I cleaned out all the guests for today. I told the mayor, take a hike, county executive,
get out of here because I wanted to talk to Jane. Jane Matinee is here.
Jane Matinee works on the civic media radio network. She does the 9 to 11 a.m. slot.
Matinee were on air and she's been at radio for now over. I hate to say this because that's about
talking about women's ages 40 years plus. 44 years. I was being kind. Well, that's okay. Roundup,
roundup. It sounds better. We'll make it an even 45 and Jane is retiring. I am tomorrow's her last
day in radio. Trap it up. Yeah, it's it's kind of surreal and you were just telling me you've been
you've been at this game 50. How many years? 54. Yeah, you make me look like a slacker. Yeah, but
so I once asked somebody for the first almost a year, I cleaned toilet bowls at 18 years old. I
was the station janitor. Nice. And they said that counts. Oh, yeah, you were in radio. You were
in the building that absolutely cleaning toilet balls and mopping floors, but I was in radio.
But you obviously had a love for the medium, even back then. Is that why you started when I was
eight years old with a basement radio station, my mom and dad bought me the caravill,
Remco caravill radio and started eight years old. I built my own radio station. But let's talk
about something now. Have you exclusively worked in Wisconsin your entire career? I was in
Minnesota when I first started. I went to Brown School of Broadcasting in Minneapolis. And then
when I graduated, I started at KNUJ in New Orleans, Minnesota, which was a small, very small polka
station in a very agricultural area. And they brought me on to help one other guy start what was
the hot AC that would have been the category of the music. So there were only two of us and we
launched this new station KXLP in New Orleans, Minnesota. And I did mid days and I couldn't
remember like at two o'clock coming out of Led Zeppelin and going, now let's do the closing
market numbers. Pork Bellies down five. But it was a great place to start. And I was talking to a
good friend and former colleague of mine, Tony Larino yesterday. There's nowhere done for young
broadcasters to go anymore to be terrible. That's true. You know what I'm saying? That is absolutely true.
The small little stations, that's something that civic media is bringing back are the small
local radio stations. We own a lot of them. We do own a lot of them, which is so unique and rare
in this industry, but for people to go get their feet wet and learn. That's how you learn.
And free toilet bowls. But you must have made mistakes when you were early early on the air.
I one day said that here's the late great Rachel's. Somebody said Rachel's isn't dead.
It's not dead yet. Whoops. And during the Vietnam War, I couldn't pronounce the names of the cities
I was mispronouncing them all over the people calling, but that's not how you say it.
Yep. But that's, but that's how you learn. It's learning ground. So I'm, I was lucky to have that.
I think it's tough for kids who want to get into business now to find a, to find some place to
start. Now you worked at a number of Milwaukee stations as well. I did. I was at the mix for almost
25 years. That's WNYX. WNYX. And on in the morning, I started there on over nights.
And then the general manager and the program director apparently caught me and thought she's not
terrible. We should, we should move her. So they moved me to partner with the guy who was in the
morning. I ended up having nine different partners over the course of my 24 plus years at the mix.
And then I did five years at B 93 in the morning. And then I went to TMJ. And I did seven years
there. Part of the morning show along with Gene Miller. You make it sound like a prison sentence.
I did seven there. I put it in my time done. I went the syncing for 20 years. Then I did
false them for three. But I was thinking about this as I was driving in. I kind of got to do a
little bit of everything in radio because I started out on the music side. And then I went into
news when I worked for TMJ. And I'm wrapping it up with on the opinion side. I also got to be a
producer for a little bit in there. So I've done, I, I, I'm very fortunate. I'm very, very lucky.
No, we feel so bad. I do too. I hate to see some great broadcaster like you saying.
I'm tired. I don't want to go watch Dateline reruns and home from now on. But you know,
the, the market has changed so much. And there is so much more emphasis now on online and videos.
And, and as that, making that part of a radio show. And just real quickly, once quick story,
I was talking to the one, what are the younger guys here who had worked for a different radio
station where they're very hip and cool. And I said, so what kind of videos do, you know, did,
did they do when you were there? And he said, well, we do do videos where they play pranks on
each other. He said, yeah, well, I can check that off. I'm not going to be doing pranks on Greg.
That's not my style. The other one we do that gets a lot of hits is they just record a video when
they wake up in the morning from bed. I said, I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever do a video
right when I wake up in the morning from bed. That's not my wheelhouse. You know, I see these
influencers online that have like three million viewer, three million people watching you talk
about nothing. It's crazy. It really is. And, and they have an enormous amount of weight.
I know. And people put a great deal of trust into these influencers. I would just, I would caution
folks. Just make sure that these people are worthy of your respect. That's good. I like that.
You know, just make sure they deserve it. I like that. That's good. You see, beginning yesterday
in Australia, nobody under the age of 16 is a lot to be on social media. It's so detrimental.
I was talking about another friend of mine about this. I am so glad to have grown up in a
time frame when we didn't have that stuff. I was self-conscious enough as a young girl. I can't
imagine how much worse it is now for young people. Boys, too. There's so much pressure. There's
so much the bullying and the pressuring and the way to look and dress and be. It's not good for
kids. You have enough peer pressure the way it is. You don't, you don't need that extra. And
don't let your kids talk to chat GPT. I want to sit down with chat GPT and have a discussion.
Probably be a good discussion. Shake my finger. That's, I think it's dangerous.
I want to, I want to tell you that not only are we going to miss you here at Civic Media and
it is building at Radio Park where we are. We will also miss you in the business.
Thank you, Tom. But you're not dying already. I am not dying. And I told P Schwabah this and
you know, they're letting me keep my laptop and my microphone. And I have everybody's email addresses.
So it's not like you guys are getting away from me. Do you think you can hide?
You can run, but you can't hide. So hopefully I'll be popping up here and there. I would,
I will, I will be here for Civic and any capacity I can. We're looking for a janitor.
Hey, I took the garbage out when we had the place in Walker shot. I was office manager.
I thank you very much for coming in this morning here. Just talking to me because we worked,
we did a concert together back in the 90s, I guess. John Tash is part of one of me. Yes.
That's when you're working for the mix, was it? Probably. Yeah. Yeah. Most, yep.
Well, you'll be missed. Thank you so much, John. And congratulations to you. Keep on plugging away.
You're awesome. No, thank you, Jane. Jane Mattenair from Mattenair on air on the Civic Media Radio.
Network tomorrow's our last day. Join us. That's going to be fun. Yeah. You can listen to WAUK
AM540 or what's the FM frequency? I believe one in 1.3. Yeah. Something like that. Yeah.
Another FM frequency. I can't keep track of all these translators. We got lots of stations. Lots of
waste to list. But AM540 covers most of the state. It does. We got a big signal. You know what the
old call letters of that station were? No, I do. It was when I first came to Wisconsin 1980. It was
W-Y-L-O. You know what it's said for? Way low on the dial. Come join us here at 540 AM. Way
low on the dial. Oh, that's so radio done. I know. I love it. I think Simmons TV should go back to
W-Y-L-O. Way low. So old time radio. That's good talking to you. You as well. Thank you so much.
Every morning here, it comes in at seven o'clock with a smile on her face and a breaky.
And I, yep, my breaky. Go have the, the Chris, the sausage croissant at the dish. I love that
place. Say how to curl. I pass it all the time. She's careless, fabulous. All right.
