He's a MENSCH...a MENSCH, I tell ya!
Did I spell that right?
Radio is full of Catholic guys who toss-around Yiddish idioms.
Unlike most, I didn't end up in Sales.
But, as a Programming aficionado, I sure do join the applause for what Paul's doing.
He -- like Ron St. Pierre when he programmed WPRO -- is extremely RESOURCEFUL.
Ditto for David Bernstein. And WPRO PD Phil Sirkin, before Ron.
SOUNDING "big" is the goal.
But every station wishes it had more.
More dough, more people, more everything.
True story: Several years ago, at a radio convention, WABC/New York PD Phil Boyce bemoaned -- with genuine anguish in his voice -- "If I only had another million for TV during the Spring book." It's all relative.
The best who-do-what-Paul-does work SMART.
On-the-air, stations like WPRO seem to just...come together.
But not without lots of work behind the scenes.
Some of it real "McGyver" stuff.
And the most precious resource of all isn't money.
Or even talent.
It's TIME.
People-who-do-what-Paul-does, at WPRO-type stations everywhere, are REAL, REAL busy.
They could TEACH the seminar about "Managing Multiple Priorities."
LOTS to juggle.
Knowing this particular station, and Paul, as well as I do, I am particularly impressed when I see station managers in my travels who take the time to do two things Paul does:
1. Personally field listener complaints, and DOTE on 'em.
This sends a powerful, positive message.
It's a simple touch, yet too many managers don't understand that it's an INVESTMENT.
At the beginning of the call, the caller is PO'd-as-all-get-out at something someone just said on-air.
By the end of the call, they're IMPRESSED...that The Boss took the time.
2. Rehearse.
It's a lost art in radio, yet, as Tavares sang, it only takes a minute.
APPLAUSE for PDs who meet with hosts -- before the show -- to vet topics.
If you haven't seen this morning's radio trades, you missed news that long-ago WPRO PD Jay Clark is retiring.
In 1974, when he programmed WPRO, he hired me, JUST so I'd stop calling him.
He left us for WTIC/Hartford. Then on to WABC.
And Los Angeles, Detroit, Cleveland, Boston.
In Orlando, he took an FM talker from #12 to #1 in a year.
Most recently, he's been Sirius Satellite Radio Executive VP of Programming.
130+ channels.
He called me last night from Newark Airport, en route to Florida.
"When do you bring your boat down there?" I asked.
"It's already there," he grinned.
When Jay sat in Paul's chair at 1502 Wampanoag Trail, he, like Paul, REALLY felt a sense of right-and-wrong about what-comes-out-the-speaker.
Now, more than ever, with the automated, syndicated, voicetracked competition mailing-it-in, PDs who fuss will make their stations all-the-more-conspicuous.
HC
www.HollandCooke.com
