The individual responsible for creating one of New England’s biggest Top 40 radio stations of its era has died just shy of his 92nd birthday.
Perry Ury, who spent many years at RKO General before enjoying a 19-year tenure as Chairman and President of the former Chase Broadcasting, passed away Friday (12/8) at his home in Sarasota, Fla.
Chase’s properties included Full Service and Top 40 combo WTIC-AM & FM in Hartford, and from 1974 to 1993 he served as Chase’s leader, taking the FM to Top 40 under consultant Mike Joseph with such early air personalities as Bill Lee, who used his given name, Bill Lemke, during his nighttime shift.
Throughout the 1980s, WTIC-FM was a dominant player in Connecticut, with Craig & Company anchoring the station’s morning shift. The show continues today with Gary Craig as host.
From 1959-1974, Ury was an Eastern VP for RKO General.
Under Ury’s direction, WNAC-AM 680 in Boston in March 1967 concluded its run as the flagship of the Yankee Network of radio stations by switching to Top 40, as WRKO-AM. “The Big 68” and “NOW Radio in Boston” for many years, the station was a major success story for RKO General, leading WBZ-AM 1030 and WMEX-AM 1510 to switch from Top 40 formats over the next several years.
Ury is also responsible for an October 1972 shift in direction at WOR-FM 98.7 in New York, which in April 1974 became “99X.” It was considered an adult-leaning Top 40, with a young Jay Thomas brought in from Charlotte as a high-energy air personality.
Ury left Chase in May 1993, becoming President of Broadcast Consultants until his retirement.
Services are set for Sunday, Dec. 17, at 9:30am at the John J. Fox Funeral Home, 2080 Boston Post Road, Larchmont, NY.
“Perry was a great gentlemen of the radio industry and respected from coast to coast for his leadership, integrity, imagination and vision,” said Gordon Hastings, founder and President/CEO of The Broadcasters Foundation of America, who shared the news of Ury’s passing with RBR+TVBR.
“I am very saddened,” added longtime broadcast advisor and Boston-market radio consultant Clark Smidt. “Perry had a lot of wisdom, he was a wonderful man and a super mensch. I made friends with him when he went to Hartford, and last saw him at the 50th RKO reunion, and he was as witty and sharp as ever.”
Smidt says he had been communicating with Ury until a few weeks ago. “He was as sharp as a tack,” he notes. “I’m very proud to have known him, and after all of these years he would remember me. God bless them.”
