Goodbye Dear Friend

(By Deborah Parenti) I doubt many of you ever knew or heard of Alan Gray but he is another broadcaster we have lost.

He left the radio industry a number of years ago but stood, in his time, as an incredible professional with enormous vision. After leaving a successful management career and having sold a couple of stations he built from the ground up, Alan went on to develop a programming platform, revolutionary at the time, merging off sight music programming with real time inserts that could handle requests and local information.

At one point in the early 2000’s, Alan and I tried to venture into ownership. The idea was to cluster stations in a broad geographic area that may have been left behind by the major groups but could be synergistically operated from a central location for sales, accounting, and some programming aspects. Sound familiar? Today, yes, but at the time, too new and unproven for most investors.

In short, Alan Gray was a pioneer. One of legions who never see or seek the limelight but make their mark on the industry and those whose career paths they cross, such as mine.

I owe a lot of my career to Alan Gray. Having stepped off the track for a time to raise my children, I was drawn back by him, grabbing my wrist from across his desk one day, reminding me that ‘’’broadcasting is in your veins.’’ No doubt true but never would I have fashioned it to be as a business manager. With his encouragement (and cajoling), however, along with a willingness to allow for some remote work flexibility long before a pandemic would almost mandate such, I learned to balance an operating statement and so much more that would serve me as a general manager in subsequent years .

Later, it was his challenge that after 17 years in the business, I still had never sold that dared me to earn my stripes in that area as well. And in spite of his then second-thoughts over whether I could master the art. Over the years, we battled, we nudged and needled, but when the chips were down, we knew who we wanted on our side. And when I returned from Louisville to manage the Dayton station he had earlier launched for Stoner Broadcasting, there was no stronger ally or cheerleader as I took the reins.

If you have never been so fortunate as to have had an ‘’’Alan’’ in your career life, you are a rare bird. But if you have, this might be the time to look them up and thank them because we never know what tomorrow may bring.

Deborah Parenti is the Publisher of Radio Ink Magazine and can be reached by e-mail at [email protected]

Photo: Alan Gray at the launch of “Magic 104” WYMJ, Dayton