R.I.P.: Former WCBS-AM Radio NYC GM-ND Lou Adler Has Died

Former WCBS 880 AM News Director Lou Adler died morning in Connecticut.

He was eighty-eight, according to a Facebook posting by Don Swaim.

Sad to report the passing of former WCBS News Anchor and onetime News Director Lou Adler. Was honored to have worked for him at @WOR710 and have been inspired to carry on his legacy @wcbs880 ... Lou helped make 88 Legendary so it’s poetic that he was 88 when he died. pic.twitter.com/hsOuFRBwOe

— Tim Scheld (@TimScheld) December 22, 2017

Adler, who lived in Wallingford, Connecticut, entered a facility two years ago for the treatment of Alzheimer's. Born in upstate New York, Adler was a graduate of SUNY, Fredonia, NY.

Not to be confused with the record producer and talent manager of the same name, Lou Adler joined WCBS in 1959 as a reporter before moving to WCBS-TV. He returned to Newsradio88 in 1967 as morning anchor and reporter when the station went all-news under General Manager Joseph Dembo.

In 1970 he received the Howard Blakeslee Award for his radio series “Report on Medicine.”

Lou Adler and Jim Donnelly

In 1971, he was named by General Manager Neil Derrough as the station's news director, replacing Marvin Friedman. Despite his supervisory duties, Adler continued his morning drive anchor slot, paired with Jim Donnelly. Under Derrough, Adler was responsible for scaling down the news department, staffed by more than 100 newsroom employees, into a tighter, more efficient operation.

At the time, Adler told The New York Times that his assignment was to turn a good station into an interesting one, and that its pacing and sound was comparable to a newspaper's front-page layout.

He left the station to become news director and anchor at WOR Radio in 1981 at a reported salary of $350,000 a year. In 1985 he was elected president of the Radio-Television News Directors Association.

Following his stint at WOR, Adler was named a professor of broadcast journalism at Quinnipiac University and director of Quinnipiac's Ed McMahon Mass Communication Center. Somewhere along the way he earned a law degree. He was also owner of 250-watt WKFD-AM in Wickford, Rhode Island, which went off the air in 2001.