This year commemorates the 70th anniversary of when Beaver County’s first radio station, WBVP, was heard over the airwaves for the the first time on May 25, 1948.  To mark the historical event, each week, another “70th Anniversary Moment” will be showcased on the airwaves and published on the station’s online feeds.

In 1954, a group of eight people that made up Miners Broadcasting Service, Inc., headquartered in  Pottsville, PA,  purchased a ten acre plot of ground on a hill  in Bell Acres that would eventually become the tower site for WMBA.  Miners Broadcasting Service was already operating WPAM in Pottsville, which came on the air in 1946.  The Angst brothers,  John “Bud” Angst, and Roy “Mickey” Angst were both involved with the operation at WPAM out east as talented talk show hosts.  Both men loved politics and Bud even served as a Commissioner in Carbon County  at one point in time.  Roy was sent out west in 1957 along with Managing Partner, Ken McGuire, to help get their new radio station in Ambridge,  WMBA,  on the air.  Roy also served as WMBA’s first General Manager.

One of the things that Roy brought over from WPAM was the concept of the local call in talk show.  In the early era of WMBA, Roy hosted a show called “Air Your Opinion”, that continued to air on the station for decades, later on hosted by Nick DeSantis, Barb Trehar and Rick Bergman, among others.  Roy’s interest in politics was an asset to the on air conversation and most of the time, he was able to blend in his opinion on local issues quite successfully.   His staunch opposition to and almost daily disputes over policy, procedures, issues in town, or really, almost anything,  with then Ambridge Mayor, Walter Panek, made for very entertaining programming.  So heated were their feuds that on more than one occasion, Angst found himself in a courtroom having to answer to charges filed by Panek, one such case going all the way to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court before being dismissed in 1962.

Roy Angst continued to work for WMBA until 1972, after which he moved back east.

Former competitors, WMBA and WBVP, began simulcasting programming in 2000, when the owner of WBVP at the time, Iorio Broadcasting, Inc., bought WMBA from Donn Communications.

“70th Anniversary Moments” is presented by Freedom United Federal Credit Union and Rochester Manor and Villa.  Archived editions can be viewed on the 70th Anniversary Moments page.

This year commemorates the 70th anniversary of when Beaver County’s first radio station, WBVP, was heard over the airwaves for the the first time on May 25, 1948.  To mark the historical event, each week, another “70th Anniversary Moment” will be showcased on the airwaves and published on the station’s online feeds.

They say that one of the most important time slots to be on the air in the radio business is the early morning, or as it has become to be known, “Morning Drive”.  Important because this was the time when many people are in their cars and on their way to work and thus the ability for a radio station to reach a large audience is probably at it’s highest point of the day. Couple that with being the first ever “Morning Man” when a station first started broadcasting, and one can see how important it was for the founders of WBVP in 1948, to make sure that they had the right guy for the job.  Arnold Felsher was just that person and very much up to task. The following segment about Arnold was taken from  the forthcoming book, “Behind The Microphone – The History Of Radio In Beaver County”, which will be published by Beaver County Radio in conjunction with the 70th anniversary of WBVP on May 25, 2018.

“The original 1948  lineup and broadcast day at WBVP, as has been said many times before, was an amazing collection of talented people.  Arnold Felsher started the day off with the morning show broadcast beginning at 6 A.M.  Felsher,  a New Brighton native, was one of the more flamboyant and popular announcers of that era at WBVP.   ‘ Arnie was a free spirit to put it mildly and would prove to be rather eccentric in his ways. On several occasions he would race downstairs before the 8 A.M. newscast and grab a child on his way to school and let him read the news on the air. Once he tried to call President Truman on the air and actually got thru to the White House switchboard.

On another occasion he put a fifteen-minute recorded transmission on the air and calmly strolled across the street to the General Brodhead Hotel to have a morning cup of coffee leaving the studio completely unattended. (Another staff announcer Chuck) Wilson would sputter and (Founding partner  and general manger) Mr (Frank) Smith could only shake his head in amazement at the unique blend of individuals he had brought together.’  wrote  Ken Britten about the first morning show host at WBVP.  The program was sponsored at least in part by local steelmaker Babcock and Wilcox.”

Owen Simon worked at WBVP in the early days, who also happened to have his tonsils removed as a twelve year old at Providence Hospital in that era, reminisced in 2017 about a popular radio station promotion from those early days.  According to Simon,  Arnold Felsher would deliver ice cream from Burns Drug Store in Beaver Falls to children at the local  hospital to help cheer them up.  Evidently Felsher left a positive impression on the young lad as Simon came to work at WBVP just a few years later as the first stop in a long successful career in the entertainment business.

“70th Anniversary Moments” is presented by Freedom United Federal Credit Union and Rochester Manor and Villa.  Archived editions can be viewed on the 70th Anniversary Moments page.