Cape Fear

Part 4

by Dan Kennedy

It's a Sunday evening. Ernie Boch is lingering on the Vineyard. Tomorrow it'll be back to Norwood for another week of flogging cars. As one of the last weekends of the summer fades, the last thing Boch presumably wants to do is answer rude questions from a reporter. Yet even though Boch had previously turned down a formal request for an interview, on this evening he goes so far as to return a phone call, and talks politely and cooperatively for a half-hour.

"I've always talked to reporters," he says. "What have I got to hide? I try to be very open about everything."

At the same time, though, Boch gives the impression of not knowing that much about the operations of his radio stations. For instance, of the Mariah Thatcher incident, he says simply: "I didn't know anything about it until after it happened. I certainly don't approve of us doing anything wrong." He adds that he'll leave it to the courts to decide whether the station actually did anything wrong. On Liddy's homophobic outburst: "I didn't even hear it. What I'm mainly interested in is trying to run a decent show that gets ratings. As far as I know, Liddy's ratings are pretty good." On the firing of his friend Gino Montesi: "We just had to do it for ratings. Gino's a good friend of mine, but he was focusing on such narrow things that he didn't have a wide appeal."

Boch-watchers say the reason the man in charge is vague about the details is that he has delegated broad authority to Cary Pahigian, a 39-year-old radio executive who attended Emerson College and has worked at stations in Boston, Portland, and Washington. He's been with Boch almost from the beginning. And though a casual observer might wonder why Pahigian, who in 1980 lured David Brudnoy to WBZ, is now running a group of tiny radio stations on the Cape, a knowledgeable radio-industry source describes Pahigian's job as attractive and prestigious. After all, he gets to run the entire operation. And live on the Cape, too.

Pahigian comes across as smart, affable, high-energy. With his carefully styled, swept-back hair, his shirtsleeves-and-tie semi-informality, and his banter about the ins and outs of Massachusetts politics, he exudes a sense of presence and easy familiarity. Like Boch, though, Pahigian focuses almost entirely on ratings. He credits Boch for resurrecting a dead radio station and creating more than 50 jobs, and he defends WXTK by stressing its local news programming and community announcements. (In fact, the station deserves some credit on that score, although ratings leader WQRC-FM arguably does more.) For the most part, though, Pahigian's bottom line is the bottom line.

Ask him why the station provides no alternative to WRKO during the seven hours a day that Rush Limbaugh and Howie Carr are on the air, and he replies: "The overwhelming majority of people listen to them on WXTK."

Ask him why the station made a promo out of Liddy's hateful antigay remark, and he says, "He was talking about a local issue. Whether we agree with it or not, that is what he said. It's who he is."

Ask him about the dearth of local programming, and he comes back with, "If a show works, it's on. I think we're just in a cycle now where there's good syndicated material available."

To be fair, there are a number of areas that Pahigian legitimately can't get into. Personnel matters, for one. Boch Broadcasting's formidable legal docket, for another. He refers an inquiry about the Mariah Thatcher incident to the company's lawyers, who in turn decline to go beyond the formal denial they have filed in Barnstable Superior Court. (Pahigian does allow that no one was disciplined following the broadcasts.)

A year ago the company sued a rival radio station, charging it with encouraging a listener to vandalize Boch's transmitter. The suit was recently settled on confidential terms, but now there's a new twist: a local resident who claims he turned in the youth responsible is accusing Boch of welshing on a promised $10,000 reward.

Last December Boch sued former news director Matt Pitta, charging him with breaking a non-compete agreement by taking a similar position with WQRC. That suit was also settled, and Pitta has been allowed to keep his new job. Pitta declined to comment on the terms of the settlement.

The company is also suing the town of Yarmouth for the right to more than double the size of its building, at the end of a long residential street. Although the expansion is designed to accommodate Boch's three other stations, Pahigian says the increase in traffic would be imperceptible.

Pahigian's critics say he has been a brutal manager who has fired so many employees that, as Peter Kenney puts it, he should install a "revolving door." Adds another ex-employee who asked not to be identified: "The way people are treated there is pretty reprehensible. People come in to work, and they're summarily dismissed. It's done with mystery and makes people real nervous."

David Brudnoy, who considers Pahigian a friend, nevertheless calls him a "polarizing character" who'd call the station at 2 a.m. to complain if he heard something he didn't like. "Cary is a great guy, but a lot of people hate his guts," says Brudnoy. WLVI-TV's Jon Keller, who also worked with Pahigian at WBZ, adds, "Radio's a sharp-elbowed business. Cary's thrown his share, and he's had his share thrown at him. The private man is judged very highly by those of us who know him."

Says Pahigian himself: "I go to bed at night knowing I've done the right thing."

Back to part 3 - On to part 5

Dan Kennedy can be reached at dkennedy[a]phx.com.