Futurevision & "Radar"

During my sophomore year in high school when I was the public address announcer for the varsity football games at Shore Regional, I was flirting with the idea of being a disc jockey and landed my own cable radio show on Futurevision, the cable TV service provider that eventually became Comcast.

The studios were located in the community room of the Monmouth Shopping Center in Eatontown (now the Monmouth Mall). Cable radio was the precursor to music television, a format perfected by MTV about 7 years after I started working at Futurevision. As a cable DJ, I’d spin records and talk up Futurevision while the bulletin board carousel system shown on channel 8 (Futurevision’s public access channel) spun around with area business cards who were my show's sponsors. My face was never shown, just like with conventional radio.

When I began working at Futurevision in September 1974, the company was looking to expand their programming without incurring too much cost, so a cable DJ or two working for minimum wage ($2.25 an hour at the time) fit the bill for them. Futurevision already had a presence in both Eatontown and West Long Branch at the time, and was looking to expand its cable TV service in other local area towns as well. Eventually, Oceanport, Monmouth Beach, and Long Branch came on board by the early 1980’s.

The concept of spinning records over cable TV was started by Dean Ceran, a local student who attended Monmouth Regional and graduated in 1975. He was a couple of years older than I was, and we shared an interest in audio/visual. Going by the on-air moniker “Radar”, Dean was already spinning records over at channel 8 by the time I was hired.

The name “Radar” seemed like a good fit for Dean, as he had an uncanny resemblance in real life to the Gary Burghoff character on the hit TV show “M*A*S*H”, but unlike the "Radar" character, Dean had a voice for radio. At the beginning of every show, he would play his theme song, “Beef Jerky” by John Lennon from off the “Walls & Bridges” LP. The song was also on the B side of Lennon’s hit single “Whatever Gets You Through The Night”.

I had a great time working right after Dean (our shifts were only two hours long). I would sit in with him about 15 minutes before my shift started, checking out his DJ’ing technique, as well as his music selection, just to make sure that we didn’t play the same song twice in one day.

I used a free-form rock format. I could play whatever I wanted, and I was into contemporary adult-oriented rock back then.

Unfortunately, the job lasted only about four months for me. Gasoline prices rose to around a dollar a gallon, and my mom had to drive me back and forth to the studio every day, right around dinnertime (I was just 15 at the time). Eventually, I had to give up the job because it cost more in gas to get me back and forth between home and the studio than what I was getting paid by Futurevision.

So now fast forward 38 years. . .I’m on the “Growing Up Eatontown” page on Facebook, and a poster asked the question “Who worked in the Monmouth Mall and what year?” When I responded that I worked as a cable DJ at Futurevision in 1974, Dean responds to the post some time later, “friends” me, and we begin playing catch up online. Isn’t it great how this social media stuff keeps people connected, even after all those years?

Working for Futurevision was one of the best jobs I ever had that got me familiar with both the creative and technical sides of the business. Even though the job only lasted for a short time, it validated in my own mind that I made the right decision as far as my career choice was concerned.

Yes, I STILL would always want to be in this business called media. . .

(You can also follow Kevin Cieri’s blog on his Facebook page, “Jersey Shore Retro” as well as on Twitter at @jsretro).