CHAPTER 12 THE HISTORY OF RADIO RANDY : HAPPY THANKSGIVING

 

Over my 45 years in broadcast radio, I worked with a lot of salespeople. I encountered quite an array of different styles embodied by these people who literally had to learn how to sell air. You can’t touch radio advertising. You can hear it. If it’s done well, you can see the results. If you can make the client’s cash register ring, then you have yourself a successful ad campaign.

Despite my time in Manchester as a General Manager, I was much more interested in programming. I believed, and still do, that great programming will find an audience. Creating great programming is much more fun, than trying to convince people to buy advertising. 

As my programming philosophy began to take shape I came to understand, that an important part of successful programming required a commitment to the listener. The goal, I believed, was to make the station a part of the listener’s life. To be a friend. To be a source of entertainment. To not violate some basic rules of friendship. Let’s face it, we all have experienced having a friend getting involved with product that requires their friends to sit through some kind of pitch. It’s uncomfortable. Usually, we have no interest in hearing about the product or buying it or joining their sales effort.

I’ve always tried to program radio stations with that in mind. In terms of the relationship between station and listener. In other words, let’s not be that friend that is selling to them.  Sure, we play commercials. But the station, the air talent and our programming efforts are more likely to be successful if we keep a clear line between selling and entertaining. We want to nurture that friendship and build it into a long-term relationship.

Oneonta was only my third job in radio. Even though I would describe myself as a bit of a purest when it comes to programming, I, of course had learned that commercials are the only way stations make money. Since I wanted to get paid it was clear commercials would always be around so why not accept that and move on. I did begin to consider that if we could make commercials as entertaining as possible it might make them more palatable and maybe even more effective.

Since we had started the rebuild of WIEZ from scratch with no commercials and no way to even play them, it was quite interesting to see John having success selling commercials for the station. In my short career I had already worked with a few sales folks who were competent, but John had them all beat by a mile. I mean in a couple of months he had some serious dollars coming in for a station that had been a train wreck just a few weeks earlier. Plus, he was still doing the sign on shift on the air.

We were now up to 4 total on the team? John and myself plus Cindy who was handling the office work and Bill whom I hired away from the station across town.

Our new schedule had John on until 9 AM, then me on until Noon.

Bill did noon to 3 PM, I came back from three to eight and bill finished the day working eight pm to two am.

So, now we were matching the competition and staying on until 2 AM as well.

The station was a dump. We had just bare bones equipment. No station vehicle, no t-shirts, no bumper stickers. But I learned that, what was coming out of the speakers, was what mattered. Considering the Skelton staff and crazy hours the station sounded pretty good.

All these years later I think about that experience and how it shaped my work ethic. I loved every minute of it. Except maybe the apartment with no electricity and no furniture.

There is nothing like building a station from scratch. What had started from beer glasses and no light bulbs was becoming a real radio station.

Vicky and I had settled into life in the trailer, as we watched Erin grow and take her first steps. We were excited about the future.

Then…. The owners sent in their son (remember Pizza face) for a visit.

It was about a week before thanksgiving. He called me and John together and informed us that since the station was doing so well, they intended to keep the station. Furthermore, they told us, they had seen how simple it was to get the station on track. They fired us. Pizza face was taking over as manager and my pal Bill was the new PD.

We had a few minutes to get our personal stuff and get out.

For some reason to this day radio owners still love firing people right before the holidays. John and I were apparently pioneers, at the forefront of this trend of radio folks spending the holidays out of work.