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| John Hancock |
Grins, a little black cat destined to play a role in Charlotte radio history, pulled into town in 1990 in the
back seat of an old, white Honda Prelude bearing the Florida vanity tag ON AIR.
She was in her usual spot – in a kitty crate surrounded by
all the worldly possessions of John Hancock.
According to Mark Washburn at The Charlotte Observer, Grins had accompanied Hancock for nearly two decades on his
nomadic radio career, Colorado to Texas to Colorado again to Arizona (that job
lasted six weeks) to California (six months) to Pennsylvania to Florida to
Charlotte.
Now Hancock had landed a morning spot at WBT-AM 1110 AM/99.3FM, among the nation’s oldest and most prominent stations, and the question
was: How long would this gig last?
“I was not received well when I got here, not at all,” says
Hancock.
“It was pretty brutal for the first nine months. We didn’t
have phone screeners then, and people would call in and say, ‘I hate you, go
back where you came from.’ ”
It was Grins who turned things around, Hancock says. When he
had to put her to sleep because of feline leukemia, he told his listeners how
he felt about her loss.
“My voice got shaky. For some reason, that turned the corner
here. I think people were saying, ‘He’s still a jackass, but he cried about his
cat.’ ”
Hancock is now 60 and the Charlotte gig goes on. Aside from an
ill-fated morning stint at WEND-FM (“End” 106.5), he’s been at WBT in one time
slot or another for more than 20 years, the longest-serving full-timer at the
station.
He started doing evenings a week before the 9/11 terrorist
attacks in 2001. This week general manager Rick Feinblatt announced that on
July 16, Hancock would be returning to afternoon drive-time, a slot he occupied
in the late ’90s.
Jason Furst, WBT’s new program director, says afternoon
ratings have been generally flat for some years. He says he thinks Hancock
might just be the magic.
“John’s a superstar over here. He’s the most dynamic, most
recognized name on the station. John’s real,” Furst says.
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