The Stepchild

"Everybody thinks of radio as NBC," complained talkative, high-strung Bernice Judis. "That's silly. CBS doesn't like it--and neither do we." She was speaking for her own station, Manhattan's successful 10,000-watt WNEW, and for the 734 other radio independents (nearly half of all U.S. stations) who felt that they had been treated as stepchildren by the network-dominated National Association of Broadcasters.

This week, at N.A.B.'s annual convention in Chicago, the independents got together for a meeting of their own--the first in radio history. "Tudie" Judis, one of radio's most remarkable personalities, was not there ("I hate conventions"). But she had planned the strategy and was pulling the wires. As her delegate she sent her program director, shrewd, 32-year-old Ted Cott. As chairman of the independents' committee, Cott promised that the unaffiliated stations would all "speak with one voice" in the shaping of industry policies. The whole industry, worried by TV's threat, by intramural talent raids, and by sharpening competition for the advertising dollar, would listen closely to WNEW's theories. In prestige, programming and income, WNEW is the No. 1 independent in the U.S.

Like a Crossword Puzzle. From its shocking-pink rate cards to its Mother Goose jingles on racial themes, WNEW reflects the breathless, bouncy personality of its manager, fortyish Tudie Judis. When Watchmaker Arde Bulova and Adman Milton Biow founded WNEW 15 years ago, Tudie was added to the staff as a $15-a-week afterthought. Today, earning more than $60,000 a year, she presides every morning at 9:15 over a highly paid and talented "coffee cabinet," which settles WNEW policy decisions without red tape and interoffice memos. "I love business," Tudie declares with a flutter of gestures and eyelids. "It's like a crossword puzzle. It's wonderful. And it pays so many rents." If tensions build up, she has a simple solution: "My throat swells. And I scream!"

She has plugged WNEW by lavish advertising, from full-page ads in the Times to broadsides on the backs of laundry slips. Tudie launched Dinah Shore and Frank Sinatra; she discovered Martin Block, New York City's first disc jockey. But, mostly, her listeners get a 24-hour-a-day drumfire of musical recordings, commercials and news. As Tudie says, one nice thing about tuning in on WNEW is "you can leave the room and, when you come back, you've missed nothing."

Whimsy & Logic. Her passion for music as entertainment's lowest common denominator extends to public service programs. Many of WNEW's awards have been won by plugging good causes with jingles and catchy tunes. "Lull them with music," says Tudie Judis, "and then nail them with something quick about the charity."

The networks profess to regard Tudie and WNEW as a gnatlike annoyance. "She runs the station more with whimsy than logic," grumbles a network executive. But her whimsy has brought WNEW an annual billing of nearly $3,000,000 and a commanding slice of the metropolitan audience. Tudie regards the networks as slow-witted pachyderms. "They can't create--they can only buy," she says. "The independent is the only one today who's doing anything new in radio." WNEW's newest idea is called "specialty programming." This means aiming programs on special subjects--stamp collecting, dog care, theater news, cooking for men--at particular groups. "If I can get them to listen once or twice, some of them will stay," she argues.

Television? Tudie Judis sees no immediate threat. "Right now, all TV performers' eyes look crossed," she explains with a that's-that air. But eventually, "specialization will be needed. And the networks will have to get their ideas from somewhere. It will be up to the independents to supply them."

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