHERE: Whitney Radio

by Mike Kinosian
Mike@InsideRadio.com

WVOX
1 Broadcast Forum
New Rochelle, NY 10801
Phone: 914-636-1460
Fax: 914-636-2900
e-mail: don@wvox.com