In an era when Don Geronimo and Mike O’Meara were making waves in Washington for their on-air antics at WAVA and, on a much tamer scale, Mark & Brian ruled Los Angeles Rock radio’s wake-up choices, Bob Mason and Bill Sheehan were perhaps right down the middle between crass and class.
From 1980 through the 1990s, Mason and Sheehan attracted scores of listeners from Saugerties to Saratoga Springs on WPYX-FM “PYX106” in Albany, and later on now-defunct WXCR-FM 102.3. Now, Capitaland is mourning the loss of Mason, who has died at the age of 72.
RBR+TVBR OBSERVATION: Our editor-in-chief remembers growing up with Mason and Sheehan up against Todd Pettingill.
Until the final months of Jimmy Carter’s presidency, Mason was the afternoon host on WFLY-FM “FLY 92,” then a brand-new rock-focused Top 40 station which had just launched in 1979.
One year later under Ted Utz, Beautiful Music WHSH was converted to WPYX. The late-September 1980 change proved to be highly successful — so much that Mason would leave WFLY to take on morning host duties.
“Bob tripled the morning ratings within a few months,” Utz told the Times Union. “Pretty soon, the station was far and away number one in everything.”
By 1981 WPYX had one of the biggest audience shares of any FM station in America.
Mason was paired alongside Cliff Nash twice during the 1980s. But it was his time with Bill Sheehan that most New York Capital District radio listeners recall. He was Mason’s longest-tenured co-host, and walked out with him 1991 over a pay dispute with WPYX that lasted 20 months. In March 1997, they jumped to the former WXCR-FM 102.3, which attempted to compete against PYX 106. Mason and Sheehan were dumped in August 1998.
That dismissal led the duo to file what was initially a whopping $50 million lawsuit against WPYX owner Clear Channel Communications and WXCR’s original owner, David Arcara’s Radio Enterprises, for allegedly plotting to inhibit show growth as The Howard Stern Show aired on Arcara’s WQBK & WQBJ, today a part of Townsquare Media.
In the view of Mason and his partner, luring them away from PYX 106 only to be fired before a sale of the station to Clear Channel was simply a ruse to block Stern from gaining a true competitor in morning drive.
That matter didn’t deter Mason from taking to the air at a fourth and final Albany-Schenectady-Troy FM: the former WRCZ-FM (today KLOVE member WYKV). Owned by Ed Levine’s Galaxy Communications, it attempted “Classic Rock that Really Rocks” with Mason in wake-ups from Halloween 2001. He would retire in June 2004.
While many have fond memories of Mason, he did have his share of controversy, as “shock jocks” are prone to attract. As reported by the Times Union, Mason, Sheehan, their show’s producer and PYX 106 in 1997 were sued for $800,000 by a Schenectady, N.Y., woman for intentional of infliction of emotional distress after they named her the Capital Region’s “ugliest bride.” The case ended with a confidential settlement in 2000.
RBR+TVBR OBSERVATION by Adam R Jacobson