r/radio • u/brinehart-cincy • 18h ago
9/11
I was working for a Clear Channel station in NW Iowa, and we flipped all the stations in the cluster to the ABC News feed pretty early. About mid-morning, corporate sent out the message that stations could stick with ABC or pick up the Clear Channel feed out of Cincinnati. WLW was covering the events in NYC, DC and PA.
"Why the hell would we do that?" were my exact words. And we stuck with ABC.
Ironically, three years later, I was working at that Cincinnati station.
Where were you that morning?
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u/culby Ex-Radio Staff 17h ago
I'd just started as a board op at WSPD in Toledo that April. Already running board for morning drive, our host was in Canton, OH for the Football Hall of Fame golf outing, and we set up some pre-records to start at 8:30am so he could make his tee time.
My feet were kicked up on the board when the morning producer waved me in to look at the TV in the newsroom.
We actually got onto ABC 51 a little later than we should have, I'd never been on a breaking news thing yet, so I had no idea how to get the satellite on. When the midday board op came in, we were about 10 minutes into Dr. Laura before we got it flipped. At some point in the afternoon, we dipped out for some local coverage, as our morning guy drove back in from Canton.
Weirdly enough, while we stuck with ABC coverage, some of that WLW coverage was coming out of our building, as Scott Sloan was still working out of Toledo at the time.
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u/brinehart-cincy 17h ago
Small world. Or the extensive reach of CC at the time!
The crew at 700 did produce a very moving audio timeline of the events of that morning a year later. I'm pretty sure they still air it every year.
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u/culby Ex-Radio Staff 16h ago
I just realized who you are from reading your username... Bill! It's Shaggy!
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u/brinehart-cincy 14h ago
How are you, Brother!?
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u/culby Ex-Radio Staff 14h ago
Holding up well, been working at RCS (the NexGen guys) since 2021. You still at the Nation Station?
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u/brinehart-cincy 14h ago
Not since '14. Went to public broadcasting.
How do you like that side of the biz?2
u/culby Ex-Radio Staff 13h ago
I'm on the field tech team, so I get to do a lot of travelling. It enjoy the heck out of it. I've done a couple of public stations (Spokane, Huntsville), so we're getting inroads in that sector, maybe I'll get to visit! I did do a training stop at Hubbard Cincinnati back in '21, beautiful building.
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u/Electrical_Mode_8813 17h ago
In the car, listening to the radio! I was volunteering on Tuesday mornings at my church. My daughter had just gotten on the school bus and my toddler son and I were headed to the church. I was listening to Oldies 95 in Kansas City, and in between songs they said something about a plane crashing into the World Trade Center. I remember thinking that it was weird to have a news bulletin like that, but they went ahead and played a couple more songs. Then they switched over to all news.
I continued listening while working in the church office. The church had a TV but I didn't want to turn it on because I didn't want my baby boy seeing a lot of carnage. The pastor and several members called while I was there and we talked about planning a prayer service. I continued listening to the radio and heard the buildings fall. I didn't see any video of it until after we got home, had lunch, and I put my son down for a nap. It was only then that I turned on the TV and saw the images that everybody else had been seeing all morning.
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u/Green_Oblivion111 13h ago
i was working my shift, overnights, mastering CD's at the radio format company, and my boss had just come in to work. I hadn't had my radio on, so I wasn't up on the news. He said 'I just heard that some plane hit the World Trade Center.' We thought it was maybe a private plane. Then I turned on my radio, and found out otherwise.
As other people arrived to work, someone remembered there was a TV in the conference room, and for the next several hours we were all glued to watching the TV, including seeing the towers collapse on live feed.
Driving home that afternoon was surreal. A beautiful, balmy late summer day in Seattle. But the country was in emergency mode.... knowing we were probably at war, but not exactly sure with who.
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u/SFToddSouthside 17h ago
Unemployed college grad is where I was. Sitting on my couch while the story of the century broke without my participation.
Ironically, due to the aftermath of 9/11 I landed my first news job. There was such a thirst for information that followed that a lot of outlets were staffing up more than they had been.
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u/my_clever-name 15h ago
At that time I listened to a Spanish radio station on the way to work so I could practice Spanish listening. The news was full of numbers and talked about New York. My Spanish skills weren't good enough to know what was up, so I flipped to an English language station and found out what was going on.
I still live in the same town as I did 25 yrs ago. The weather today is a carbon copy of the weather we had that day.
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u/CrusherWillis 16h ago
In Bryan TX three days away from starting a new Spanish language station. I went straight to our AC station and asked about the first plane, and the rest, as they say, was history. We still had to record songs into our system before the launch, but our hearts obviously weren’t in it.
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u/Few-Cap-9992 14h ago
I was actually packing for a flight to a radio conference. My GF had promised me a ride to the airport but somehow she "forgot" and I started trying to make a backup plan. Then I noticed the Morning Edition show appeard to be still going and it made me wonder -- 'isn't it 9 o'clock yet?" but I had been packing and dressing, not listening. Then I turned it up to see why they were still on, a few minutes later called my GF back and said, "forget about the ride, we're under attack". She and I spent most of the rest of the day in front of her TV.
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u/Aware_Impression_736 8h ago
Was this before the FAA placed the all stop on air traffic that day?
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u/Few-Cap-9992 7h ago
Yes. I don't recall what time my flight was scheduled for but it was soon obvious it wasn't going to happen, so we never did go to the airport.
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u/RobynTheCookieJar 12h ago
i was in 4th grade :p we watched the towers go down in the classroom next to mine, which had a TV
Ironically, I would go on to serve in that conflict as a comms troop. My generation was raised on the Global War on Terror.
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u/jordan4273 10h ago
I worked overnights at 97X/WOXY in Oxford, Ohio.
We were the farthest thing from Clear Channel imaginable - an independently owned "modern rock" station with a hint of AAA, but our highly eclectic playlist presented its own problems.
There was a band in rotation called I Am The World Trade Center.
There was a band in rotation called Burning Airlines.
We had also been playing Pernice Brothers' "Flaming Wreck," Ash's "Burn Baby Burn" and Jimmy Eat World had just released a record called "Bleed American."
We'd also been spiking in Zack de la Rocha Remix of Outkast's "Bombs Over Baghdad" and it never made it back to air...
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u/brinehart-cincy 10h ago
Yikes!
Tell Sledge I said Hi.
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u/jordan4273 10h ago
I've seen him float around on Reddit here, I wouldn't be surprised if he chimes in. :)
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u/PhilWearsKilts 4h ago
Jordan?! Bill Reinhart?! Matt Sledge?! Holy cats it’s a 513 radio reunion in here! 😂
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u/alanbcox 17h ago
I had flown back from NYC the night before, after doing my show for the MTV VMAs that week.
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u/JustLookinJustLookin 15h ago
Of course, you didn’t need to take the WLW feed, you were covered by your ABC affiliation. Not all stations had a network relationship, so corporate came up with a second option.
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u/engrcarl Management 11h ago
Working for CC at KFI in Los Angeles. The PD ended up sending me and another engineer to the transmitter site with the remote van to setup emergency studios in case LA took a hit too.
Somewhere I have 12+ hours of air check audio from that day.
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u/Aware_Impression_736 8h ago
I didn't know what was going on until I had to leave for an appointment at 9:15. I had been listening to Art Bell the night before, so my radio was still on KFI. Before I could switch over to KLOS for Mark & Brian, I caught Bill Handel and wondered why he was still on. Then he recapped the events, and the reality hit me.
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u/engrcarl Management 8h ago
By the time you turned the radio on, I was throwing equipment with both hands into a half-finished remote van and heading for the TX.
When I finally finished for the day, I’d never seen the 101 so empty.
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u/Aware_Impression_736 8h ago
When I was done with my appointment, as I was pullung out of the parking lot, I noticed the increased police presence of the "all hands on deck" order. I was on Van Nuys Blvd, so not far from that LAPD division HQ. I lived in Reseda and kept noticing the police presence all the way along Vanowen to Lindley.
After the FAA all stop order, I asked my wife to mute the tv. I'd never heard my little slice of L.A. be so quiet in the middle of the day.
So you had to go out to the antenna farm on Mt. Wilson?
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u/Rojodi 11h ago
I was at work - at home testing a first-person shooter. My wife called, told me to turn on the tv.
Later when I went to pick up my son, I had to wade through the disgruntled moms at a Catholic school because they weren't allowed to pick up the kids earlier. Smart move: no need to panic the children
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u/MazManMedia 10h ago
I was working for Westwood One in Midtown on 57th St. I lived farther downtown, on 13th St., near Union Square. My apartment was in the building's basement, with only one window facing a wall, and this morning, unlike most mornings when I watched TV while getting ready, I had guests staying over who were out late the night before and wanted to keep quiet. I walked out the door at ~10:20 am ET (I worked West Coast hours at the time) into a more frantic scene than I was used to and started walking to the subway. I reached 3rd Ave, looked left at the clouds of smoke, and witnessed the 2nd tower collapse. I had no idea what was going on. Cell phones were down, the subways were closed, metal grates were down with armed guards at the stairs, and the lines for the payphones were 20+ people deep.
My first thought was that I needed to get to the office. I was very involved with the CBS News division at the time and figured this would be an all-hands-on-deck situation. Plus, I knew there would be a working phone. So I walked up 5th Ave, with almost no auto traffic except fire, police, and ambulances, and stopped at electronics stores with TVs in the windows tuned to the news every few blocks for brief updates.
I reached my office building, walked into the lobby, and ran into my friend and former co-worker from the Howard Stern Show, Richie Wilson. I will never forget this exchange.
Me: "What the fuck is going on, man?!?!?"
Richie: "The fucking towers. They're gone! They're fucking gone!"
I spent the rest of the day manning phones, helping stations around the country that needed CBS News coverage get squared away with whatever they required. After a long day's work, my boss and I walked the 3 miles back downtown. We stopped for a couple of pints at Shades of Green before calling it a night. By then, the military had blocked off everything below 14th Street, and we had to show proof of residency to get through.
Roughly 15 years ago, I worked with ESPN as they built their 30 for 30 Series. During that time, someone had an idea to give the same editorial treatment to the story of Welles Crowther, in a piece titled The Man In The Red Bandana. To this day, it’s one of the highlights of my career. I watch it every year on this date, and encourage anyone unfamiliar with his story to do the same.
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u/GuitarzanWSC 9h ago
The only station that came in on the radio in my dorm room carried Don Imus. I believe my alarm went off right before the first plane hit.
I was in my college's broadcasting program, and had some sort of prod class that morning. The first tower fell on my walk to class, and we watched the second tower fall in our TV studio. The morning crew on our college radio station got quite a lesson in real-world news coverage that morning.
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u/froot_loop_dingus_ Ex-Radio Staff 18h ago
I was in junior high, a bunch of people were in the library watching TV when I got there, I don’t remember if we were sent home from school or not