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After four years in the Air Force I moved up the dial seven times before the Detroit rock n' roll station I had listened to as a kid was ready to hire me.  Motown had actually been the beginning of my broadcast career a decade earlier.  Raising my hand in school ("Who wants to get out of shop class an hour early on Wednesdays?") I volunteered to be a co-op student working at the brand new Channel 56, Detroit's Educational television station. Lighting, cameras, cleaning toilets...I learned the business from the ground up.  

The Tigers beat the Cardinals in the '68 World Series and Tom Dean was the last disc jockey ever heard on WJBK.  At the end of my show at the stroke of midnight Christmas eve WJBK disappeared from the dial.

The Storer Broadcasting Company had quietly undertaken a year long study to determine what Detroiters wanted to hear.  With few exceptions, the entire WJBK disc jockey staff was fired the following Monday.  For reasons unknown to me to this day, Storer kept me and raised the station's power to the maximum allowed for AM, 50,000 watts.  WJBK was reborn as WDEE.  The Big D became one of America's first modern country music rebels, an instant hit.

The daughter of Max Fisher called to introduce herself after I popped up as a celebrity the air in Detroit.  Because her father was the richest man in Michigan, Mary Fisher knew a lot of important people on a first name basis, including more than one President of the United States.  Mary was keynote speaker at the 1992 Republican Convention.  I met "Henry" through Mary Fisher at a cocktail party.  Henry Ford the 2nd was a listener.

Right place, right time.  The Big D was extraordinarily well planned.  The year long market study was phone book thick because it had to be.  Competition in a 5 million plus radio market is intense. Fifty stations could be heard in Detroit.  A blind man (the secret weapon in the radio division) selected me to host a clone of the company's red hot Los Angeles talk show, Fem Forum.  Doctor Laura Schlesinger started her career as a caller to the show (Bill Balance, the Los Angeles show host, wrote a tell all book about Laura and he).  Peter Storer decided the Detroit version of the show would be different -- a mixture of listener phone calls and music, country music.  Success came within months of hitting the air.  The Big D was the beginning of a coaster ride I'll never forget.  Lesson #1:  "Always do your homework"

Storer spared no expense!  Promotion for The Big D was first class.   My face was everywhere -- buses, billboards, posters, TV, tee shirts, caricatures.  Free movies, cars, hawaiian vacations, prime rib at Northville Downs.  Playing cards with Ron (the Kowalski Sausage heir), a day named in my honor at Tiger Stadium, people emjoy hanging out with celebrities.  American Idol's Sanjaya Malakar invited to a White House gathering proves that.  Newspaper articles, magazine covers, puffed up press releases told Detroiters how successful I was.  The truth?  Tom Dean had no idea what he'd gotten himself into.

What was Storer thinking?   Dr. Thomas Dean, HSG (high school graduate.  From the slums, I couldn't even pronounce sci-college-ee.    John Mazer, the WDEE program manager and my immediate supervisor, guided my every move.  I admired John's saavy and miss the brainstorming.  It was from John Mazer I received instructions on how far to go with the show.  Storer wanted it "titillating."  Because it aired human experiences, sometimes funny, often tragic, the forum caught on at a variety of levels.  An endless stream of copy cats have never stopped coming -- from doctors and lawyers to sideshow carnys.  Sonja Live, Doctor Phil, Geraldo, Oprah, Cheating Spouses, Tom Dean, we all came from the mind of Bill Balance.   Jerry Springer got his wild ideas from it.  There had never been anything like it on radio or TV before Fem Forum.  The show dominated Detroit midday ratings (on the station and in the southeast Michigan market overall) during it's entire 10 year run.  The idea behind the Fem Forum lives on today through Maury Povich and those reality shows where they eat bugs.  I get those two confused. 

People tugged at me from all directions.  One listener sent his wife to the station to see if I'd be interested in "swapping."  I couldn't believe it.  She was a dazzling beauty queen brunette who smiled with a gleam in her eye when I stammered: "my wife would never go for it."   The following night she shows up at one of my personal appearances with her husband and sister in tow, in a motor home in the party lot.  John cautioned me weird stuff would happen (Storer experienced it in Los Angeles) and to not get involved.  I didn't.

Angry mail was received by the station.  But why did they blame me?  It was the crazy callers who wouldn't shut up.  When I didn't respond (I was told not to) one writer began attacking my family: "Was that your daughter I saw banging on Cass Avenue last week?"  My daughter was 10 years old for god's sake.  Another listener claimed she received orders from "outer space" to join me and Deano in heaven.  Flat Rock police stopped her on the way to my appearance with a loaded 30-30 in the trunk. Some 'ologist' apologized for letting her out of the institution a "little too early".  It was then I remembered hosting a dance at the Toledo State Hospital.  The administrator warned: "don't talk to that woman in the corner...nymphomania" and "never ever play two fast songs in a row."  (gulp)

Off duty Pontiac cops acted as body guards when my business parttner and I owned a nightclub in Pontiac.  That was where I learned my first important lesson in real estate about "location."   In our excitement of opening a new business, Dewey and I had overlooked the fact that we'd opened a redneck bar in the middle of a (black) ghetto.  Soon a pregnant woman would fall down drunk on the dance floor claiming it our fault she lost the baby.  Another would be killed in an auto accident driving home.  Lawsuits, lawyers, deposition hearings were non-stop.  Dewey and I were in a catch 22.  To stay in business during the oil embargo we were forced to hire big name country stars to attract customers from outside the Pontiac area who knew knew nothing about the neighborhood where our bar was located and didn't know (like Chevy Chase in the movie "Vacation") not to stop and ask locals for directions.   

There was an upside to being a nightclub owner.  The steaks were free. So was the booze, which we gladly gave away to friends and name personalities.  I have never much of a drinker for fear of losing my pilot's license.  And not having a business education I didn't know when to stop passing out the freebies.  Dewey and I did, however, learn to spell b-a-n-k-r-u-p-t-c-y.   We attracted Tigers and Lions, city officials and countless other freeloaders.  "Against the ropes" was a movie about female fight promoter named Jackie Kallen.  Jackie worked next door at the Oakland Press . The movie starred Meg Ryan.  I liked Ernie Harwell and his wife Lulu best.  They didn't drink.  

The Fem Forum was a simple idea, women tattling on men, and a monster of a hit because it was hyper local and full of surprises.  On my days off WDEE would air "The Best of the Fem Forum" and I'd drive around Detroit to see who listened.  I could hear the show everywhere I went in southeast Michigan and Canada -- car radios, stores, corner news stands, construction sites, parks, beaches and state hospitals.  Anyone listening to it had The Big D turned it up loud.  People never knew if a caller would be talking about them, a friend or celebrity, the gas man or their neighbor (who was entertaining the gas man) down the street.  

Not everybody liked the show including the National Organization of Women.  Gloria Steinhem wrote us.  Of course, station management did find good value in the show -- sponsors paid top of the rate card and the show was always sold out.  Newspaper articles, pro and con, helped to keep the show on top.  I learned it doesn't matter what people say about you as long as they get your name right.  Word of mouth helped push the show along 5 years longer than anyone had predicted.  Everybody wanted a piece of the Big D, I once worked for the Harlem Globetrotters.  The show and I survived several ownership changes until religious broadcasters finally bought WDEE.  The Fem Forum remained the highest rated radio program on the dial in Detroit in the middle of the day until the end.  I pulled the plug in 1980.   W4, another country station, wanted to resurrect it.   I declined.  I do not like living in the past.  In fact I hear complaints from old time country listeners about today's music.  My response is to tell them that country music today is as much about about real life as it always has been, but sounds so much better technically.   I can't wait to hear the next generation of country music.

ABC picked me up to help in their transition from music to music/talk at WXYZ.  Thanks be to severance clauses as this city-slicker-turned-hayseed had ended up on the wrong side of the tracks.  WXYZ was a hornet's nest and I wasn't the only one uncomfortable with the station dropping music in favor of wall-to-wall talk.  Hall of fame's Dick Purtan needed music between his phone calls, too.  Most of the calls you hear on Dick's morning show are edited for timing the day before.  Like Seinfeld, Purtan leaves nothing to chance.  Dick and his team spend hours fine tuning every bit, word, sentence, grunt.  Detroit's radio pope makes $300 gazillion dollars a year just doing homework.  Donald Trump is a billionaire for the same reason.  Trump is prepared to counter any objection before he enters any negotiation.

I just did not fit WXYZ.   WXYZ was known for giving birth to real celebrities -- Mike Wallace, The Lone Ranger, Soupy Sales, to name a few.  When we took a vacation our replacements would be stars like Ted Knight or George Hamilton.  "Professionalism," "quality" and "image" were more than just flashy PR spin at ABC.  My midday show enjoyed the best hands down producer in talk radio, Jack Springer, an African American.  Jack produced the long running David Newman Show and maintained a phone book full of home numbers of movie stars, leaders of industry, presidents.  I learned about being a serious broadcaster from Mr. Springer.

WXYZ attracted educated people who knew how to take advantage of WXYZ's prestigious airwaves to promote their outside interests.  Dr. Sonya Friedman PHD ("Sonya Live" appeared nationally on CNN television) followed my show.  We used the same studio, which allowed her sheepskin to toy with my Brightmoor brain on the air during shift changes.  Listeners were in awe of Sonya but those of us working at WXYZ were not -- the doctor tossed mink coats on desks in front of the low paid secretaries.  There were the makings of a cat fight in the women's john and at least one of us kept an ear on the door whenever "Elvis" was in the building.  Sonya invited me and the sports guy to her home for a party.  I wish now I'd gone to count the coats.  WXYZ's "Ask the Attorney" Larry Korn and I became friends.  Larry helped sever my liquor license ties to the Wide Track Inn.  His father, Monty specialized in disc jockey divorce law.   WXYZ changed format several times and was eventually sold.  WXYZ is known today as WXYT, an "all sports" station, which continues to struggle near the bottom of the ratings.

Fred Wolf, Mickey Shore, Dick Purtan and Lee Allen  -- some of the biggest names in radio -- worked at WXYZ at one time or another.  Lee Allen gave MoTown, Berry Gordy Jr. and Stevie Wonder their start.   Lee Allen and Tom Clay and were the biggest influences for me wanting to become a disk jockey.

Getting my first commercial radio job in Detroit wasn't easy -- Paul Purtan from WSAI Cincinnati and I (working at WOHO in Toledo) coincidentally applied for the 10PM opening at WKNR Keener 13 in Dearborn.  I was taller and could wire a house but the mustached man from Cincinnati was better prepared for major market radio.  College educated Paul Purtan became Dick Purtan and the rest is Detroit radio history.  A few years later I accepted a job offer at the Big 8, CKLW.  CK was a monster in the midwest and I was excited about the idea of moving.  Unfortunately, the owner of the radio station in Toledo wouldn't release me from my contract.  It took another year before I could bust loose out of Toledo.  Detroit called again.  WJBK.  Although I had record high ratings in Ohio ("round on the ends hi in the middle") and my son, the real Tom Dean was born there, I do not have fond memories of Toledo.

Eventually, my Detroit midday show followed Dick Purtan. First at WXYZ and three years later at WCZY.  Purtan could not relate to the audiences I attracted.  He had to sit in for me once when my 10 year old Jeep broke down (I love old cars and hate car payments) and moved to Canada shortly thereafter.  Dick made poking fun at me one of his bits for years.  I cannot lie, it was an honor having worked for ABC and been roasted by a national broadcast hall of fame disc jockey.  Dick's the best at what he does.

"Things change, time to move"

After the WXYZ failure I moved to FM, and back to being a 100% disc jockey again.  Playing to a music audience is what I do consistently best.  Although Adult Contemporary was a new format for me, I immediately clicked with male and female listeners.  It took a year to build up the WOMC midday audience ratings, which then helped me negotiate my best deal ever in radio.  Gannett (USA Today) hired me at WCZY.  The bigger salary, however, came back to haunt me when Dick Purtan was lured away from CKLW-AM to join us at WCZY on the FM dial.  Dick cost more than the entire rest of the staff put together.   Unfortunately, his AM audience didn't follow him to FM right away, and certainly not soon enough to suit the Gannett Corporation.  Newspaper people are impatient, deadline oriented.  Purtan signs no cut contracts worth kazillions and was a drain on the budget.  Dick had a similar problem when he moved to Maryland.  Dick Purtan was fired from the Baltimore station.         

Gannett was forced to cut staff to pay Purtan's guaranteed salary and the cost of promoting him.  Dick's picture was on every bus (Inside and out), taxi cab, TV, magazines, postcards, billboards and, of course, newspapers.   But nothing seemed to work, at least not right away.  The Arbitron ratings were slow coming, and did not show the AM audience coming over to FM right away.   At least not soon enough for Gannett.  Being newspaper experienced, deadline oriented, Gannett disposed of all their radio stations by 1997.  WCLS, another struggling adult contemporary station, was the next stop.  It, too, wasn't given enough time.  A year and a half later it was sold to a pharmacist.   Not surprisingly, he knew little about programming or staffing a station.  He hired a disc jockey friend to run things. That mistake cost the druggist a pile of dough.  The station was sold again to another low ball buyer.  And so on it went.  Life is about luck, and I'd lost the handle on my four leaf clover.  I decided to take charge of my own destiny.  

Through the years and a variety of formats Arbitron says listeners like the way I do radio shows.  Just as I was influenced, I'm told my radio style has influenced a few, but not always successfully.  Rich Fisher, a Detroit television news anchor for twenty years, tells the story of how he was fired trying to copy bits I did on the air when he started in radio.  At a cocktail party Henry Ford II confessed he listened and repeated something I'd said on the air months earlier.  Jacqui, a psychic who appeared with me on WXYZ, was a close friend of Ford's 2nd wife Kathryn Duross.  She knew why Ford listened: "Henry called me all the time looking for Kathy, he didn't trust her."  Another listener, a regular caller, although I didn't believe her at the time, turned out to be Stevie Wonder's girlfriend.  Stevie Wonder picked my voice out of a crowd on two separate occasions years later.  Listen to Stevie's song Part-Time Lover. 

Hank The Deuce hooked up with Kathy Duross at an auto show.  She was a model, but like me, from the other side of the tracks.  We both graduated from black high schools in downtown Detroit.   I lived in a white suburb 15 miles west and rode to school with my friend Dean Kolden and his father who was a tool and die teacher at Wright.  I selected Wilbur Wright Technical High School to learn the electrical trade and because my friend's dad would give me a ride to school everyday -- accept when I was two seconds late and forced to ride the city bus.  It was a two mile walk to the bus stop.  Word of warning, never become friends with a kid whose father is a teacher or you may not get to school until after lunch.  Kathy Duross attended Cass Tech to learn how to marry money.

After high school I was nominated by congresswoman Martha Griffiths to the US Air Force Academy.  I flunked the entrance exam, and enlisted in the Air Force instead to get away from home.  After my enlistment ended, the FAA offered me a government job fixing radar.  I opted to become a disc jockey making $65 bucks a week in Sturgis.  Confused?  It's called growing up without a mentor and making goofy decisions by yourself.  I never met my real father.  Praise and encourage your kids, especially if you're a step parent.

Thanks to three-hour-work-days and my commercial pilot's license, I was asked by my friend Craig Smith if I wanted to come to work with him at McMahon Helicopters.  Craig eventually became part of the news.  Craig Smith was one of the four broadcasters killed when two news choppers collided mid air covering a car chase in Phoenix in July 2007.  Melissa and I will always cherish the wedding gift that Craig gave us, a clock, in our living room.  He also fell in love with our West Highland White Terriers and eventually got one for himself.   He named her Molly and often took her with him on his flights.   Molly was not abord on Craig's final flight.  While in Detroit, Craig reported for channel 7 and I was broadcast by CBS over News Radio 950 WWJ.   I also reported for "WOW" FM a hip talk station which later switched to a country music format.  More on WYCD in a moment. 

This may surprise you. Competing radio-TV stations will often employ the same announcers.  McMahon's Bell Jet Ranger, as an example, carried 3 announcers using 5 different names on 7 different stations.  Downsizing is not only happening to auto factories. 

I helped WOWF with a format change in 1993.  WOW-FM became Young Country, WYCD, the 2nd in-your-face country music rebel in my life.  I called it the Beavis and Butthead format.  With nowhere to go but up in the ratings, and to draw attention to ourselves, management encouraged we disc jockeys to have fun making fun of the competition.  Easy to do.  Nobody's perfect.  W4 had become what we'd call fat, dumb and happy and couldn't retaliate.  Being #1 they had more to lose had they tried.   WYCD disc jockeys would say things you wouldn't normally hear on the radio at that time: "Joe Wade (morning jock competition at W4) didn't tell the truth yesterday when he said..."    People tuned in just to see how far we'd go.  Today, of course, it takes more than that to attract an adult audience.

"A radio show is like a costume party...a chance to pretend, be somebody"

Young Country was ruthless but it worked.  WYCD became the top country station within a few months.   WYCD's domination in the market continues today ().  Doctor Don, the magnetic personality every disc jockey would like to be gets Detroiters up every morning.  Cute sounding Jyl Forsyth tucks them in 7 to midnight and gives Doctor Don a built in audience the next morning.  Those two will always be 10's in my book and are recommended listens when you're in the Detroit area.  Catch them while you can on 99.5 FM    It's radio.  Things change.

Through the years I've worked a variety of jobs including talk, traffic reporting, newscaster, and disc jockeying. Formats included rock, news, talk, adult contemporary, jazz and country.   Being a country jock has been the most fun.  I relate to the audience.  Road testing factory fresh corvettes and hugging Dolly Parton ain't bad, either.  Those are two things I'll never forget. 

To command ratings in a 5 million plus market where new and newer challenges compete for the same sets of ears, broadcasters have to come up with creative ways of airing things that keep people's attention.  My goal is to get listeners to tell others, which builds an audience.  With the onslaught of growing technologies (satellite, HD radio, cable TV,  web streaming, ipods, PDAs, wireless gadgetry) and major market broadcasters bringing never before competition into small towns, the local media has it's work cut out. 

Listeners have never been more important to what we do.   Everybody has something to say that's worth hearing.   Personal experiences, local news, sports, activities, gossip and happenings are the ammunition that will keep local media worth coming back to.  Every media source is looking for ways to get more (input) from their audience.   Radio, TV, newspapers, magazines, bloggers and other content providers will combine forces, partnering in the new medium -- the internet -- in exciting new ways.  Because of my love for electronics tinkering, this changing technology is thrilling to observe.  The internet is a different story.  I have a serious love-hate relationship with the internet.  The same computer screen that can save our life is also desensitizing our children.   Even Bill Gates grew tired of it, giving up Microsoft, he's turned his attention to family and of course, that pile of money you and I gave him.

The nation's top disc jockeys  -- Tom Clay, Detroit; Dick Biondi, Chicago; Cousin Brucie, New York; the Hoss Man in Nashville, and a host of others -- influenced my radio broadcasting style.  The Fem Forum in the 70's was also an original idea, one of the first tell-it-like-it-is human relationships shows.  Copycats were soon to follow, but not always successfully.  The highest paid media person in the world (Howard Stern made $300+ million in 2005) was fired back when he tried to tackle my Detroit.   Knowing what I know today, if I had it to do all over again, I would not have agreed to do The Fem Forum.   Angry and disturbed listeners attacked me and my family.  Technology is great but is also allowing the worldwide poor to see the seedy side of an open society.  The visual media (satellite, TV, internet) makes it easy for our enemies to show and tell their children about America's greed and corruption.  They feel cheated, I'd bet.  They are killing themselves.  Seeing "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous," 3rd world folks mistakenly are made to believe that all of us, you and I, are swimming in money and filthy in our morals. 

I paid a heavy price.  The Fem Forum hurt my long term Detroit disc jockey aspirations.  I was type cast but couldn't (wouldn't) leave southeast Michigan.  A divorced father, I stayed to be near my children while they were growing up.  Looking back, I wonder how far I might have gone had I taken one of those New York (WHN, WMCA) offers. 

Tom Dean connected with millions of listeners through a variety of stations, including Detroit's WJBK, WDEE, WXYZ, WCZY, WCLS, WOMC, WWJ, WYCD 

Big City, Red Eye -- Being a personality in a major radio market often meant personal appearances miles apart (WDEE's big signal reached 1,000 miles into Canada) and three changes of clothes a day.  Being a commercial pilot gave me some advantages and perspectives few people see.   I could fly from a small local airport two miles from my house to personal appearances hundreds of miles away.  But on the downside, seeing rush hour traffic tie-ups from the air I also could see first hand the insanity of big city commuting.  The metro Detroit area has 1,000 square miles.  East-siders work on the west side.  West-siders work on the east.  Think about that.  The money spent on an average Detroit commute (53) miles) is not staying in Michigan to help build a stronger America.   Our money is going to another part of the world, which is using it to try to exterminate us.  Our emissions are also impacting the atmosphere.   Ask any pilot to describe the air Detroiters breathe.  As a pilot-reporter who flew 6 hours a day over the motor city, I can tell you the air blanketing southern Michigan is reddish-orange hundreds of feet thick.  You don't see that in northern Michigan.  Northern Michigan air is clean.  On a cloudless day skies are crystal clear and at night there are a million stars people living in pollution don't know exist.  And it's not getting any better -- the extremes in our weather patterns is evidence of that -- flooding, drought, etc.  

Incidentally, if you've ever eaten a Morel mushroom you know why I'm smiling.  They grow just down the road from me here in northern Michigan.

The changing world is also causing otherwise intelligent people to lose their minds.  After WJR management fired living-legend Detroit Tiger baseball announcer Ernie Harwell I'd experienced enough of Detroit radio.  Melissa and I opted for a slower pace of life.  Being centrally located in Michigan made sense for our statewide real estate, photography and internet related businesses.  I no longer needed to drive 53 miles through road rage to a downtown Detroit radio studio to reach large audiences -- the internet allows my shows to be heard worldwide. Instead of witnessing incredibly violent crime on Detroit TV 7 nights a week, our home in northern Michigan is surrounded by small town parades, campgrounds, seniors riding bikes, wild turkey, water parks, spas, resorts, orchards, wineries, miles of sugar sand beaches and everything else out of towners pay handsomely to see.   In rural Lake Ann Melissa and I are connected to the world via high speed cable and haven't missed a beat thanks to the internet.   We have captured the best of several worlds.  There are few hurricanes or tornados in northern Michigan.

Stability, Success -- The radio company I work for today, Midwestern Broadcasting is unique in that it owns several stations and you'll hear me on all of them at one time or another (on the air or on the internet).  I enjoy the variety of sitting in for newscasters, disc jockeys, meteorologists, doing commercials.  I've even learned to do a farm show and am honored whenever asked to fill-in for broadcasting's 50-years-on-the-air-in-the-same-job icon Merlin Dumbrille.  Dumbrille is the smartest guy I know, he's 75 but looks 50.  Health tips #5 & 6:  "Live in a small town, and ride a bike to work."

Ross Biederman still owns northern Michigan's first radio station that his father signed on the air in January of 1941.  WTCM AM transmits at 50,000 watts, the most power the FCC allows for an AM.  WTCM FM, playing Today's Country Music through multiple transmitters, has dominated northern Michigan ratings for decades.  Lester and Ross Biederman successes have long benefited this community.  The Munson Medical Center, as an example, is one of the 100 most successful hospitals in the world thanks to the Biederman family and other generous donors.  Success Tip #1:  "Associate with winners"

Pictured is Tom and Melissa standing beside the lead singer of Emerson Drive.

I've made a few good decisions in my life and asking Melissa to marry me is #1. We give each other balance.  I am creative, but hyper. She puts others before herself.  My wife is loving, patient and kind. There's not a mean thought in her.   She rarely ever raises her voice.    Anyone liking what I do needs to thank the good looking gal with the twin Westies.   Melissa keeps my radio shows tight, bright, up to date.  It was her idea that brought us to northern Michigan.  She is the proudest new grandmom I know, but worried over the future ahead for her grandchildren. Marriage Tip #1:  "Find the right life partner, look into a person's heart"  

Melissa and I moved north for the laid back feeling, security, environment and beauty.  I'm Marty McFly in "Back to the Future" with the flux capacitor set to 1962.  Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes reminds us of all the great beaches we've ever visited rolled into one.  Standing waist deep in crystal clear Lake Michigan, looking up and down the sugar sand shoreline as far as I can see, there are no houses, no hotels, no crabs, no coral, no seaweed, no hurricanes, tsunamis or sting rays, no sharks, surfers or salt water.  Best of all the dunes are owned by taxpayers, not a few privileged people, which means we have-nots will always have access to the safest and most pleasant beaches in the world.