When Noam Laden was a kid, he was kind of a jerk.
He would lay in bed listening to local radio personalities in Trenton, New York, and Philadelphia. He was one of the kids who called up and harassed the show hosts with reckless abandon. A practice Howard Stern’s devotees would soon perfect. Keep in mind, Laden was a 14-year-old at the time.
“There was one host I’d call regularly,” Laden said. “Stupidly, I’d use my real name when I called. The host would say, ‘Here’s Noam in Trenton.’ I’d lean into the phone and drop the F word three times and hang up. I just wanted to get on the air.”
After a few times of similar calls, Laden thinks they started to recognize his voice and knocked him off the phone. Then he tried to get smart and switch things up.
“One day they were talking about soft pretzels and I called in,” Laden recalled. “I’d chime in and say, ‘I love my soft pretzels with mustard and then insert the F word three times.’ I may have been the reason they created the seven-second delay,” Laden joked.
He later realized he might have something to add to a conversation rather than tossing cuss words. He has four brothers who also got into the act. One of his brothers would call and say, ‘I’m not wearing underwear.’ The host would say something like, ‘Oh, there’s a full moon out tonight.’ Then another brother would call and say, ‘I’m not wearing underwear.’”
Ah, a young boy’s life in Trenton.
Laden is returning to 770 WABC where he once worked on The Don Imus Show. Most recently he served as anchor/reporter/fill-in host at WOR. Laden is now the news and content distribution director for WABC.
“I joined the Imus show during its resurgence after his unfortunate racist and misogynist remarks. This was when WABC brought him back from the fringe. I didn’t have a great relationship with Imus. He was kinder to other people than me so I can’t say I enjoyed my time with him.”
In radio, there is a razzing process, a piling on at times. People pick on you, all in the name of having fun. Imus was more mean-spirited with Laden than others so that affected their relationship.
“I’ve always been an anchor. I still am,” Laden said. “At first, I was a writer for Charles McCord and did some news inserts while Charles did a national show.”
Laden was with WABC from 2003-2018 until they threw him out, he joked.
Laden has teamed up with Sid & Friends Morning Show. A veteran with 20 years of broadcast news experience, Laden is responsible for all WABC news content and distribution, on-air and online.
“I knew the late Bernie McGuirk well from when I was working with Imus. Such a great young talent, a sweet guy. I have some great memories with him. He was such a workhorse. As we were getting ready for our shows very early in the morning, we’d talk a lot.”
Laden said the station has a terrific lineup of hosts, and the ratings are soaring.
“It’s great to be part of a winning team with passionate owners. We’ve got lots of exciting plans for the distribution of our news.”
Laden was itching to get back to WABC when John Catsimatidis bought the station.
“We are going to make this a local station again,” Laden said. “Not for just a couple of hours a day. I’m going to have local personalities in the studio seven days a week. All local personalities, including overnight. We still have two national shows with Brian Kilmeade and Mark Levin.”
Laden said owner John Catsimatidis was way ahead of the curve in his understanding of what New Yorkers want. He said Catsimatidis has always loved radio and when he was building the station, he said he wanted to build a station New Yorkers wanted to listen to. He envisioned local shows 24/7. He’s deeply involved in the communities.
“He makes the station feel like family, like a smaller station.”
The station celebrates every holiday on the calendar. “We will celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, Christmas, and the Lunar New Year,” he joked. “There isn’t one holiday on the calendar we don’t celebrate. This is the most fun I’ve ever had in the business. I get to put my hands into different things.”
When he was at WOR, Laden said the majority of their staff worked out of their homes and many still do as a result of COVID-19.
“It’s so crushing to be out of the routine,” Laden said. “I never worked from home for one day. I needed to see people and be out of the house. When you’re not at the office, you’re missing so much synergy and energy of people working together. I think people being together breeds success.”
Laden returned to WABC in October of last year and started with the morning show in January.
“When I came back as news director, I took time to just observe. You don’t want to be that guy who comes in and makes changes without leaving enough time to fully assess the situation. I decided it would be a good idea to make our newscasts longer.”
In February of 2020, just before the pandemic, Laden was still at WOR and was told legend Joe Bartlett was retiring. Laden was visiting his parents in Israel when he got calls saying it looked like he was going to be the news director and anchor at WOR.
The station negotiated with Bartlett and decided he could work from South Carolina.
“Now he can play golf every day at 11:00,” Laden said. “The writing was on the wall. Joe wasn’t going anywhere. I realized I had to get out of there. When people work remotely, I think people can tell when team members of a show are not in the same room. When they’re phoning in from around the country.”
Laden said when you’re in the same studio you’re hatching ideas, laughing, and talking about bits. You know each other’s families.
“Len Berman was at home, and so was Michael Riedel.”
When he arrived in October, it was all about bolstering the product. One of the first things Laden did was replace the top-of-the-hour 77-second news updates with full newscasts.
“We’re news and talk,” he said. “We give the audience both. We extended the newscasts to five minutes and put in a sports report. It was John Catsimatidis’ idea to start earlier at one minute before the hour. We felt we could grab some of the audience flipping around.”
One of the advantages of working for a sledgehammer like WABC is when a reporter seeks you out for a comment on a story, you invariably will call the station back.
“I don’t understand why some people don’t call back smaller stations,” Laden said. “It’s great to be on the air in New York where you know people from all over the world are listening.”
Laden said he understands recruiting new talent into his newsroom is a challenge. He’s created a ‘bench’ of sorts, a way to groom students for possible careers in radio.
“I reached out to journalism schools and we began bringing in students and recent college graduates to come in on the weekends and work some air shifts,” Laden said. “In a way, it’s a paid internship. We look at it as we’re helping to create new reporters and anchors.”
Laden started his radio career at a small daytime station, WGHT, an oldies station. It was one of those classic radio jobs where he did afternoon drive. He’d been there three weeks when the owner came up to him and said he’d just fired the morning show host and Laden was taking over.
In the morning, Laden will deliver the first 40 minutes of news on WABC by himself. No commercials, traffic, or weather reports.
“After our show, reporters are already covering new stories. Searching for whatever the story might be. In the Tri-State area, there’s never a shortage.”
He’s worked in the New York area for most of his career. He moved to Charleston, South Carolina for two years. “We were living on the Upper West Side during the 9/11 attacks,” Laden said. “My wife and I decided we needed a little breather from the city and moved to Charleston. We loved it there. My son was born there and he sees himself as a southern gentleman,” Laden joked.
Digital is huge in the industry and Laden said they’re working at elevating their digital platform each day.
“We end all our newscasts with a call for action to go to our website for additional information on a story. People expect a digital component from your radio station and we’re building more every day.”
If you build it, they will come.
Jim Cryns writes features for Barrett News Media. He has spent time in radio as a reporter for WTMJ, and has served as an author and former writer for the Milwaukee Brewers. To touch base or pick up a copy of his new book: Talk To Me – Profiles on News Talkers and Media Leaders From Top 50 Markets, log on to Amazon or shoot Jim an email at jimcryns3_zhd@indeedemail.com.
