Innholdsfortegnelse for June 24, 2019 i Radio Ink Magazine

It’s exasperating or amusing to professionals, but there is a program director yearning to be unleashed in most people. They’re not just on the “other side of the radio hallway” where general managers, sales reps, and engineers sit. Listeners are also more than happy to bend a program director’s ear on how to make their station better. And since radio reaches well over 90 percent of the population, that’s a lot of free advice floating around. So what qualities make great PDs — the real ones? The answers can be found between the lines in the profiles of the program directors spotlighted in this issue. Their thoughtful insights provide a roadmap in an increasingly complicated and competitive media environment. And since in their hands rests the rise or fall of…

The dusty dictionary definition of the word renaissance leads to a history lesson about that special period during the 14th to 16th centuries, but in another definition, it’s much simpler: renaissance can also mean the revival of or renewed interest in something. Veteran talk host John B. Wells, not one prone to hype but more to humility about his press-release persona as a “well-rounded Renaissance Man,” is truly re-emerging on the terrestrial radio landscape. Wells formerly served as weekend host on Art Bell’s Coast to Coast, but now he’s piloting a new mothership, called Ark Midnight. Wells explains, “When I was on Coast to Coast, I just couldn’t resist personalizing the program a bit, so I started referring to Coast to Coast as the ‘mothership,’ and people liked it and…

What are your hobbies? When I’m not working, I’m spending time with my family and kids, traveling, and/or watching sports. What are you reading right now? Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe. Favorite TV show, and why? I enjoy watching Boston sports play-by-play, because they always win! If you had 30 minutes, a tape recorder, and your choice, who would you interview, and why? I would interview Paul McCartney and John Lennon because it all started with them. Name some stations you listened to as a kid. WLS/Chicago and WCFL/Chicago. Do you ever listen to Pandora or Spotify? When I’m not listening to our content on Radio.com, I occasionally stream Spotify. Your most embarrassing career moment? The most embarrassing career…

Amateur ad writers assume everyone makes decisions based upon the same criteria they use. This causes them to unconsciously frame their messages to reach people exactly like themselves. Professional ad writers frame their messages to speak to the felt needs of a specific customer. People are multi-dimensional. We make decisions to purchase based on a variety of criteria, but two of the big ones are time and money. A person who feels they have no money and no time is buried in financial and relational obligations. A person who believes they have more time than money is a bargain hunter. A person who has more money than time is overworked and highly paid. A person with lots of money and time is looking for something to do. Consciously or unconsciously,…

Right now, you’re probably thinking, “There he goes again!” So what’s this about? Well, sit back and consider this: Your program director is in the business of selling people. He or she recruited the best talent. What does that have to do with sales? Everything. First, he or she had to sell the personality on coming on board with the station — not always an easy task, especially if the talent was content at another station. Second, your program director had to sell station management on bringing the new talent on board — almost always an even more difficult task. Why? Because the person your program director wants to hire may be viewed by management as too controversial, too highly paid, or even too erratic — or maybe all of…

John B. Wells believes Talk radio is the “only potential agent of change we have.” That is why he is very passionate in his opinions. Here is a taste of Wells, unfiltered. Communism: “What we are witnessing is the resurgence of global communism. We are going to start seeing it in this country. It’s going to rear its head. It might be masked as socialism, but it will be communism because I believe they are one and the same. Socialism is just communism without the AK-47. So I don’t know where the appeal has come from lately, but socialism is socialism, and it is an anathema to a republic.” Facebook, Google, Amazon: “Those three are entirely too powerful. I think their operations can be put to nefarious uses as well.…

Yes, we call it a list of program directors. However, programming in 2019 is so much more than scheduling music and calling an occasional jock meeting. PDs are brand managers, social media managers, managers of multiple stations and various formats, and so many different personalities. Oh, yeah, and there’s the ratings too. PPM is still the currency, and mastering that is key to their success — and, in a lot of cases, their livelihood. Oh! The stress! Putting together this list every year starts with a nomination, typically from someone who ranks higher in the company than the nominated PD — maybe even the CEO. We go from there, with a look at ratings, experience, industry longevity, awards, how involved the station is in the community, and leadership qualities. And…

I am an advocate of selling longterm local direct business. But when I say long-term, I’m not talking about a couple of months, one quarter, or six months. I’m talking about a full year. And I highly recommend that you try to sell the annual commitment in every single case — unless the client’s business is a one-shot deal only, or the account is so seasonal that they only sell Christmas trees, for example. I learned about selling longterm from watching local advertising agencies in my hometown. On occasion a local agency would come in and steal one of my local direct accounts. It always angered me when that happened, as I believed I had a good working relationship with the client, until it became clear to me that, in…

Being a PD has never been an easy job. In 2019, the job description includes everything from the on-air product to the integration of social media and all things digital, figuring out how to keep voicetracking sounding local, and integrating syndicated programming to make it sound like it’s part of the station. Not to mention that many PDs are doing that for five or six stations at once. Today, I’ll speak with nine different PDs to get their point of view on what makes a PD succeed in 2019. Tommy Del Rio is VP/CHR programming and Monterey PD for Mapleton Communications. “As the role of a PD continues to evolve, never lose sight of your vision and strategy for each brand you program. When you are overseeing multiple markets, the…