Gerard Anthony "Jerry" Del Colliano'" is an American journalist, author, former media executive, broadcaster and professor of music industry at the University of Southern California. He is currently a professor at New York University Steinhardt School and is publisher and editor of Inside Music Media and founder and former owner of Inside Radio.
Early life
Born in Hoboken, New Jersey, and raised in Springfield, Pennsylvania, Del Colliano attended Springfield High School where his interest in radio occurred because he was shy as a child and radio became an outlet in overcoming his shyness. After graduating from Springfield High School, Del Colliano earned a B.S. degree in radio-television-film at Temple University, Philadelphia.
Radio and TV career
Del Colliano first started in radio while going to school at Temple University as a co-host of the Saturday evening comedy and variety show called "Party Time" for Temple's radio station WRTI.
Del Colliano's first job in commercial broadcasting was working for Jerry Lee, owner of WBEB, Philadelphia as overnight host of 101.1FM. Del Colliano was hired at the ABC affiliate Channel 6 (now WPVI-TV). During his two years at Channel 6 Del Colliano worked on-camera, did TV news reporting, weather and a feature called "Late & Local" on the 11 o'clock news as well as "booth" announcing.
While at Channel 6, Del Colliano also worked at WFIL as on-air news reporter.
Other Philadelphia radio positions that Del Colliano held throughout his broadcast career were news reporter and DJ at WIBG. News reporter at WIP. Program Director at WIFI before returning to WIBG, this time, as Program Director.
Del Colliano has been a member of the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia since 2009.
Inside Radio
After overseeing on-air operations at WIBG, Del Colliano thought he wanted to continue programming radio stations but instead got the idea to start a radio trade publication to use his journalism background and because he came across a book in B. Dalton bookstore called How to Make $25,000 a Year Writing Newsletters. That book motivated Del Colliano to start a niche publication for the radio industry. Inside Radio started in 1975, but initially did not receive great support. Del Colliano almost quit the venture to return to radio programming when he got the idea to make the publication more investigative and not like a traditional media trade publication.
Inside Radio began as a weekly printed newsletter specialized in radio news as opposed to the popular publication of the day "Broadcasting Magazine" that covered both radio and TV and the emerging cable industries.
Along with trade publication Inside Radio, Del Colliano started Radio Only in 1982, a full color magazine that accepted advertising in addition to the weekly printed newsletter that did not at that time accept advertising. While both publications were in circulation, Del Colliano had the idea that he wanted to deliver the news everyday rather than weekly which was customary.
Before the Internet and through the use of a fax machine on November 27, 1995 Inside Radio was converted from a weekly printed newsletter to a daily news publication that contained advertising as well as news and was faxed to its subscribers. Subsequent to Inside Radio becoming a daily publication, Radio Only magazine was folded.
After radio consolidation that was enabled by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Del Colliano began publishing a journal to keep track of all radio stations and companies being bought and sold. In 1996 Who Owns What was started and would become another faxed publication that would show the top 50 radio groups by revenue, stations and audience along with all transactions that occurred weekly for paid subscribers.
In 1999, Inside Radio would continue to be faxed while having an online presence.