Elvis and me - 1st time - NBC Radio Summer of 77

Elvis was is an iconic figure who seems to somehow enter each person's life throught the sheer magnitude of his impact on our culture. My brush with Elvis up until this point happened on two different days.

I was working at WYNY FM (NBC - 30 Rock) as a summer intern. It was August 16th, 1977. The summer was about to end for me and a new team of people let by a young 23 year old Bob Pittman from WMAQ (Chicago) which was transformed into a country music station were hired to run WNBC Am working to being a long term transformation of WNBC AM which had some of the top disc jockeys in the world such as Cousin Brucie (a legend in NY in the 1960's and 70's) and Imus. Down the hall I heard shreeks and screems from down the hall near the studio "Elvis Died, Elvis is Dead". I remember a young disc jockey named Ellie sobbing and crying.

I ran outside my office and toward the studio and people were embracing each other, consoling each other.

MTV Redux - New Networks

In 1981 a few of us ventured into the land of MTV, The Movie Channel, Nickelodeon as part of a company called Warner Amex Satellite Entertainment Company. Over the past year many of those executives who spent the last 25 years building that company and lauching shows such as Spongebob SquarePants, Rugrats and networks such as NickJr, NickatNite have recently left to form a new company called New Networks. The plan is to have 101 internet channels of special interest. Herb Scannell, former, President of Nickelodeon and Fred Seibert, former head of Hanna Barbera and CEO of Frederator.com have teamed up.

Herb Scannell and I worked closely together at the Movie Channel including teaming up on the Star Wars "Robot Giveaway". Fred was learning his way around creative areas of on air promotions. This New Network is going to an interesting laborator to watch.