R.I.P. Mitch Scott, CEO Great Scott Broadcasting Dead At 56

Mitch Scott

Great Scott’s Broadcasting’s Facebook page posted the news about 8 am Monday that it’s CEO Mitch Scott had died of luekemia in Ocean City, MD area.

He was 56. 

According to the posting:

“This will be an extremely difficult day as we deal with the passing of our owner and friend Mitch Scott. God Bless you Mitch, you will be missed.”

Originally based in Pennsylvania, Great Scott Broadcasting is currently headquartered in Georgetown, MD.

“The day after high school I went to work,” he recalled in 2011 in an interview with The Dispatch in Ocean City.

Eventually, Scott did earn an executive degree in marketing, but not before years of “bouncing around” the radio business. After Florida, he moved to places like New York City and Boston. When his father finally asked him to work for the family business, Scott returned to Pennsylvania, though his father only offered him a fraction of the salary he was previously making.

“Seriously, a tenth,” joked Scott.  Despite the diet his wallet was forced to take, Scott claims he didn’t hesitate to give up a more lucrative position for the chance to work with GSB.

“There was no question,” he said.

Under his parents’ leadership, GSB grew steadily well into the 1980’s. “My dad and mom were both very sharp business people,” said Scott.

With his father’s passing in 1984, Scott stepped into more of a leadership position and, along with his mother, helped bring GSB to the Eastern Shore. Less than half a year after establishing itself on Delmarva, GSB had already acquired multiple radio stations. The first station the company debuted was 93.5 “The Beach,” which more than 20 years later, is still popular and thriving. Stations like OC 104, BIG Classic Rock 103.5, “The B” 101.7, and Hot Country 107.7 soon followed, according to delmarvanow.com.

“He sure was a bigger-than-life kind of guy,” said Jim McHugh, general manager of Great Scott Broadcasting, the radio corporation founded by Scott’s parents in the 1960s. “He truly was the great Scott of Great Scott Broadcasting.”

McHugh said Scott, the company president, wasn’t just a true salesman, but was a terrific person to work for, evidenced by the many long-tenured employees still at the company.

“If you ever had a problem, you pick up the phone, you talk to Mitch — decisions were made on a local level,” he said. “That’s why it’s such a refreshing place to be. They didn’t think of him as their boss, they just thought of him as Mitch.”