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Hy Lit's (Hyman Litvan) ratings put him at the top until Jim Hilliard counter-programmed WIBG at WFIL in 1966-67. WIBG's ratings collapsed, and Storer Broadcasting brought in Paul Drew to save the station, which he did, although with much lower ratings than WFIL.

Joe Niagra (Joe Nigra) was moved to morning drive from afternoon drive. Drew fired Hy Lit and replaced him with his protege, Bill Gardner. I worked with Gardner at KING in Seattle 50 years ago and got the story from him. Bill felt terrible about replacing Hy, and he hid in the men's room while Drew escorted Hy out of the building.

In 1970 Storer sold WIBG to Fairbanks, who brought in Jackson Reynolds to replace Drew. WIBG's ratings collapsed again. Ed Richards (Wendell Wright) replaced Reynolds and brought WIBG's ratings almost up to WFIL's with some edgy programming, but Fairbanks sold to another buyer, and things collapsed again with a Paul Drew protege running things into the ground.

Joe Niagra replaced Don Rose at WFIL temporarily while Rose recovered from open heart surgery. Joe later ended up at WPEN for a while.

Blavat worked at a number of lesser stations in Philly, but what he had was more of a cult following. Hy had no reason to be jealous of Blavat.

We lost Hy a number of years back from Parkinson's Disease.