By: wzeiders
PITTSTON, Pa. – The Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters (PAB) Board of Directors have announced that WVIA’s George Graham will receive the Radio Broadcaster of the Year Award for 2023. The award will be presented at the PAB’s annual Excellence in Broadcasting Awards Luncheon at the Harrisburg Hilton Hotel on Friday, May 5th.
“I must say, I am deeply honored by this, and frankly, quite surprised,” said Graham. “This would not have happened without the great environment and colleagues that has made WVIA what it has been for this half-century.”
“We are so proud of George and share in the excitement of this recognition” said Carla McCabe, WVIA President and CEO. “George’s contributions to WVIA and the region as a whole have helped define the place, we call home.”
The Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters annual Excellence in Broadcasting Awards competition encourages professional performance among radio and television stations in the state of Pennsylvania. The Broadcaster of the Year Award is conferred for continued quality performance and recognizes an active radio and television on-air broadcaster each year.
About George Graham
One of the first staff members at WVIA, George produces and hosts Mixed Bag, All That Jazz and Homegrown Music on WVIA Radio, and the Homegrown Music Concerts on WVIA TV.
Graham was the first employee of WVIA Radio and has been on the WVIA staff since 1972. A native and resident of Carbondale, PA, he is magna cum laude graduate of Duke University, where he majored in electrical engineering. He joined the WVIA staff in connection with the studio design and construction of WVIA FM, but with his four years of on-air experience at the Duke University radio station, he immediately moved into on-air work. He sought to bring the kind of eclectic contemporary music radio programming that marked student radio at Duke (where
he was program director) in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
He introduced Mixed Bag, which has become purportedly the longest continuously running program of what is now called “album adult alternative” music in the country. Graham introduced Homegrown Music, a program to spotlight talented regional artists in performances from the station’s studio. The series has been running continuously as a weekly series since 1976, and includes weekly recording session broadcasts, and monthly live concerts performed before a studio audience. He also hosts WVIA’s All That Jazz and presents extensive annual radio coverage of the region’s jazz festivals from Delaware Water Gap and Scranton.