Actually, yes we did have Mike Musick. He was play-by-play guy on Tennessee High broadcasts. Is he the best play-by-play guy ever? No, but he did show improvement from when he was on WJCW. He is still there.
As far as I mean by being super cautious, all I am saying is that if they didn't have some guarantee of it making money, regardless of the quality, they wouldn't do it. For example, in 2002, we were approached by the Washington Redskins to become an affiliate. It was the same year Steve Spurrier became coach, so they wanted to get "The Ol' Ball Coach's" hometown on the network. They offered us media credentials to all home games (pre-season and regular and any potential playoff games), 2 season tickets, access to all team sponsored events (golf tourneys, banquets, etc) and team merchandise for giveaways. If a person wanted this stuff, they'd probably pay over 10-15 grand, if not more. The Skins wanted $250 per game rights fee. Widener balked at it, even though we had found people willing to sponsor the broadcasts. The team came down to $150 per game, for the entire KPT Network, with all of the afforementioned perks. David wouldn't go for it. Too much money. Dude, do you have any idea what they're gonna give us for $150. Hell, we could've sold the season tickets and made our money back!
So, wanting to get the NFL on WKPT, I went about contacting several teams (Atlanta Falcons, Carolina Panthers and a couple I can't remember). Heck, Carolina only wanted $25 per game. He still wouldn't go for it! My first choice would've been the Titans, but WGOC/Citadel had the rights and since they produced the games, they weren't going to drop WGOC. Understandable.
Finally, I thought about the Indianapolis Colts since they have the "Tennessee God" named Peyton Manning. I asked what their fee was and was told it was on a barter-only basis. David finally agreed since it wasn't going to need any money. If you looked at it from what we were getting, it wasn't nearly the deal Washington was going to give us. A few season tickets, with no playoff games. That's not bad, but like I said, we could've sold a pair of season tickets to the Redskins and made four grand.
As you see, it was just another example of how cautious they were when it came to taking a risk on making money. Yeah, we had a lot of sports on, but it was only because we could make money on it. I worked as PD from 2001-2006. The sales department, on one occasion, sold an informercial to Big Mama's Karaoke Cafe in Seymour which was nothing but 30 minutes of samples of people singing karaoke at the bar! Why'd they do it? $100 bucks a show. I swear to you that if someone came in with fifty bucks and said they wanted to buy airtime to broadcasting a farting contest, they would've put it on! I could give you other examples, but that, by and far, was the most blaring example of how they prostituted that station to the lowest bidder. So if you want to call stuff like that throwing caution to the wind, well, I guess you're right. But I guess what I am trying to say is that unless there was money up front or it was free, then we'd rather have a karaoke show than a program that might cost a little money, but had the potential to bring money in, either directly or by improving the quality of the station overall.
I was talking to another broadcaster today with whom I used to work, and we both agreed that when you put poor programming on a station for a quick buck, you're jeopardizing the overall product quality, which may lead to fewer advertisers on the station as a whole. Everything you do has ramifications, either for the good or for the bad. I'd rather turn down fifty bucks today if I thought it was going to possibly prevent us from making a thousand in six months. It's just another example of how Widener and upper management at Holston Valley only thinks from a tactical standpoint when they need to focus on strategic maneuvers, to quote another old friend. Sorry, but it's true.
But yes, Pratte, they should've gone all-sports many moons ago, but George simply did not want to give up his adult standards. Like I said earlier, I was shocked to the point of having a stroke that he agreed to the oldies format. Only problem is that it was simply trading one old, thread-bare format for another old, thread-bare format. All they did was move to the next parking space when they should've gone to a new parking lot. There's a reason why WKOS dropped oldies back in '05.
Sorry for the long reply. Thanks for sticking with me!
