Starter of this subject: Michael Fortner
Last post in this subject: 1/19/2002
Messages in this subject: 6
| Michael Fortner | 1/19/2002 6 replies |
| I think it's important for all of us to know that Radio Spirits is in a mess. I placed an order in December and when I called the customer service I found (after a lot of effort) that Radio Spirits has moved their warehouse and obtained a new customer service base. They are still taking orders by phone and have no idea when they will ship the order or even if they can anytime soon. They are downloading all their inventory to the new location (along with our orders) and its taking forever. The customer service people they have contracted with do not know what Radio Spirits sells or who they are. Beware--maybe they will get this right in time but right now their company is not able to serve anyone! Further, there is no mention of any problems with their ability to deliver services posted on their website. Don't waste your money right now. |
| Jim Stokes | 1/20/2002 0 replies |
| I won't by anything via internet. I like the face-to-face buying with someone in my very own city. The exception is B&H in New York City. I've bought a video camera and a tripod from them. |
| Lou Genco | 1/20/2002 2 replies |
|
Radio Spirits has gone through some changes over the last few months, adding yet another episode to what some OTR fans thought was a soap opera story depicting a turbulent period in the hobby.
The number of potential OTR fans escalated sharply after 1996, as net surfers found this site, and created more sites with OTR as the main theme. Prior to about 1998, OTR fans could purchase tapes from a few relatively large-sized dealers, and a plethora of "mom & pop" dealers (if they cound find them). The internet brought a potentially vast number of new fans and customers, and traditional OTR dealers took advantage of that potential at different rates and different methods. As many fans remember, 1998 was the year in which Adventures in Cassettes, Radio Yesteryear, and Radio Spirits were acquired by Audio Book Club, Inc., and merged into the newly formed Audio Book Club Radio Group. Audio Book Club announced that Carl Amari, founder of Radio Spirits, and David Goldin, founder of Radio Yesteryear, would continue to be active in the management of the businesses. Mr. Amari was named president of the Audio Book Club Radio Group and was nominated to serve as a Director of Audio Book Club, Inc. At that time, the well-respected and customer conscious Adventures in Cassette staff, who were previously employed by Metacom, Inc, in Minnesota, were released. The old-time radio ordering, sales and distribution activities were to be supported from the Radio Spirits location, in Schaumburg, Illinois. Mr Amari campaigned to make Radio Spirits THE source for old-time radio shows, both on and off the web. See http://www22.brinkster.com/paradio/pages1/epsmith.htm for a Los Angeles Times article depicting some of his activities. Audio Book Club is part of MediaBay. MediaBay stock prices fluctuated considerably last year, from a high of $1.56 to a low of $0.40. A couple of months ago, the OTR activities were moved from Illinois to one of the other MediaBay locations. The Radio Spirits office in Illinois transferred its responsibilities and inventory. Click on the link below to see the latest list of top MediaBay management. Note the absence of the name "Carl Amari". In light of the apparent confusion over OTR at MediaBay, Mr Amari's long-term interest in OTR, and his removal from MediaBay's management, one wonders if Mr Amari will resurface as CEO of another corporation involved with OTR. |
| Jim Stokes | 1/20/2002 1 replies |
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Thanks Lou for that nice backgrounder. Just a footnote, I'm from Minneapolis. And I recall when Metacom started a storefront OTR cassette business in the old Broadway section of Minneapolis back in the mid 60s. Dan Holmes had a hand in Metacom and also ran a recording studio upstairs from the storefront. The building itself was historical. The Metacom recording studio was the original WDGY Radio studio where famed DJ Herb Oscar Anderson got his "big city" start. Years later, that Minnesota native who was WDGY's early morning DJ went to WABC in New York City to become their "Morning Mayor." And, currently, if you're in New York during the week, you can tune in WCBS-FM to hear another famous alumnus of WDGY --"Dandy" Dan Daniels.
But back to the Metacom recording studio, which was in use long after WDGY had their studios there. The recording studio spawned at least one other national figure. Steve Rivkin, who was associated with the recording artist again known as Prince, got his start mixing bands at the Metacom studio. I made a nostalgia trip past the Metacom/WDGY building near Colfax and Broadway just last week. It's all boarded up, as are lots of buildings in that area in urban "non-renewal." Sad. |
| Shawn Wells | 1/23/2002 0 replies |
| This is another sad occurance. RS, having bought out AIC and RY, and now having financial problems, management problems, etc. If they end up going out of business, I wonder what will happen to all those collections.Each of those companies, I would imagine, spent years and a ton of cash building the collections, and now who knows what will happen to it. I suppose it will be sold off, pieces going everywhere, and it will take another person a massive amount of time, effort and money to track it back down again. I may not have been a big fan of two of the three I mentioned, RS and RY, but I do think that this may hurt our hobby in the end. |
| ed carr | 1/23/2002 1 replies |
| hi i fail to see why if it's true, and so far there is no really pert info that radio sprits has gone under, that this would hurt the hobby, those collections that they have were gotten from other collectors who got them from others and somewhere along the line from discs, broadcast tapes and so on, there are pure collectors that have what radio spirits have and twice as much, and in aound quality that rivals any of them. go on the internet and as soon as a program is released it's up for download, so no, they just have had better pr than anyone else, but why go on i am sure you get the idea. ed |
| Jim Stokes | 1/24/2002 0 replies |
| Radio Yesteryear had all or nearly all the "Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar" radio shows. I was about to order a whole bunch of YTJD tapes for some incredibly low price, after hearing the great quality of a demo cassette. Then -- "poof" they are gone. I later heard that RS had bought them out. I noticed that RS offered just a fraction of the YTJDs that Radio Yesteryear had. In fact, I have some via AFRS that RS doesn't have. Anyway I have so dingdang many old radio shows here, that I don't want to add to my packratitis. And despite all this, I thik that Carl Lemare has done a great job of merchand |