Radio History Lost

It may be a small part of radio history but...

In the 1980's, I used to listen to late night radio show by Steve Freeman (or Freedman...Friedman actually) out of WCAU 1210 Philadelphia. He seem on the verge of the big-time, with his vast knowledge of film, but I lost contact with the show. The below may explain it better:

"Many radio insiders agree that the 1970s started a period of decline at WCAU. After orders from Paley to go all news, the station did poorly against an entrenched KYW. By the end of the 1970s, the station began losing money. In the early 80s, WCAU lost its focus flipping between all-news and news-talk. By the late 80s, the station settled into a mostly talk format. Well-known hosts during this period included former Mayor Frank Rizzo, whom callers would regularly urge to run again for public office. There was also Steve Fredericks with sports, Harry Gross' financial show as well as Tony Bruno, Dominic Quinn, and Clark DeLeon.

(notice Steve's absence here...)

On August 15, 1990 at 1:05 p.m., the 68 year history of WCAU came to an end. CBS, citing massive losses, fired over 30 of the station's employees, including most of the talk-show hosts and the entire news department. The format was changed to oldies, with half of the broadcast day simulcasting sister station WOGL-FM. The sudden switch stunned radio analysts across the country, many of whom felt that the station could have been salvaged. Known as WOGL-AM, the station retained much of its evening sports programming."

I can only assume he was victim of this. I did hear him again in the 90's, but the show was much reduced in length (the old show was sometimes 8 hours long).

Information on him seems non existent on the net, except for a post on an Elijah Wood board, dated February 12, 2006:

"Last night I was listening to a local radio talk show hosted by a man named Steve Freedman, who has an encyclopedic knowledge of movies. Someone called in talking about a film called Duma that had received very good reviews, but that had played in only a few cities. He himself had had to take his family to New York to see it. The movie was released in the US by Warner Brothers, and Steve started talking about how Warner (which, as we all know, was responsible for EII, through Warner Independent Pictures) has a reputation for picking up offbeat or specialized indies, and then just not distributing them widely, with the result that they never get a chance to develop an audience. I suppose it's some (cold) comfort to know that EII's plight wasn't unique."

Shame there isn't more on him.