In this week’s issue… “Nite Show” goes out in style – Remembering Erie’s McKay – Rhodes retires in Scranton, Russo in Buffalo – Islanders drop radio team
By SCOTT FYBUSH
*Did you know MAINE had its own statewide late-night talk show? As it prepares to go off the air in a few weeks, “The Nite Show” earned national attention last week when the audience at one of its final tapings in Bangor was stunned by the appearance of the show’s biggest guest ever.
Yep, that was David Letterman himself, needing no introduction as he walked on to the bare-bones talk show set at Husson University in Bangor to raucous applause.
“I still can’t believe it happened,” host Dan Cashman said after the taping. “When he came out, I got weak in the knees.”
As with most of us of a certain age, Cashman idolized Letterman growing up, but unlike most of us, Cashman actually made his late-night dreams come true, starting the “Nite Show” in 1997 while he was in college, running it on Bangor TV for five years, then reviving it in 2010 for its most recent five-year run.
And Bangor, as devout “Late Show” fans may remember, had a special place in Letterman history. Early on, it was reportedly the market with the lowest Letterman viewership in the country, prompting Dave to call random Bangor residents picked from the phone book and urge them, on the air, to start watching his show.
Might there have been a phone call or two from the “Nite Show” set? Nobody’s saying just yet, since the Letterman episode won’t air until May 10 on Cashman’s little network that includes WABI in Bangor, WGME/WPFO in Portland and WWPI in Presque Isle. After that, there’s one more “Nite Show” episode after that, which will run May 17.
“He was everything — charming, funny, silly, smart, and complimentary,” Cashman told WGME of Letterman’s brief visit, which lasted only a few hours before he flew back out of Bangor.
And if you don’t have your Tower Site Calendar, now’s the time!
If you’ve been waiting for the price to come down, it’s now 30 percent off!
This year’s cover is a beauty — the 100,000-watt transmitter of the Voice Of America in Marathon, right in the heart of the Florida Keys. Both the towers and the landscape are gorgeous.
And did you see? Tower Site of the Week is back, featuring this VOA site as it faces an uncertain future.
Other months feature some of our favorite images from years past, including some Canadian stations and several stations celebrating their centennials (buy the calendar to find out which ones!).
We still have a few of our own calendars left – as well as a handful of Radio Historian Calendars – and we are still shipping regularly.
The proceeds from the calendar help sustain the reporting that we do on the broadcast industry here at Fybush Media, so your purchases matter a lot to us here – and if that matters to you, now’s the time to show that support with an order of the Tower Site Calendar. (And we have the Broadcast Historian’s Calendar for 2025, too. Why not order both?)
Visit the Fybush Media Store and place your order now for the new calendar, get a great discount on previous calendars, and check out our selection of books and videos, too!
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In this week’s issue… WRGB's Bishop to retire - CT "tower" coming down - Remembering Robin Marshall
In this week's episode - It was a longer hiatus than we intended, but Top of the Tower is back with a new spring season of conversations with some of the most interesting people in radio. This week, we continue bringing...
In this week’s issue… Catsimatidis, Shula add signals - Radiodays rocks Toronto - Ex-Bell, Evanov stations rebrand By SCOTT FYBUSH Jump to: ME - NH - VT - MA - RI - CT - NY - NJ - PA -...
