Letter to 106.1 WRDU Listeners

I am amazed at the response from my former WRDU listeners. Unbelievable! The kind words of support are deeply appreciated. I've been an "on air" Program Director for most of my career and watched radio shows and personalities come and go. The public reaction for canceling a weekend syndicated show is rarely more than few phone calls. When air personalities are taken off the air, Program Directors often expect friends of the cancelled personality to organize letter campaigns, so the result all too often is to ignore the audience response entirely.

The response to the cancellation of my show on WRDU is frankly amazing. The detail and time spent in writing these letters have touched me beyond words. The volume of mail is more than I've seen in 20 years. Frankly, I'm not sure if it matters to WRDU or not, but reading this email has confirmed what I've already known for two decades, my listeners are the best in the world.

Many have asked us to put the contact information for WRDU on my website. We haven't posted email addresses and phone numbers on our web site because we didn't want be accused of organizing a letter campaign. Again, going back to the Program Director analogy I mentioned above, it means a whole lot more when it happens naturally.

Since WRDU was kind enough to include a link to our website in their written response to listeners, we return the gesture by including this contact link to WRDU. http://www.1061rdu.com/staff_directory.html

For those of you who missed it, the article that appeared on "The Allan Handelman Show" website last week regarding the WRDU cancellation is reprinted below.

Allan

After 12 years carrying "The Allan Handelman Show," WRDU 106.1 FM has decided to cancel.

It's tough to lose an affiliate for any reason. However there are several reasons that make this particular loss even more disappointing. Fortunately, we seldom lose an affiliate and when it does happen it's usually because a station changes format. That's just part of the business of radio. No problem. But this is a different situation because of Allan's history in Raleigh, which he considers the home of his show, and also the reason for the cancellation.

Handelman and Raleigh Radio History.

Before moving the show to WRDU in the early 90's, Allan Sunday night show was heard on WZZU-FM. During the early 80's Allan served Raleigh Rock listeners when his show "East Coast Live" was heard on WQDR FM, The Triangle's premier AOR Rock Station. In addition, while working for WQDR he did another hit talk show for WPTF 680 AM called "Open Line."

Before syndication and the current boom in talk radio, Allan's creative motivation came from those very special listeners from that part of North Carolina. They were a huge audience of intuitive, open-minded people who nurtured Allan's radio experiment and wanted more than just music.

FM Talk? Talk on a Rock station?

The audience response gave Allan the inspiration to create one of the most imitated and copied talk shows out there today.

Allan was the first to mix the once taboo subjects of the paranormal, UFO's, sex, drugs and Rock 'n' Roll. Listener response allowed Allan to bring in the biggest names in entertainment to local radio. Jay Leno, AC/DC, David Letterman, Frank Zappa, U2, and the list goes on. And remember, this was local North Carolina radio, not a major market like New York (Allan's home town). It was that special vibe that motivated Allan to get guests that were almost impossible to get and who seldom, if ever, did talk shows.

Today lots of radio people interview celebrities and talk about the paranormal. Back then however, shows like these didn't exist. It was that perfect combination of creative radio station managers at that time and enthusiastic listeners that gave Allan the creative freedom to do things that had never been done on the radio before.

We still have good friends at the station and appreciate the long relationship we had with WRDU. The decision was made by someone relatively new to the Raleigh market, so it's not fair blame the entire staff of WRDU. We are extremely proud of the many years on this radio station.

To email Allan: ahshow@vnet.net

We are sure going to miss our WRDU listeners.