He’s worked at stations that employed such air personalities as Howard Stern and Steve Dahl, and such notable programmers as Sky Daniels. His resume features stations once owned by Doubleday prior to their sale to Emmis Broadcasting. Now, many industry veterans are pausing to remember Pat McNally, who died on May 7.
Paula Creager and Christie Tilley, two of McNally’s former sellers who remembered him as both a valued colleague and a friend, brought word of his passing to Streamline Publishing’s Radio Ink.
McNally built a career that took him from the Motor City to Washington, New York, San Francisco, and Phoenix. He got his start at Michigan State’s campus radio network before landing at the former WWWW “W4” in Detroit, serving as General Sales Manager until July 1979. Five months later, he was working with Dahl at the “Alternative Radio Network,” as a partner in a syndicated programming endeavor.
From there, McNally moved to Washington, D.C., taking the role of General Manager of WAVA-FM. That was followed by a GM role at WAPP-FM in New York during its Album-Oriented Rock era of 1982 and, later, its unsuccessful stab at Top 40 against WHTZ, WPLJ and WKTU before becoming “Hot 103.5.”
McNally exited with the change in ownership of WAPP to Emmis. As 1986 came to a close, he resurfaced as VP/GM of RKO Broadcasting’s KFRC in San Francisco, at the time airing an Adult Standards format. On January 2, 1990, he joined Entercom’s Alternative KITS-FM “Live 105” in San Francisco as VP/GM, succeeding Ed Krampf. He’d stay there through March 1998. In January 2000, he resurfaced as VP/GM of KPTY in Phoenix, which aired a Rhythmic Top 40 format under New Planet Radio ownership. The role lasted one year, as the station was sold to Entravision for $20 million.
McNally would finish his broadcasting career in Phoenix and retire in Florida.
— Archival reporting by Adam R Jacobson
