Skip Clark New "Movin'" PD

[theradiokid]

Skip Clark has been named as the new PD of WWLF/WOLF "Movin'," as well as being their new morning man. Also, Jessica Rolins (AKA Jessica Fox) has been promoted to full time status at the station. Clark told Radio-info that he'd like to "Turn some heads in the market."

I'm glad for skip. He has really done well for himself since he was let go by Cookie Channel 2 years ago. Even though I will miss Nick Caplan on the station, I think Skip Clark will be able to pull in better ratings than Caplan ever did in morning drive...

But what do YOU think? Do you think Clark will make a dent in the morning ratings for "Movin'?" Can he make the right changes to make the station work right? Do you think that Joel (I do what corporate says) Delmonico and Cookie Channel will regret letting him go now? Let's get a good discussion goin' here...

--The Radio Kid
(AKA Oswego Jeremy, as nicknamed by George of the Radio Racket)
My email: [email protected].

 

[BobRoss]

I think Skip Clark will be able to pull in better ratings than Caplan ever did in morning drive... But what do YOU think? Do you think Clark will make a dent in the morning ratings for "Movin'?" Can he make the right changes to make the station work right? Do you think that Joel (I do what corporate says) Delmonico and Cookie Channel will regret letting him go now?

I don't think it would take very much for ANYONE to do better than Nick Caplan. Sure, Nick has been in radio for a long time, but he spent so much time at WODZ in Utica, it was like he "forgot" how to address a younger, more female-oriented audience when he went to Movin. He kept doing some of the same old shtick he did at Oldies, expecting it to fit right in at Movin. You just can't do that.

Even when he did sound good on the air, I can speak to the way he often treated listeners off-air. I've seen him hang up on request line callers and tell people off at remotes. The kinds of things anyone in radio WISHES they could do, but if you value your job, you know well enough to just grin and bear it.

I don't know Skip well, but I have the impression he "gets it" and knows how to properly gear the show towards the target audience. I also think this change will be a big help too. Many people just didn't really like Nick, and hopefully just the change alone, will bring people back in the morning.

From what I understand, the Movin format was created by a consultant who franchises it to local stations. That page mentions how some of the other Movin stations have tweaked their formats somewhat, so it'll be interesting to see if Skip sticks with the original format, or makes any changes. It's kinda hard though... you already have two CHR stations (Q and Hot), and four other flavors of AC (Y, Sunny, Lite, Nova) in the market. The thing that makes Movin catchy, is that it plays both sides of the fence. My only complaint is that they sometimes go a little too far back into the 70s.

If they've got the money for 4 live full-timers, and they want to add a 5th, they probably also have money to conduct some pretty decent research to see exactly what they need to do in order to "turn some heads" as Skip wishes. It'll be nice to see Movin make some inroads. It'll teach CC the lesson that today's budget cuts are tomorrow's competition.

 

[theradiokid]

Bob Ross. You make some excelent points here. But, here's another direction "Movin'" could go, and it would carve a different nitch in the market... Dance AC. I'm talkin about keeping what they have now musically, but adding songs from the dance charts. This could be more breakdance from the eighties, and some current dance hits that aren't getting played anywhere else. By maintaining the current playlist as a rhythmic AC, they can still call themselves an AC station. And, by adding more dance music to the mix, they will be able to carve out a nitch for themselves. Maybe, just maybe, that's what Skip meant when he said that he wanted to "turn some heads in the market," huh? I will note that the last true dance format Syracuse had was when WJPZ was "The Beat of Syracuse," lasting from 1997 to 2002.

--The Radio Kid
(Oswego Jeremy, as nicknamed by George of The Radio Racket.)
My email: [email protected].

 

[ThePickleReport]

From what I understand, the Movin format was created by a consultant who franchises it to local stations. That page mentions how some of the other Movin stations have tweaked their formats somewhat, so it'll be interesting to see if Skip sticks with the original format, or makes any changes.

Yes, and many of his clients are about to tweak it off their stations as well.
Seriously, the Los Angeles station has a 0.7 12+ and that is with Rick Dees in the morning!

 

[BobRoss]

here's another direction "Movin'" could go, and it would carve a different niche in the market... Dance AC. I'm talkin about keeping what they have now musically, but adding songs from the dance charts. This could be more breakdance from the eighties, and some current dance hits that aren't getting played anywhere else.

Hmm. If you're the same Jeremy that's featured on Movin's photo pages, maybe you have some inside knowledge the rest of us do not have.

Dance hits might be nice, but I think you'd have to be careful not to go overboard with them. For example, look at the Saturday night club mix show. Stations usually put those kinds of shows on Friday or Saturday nights because they would be "out of place" at 10am on a Tuesday or even 3pm Saturday. Playing dance hits at all hours of the day could be nice, as long as it's one or two an hour, maybe even less than that. After all, a station's success during weekday business hours depends on how well you can get people to listen at work. If you're playing songs that are too obscure or wacky, they'll tune out for something more familiar (although admittedly boring) like Y94.

 

[theradiokid]

Quote from Bob Ross: "Hmmm. If your the same Jeremy that's featured on "Movins" photo photo pages, maybe you have some inside knowledge the rest of us don't have."

Yes. I am the same Jeremy that you see pictured with the glasses on the "Movin'" page intitled: "Movin'" makes it special for Jeremy the intern. I interned for "Movin'" from Jan 07 to May 07. I am not Jeremy Pilot, the "Movin'" news person, who is probably featured more on those pages, since he is an actual employee of the station.

I have not spoken to Skip Clark, or anyone else at "Movin'" in a wicked long time. However, I will say that Sam Furco, the GM, wanted to put a more dance lean on the station while I was interning there, but was restricted by "Movin'" creator and consultant, Alan Burns.

(Now, watch, as someone from "Movin'" will read this, know who I am, and make sure that absolutely noone from "Movin'," or any other Craig Fox property, ever talks to me ever again!... Oh well...)

Now, as for my dance AC idea: I'm thinking along the lines of WKTU (103.5) in New York City. They play 3/4 dance songs an hour, but still keep a "Movin'" like sound going, with a similar playlist to our version of "Movin'." Another great example of dance AC is the Jacksonville version of "Movin'," WMUV. They play mostly dance tracks, and seem to do okay. You can hear it for yourself at:
www.movin1007fm.com.

--The Radio Kid
(AKA Oswego Jeremy, as nicknamed by George of the Radio Racket.)
My email: [email protected].

 

[Element9]

Yes, and many of his clients are about to tweak it off their stations as well. Seriously, the Los Angeles station has a 0.7 12+ and that is with Rick Dees in the morning!

The LA situation is pathetic. Movin' is a horrible format. First, the name. Just plain bad. Second, the format. As witnessed in LA, it's gone nowhere fast. Third, it's a format that can be easily counter-programmed by competing and established Hot AC's and CHR's with good PDs. And did it make any sense to hire an ex-oldies jock to be the morning guy in Syracuse? Yes, Dees is on Movin' in LA, but he's a market legend with years of notoriety in morning drive at CHR KIIS.

 

[BobRoss]

The LA situation is pathetic. Movin' is a horrible format. First, the name. Just plain bad. Second, the format. As witnessed in LA, it's gone nowhere fast. Third, it's a format that can be easily counter-programmed by competing and established Hot AC's and CHR's with good PDs. And did it make any sense to hire an ex-oldies jock to be the morning guy in Syracuse?

Every market is different. A format's success or failure in one market doesn't always mean the same for others. The competition in LA is much fiercer than a smaller market like Syracuse, where there are fewer stations. Of course, any newcomer will always have problems trying to compete with longtime established leaders, but half the battle is marketing and half the battle is not giving up.

I have to credit Movin for doing plenty of TV when they first started, bus wraps, billboard and the like. I can't remember the last time I saw Ted & Amy on the side of a bus or any CC station doing buses or billboards. The station generated a lot of buzz. They did a good job getting their name out there, while the competition did little or nothing to counter it. The only time CC stations ever get any TV promotion is on channel 9, because they were co-owned and it was all free. (They still do now, even with 9 under new ownership... but I would imagine it's just a matter of time before that deal is re-worked or eliminated altogether.)

But I will agree 110% that putting Nick Caplan on AM drive (or ANY shift on an AC/CHR hybrid) was a horrible idea. As I mentioned previously, he was still gearing his show toward the oldies audience. He was too slow and too awkward in attempting to re-aim his delivery toward the younger crowd. (I would guess his off-air demeanor didn't help much either.) Sure, he may have had fans when he was "Sick Nick" on WOLF-AM back in the 70s, but unlike Rick Dees in LA, he left Syracuse for 30 years. Most "non-radio" people don't remember him from the old WOLF, and even for those that do, it probably had no influence on them listening to him on Movin. It's not like he was a "legend" at WOLF, or even at his previous job in Utica.

In the end, you're spending big bucks on promoting this "great" station, only to dump listeners into the hands of Nick Caplan. Not a great idea. Things could be (actually, "should be") better with Skip, but now the station almost needs to redo that entire promotional effort, to win back anyone who may have sampled before, but didn't like Nick. Having previously worked at WBBS, Skip is definitely a bigger name than Nick, in terms of the Syracuse market. And country listeners do often crossover to AC, so there's another plus in any promotional effort.

Next step after that is to make sure the rest of the dayparts are solid. More music and less chatter. Strong contesting. Lots of appearances. If they truly go live and local with every airshift (except overnights) there's no reason they can't be out on the streets every weekend and at every major local event. Even some freebie charity events. Nobody likes doing free remotes, but when you're the new kid on the block, you gotta take every chance you can get to be out there winning over listeners... and at least if they're for charity, it's not like you're standing there sucking up to a tight-fisted client.

 

[ROCKTHEMIC]

I'LL BET SKIP WAS WISHING HE ACTUALLY HAD A SAY IN HOW THE STATION SOUNDS. SINCE MY SOLID INSIDE SOURCES TELL ME SAM IS DOING THE MUSIC AND SKIP IS RUNNING AROUND THE BUILDING BUSY HANDLING THEIR HONEY DO LIST AND NOT MUCH MORE! ON PAPER THOUGH HE IS A SYRACUSE PD AND THAT'S ALL THAT MATTERS TO AN OM OR GM IN ANOTHER MARKET...IF HE SO CHOOSES TO MAKE A MOVE IN THE FUTURE. MOST OF US KNOW HE WON'T, HE IS HERE TO STAY AND HAPPY TO HAVE A JOB! I DO LOVE THE SATURDAY NIGHT MIX! I LIKE BIG BUTTS AND I CAN NOT LIE!

I ROCK THE MIC!

 

[jjryan]

Congratulations to Skip! I worked with him and the rest of the gang at CC when I lived back in Syracuse until mid 2003 and loved every minute of it. Does the station stream on the internet at all?

 

[IBDO]

Congrats, Skip!!!!