Debbie Hall out

[Bubba Bob]

Debbie Hall is out at WREC. What's going on at that place? She was the only authoritative voice they had in a.m. drive. The person attempting to do the news currently sounds as if he's reading it from the newspaper. Actually, he sounds like at dull NPR voice.

 

[isanybodythere]

I've heard she is a real busy body in the office. But she is a good, natural communicator. I hope she finds something quick.

 

[debbyhall]

How could I be a busy body when I was stuck inside a room and talked to no one.? Sounds like you got your info from someone who obviously doesn't care too much for me. How about I give you a list of names of clear channel folks and ask them what they thought? Busybody..hmmmmmm

 

[bskpd]

I really enjoyed working with Debbie years ago. Ours was one of the few morning shows to ever beat incumbent Ron Olson's show on the short-lived "Z103" (as a CHR) back on Beale Street.
I always thought very highly of Debbie on the air. Fun to work with, too!
Steve Kelly, Jackson, MS.

 

[Grapevine]

In fact, Z103 was such a hit, they flipped it back to AOR after a year.

From the spring of 1985 until the spring of 1986, Z103 was little more than a bug in the windshield of FM100.

 

[robgrayson]

IIRC, Z103 was actually making progress when they pulled the plug, even topping 100 in some demos.

 

[bskpd]

In fact, Z103 was such a hit, they flipped it back to AOR after a year.
From the spring of 1985 until the spring of 1986, Z103 was little more than a bug in the windshield of FM100.

Actually it was two years, but who's counting. I took over as PD in the second year (after a year as a hybrid AO-CHR) and Rob is correct (I have the stats to prove it) that we did beat 100 in more than just a couple demos. What happened, as best as we learned later, was this... the station was gaining momentum and ratings...the station at the time was owned by a private family and needed to be sold off to help settle the estate of the principal who had passed away. The station's format was flipped at that time. Hey, I've seen a lot stranger things happen over the years. It wouldn't surprise me that the format was flipped to implode the gaining momentum so the folks who made the decision to actually flip the format could buy it at a bargain price. (the then-current CEO of the radio company ended up being the principal of the company that formed to BUY the station)...

 

[robgrayson]

At post-Z103 WEGR, the CEO came to Memphis and called everyone in for a meeting. He said that he wished to put to rest rumors... the stations were NOT up for sale. A few months later, he came to town and called us together for a second meeting to tell us HE just bought the stations. I turned to Art Mehring and whispered, "Well, he's only lied to us once!"

 

[cscott]

Decisions to flip formats on major FMs are not talken lightly. Whats missing from the commentary is the revenue side of the equation. While Z might have had a few wins in narrow demos it was being killed on the revenue side. The flip from rock to pop was a costly, unwise decision. Being the MM who was hired in 86 to fix things, a research project revealed very clearly that 103 had left behind an opportunity it should never have abandoned. 100 never felt the revenue impact of Z's attack and yet 103 was down well over 100K monthly during its months in CHR. The rest is history. Some good people were caught in the flip to CHR and some were caught in the flip back to Rock. Thats unfortunate but the real question is why did the station flip in the first place. I was at 106 when the Z was alunched was launched but I never have been able to figure that one out.

 

[radiosaur]

Funny how things work out. When Rock 103 re-emerged, Bobby Knight and JoJo Walker came to Little Rock where I was working and helped make that station number 1.

Two decisions I will never understand in this market’s history: Why RKO sold off their FM instead of migrating Q over, and the Rock 103 flip to CHR.

 

[briancraig]

RKO sold WHBQ-FM 105.9 in order to buy a FM in Chicago. Back in the "good old days" of FCC ownership rules, a company could only own 7 AMs and 7 FMs nationwide. Memphis was by far RKO's smallest market. They owned FMs in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Washington and Memphis. They were in the process of purchasing one in the Miami/Fort Lauderdale market which made 7 so in order to expand into Chicago, Memphis had to go.

I seem to recall an article somewhere about 103 changing to CHR due to having an image that the only listeners they had were black t-shirt wearing stoned teenage boys. Clearly by 1985, ratings were down significantly from Rock 103's 1979-1983 glory days.

When 103 returned to AOR in 1986 they did not call themselves Rock 103 but instead it was The Eagle 102.7 Quality Rock or something like that. They played virtually no hard rock and were heavy into artists like Suzanne Vega and Los Lobos, almost what you would today call AAA. They also changed the call letters from WZXR to WEGR. I vaguely recall Craig saying something about not going back to the old Rock 103 image on tv or in the paper. I'm sure he can shed more light on The Eagle's imaging.

 

[cscott]

Morphing AOR's into CHRs became fashionable in the mid 80's. Those decision were usually more revenue driven than ratings. Even the legendary Buzzard, arguably America's premier rock station at the time---WMMS---flipped out of the format. Of course each format's musical lean is cyclical but the late 70's AOR stations were very narrow 18-24/34 Male, and revenue did not always keep pace with larger audience shares. I was GM'ing KIX 106 at the time so I was not at 103 when the format flipped but I assume that had something to do with it. Basically AOR was losing its glow and CHR was broader and riding a tide of more advertiser acceptance. For all the minors in the audience, AOR was the Rock format's label then.

The imagining decision has been talked to death in other posts. It was always the plan to return to the Rock 103 brand. The Quality Rock/Eagle intro allowed the station to gain a new shine, a halo, broadening its appeal, whether you liked the slightly softer music or not. The revenue story was all that is worth repeating. From the point the station flipped back to rock, revenue recovered right back where it always was.

 

[robgrayson]

I'm figuring this thread is nearing its natural end, otherwise it would warrant moving to a new topic. That being said, part of the unique music mix defining 103's return to AOR would be the handiwork of Art Wander. With a radio career that goes back to NYC in the early rock & roll era, Art was at one point Plough Broadcasting's national PD. Those first few weeks of the move from CHR to Rock, Art wrote out the hourly music sheets by hand (not a big computer fan at the time). I figure he was retirement age or beyond, but had an interesting perspective of rock music. As if to quash any thoughts I would have to his being "too old to rock and roll", he reached into his desk and pulled out a letter from Brian Epstein, which the Beatle's manager personally sent to Art with an advance copy of "A Day In The Life".

I recall 103 being more "inclusive" musically when I first started there in 1979. (My previous standard for Album Rock was WJDX-FM, later WZZQ in Jackson, Mississippi. That station was open to anything from "I'll Fix Your Flat Tire, Merle" to "Love Is The Drug" to the Bonzo Dog Do Dah Band, so I was no stranger to the idea of a broad spectrum rock station.) You may chuckle (I do) when you hear that "Tragedy" by the Bee Gees was in current rotation when I started at Rock103. "Strawberry Letter" by the Brothers Johnson and even some Commodores music was in the C-2's back when. Somewhere around 1980, Tom Owens came back from a Burkhart-Abrams "Superstars" PD meeting with the command from on high to "rock". At that point, we performed a de-wimpification of the music (still a file-card rotation back then), bringing AC/DC to middays and mornings. One irony I still recall was that FM100 played "Renegade" by Styx in all dayparts, but it was dayparted out of mornings and middays on 103.

I almost forgot, but one thing shaping the sound of 103 when they went back to AOR from CHR... they GAVE AWAY THE ENTIRE ALBUM COLLECTION when they went CHR. Upon returning, they had to start from scratch. I took over as interim PD between Art Wander and Howie Castle, so I was involved in the ongoing reconstruction effort. This was also the infancy of using CD's on the air, so almost as soon as we restocked the vinyl albums, we had to start rebuilding the library with compact disks.

Once again, this has nothing to do with Debbie Hall, but I figure we have about talked it out.

 

[debbyhall]

Steve Kelley is right. Z103 was doing great, in fact after the first book we beat FM 100 and Robert John (100's PD) sent us a bouquet of dead flowers! Hope you're doing well Steve.