FYI for the Pat Garrett Fans

[John FL]

I suppose for anyone interested, you can read a lot about all this in the Raleigh/Greensboro board. The station Pat wound up at, WMQX Oldies 93 has now officially flipped to country after doing a countdown stunt over the last couple of days.

I haven't heard directly from Pat so I won't comment on what did or didn't happen to him. Perhaps we'll hear more from some of you out in radio land. I can say alot here but the point is moot.

While I recognize this is a Jax board, I thought I would just share with you the letter I received today as a member of their preferred listeners. Nothing new here but it just stresses the bottom line/advertising - what radio is really all about. The management really made it a point to explain their case that I thought you might find interesting. You'd think I'd be used to this crap by now but I'm rather depressed.....

Dear John,

By now you are aware of a major change in the radio landscape in the
Triad. We wanted to take a moment and explain what is happening and why.
As of today at 3pm Oldies 93 has changed format to 93-1 THE WOLF. The WOLF
is a music station featuring more than 50 minutes of Fresh Country music
every hour.

Why did this happen?

For some time now Oldies based radio stations like Oldies 93 have been
disappearing around the country for the same reason: Lack of advertiser
support. This has not be a ratings issue. Thanks to the support of
listeners like you Oldies 93 has maintained high ratings and was
consistently one of the top rated stations in the Greensboro, Winston
Salem, High Point market. In fact for the last three years Oldies 93 has
been one of the top five Oldies based stations in the nation. No this is
not due to lack of ratings. It is due to advertisers failing to embrace
the audience that we delivered with Oldies 93. This has also affected
movies, tv and other entertainment venues. Advertisers are seeking a
younger audience and have refused to fully embrace the baby boom
generation.

Radio stations are in fact a business that only has one source of revenue:
advertising. While Oldies 93's ratings have remained competitive, our
revenue has taken a hit over the last year. We have held off making this
kind of move longer than most stations around the country, but that day
has finally arrived. We have exhausted every possible alternative to
making this change by trying to educate the advertising community about
the value of our listeners. Unfortunately we have not convinced enough of
the advertisers to come around to our way of thinking.

Based on extensive research we have determined the best course for the
station is the launch a new radio station featuring a unique blend of
country music. And so as of today 93-1 THE WOLF is on the air and ready to
have some Paw scratchin' Fun in the Piedmont Triad.

We know that many of you enjoy country music as well as Oldies, and it is
our hope that you give the WOLF a chance to be your friend, just like
Oldies 93 was.


signed,

931-THE WOLF!!

 

[The Goodfellow]

Hold up with the RIP! They are still stunting. Real format hits tomorrow afternoon at 3.

Goodfellow

 

[John FL]

???? The old Oldies 93 website was replaced with the following:

www.931wolfcountry.com/

And it's streaming country.

The business of radio is a tough one for those who make a living in it, particularly the talent. It seems stations go out of their way to throw the average listener off track and especially the competion in order to protect an eventual format flip. And I'm sure most folks in the biz have to develop paranoia as they can trust little they hear or even trust those they report to. A heck of a way to make a living.

Look, I'm not going to go into a song and a dance about flips - we all know why it's done and at the top of the list is to enhance revenue. My beef is the way things are done and what they do to the talent. I don't know how you guys in the biz do it - I'm sure you gotta have many sleepless nights.

If you just look at what happened to Pat over the past few years , it seems obvious to me that radio is just one tough, cold business. When Pat was out at Cool 96.9, the station was doing well in the ratings, had just about the highest cumes in town and had a good sales team who were delivering - none of that mattered. In most business, good performance is rewarded but radio is not the norm. I think most of us would agree that Pat could have easily programmed classic hits if given the opportunity. If you listened to what they were doing in NC, they were practically a classic hits stations anyway. He had the talent to pull it off.

But even with a good deal of success and a proven track record, no one in this town gave him an opportuntity. And so he winds up in a small market in Savannah just to earn a paycheck working on a station with virtually no signal. And managment kept promising they would deliver 50,000 watts. Oh and they delivered all right. Once the signal was booming, he was out and so was everyone else and the oldies. Yeah, it may be business but it's damn cold.

And if my company got me to move to NC just a couple of months ago, requiring me to sell my home, disrupt my family and given very challenging goals only to have it all end very quickly, no one would think much of that company. I suppose TV is tough too but working in radio is just not what it's cracked up to be.

I have a lot of respect for those of you in radio who live under a cloud of uncertainty all the time yet don't let that take away from you being the best you can be. I'm hoping what I was trying to say here is going to make sense. I just think that the talent who often do so much get so little in return - especially in the way they are treated.

 

[TommyR]

So true. I have heard a PD's gig being compared to a football coach: Do well and you can stick with the team for a while, but have a bad season, personality clash, ownership change, etc. and you're gone. I guess the same could be said for talent, in a way.

But what I have never understood is how radio stations can lay off an entire airstaff just for a format change. What if one or more of the jocks has experience in the new format? What if he or she can put on a good show regardless of the music? Wouldn't it be easier and more economical to keep at least SOME of the staff, rather than solicit airchecks from all over, in search of that next great jock (who knows nothing about the market, audience, or company)?

If anyone can explain this, please do. And I'm not talking about, say, forcing Briggs Bickley to do Urban CHR. I am thinking of Tom Murphy, who in my lifetime has done AC, oldies, country, and smooth jazz, for example. Good jocks need not be typecast, right? Seems like "guilt by association" sometimes.

 

[wcrzx]

If anyone can explain this, please do. And I'm not talking about, say, forcing Briggs Bickley to do Urban CHR. I am thinking of Tom Murphy, who in my lifetime has done AC, oldies, country, and smooth jazz, for example. Good jocks need not be typecast, right? Seems like "guilt by association" sometimes.



Briggs has nothing to do with Movin at all. The PD is named Chuck Beck

 

[TommyR]

Check the date on my post: long before Movin' debuted. That's not the point. But read it again and you'll see what I am trying to say.

I was just throwing out a ridiculous idea to show that on some rare occasions, the staff you have isn't right for the new format the station takes on. But many times, they ARE. I always thought it was better to keep and work with people you have rather than hire and train someone new. But I guess that's not always the case.

 

[John FL]

There's a lot of talented folks out there-on-air personalities and programmers- who have what it takes to be successful in multiple formats. But rarely are they given the chance because the big guns are always looking for the opportunities to look better to Wall Street.

And one of the easist methods for these guys to do to help achieve corporate goals is to reduce payroll. I was a victim of downsizing a couple of years ago and it's no fun and this situation does not just happen in radio.

Take the case where Cool flipped to Eagle. Come on. Everyone they had on the air had what it took to transition to the new format. While I don't have any access to specific information I could say with certainty that Eagles' payroll expense today is less than it was when they were Cool 96.9. Cool even used to have an overnight jock as many other stations had but the case for going automated most of the time proved too tempting to resist - especially with ad revenue being so challenging.

And there are cases too, I agree Tommy, that it does not make sense to keep the talent you have for certain formats. Briggs programming Movin" or Tom Murphy or the Arf trying to sound urban-suave would have been a disaster - no matter how good the jock.

In an earlier post, someone mentioned how displaced talent should be given opportunities in the local market and I couldn't agree more. You can't tell me that Tom Murphy, for instance, couldn't fit at Sunny 94.3 - just one example. I'm sure they just want to keep expenses down because they are so Bush league - they don;t see the big picture - but that's a corporate decision.

As far as the Arf goes, I think he's been in the wrong position most of the time. When I would catch him in the morning on occasion at KOOL, I noticed he seemed to be at his best when he was talking sports. I never thought sports belonged on morning drive for an oldies format but he seemed to light up with that segment. If he lands anywhere in this market, I would not be surprised if it's sports-oriented.

I certainly hope we get to hear Tom Murphy again and perhaps I'm way too optomistic but having Pat back in Jax again would be "cool" too.

 

[TommyR]

Just a footnote to that: Between radio gigs, Arf was a sports anchor on channel 12, using his full name, Mike Areford. I could totally see him returning to sports journalism in some capacity should an opportunity become available.