User:Tony Bristol

Tony Bristol is a local radio personality from North Providence, Rhode Island. Tony has been a radio personality since 1978 when he was still in high school. He is also a member of the Rhode Island Radio Hall Of Fame.

Early Years

Tony Bristol was born Anthony Alan Pescarino to Susie and Anthony Pescarino on November 20, 1960. In 1975 Tony caught the radio bug after watching local personality of blessed memory, Mike Sands DJ a dance at his local junior high school, Birchwood Middle School in North Providence. As an avid listener of Capital Cities station WPRO-FM, Tony became a persistent radio station contest winner. During his many visits to the radio station to pick up his prizes, Tony became friendly with their on-air personalities and soon provided a helping hand at local school dances with local station personalities Giovanni and John "Big John" Bina. While still attending North Providence High School, Tony joined the local Junior Achievement program at WPRO-FM where he honed his technical equipment skills and contributed to a weekly public service show that provided news and information, sports, lifestyle and pop culture and music news. Tony was also the station's School Scope reporter informing the night time radio audience about school events on the nightly "Mighty Mike" Osborne show. Knowing how to operate studio equipment gave Tony an opportunity to fulfill his dream of becoming a radio personality or DJ as it was called back then. One weekend there was a staffing issue at the station and he was asked by station's first Program Director, Gary Berkowitz to "run the board" during an overnight shift. This involved playing the music and sweepers and jingles between the music without actually talking on the air. The following day, Gary Berkowitz asked him to try talking on the air that night using the name Anthony. Anthony eventually became Tony Bristol when Gary Berkowitz said he sounded like a local kid and should have a local sounding name. Bristol was chosen because Bristol is the name of a local town in Rhode Island and Bristol County, Massachusetts was part of the stations listening area.

After graduating high school, Tony was offered a part time position at WPRO-FM where he hosted overnight shifts and produced various syndicated station programming including The Wolfman Jack Show and Disco Sunday Night. In the fall of 1979 Tony was offered a full time position as overnight personality handling the 1am-5:30am time slot on weekends. In the early eighties Tony became mid-day host from 10am to 3pm, a position he held for 8 years until becoming Music Director and afternoon personality. In 1984, in the height of the MTV days, Tony hosted a local video countdown show on WPRI Ch. 12 in Providence called Video Trax. In 1993, WPRO-FM was sold and Tony left the station to pursue a position as Music Director and on air personality at WTIC-FM in Hartford, Connecticut. In 1996 Tony left WTIC for his first Program Director job ar WKCI, KC-101 in New Haven, Connecticut where he worked with morning talent, later turned syndicated radio talk host, Glenn Beck. In 1998 Tony was offered the position of Program Director of WPRO-FM and afternoon on-air personality. While PD he put together the morning show team of Giovanni & Kim (Zandy) In The Morning, one of Providence's longest running morning radio shows, only second to Salty Brine on WPRO-AM. Tony also wrote and produced a new music show called Airbound which aired on 16 Citadel stations throughout the country. In 2007 Tony added Program Director and afternoon personality stripes for sister station WWLI-FM. There he created another successful morning show, Jones & Heather In The Morning.

In 2011 Tony was inducted into the Rhode Island Radio & Television Hall Of Fame. In 2012, Tony's contract was not renewed leaving him a free agent. In 2014 Tony worked part time at WMJX and WKLB, Boston as weekend and fill in host. In 2015 Tony became Program Director of iHeartmedia's WSRS-FM and WTAG-AM in Worcester, Massachusetts. In January of 2020, iHeartmedia company restructuring eliminated Tony's position.

Personal Life

Tony lives in North Providence, RI and is married to Ann (Houle) Pescarino (1988-present). Together they have two children, Talya born (1989) and Anthony born (1998). Tony and Ann are grandparents to Talya's son Michael born (2012). Tony enjoys family time, music, songwriting, golfing, snowmobiling and being a beach bum at his favorite Rhode Island beach, Salty Brine State Beach.