Developing: Former Sheridan employees remain unpaid
June 14, 2022Several journalists formerly employed by the Pittsburgh-based Sheridan Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) and Sheridan Broadcasting Network (SBN) are speaking out against principal owners, Ronald Davenport, Sr. and Ronald Davenport, Jr. for refusing to pay back salaries and severances nearly five years after the company suspended radio operation..
The Davenports informed their remaining 11 employees of their decision to discontinue daily news and sports broadcasts to affiliate stations across the U.S. on August 29, 2017. Davenport, Jr. also informed the employees – all members of Screen Actors Guild/American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG/AFTRA) – they would not receive final paychecks or severance packages despite a long-standing union contract requiring such.
The union filed a civil action lawsuit on behalf of the affected full- and part-time employees for breach of contract. In October, 2019, a Pennsylvania District Court ruled in favor of the union awarding employees a combined $325,827..64 in unpaid wages, severances, unreimbursed expenses, as well as related damages from prior arbitration against the company.
An appeal by the Davenports to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals overruled the trial court when a 3-judge panel found the Davenports were not liable for the expenses. A spokesperson for the group of 11 former employees are not only angry with Sheridan Broadcasting but also the Pittsburgh-Ohio Chapter of SAG/AFTRA saying the union “was often negligent in its communication of proceedings in the case with its membership.”
Sheridan Broadcasting Corporation sold WAMO-AM (860 Millvale), WPGR-AM (1510 Monroeville), and WAMO-FM (106.7 Beaver Falls) for a combined $8 million in 2009 to St. Joseph’s Missions in Latrobe who have aired a Catholic Church format ever since. SBC discontinued their affiliation with American Urban Radio Networks in 2016 – about a year before discontinuing their news and sports divisions and the elimination of the positions above. SBC still owns WIGO-AM near Atlanta under the MCL/MCM Inc label as well as the Sheridan Gospel Network. SBC was the first black-owned broadcasting company starting in 1972.
Meanwhile the former employees are calling upon Block Communications, Mellon Private Asset Management, and other companies on whose boards the Davenports are associated, the urge the family to pay the 11, “out of a sense of common decency if nothing else.”
More as we hear it.
Source: Press release from Danielle Smith and Ty Miller
If memory serves me correctly, didn’t the Davenport’s have to sell WAMO-FM, (I’m talking about the original WAMO, which I believe was at 105.9), because they couldn’t pay the bills, and sold their crown jewel, in order to get the money? The original WAMO-FM was red-hot in the late 70’s and early 80’s. They were making a ton of money at that point. What happened?
You are correct sir! That was way back in 1996 when Secret Communications (then owner of WDVE) had just purchased WWKS in Beaver Falls. They, of course, wanted it to have a “downtown stick”. So they forked over $14 million to make the swap – seems awfully lofty for 1996! That turned out to be a great thing for Secret… who eventually got merged and sold right on up to iHeart. But it wasn’t a good thing for Sheridan who, frankly, got screwed. Not long after, when Bob Stevens bought WHJB-AM from Mel Goldberg, Sheridan was able to get the FM on 107.1 to simulcast 106.7. Still not the best thing in the world as 107.1 doesn’t exactly reach super well into Allegheny County. But that was, I guess, the best they could do with what they had unfortunately.
From the information I gather and from people that I knew. In April 96 they swapped frequencies with 106.7 without any warning to us loyal WAMO listeners. We turned on the radio in the morning and heard Howard stern. People called the station to wonder why theres rock music playing and they said that they switched frequencies to 106.7 without warning. There were liners on 105.9 telling WAMO listeners to go to 106.7. People approached WAMO DJs at club venues and told the DJs Why did they sell us out..Because most of their listeners were on the east side of Pittsburgh where the signal was moderate 3/5 or couldn’t get the station at all. That’s what a lot of people gave up on that station because they felt betrayed. Older WAMO listeners that were in their late 40s and up Started listening to smooth jazz 104.7 2 months after the WAMO switch and Some would listen to AM 860 or 1550 WCXJ (R&B and Talk). They gain some listeners from the 107.1 signal but it still didn’t cover the east part of Pittsburghs main listening base. When 1047 changed to Jammin oldies, older folks stopped Listening to WAMO. March 2002 1067 moved to Allegheny County area. Then sold off in 2009. The station was making money. Don’t let no one tell you that the station was sold because they were losing money and because of the PPM rating system. They never even gave the PPM a chance. They were invested in American urban radio networks. Nancy hughes that owns radio one still owns stations and never sold them because of PPM. Fast-forward to 2022. Sheridan broadcasting owns only one radio station and that’s on AM somewhere in Atlanta that no one listens too. They used to owned. Bottom line that company made a necessary changes to that radio station, on air personalities, producers, GM’s, shows and etc. They ran that station into the ground. And They Wanted to leave Pittsburgh. Every urban station in America benefited from disco and R&B in the 70s, 80s and 90s. Sheridan broadcasting sold out WAMO fans twice. 1996 and 2009. That’s why people don’t care about that station anymore because they burned too many bridges in the black community with their changes. The former DJs went to different cities and doing good in radio and some doing infomercials. The new owners of the new WAMO brand need to buy 106.7 or a FM I move the format on there so everybody in Pittsburgh can listen instead of a 250 signal. Peace! -Vic
The 1996 frequency swap predates PBRTV, of course. But as I recall, there was plenty of hubbub about it. Even as a student at that time, I still knew about it well before it happened. So I’m not completely buying the “without warning” argument. But I suspect if it was primarily WAMO listeners who were caught off guard, that would point back to Sheridan.
In regard to the current owners, Audacy (nee Entercom) does NOT own the current WAMO. It is still owned by Radio Power, Inc. Audacy has a license marketing agreement with Radio Power to program and operate the station. Could that change someday? Perhaps. Radio Power still owns W261AX which is the FM translator on 100.1 which carry’s KDKA-AM’s programming on FM.
I worked at “Classic WAMO” from 1981 until 1986. The Davenports were irreducible 40+ years ago, evidently some people never change. We’ve all had pimples we popped that we held in higher regard than either Davenport. When running the business into the ground didn’t work, driving WAMO into walls became the favored method of destruction. Once upon a time a GM announced that he’d be there long enough to see everyone’s head roll. A year later he was replaced by another Bozo.
The article did not mention anything on this so I had to Google it. But it appears that Sheridan Broadcasting filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy one week ago. I’ve lived this several times with employers who filed Chapter 11 while owing me money, so sad to say these employees are pretty much screwed. Wages owed receive the highest priority in bankruptcy proceedings but they are not untouchable. I one case an ex-employer actually told the court that they had paid me, which was patently untrue. But my recourse was to schedule a hearing at the Bankruptcy Court in New York City, travel there on my own dime, and then hope that if the case settled for pennies on the dollar at least that would cover my travel expenses. I chose not to pursue it further (which the company clearly knew would happen in most cases).
How they have gotten away with stiffarming these people for five years absent the bankruptcy filing is a mystery.
Where did you find the info of an SBC Bankruptcy from last week? The only one I can find is from 2016… https://www.inforuptcy.com/browse-filings/pennsylvania-western-bankruptcy-court/2:16-bk-20722/bankruptcy-case-sheridan-broadcasting-networks-inc
https://www.pbrtv.com/sheridan-files-chapter-11/
\”You sold it once, now sell it again!\”
It came as a shock when WAMO was sold in 1996, that was jaw-dropping news. They got 106.7 that had trouble reaching the city at the time, and had to answer for why WAMO\’s signal was weak at events around town. They apologized for the signal loss, saying they were going to build an even bigger network, with more stations to compensate.
I thought WAMO was still doing pretty well in 1996, ratings wise, and I agree, they were hot in the 1970s-80s, and I\’d see TV commercials for them at normal hours. The new rise of FM radio radio helped a lot, as well as the rise of disco/funk as a format and the major artists who were involved at that time, loads of talent and good sounding records and slick production, think Prince and his crew, Kool And The Gang, Rick James, Earth, Wind And Fire, Ray Parker Jr… It didn\’t help when disco fell hard, then the \’80s brought rap that turned into hip-hop, which went mainstream, diluting WAMO\’s exclusivity.
I loved WAMO 105.9 70s-early 80s, and was a big time listener then. I also remember how The X bought 106.7 after it had been WWKS Adult Contemporary, and when it tried heavy metal as The Force. Anyone remember that? The station\’s heavy metal DJ locked himself in the studios and demanded more metal get played on the air, and people had to send him food with a bucket on a rope! He prevailed, and the station became The Force.
I remember hearing The X when it was on 106.7 for a short time. I have an aircheck from someone who worked there, recorded off of the board in early 1996.
http://boomerthedog.com/WXDX%20106.7%20FM%20Pittsburgh%20Aircheck%201-13-96.mp2
100 megabytes. It probably won\’t play in your browser, so best to right click and Save As.. I\’ve shared that file privately, but this is the first I\’ve shared it on a public website.
Boomer
Hey Boomer, I agree with you about the WAMO stuff, late 70’s and early 80’s. I worked at the record store in Southland Shopping Center near Century III Mall, and we played WAMO in the store all the time, which helped us to sell records to many of the local bar DJ’s back then. Afternoon drive was Jackie Johnson… who “loved every record” she played. We used to mock her at the store, on how many times in an hour, she’d say, “I LIKE THAT RECORD”. LOL The song I remember them playing to death, was Double Dutch Bus by Frankie Smith. Great tune. I may have to dig it on and give a listen.
As for WWKS in Beaver Falls. Between their Adult Contemp days… and the Alternative days… they were doing CLASSIC HITS. I have an air-check of Cindy Gaich, who I was friends with back in the day, and I recorded her shift from my home. I do have it… somewhere on a hard drive. If I can find it, I’ll figure out a way to share it, without making the copyright Nazi’s crazy, even though the recording is scoped, they can still be anal. That was when they were using the KISS-FM moniker, before No-Heart grabbed it.
My bad. AllAccess had the story dated 6/8/2022 but when you read into the details this did indeed occur in 2016.
I remember Jackie Johnson very well, used to hear her on the bus while coming home from school. She had that smooth voice and always said “I like that record”, her catch phrase as you said, cool that someone remembers it!
In a way, Jackie got stuck saying that phrase, it was her signature, but every record couldn’t be her favorite after all, and I’m sure every listener noticed, but by then she couldn’t stop saying it.
I remember when Jackie got fired too, due to the every-so-often regime changes that WAMO had. They’d go to funk, and then switch to an adult format and try to be sophisticated instead of funky. WDUQ wanted to hire Jackie, but they were offering below her pay grade, and I guess she left town because I never heard her on the radio again. That might be a good story, find out what happened to Jackie Johnson.
I remember Double Dutch Bus for sure, my favorite song, and those changed every week or two. That was a hit because it was a new sound and a new dance, the Double Dutch. Frankie Smith also did another that sounded like Double Dutch, Teeny Bopper Lady, I guess his follow-up, and I caught WAMO playing it one time, it might have been Porky Chedwick who played it.
One time I heard Jackie play Cosmic Slop by Funkadelic, which even then was an oddity, but even more so looking back from now, a heavy funk rock song from 1973, played in drive time in the early 1980s!
It was Jackie Johnson then Del King at night, maybe John Anthony for nights, I can remember both, when I was supposed to be doing homework. There were the live broadcasts from the Heaven night club every week too around then. I hear Del King on WIXZ 950, and maybe on WBGN 1360, doing drops for them, it sounds like him.
With WWKS, I remember the Classic Hits too, at least I think so, the AC might have blended in. They were a good signal, like a local here on the hill in Greentree, and could be tuned in on any radio. I used to record when they played albums at midnight and have tapes of those, but I don’t think I have real airchecks, and it’s cool that you have that one from Cindy Gaich. Somewhere I have The Force on tape, like when it was new and I grabbed some.
Boomer
Hey Boomer, I have so many memories on Jackie Johnson. She was entertaining. I remember, one day, she was playing “Heartbeat” by Yarborough & Peoples. Now, she was playing the 12 inch single, which ran at 45 RPM. I know, because I have it. Well, she saw 12 inch size, and started playing at at 33 RPM. It went on for a full minute before she caught it, and changed the speed. We were dying laughing at the record store. It was just too funny. But yeah, I’ve wondered for years, whatever happened to her.
Another person you mentioned. Del King. A friend of mine, owns WIXZ 950 in Steubenville. It’s me that does his liners and ID’s he uses on the air, and yes, that is Del King that you hear on WIXZ 950 and WGBN 1360.
And lastly, since we’re talking about WAMO jocks of the 80’s, do you remember Master G from WAMO? He was hot around 1985, and I was spinning tunes at Steak & Surf on route 51 in Pleasant Hills at that time. They thought it would be great to have him come in and spin tunes. It was a dance club, and we DJ’s, needed to be good at beat mixing. Well, he wasn’t. He couldn’t put 2 beats together with super glue. He lasted about 3 months, and they let him go. Just because you are on the air, doesn’t mean you’re a good club jock, and visa-versa. Very few can do both.
We’re giving Eric a Moderation Workout, which is good, it might help with the cume for the site.. 🙂
Heartbeat, that was already slow, everything on West End Records was slow tempo, so that must have sounded like a real dirge on the air! I hope she had fun with the mistake when she came back on the mic.
I remember when Heartbeat was number one at WAMO, and it might have been Jackie Johnson who had singer (looked it up) Taana on for an interview, mentioning how the song was number one in the ‘burgh. Jackie had Roger Troutman from Zapp on live once, and he had his talk box in the studio, and he and Jackie were doing a little flirting, all the while Roger was talking in his signature harmonized robot style voice back to Jackie.
WIXZ, I’ve heard you then, the IDs with tympani roll, “.. The Ohio Valley’s place for musical memories.” If you do a show there, I might have heard it, I heard someone playing some surprising disco tracks last year. I was glad when Bob got that station, finally an owner. I met Bob at least once when he was exchanging some equipment with a friend, about 20 years ago, and we all hung out for a while. I think Bob’s doing a good job with the oldies, and keeping it independent.
I remember the Big G, that would be my morning commute to high school, I was the DJ for my bus.. 🙂 I could imagine that he couldn’t do beat mixing, radio studios weren’t set up for that either, so he would have never learned unless he’d been a club DJ.
At least you had a celebrity DJ of sorts. Maybe he should have taped some of his sets. Better yet, you could have hired Sly Jock, I loved his show on WAMO, late nights 1983 era, all that Detroit stuff that was like Kraftwerk coming back. I think Sly was a real beat mixer. His gimmick was that he didn’t talk on the air, just had promos, which was unusual for the time.
Boomer
Hey Boomer, you’ve got the wrong Heartbeat song. You’re talking about the one by Taana Gardner on West End. I was talking about the one by Yarbrough & Peoples, which was on Total Experience, which was sub-label for Mercury/PolyGram, (which is now Universal Music Group). And this one was on a 45 RPM 12 inch single. As for Jackie talking about it? Not a word. LOL After a minute, she must have realized, OOPS, and just abruptly changed the speed. Me and my co-worker, at the record store, were saying, “wake up Jackie, turn the monitors up”. I wondered, did someone call and ask, “do you know the record is at the wrong speed”? Ahhh, back in the days when radio was still full of surprises, before it got all sterile.
Now, on to WIXZ 950. Yep, that would be me with the timpani roll drum for the ID, and most of the liners used between songs, etc. Bob has been hounding me to do an air-shift, but my heart isn’t in it any longer. The last station that I worked at was WYAY-FM in Atlanta, owned, (at that time), by ABC/Disney. They managed to burn radio out of my soul. After working for ABC/Disney, I swore, I’d never step behind a mic again. As for music on Bob’s station, it’s all compliments of my many years of hard work and putting together my music hard drive. Many of the songs he plays are from the original 45 records, (from my library), and thanks to my wizardry with Adobe Audition, I make them sound as close to CD quality as I can. So many of the songs that are re-released on CD, are not the radio versions. “Freddie’s Dead” by Curtis Mayfield would be one of those. I didn’t realize this, until I slapped the 45 on my linear tracking turntable, and thought, hey… this is different. So I recorded it, uploaded it to Bob’s computer at WIXZ, and now he’s got the original radio mix.
As for Sly Jock? WOW, I had completely forgotten about him. He was really good at mixing. As for the decision of who got hired at the club, and who didn’t? That was management’s decision, and they usually never listened to anybody’s input. (Go figure). The club locked the doors permanently, Halloween night, 1986. I showed up for work, and the door was locked. No note, no nothing. I got a call from the owners the next day. They called and said, “were closed, come and get your stuff”. I’ve told many people over the years, being a DJ, whether it be in the clubs or in radio, has to be one of the most thankless jobs out there.
I listened to Yarbrough & People’s Heartbeats, but I barely remember it, just that the intro is familiar, right when the rhythm track starts, like the tape head was cued right on the sound and they left it like that for the effect! It’s an even more serious sounding track compared to their ‘Don’t Stop The Music’ hit. They went away from the funk into a little more ‘Cerrone’ on that one it seems to me.
WIXZ, tough to pick up here in the West End, I use an outdoor antenna and a good receiver. I like to hear Bob when he gets on live around lunch time. He’s so ‘down home’, just opens the mic, talking about things like his trash cans getting knocked down, great to hear in the days of automation. When Elton John’s version of Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds plays, you know it’s not the usual oldies station. Same with Curtis Mayfield, where others only play Super Fly, no one plays Freddie’s Dead.
You might be able to use technology and voice-tracking to DJ for Bob and send him mp3s, if anything it will keep your chops up on the air and on-mic. At least you have the IDs, think I’m still hearing Ron too.
I know radio can be a thankless job. This is what I just wrote to a radio friend:
“If you’re normal you have to do it because you like the art of radio, the tech and equipment, working with sound, you like music and bands, and both reflecting and influencing tastes, you like to talk and communicate, be in touch with your city, informing with news and opinion and be of public service.
Actually there’s a lot there, but big money? You have to then take it to the next level and be a high achiever with a national show, everything else is just playing around. I accept that.”
I’d add that the lowly DJ is still important, for what it’s worth, this discussion is proof of that, and the thousands who must remember Jackie Johnson and WAMO to this day.
I did a set of WAMO funk tracks after what we’ve been discussing.
http://boomerthedog.com/doggie-6-27-22-wamo-set.opus
Plays right in the browser, from my weekly show. Songs cut to keep music break length to 10-15 minutes. I could have tried to pre-mix it digitally. I’ll keep the file up for a short time.
Boomer