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PAPER BILL

H

hoosier45guy

Bill Bokunic, General Sales Manager for the Cumulus Melbourne Market, is leaving Florida to assume the General Sales Manager Position for the Entercom Cluster in Indianapolis.

Welcome to the Indiana discussion board!
 
Bill can explain when he posts here. He is from Illinois and returning to the Midwest. Supposedly finished in the Cumulus top 10 last year in the ONLY numbers that really matter to him....Station or cluster Revenue.
 
Hoosier guy, hello. I am not sure what you are asking. The cluster ended the year up and that with National off 55%. We grew by a real strong local direct focus and execution. I love this business and am very passionate about it.
 
Paperbill is a nickname I got when I was in the paper business years ago. Question, what numbers should I care about? Of course as a Sales Manager you want ratings, but Cumulus stopped subscribing to Arbitron so the focus became Cume.

The discussion board at least in Florida is populated mostly by a lot of disgruntled programing people....and probably rightfully so, but the business has changed and many refuse to change with it.
 
The very first job I ever had in radio was at WTAI AM & FM (WTAI-FM is now WAOA, Cumulas-Melbourne's flagship).
It was in the early 70's and Tom Hanssen was the owner.
WTAI-AM was automated with the "Great American Country" format, the FM was automated with Drake Chenault's Hit Parade.
I worked 11PM to 7AM recording ABC News (the AM station used American Entertainment News and the FM used American FM News) and stuffing the carts into the automation systems, and recording weathers twice and hour. I did a little production and changed the music reels on the automation... and generally spent a lot of time in the production room doing demo tapes.
The studios and tx site was just north of SR 192 just west of I-95.
WTAI-FM was a class A (3KW@330') back in those days. After docket 80-90 got passed, they became a Class C0 (100KW at 500') with the WAOA moniker) and that started the ball rolling for years of domination in Brevard County. I was only there for a year.. I left to go to WKKO in Cocoa in 1974. I try to stay in contact with Mike Lowe and Gabe Burton but the years and miles continue to separate me from the friends I had when I worked in Florida.
And now, 37 years later, I still go to work every day doing the only thing I ever wanted to do in my entire life, work in radio.
It all started in October, 1973 at WTAI Melbourne. This post has nothing to do with Bill or this thread; it just invoked some great memories.
 
Great message Jimbo. I started with a couple of Am stations in Orlando, it's funny but you always have a place in your heart for them. Where are you now? I worked at Lite Rock a few years ago and got to know Mike Lowe pretty well, he is a Brevard Icon. We had lunch a few months back and he is having some health issues, you might want to reach out to him.
 
From what I hear from buddies in the space coast area, that market is going to be rough soon with all of the NASA layoffs about to go down. There are a lot of close-by companies that also employee folks that support NASA. Property should get cheaper down there over the next few years.
 
>Paper Bill...
I have been working for WRZQ in Columbus IN for nearly 20 years. I am their CE and IT dude, but I still do my only real passion, afternoon drive for WRZQ. When I started it was a stand alone Class B, and 10 days ago we put our 4th station in the cluster on the air (WXCH with the moniker MOJO 102 9). Columbus is a fairly small community. 40,000 city and 75-80,000 in the county. And it is very over-radioed. Especially since all of the Indy B's put great signals in Columbus, and we now have 2 clusters (our company and White River Broadcasting), each with 4 stations. And about Mike Lowe... he is a true radio legend. He and I spent 6 months together at WKKO and remains a good friend. I know that Mike and Mindy and WLRQ was #1 last time I saw the Brevard ARBs. It seems that wherever he goes, the station ends up in the top spot. During most of the time he was at WAOA, they were #1 in Brevard. He was also a big part of the success of WCKS (CK101) before they moved to Orlando.. along with the other Class C's. WAOA is the only of 3 or 4 Class C's that are actually licensed to Brevard county that actually serves their city of license.

>Speakerman...
As for the Space Coast's economy, I was there from 1973-1976 and it was end of the Apollo Program and the Space Shuttle was still a few years away. The Brevard County economy was in the toilet through most of the early to mid 70's. However all of Florida's real estate has been in a tumble since the mortgage crisis and current recession began. My brother lives in Okeechobee and prices of all real estate are half of their value 2 years ago. But I do believe that your prognosis is correct. As goes Kennedy Space Center, so goes Brevard.
 
Paperbill - you'll find that on this board - for Indiana at least - revenue or profit is bad and evil. It means you've earned it on the backs of poor, lowly board ops!
 
radioho: Yes, of course. I demand to be paid .001% of paperbill's annual billing per hour.
 
Hey! Nothing on this forum from him in awhile but I did hear Bill on the radio in Indy.

He said that he was one of the managers at the station and was asking for people interested in sponsoring Notre Dame football broadcasts to get in touch with him.

Shouldn't the salespeople be the ones making those calls?
 
Bill,
Good luck to you - I hope you've packed a BIG supply of Estrogen suppliments on your move to Indy - it's a big requirement there these days on N. Meridian. ;D
 
hoosier45guy said:
Hey! Nothing on this forum from him in awhile but I did hear Bill on the radio in Indy.

He said that he was one of the managers at the station and was asking for people interested in sponsoring Notre Dame football broadcasts to get in touch with him.

Shouldn't the salespeople be the ones making those calls?
Click to expand...

When you have many people selling for the station, then it's best to have only one source of reply. In retro, I probably should have let a jock record it simply because I mean nothing to the listner or advertiser.
 
Bill, I don't think it necessary to get too apologetic on this board. There are those who might verbally castrate you for the slightest perceived mis-step on your part - There are alot of opinion sources here that "can do no wrong" themselves.

Some might say you showed a real belief in your own product - why apologize for believing in what you sell, advertising your available programming sponsorship, on your own radio station? Where else you gonna advertise the opportunity for the business community to associate with ND sports [strong brand value] besides the home of ND sports in the market?

No apology necessary.
 
Paper Bill -

Hoosier45Guy suggested that I talk to you about gettting into sales. I've been in the business for near 11 years now, and have worn almost every hat you can imagine except for sales. I had always heard the negative stigma about sales, but at this point in my career I am looking for a new challenge. If you want a better explination of my situation, I made a post earlier entitled "Completely Frustrated" (Trying to get into sales). Any advice you may be able to give me will be GREATLY appreciated.

Thanks!!

Classic1
 
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