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Consultants

T

TopicA

Guest
I've noticed Cowhead and Fischer & Boy hinting that an AM show consultant has been talking to them about bit ideas and how to do their show. They don't sound very happy about it either, Fischer has been forcing stuff, and Cowhead flat out made fun of the consultant's suggestion. Who did COX bring in? Is COX unhappy with the shows? Does anyone think their shows need work?
 
;D Anybody can be a consultant...Vista Print will make you 250 free business cards.. Hahaha Consultant my ass! APE
 
Talented people who can get a job in the business work, non-talented people who can't get a job in the business consult.........had a program director of mine tell me that or more than one occassion.
 
....and less talented people spend their day talking about radio people on message boards.

-Cow
 
Would that be like the old saying..."Pot calling the Kettle Black"?
 
who isn't UNhappy with any am shows in tampa bay? top 20 markets should have top 20 talent! no wonder there are traffic reports about so many accidents in the morning. talk about putting people to sleep at the wheel.


TopicA said:
Is COX unhappy with the shows?
Click to expand...
 
MusicMan11 said:
Talented people who can get a job in the business work, non-talented people who can't get a job in the business consult.........had a program director of mine tell me that or more than one occassion.
Click to expand...

I am not a consultant. Never been one. Don't want to be. I've worked with a number of consultants (from rock to news/talk to smooth jazz). Some I really liked - some I didn't care for. But all of them (the ones I worked with anyway), had multiple successess (some ass-kicking) before they hung their "Consultant" sign up. Any program director who doesn't want to at least listen to ideas is not a very good program director. The key to success is what the program director does with that information. And that includes ignoring it.
 
Consultants had a lot of value prior to the advance of consolidation and the information highway ramping up. When working for smaller owners, it was nice to have contact with consultants who were in constant contact with multiple stations in the same format. You got a good line on what was being tried in other markets and working (or not working for that matter).

These days, the super groups have are sharing all of that information pretty instantaneously and through steaming and the net we can research a lot of it ourselves. Sure there is always some value in an outside ear, but less than before.
 
Back during GM stint at WLVU, the ownership hired a consultant. My first reaction was negative having seen the consultant merry go round at the old 96KIX, Magic 96, The New FM 96, 96 Magic, and all the other reincarnations of Metroplexes' FM during that period of time. To my surprise, this consultant was "one of us". Former jock and PD, Dave McNamee. I learned a ton from him and he helped me put on a slick and professional upper demo station. One of the brightest ever to work in the business.
 
Dave was also one of the best Spanish Format consultants ever to walk in the door of a stand alone AM at 1580 with 5 towers and 24 watts at night in a major market..He did wonders with that and many other Spanish stations. M wife worked with him when he was at Alan Henry's "Anchor Broadcasting" A good guy indeed.

A couple other "good" consultants if you ever run across them are Alan Mason and John Frost at goodratings.com. Terriffic people person relatability, and an individual market approach. Tommy Kramer is the finest morning show consultant you can get. Chris Elliott, Rusty Walker, Kevin Robinson, and Terry Patrick are also high on the list. These folks don't just bring thier folder full of cookie cutter liners, and change things..they listen, and listen again, and slowly tweak, and adjust until things are smoother, more relative, and topical.

Most unhappy people in stations hate it when their ideas are edited. I guess I would too, but there is a reason they are around, and if I stay teachable I might get something from these people I can use.
 
Jeff: On a sad note. McNamee, according to some sources, died a few years back. They say you can count on one hand five people who affected your life in a tremendous way. Dave was one of those to me.
 
Jeff...
While I respect your talents and most of the time agree with you on these boards, I just can't do it this time. I was there in Orlando when OM John Frost brought in the "consulting" Alan Mason in for WMGF and the "talent coach" Tommy Kramer for WQTM. As far as most of us on air were concerned, neither did a damn thing to really help... We were already damn near #1 at 107.7 anyway and what worked in Phoenix didn't necessarly work in Orlando. Same goes for Kramer, just because it worked on Texas talk radio didn't mean it'll work on a "new" sports station in Orlando. And while we had a great creative service and voice guy ;) for The Team, I always wondered why he ever got back into the local radio scene. Trust me when I say, I don't have an axe to grind and all 3 were fine people if you got to know them... but if there was ever an example of friends hiring friends and a good ole boy network existing in 90's radio consolidation, that was it. Was it a great learning experience? You bet... it opened my eyes to some things and I believe I was a better "talent" following.

PS... and since this board is about Tampa Bay, I believe it was Paxon's John Frost and Alan Mason who decided to launch "Love 101.5" when Paxon aquired the frequency from Moody. I know, I know, Bud promised not to put anything "shocking" on the frequency... but deciding on a format that never had a chance in hell against WWRM or WDUV was pretty stupid. However, I'll give credit where credit is due... I believe they also created WSJT 94.1 which still today has many of the original talent it started with in the mid-90's.
 
Hi BILL!!

Yeah the Paxson days were a little diffrerent. Each of those guys also learned a lot from that Orlando experience..including the production/creative director..He had child support payments that needed to be taken care of, and sometimes you do what you have to to make things work out ya know..

Anyway the Tampa "Love 101.5" was probably launched with the knowlege that it might not work. John worked for Paxson as an employee then. You're right that Moody held a few cards as far as that station was concerned in order for Mr. Paxson to get it. He had to show a loss in order to change it. Any court would have seen the reasonings for a prompt change in format after the Love format tanked. And nobody would have ever thought that someone would spend THAT MUCH money to operate an unsuccessful station. I am sure the sales contract and any agreements made with respect to Moody contained language that allowed Bud to change formats in the event of financial loss. He had a good lawyer in Bill Watson.

Tommy has changed a lot, as has Alan Mason..it takes a few failures to tweak your style. IMHO these days they are much more tuned in than back then.

Hope you're doing okay Bill.

JL
 
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